The NTSB is urging airlines to voluntarily change how they calculate landing distances on contaminated runways until the FAA completes its rulemaking process to implement the change. The procedures include assessing performance based on actual conditions at time of arrival not time of dispatch, and adding a 15% safety margin.
Four private equity firms have bowed out of Eutelsat in two separate deals in what could prelude a new satcom alliance (AW&ST Sept. 11, p. 23). On Dec. 5, Nebozzo, Cinven and Goldman Sachs sold a combined 32% stake to Abertis, a Spanish telecom company. A remaining 2.8% stake was transferred to Lehman Brothers--a former Eutelsat shareholder--to prevent the sale from triggering a mandatory takeover bid. On Dec. 7, Eurazeo unloaded its 25.5% stake to French bank Caisse Nationale des Depots.
David Balloff (see photo) has been named Washington-based vice president-external relations for the U.S. for Embraer. He was assistant FAA administrator for its Office of Government and Industry Affairs.
US Airways chose Delta Air Lines for a merger over Northwest Airlines because a linkup with Delta would create more value even if Northwest's transpacific franchise were factored into the equation, according to US Airways Chief Operating Officer Scott Kirby. He says a merged US Airways-Delta would drive $710 million in costs out of the combined system and create $935 million in network synergies.
The Transportation Security Administration continues to evaluate passenger body-scanning machines, and plans to test the latest American Science & Engineering machine in Phoenix in a few weeks.
The United Arab Emirates inaugurated Falcon Aviation Services, a helicopter charter and aviation services provider based at Bateen Airport, near the center of Abu Dhabi. In addition to charter and maintenance work, the company has a search-and-rescue operation and supports the UAE military with a fleet of Bell 412EPs and AgustaWestland AW139s. "We are aiming to [expand] our modern fleet of helicopters and other aircraft types to satisfy the . . . region's growing number of passengers," said Falcon Aviation Services Chairman Salem Al Kayoumi.
Paul Foley has been elected 2007 chairman of the Washington-based Regional Airline Assn. Foley, president and CEO of MAIR Holdings, succeeds Horizon Air President Jeff Pinneo.
Lockheed Martin has tentatively scheduled initial flight of the first production F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter for early this week, kicking off a six-year, 12,000-hr. test program involving 15 aircraft in three different configurations. "We are on track to fly and the airplane is performing very well, as expected," says Doug Pearson, vice president of the F-35 Integrated Test Force. As of late last week, technicians were completing installation of flightworthy components in the airplane, replacing units that were approved for ground tests only.
Thales has concluded a deal to buy the space and homeland security businesses of Alcatel-Lucent for $2 billion in stock and cash, subject to conclusion of a European Commission antitrust investigation.
A private spaceflight industry, dubbed "new space" by some of its proponents, is steadily emerging from the dusty desert hangars and closely guarded office-park high bays that incubated it, ready to leap off launch pads across the globe into a role self-consciously reminiscent of civil aviation 80 years ago.
"Activity in the marketplace continues unabated" for the 787, Program Manager Mike Bair said last week as Boeing recorded its 458th order or commitment. The owners of Tel Aviv-based Arkia Israeli Airlines will buy two 787-9 stretch models. Also, Boeing listed two previously unidentified customers. Geneva-based PrivatAir is buying one 787-8 and becomes the first executive jet service to offer the 787. First Choice Airways, a European launch customer, added two 787-8s to the six aircraft it bought in 2004. Boeing picked up more orders for the 737-900ER from its U.S.
Varied experts concur that the choice between liquid hydrogen and synthetic kerosene should be made by 2020-30 in order to define a workable new generation of commercial transports. However, aerospace research agencies and aircraft manufacturers don't endorse that view.
JetBlue Airways' reduction in capacity growth for the remainder of the decade will entail a cutback in Embraer 190 deliveries to 10 from 18 per year, plus additional aircraft sales, leases or assignments in the near term, the company said. Capacity in 2007 will increase 14-17% instead of the 18-20% planned earlier. Under the new EMB 190 delivery schedule, JetBlue will have 23 aircraft at the end of this year instead of 26, and will take 10 per year through 2011, 11 per year in 2012-13 and six in 2014.
Craig Laurence Dobbin (1935-2006), founder of the CHC Helicopter Corp., and Fred Harvey Hitchins (1904-72), the official post-war Royal Canadian Air Force historian, have been named for posthumous induction into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Also to be inducted is Stanley William Deluce, founder of several regional airlines in Canada including White River Air and Air Ontario.
The international aviation community is applauding the Dec. 5 decision by a Brazilian court to release the American pilots of the Embraer Legacy 600 involved in the Sept. 29 midair collision with a Gol Airlines 737. The crippled 737 crashed in the Amazon jungle, killing 154 people; the Legacy landed safely. Capt. Joseph Lepore and First Officer Jean Paul Paladino had been detained by federal police who launched a criminal investigation paralleling the probe by Brazil's aviation authority.
Rita M. Cuddihy has been appointed to the board of directors of Frontier Airlines. She is a former US Airways president/CEO and is senior vice president of Marriott International's Renaissance North America.
The Iraq Study Group wants an overhaul of war budgeting as well as war policy. For four years the war has been funded through emergency supplemental requests drawn up outside the normal budgeting process, the panel complains. Spending isn't offset by budget cuts elsewhere. Requests bypass the congressional armed services committees and are reviewed only perfunctorily by the appropriations committees.
Delivery of an A320 last week marked the 100th aircraft that China Southern Airlines has received from Airbus out of a fleet of 292. The country's largest user of the A320 family, China Southern has 75 in service. It also flies six A300B4-600Rs and four A330-200s. The rest of the fleet includes 94 Boeing 737s of both the -300/500 "classics" and the -700/800 Next Generation series, as well as a mix of 777s, 747s, MD-82/90s, Embraer ERJ-145s and ATR 72-500s.
Irvin Aerospace will design the parachutes that ease NASA's planned Orion crew exploration vehicle back into the atmosphere after trips to the ISS and eventually the Moon. The Santa Ana, Calif.-based company, which also designed the chutes that took Europe's Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, will work with Jacobs Sverdrup and the Johnson Space Center as an integrated product team for the government-furnished parachutes. Testing is expected to begin next spring.
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Meteroids are hitting the surface of the Moon much more frequently than scientists originally thought, possibly adding to the need to beef up the shelter available to future lunar base crews. Over the past year, scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have recorded at least 11 impacts with enough energy to be visible as flashes of heat and light from Earth--four times more than computer models predicted.
Opening doors to new business opportunities is what corporate research spending is all about. In the case of French aerospace supplier Latecoere, it's literally about doors.
Thomas Plungis, who is director of subcontracts and supply chain management for Lockheed Martin Corporate Shared Services' Supply Chain Management Organization, has been elected president of the Supplier Excellence Alliance (SEA). He has been vice president. Plungis succeeds Kenneth Marcia, who becomes SEA past president and is vice president-supply chain management and process innovation for the Dresser-Rand Group Inc.
France and Germany have agreed to construct a ground data network that will allow those countries to independently program and access data on each other's intelligence satellites (AW&ST Oct. 2, p. 36). The network, known as E-SGA, will serve France's in-orbit Helios II optical surveillance spacecraft and Germany's SARLupe radar-imaging cluster, to be deployed starting Dec. 19.
Finmeccanica's top leadership expects to gain control over turboprop-maker ATR in its on-going talks with EADS as the two parties update their business relationship on a grander scale. Gaining the upper hand in the 50/50 ATR joint venture has long been a Finmeccanica aspiration and the company's CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini says that not only is it a top agenda item in talks with his EADS counterparts, he's also optimistic that he'll prevail.
