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.
In its launch of the third generation of Boeing's 747, Lufthansa has confirmed the building of a 467-seat aircraft that's a bit larger than Boeing originally planned--and larger than the German carrier will actually operate.
In a bid to attract outside interest in Alitalia and salvage the carrier, the Italian government has announced plans to quickly draw down its stake and sell the bulk of its 49.9% remaining holdings. The terms spelled out in recent days suggest more than 30% of the government shares will be floated. But there are several caveats. Italy wants a single buyer that will maintain Alitalia's network in Italy as well as its brand, and buy more than the newly floated shares.
It's official: Robert Gates will become Defense secretary Dec. 18. The Senate confirmed Gates Dec. 6 95-2 as Republicans Jim Bunning (Ky.) and Rick Santorum (Pa.) voted nay.
Southeast Asian low-cost carriers will get a lift this week when Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei agree to unlimited flight frequencies between 13 of their cities.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
With a new class of military communications satellite poised to enter service early next year, the U.K. Defense Ministry appears ready to consider broadening the scope of the country's space program. Skynet 5A, built by EADS Astrium, will be launched atop an Ariane 5 booster early in 2007, with two follow-on satellites, 5B and 5C, to follow. London spurned the courtship of France and Germany to pursue an advanced national program for a successor system to the Skynet 4 network currently deployed.
The Romanian air force has selected the Alenia Aeronautica C-27J tactical transport aircraft as its future airlift platform. The contract for seven of the twin-turboprops is anticipated by year-end, with deliveries to start in 2008. Contract specifics are being ironed out, but the deal is expected to be worth around €220 million ($293 million). The EADS CASA C-295 was the losing bidder.
The Aerospace Industries Assn. will report a 2006 aerospace trade surplus for U.S. this week of "well over $50 billion," AIA chief John Douglass says. What's more, Douglass is optimistic about removing a long-standing thorn in the side of the industry--tight U.S. export controls on defense technologies, which can reach down, literally, to nuts and bolts. He believes the incoming Democratic majority in Congress and the lame-duck Bush administration might be more receptive to new tech-transfer rules. Douglass says AIA will craft an alternate set of rules to offer up.
There's a bit of deja vu in hearing Scott Carson, the CEO of Boeing Co.'s Commercial Airplanes unit, caution that orders will slow in 2007. A year ago Carson, then the company's top airplane salesman, issued a similar warning about 2006. He may have been technically correct, but not by much. Last week's launch order for 20 747-8 passenger jets by Lufthansa German Airlines adds to another bonanza sales year (p. 39).
As it prepares to bring the A380 to India for demonstration flights, Airbus says it will invest $1 billion in that country in the next 10 years, including $300 million for a pilot training center with CAE to house eight simulators. Also planned is a $250-million engineering center that focuses on "high-end" design and analysis of aircraft.
