Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is adopting a series of energy management tools as the centerpiece of its evolving environmental stewardship program designed to decrease air and water pollution in North Texas.
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After lagging behind other aerospace companies, Airbus is expanding its use of Dassault Systemes product-management software. The aircraft maker has now decided to make the Enovia tool, focused on life-cycle management, baseline for all programs. The Catia design tool also is part of that technology baseline.
A team at the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 facility in Silver Spring, Md., has completed atmospheric entry tests of the aeroshell configuration for the Mars Science Laboratory (see photo). The mission is tentatively scheduled for launch in 2009 to embark on a seven-month journey to the planet. The aeroshell vehicle is designed to protect the laboratory and its instrumentation suite during entry into the Martian atmosphere. The laboratory will be carried on board a rover to record data.
FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service agreed to a new contract by which FedEx will continue to carry more than 4 million lb. of domestic mail per business day through 2013. The current contract, begun in 2001, was to have lasted until 2008. The new contract, also lasting seven years, will replace the last two years of the first and run five additional years. The new contract takes effect in October, and FedEx estimates that it will bring in about $8 billion in revenue over its lifetime.
NASA's top spaceflight leadership, led by Griffin, chose a rustic lodge atop Monte Sano, near the Marshall Space Flight Center, for the three-day Exploration Systems Mission Directorate quarterly review last week, the first agency-wide assessment of the Constellation Program to develop the vehicles needed to return humans to the Moon as a first step to Mars.
Lee Holloway has been appointed Portsmouth, England-based international territorial sales director for Europe and North Africa for Dallas Airmotive. He has been program manager for the Rolls-Royce Model 250 for affiliate H+S Aviation.
When things are good, they are bound to get worse; when bad, they're apt to get better. That's the underlying message in some of the latest European airline earnings reports--notably Ryanair, which sees tougher times ahead, and Iberia, which is looking to the second half of 2006 to build on improving operations. But the two also demonstrate how Europe's largest low-fare carrier can continue to deliver profits while--even with impressive growth numbers--for most network carriers in Europe, that remains out of reach.
BOMBARDIER AEROSPACE WILL HOLD ITS 10th annual Bombardier Learjet Safety Standdown session Oct. 4-5 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Wichita, Kan. Topics will include runway incursions, airborne weather radar and icing. The conference also will explore ways that industry, government and operators can integrate pilot knowledge and flying skills to reduce accidents due to human error. Details on the event can be found at www.safetystanddown.bombardier.com.
Although Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims it isn't so, the National Guard's chief, Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, says his units in the U.S. have been raided for equipment to ensure that those in Iraq and Afghanistan are fully combat-ready. The Army and Marine Corps have said they need $17 billion and $12 billion, respectively, to recover from the wear and tear of combat duty. Blum says the Guard needs even more: $21 billion over the next five years, including $2 billion for aviation.
South Korea's burgeoning space program is back in full swing following the successful launch of a new remote sensing satellite. The launch marked the return to flight of the Euro-Russian Rockot light launcher after a 16-month shutdown.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has granted Ameco Aviation College in Beijing the first CCAR Part 147 certificate for a maintenance training organization. Part 147 was approved on Dec. 31 last year as part of the CAAC's plan to standardize aircraft maintenance and training procedures. Ameco assisted in the drafting and regulatory review process and applied for certification in January 2006. Ameco Beijing is a partnership between Air China and Lufthansa German Airlines.
Jim Schlueter, Vice President-Communications (Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Seattle, Wash.)
Werner Graf contends in his letter (AW&ST July 17, p. 10) that the Pentagon and NASA provide Boeing "well-camouflaged launch aid" for commercial programs in a U.S. government effort to "bypass World Trade Organization rules." He tells only half the story and misleadingly so. Airbus's parent companies EADS and BAE Systems combined do more defense contracting than Boeing--and both are U.S. defense contractors. BAE Systems is a NASA contractor as well. Airbus also has had direct access to NASA-developed technology for decades.
Sean Kim, designated representative of the International Assn. of Machinists, is among five new members of the board of directors of Hawaiian Airlines parent Hawaiian Holdings Inc. The others are: Crystal Rose, partner at law firm Bays Deaver Lung Rose and Baba; Todd Budge, president/CEO of Tokyo Star Bank; Eric Nicolai, designated representative of the Air Line Pilots Assn.; and William Swelbar, designated representative of the Assn. of Flight Attendants.
Smiths Aerospace has won a multi-year contract from Rolls-Royce to supply components for the Trent 1000 engine potentially worth more than $120 million. The deal covers the period through 2012.
The Air Force has released draft versions of the system requirements document for a future refueling tanker to contractors after months of wrangling on the requirements. As contractors review the documents, Boeing is planning to fly its KC-767 refueling boom for the first time in the deployed position this month. The first flight for the tanker's refueling wingtip pods is slated for October.
Bell Helicopter Textron isn't out of the penalty box in its Huey work for the Marine Corps, but things are looking up. Last week, the Navy awarded Bell a $137.4-million contract for low-rate production of UH-1Y helos. Bell had been decertified under the Pentagon's "Earned Value Management" program, by which the Defense Dept. oversees program processes and costs. That led the Navy to start looking for alternatives to the Huey.
The Carlyle Group is in active discussions with investment funds to sell its 70% share of Italian engine and space company Avio, hoping to unload its holdings before year-end. Carlyle has been mulling its exit strategy for some time and examining a sale to other financial organizations and an initial public offering. The latter was once preferred, but with the European IPO market viewed as soft, floating the shares is no longer deemed lucrative.
The European low-fare carrier market is changing and will see slower growth and a potential shakeout in the coming years among the large number of industry players, according to a new study. In addition, the expansion of this market segment is a source of safety concerns. The European Cockpit Assn.'s report on low-cost carriers says the LCC business approach is not what's prompting the ECA to raise a red flag; instead, the group is worried that those airlines are fostering a highly competitive environment in which safety could suffer.
European space managers are warning that the U.K. faces a big loss of jobs and business if it does not reinstate funds withheld from key programs. Operations at EADS Astrium alone could cost 400-500 of the 2,500 positions at British plants, says EADS Space Div. head Francois Auque. The loss would primarily affect the engineering workload on Britain's big SkyNet 5 military communications satellite program, which is due to begin deployment later this year.
The military is not Wal-Mart, and the military's fleet of vehicles is inherently different from any in the commercial sector. The U.S. military's pattern of long periods of light usage in one environment interspersed with periods of shorter but heavy usage in a different--usually harsher--operating environment is unlike any pattern in private industry. Understanding and forecasting the way the military uses its vehicles will be key to determining the best size and character of future fleets.
Technologies of India has been chosen to supply software in support of Boeing's 787 program. HCL DO-178B software will be used by Turbo Power Systems to verify and validate ram fan motor controllers being supplied by Hamilton Sundstrand for the 787's power electronics cooling system. HCL software already supports a number of other 787 suppliers, including Volvo Aero, Meggitt and BAE Systems.
The Rockot light launcher was poised last week to return to service, after a 10-month shutdown following the failed launch of the European Space Agency's Cryosat mission last October.
Not content with the most productive fuel-hedging program in the business, Southwest Airlines will install winglets on 90 more of its aircraft; this time, 737-300s. The deal is the first involving the -300 model for Aviation Partners Boeing, the joint venture that will install them. Southwest has firm orders for the 59 aircraft it owns and has options for the 31 it leases. The company operates 104 more 737-300s, but estimates that the lifetime of these aircraft isn't long enough to produce enough return on a winglet investment.
The reason the European Space Agency's Huygens probe landed with a splat on Saturn's big moon Titan is that the Titian atmosphere drizzles liquid methane all day long. The result is a continuously wet surface of methane mud, according to Christopher McKay of NASA Ames Research Center, co-author with Tetsuya Tokano of the University of Cologne of a paper in the current issue of the journal Nature. Titan reportedly has a low, barely visible, liquid methane-nitrogen cloud that produces drizzle. Titan is so cold (-149C) that the methane gas liquefies.
