Funding and availability pressures are shaping Britain's program to upgrade its Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft fleet. The Defense Ministry will soon award two technical demonstration contracts to Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and "money is very tight," notes one industry executive. The budget for the upgrade is around $500 million.
Supplier delays have pushed back FAA certification of the Eclipse 500 very light jet "by several weeks," according to Eclipse President and CEO Vern Raburn. The Albuquerque, N.M.-based manufacturer had anticipated certification by late June, but "faced ongoing supplier delays to obtain TSOs for their systems," says Raburn. He adds that the Eclipse 500 twin-turbofan jet will be the first very light jet to be certified by the FAA.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] July 9-11--Prognostics and Health Management International Symposium, Calce Centre and Mirce Academy, Woodbury Park, England. Call +44 (139) 523-3856 or see www.mirce.com
Alexander Strekalov, director of RSC Energia's Experimental Engineering Plant, will take over as acting president of Energia, after Nicolai Sevastiyanov was tentatively ousted as president and general designer of the Russian human spaceflight concern. The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), which controls 38% of the company's stock, and Energia's board of directors dismissed Sevastiyanov on grounds that he failed to coordinate with them on "realization of manned spaceflight programs and international projects," Roscosmos says.
Eurocopter will perform a life-extension assessment for Puma Mk. 1 helicopters operated by the U.K.'s Royal Air Force that would stretch operation of the aircraft to 2022. Upgrades would include Turbomeca Makila engines, a glass cockpit, and improve electronic warfare, communications and navigation systems. The assessment phase will continue for one year and will focus on determining feasibility and long-term ramifications of the program.
The European Union has banned all Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe. Bans also have been imposed on Angola's flag carrier Taag Angolan Airlines and Ukraine's Volare Aviation Enterprise. Restrictions on flights by Pakistan International Airlines are being modified, and several airlines from Russia, Bulgaria and Moldova will stop operating in the EU under agreement with their license-issuing states.
American Airlines is accelerating deliveries of Boeing 737-800s further in 2009 as part of its replacement process for MD-80s. The carrier said in March that it would advance delivery of 47 737s to 2009-12 from 2013-16. That plan had called for three deliveries in 2009. There now will be nine.
NASA has advanced the targeted launch date for the space shuttle Endeavour on the next International Space Station assembly mission by two days. Managers moved the opening of the launch window for the STS-118/13a.1 mission to Aug. 7 to gain flexibility. The vehicle should be ready to fly on that date, and the launch schedule for later in August at the Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral complex is busy. The mission is scheduled to add a short "spacer" on the starboard end of the station truss and deliver supplies in a pressurized Spacehab module.
The U.S. Air Force and Navy are preparing different approaches to solving a gap in the nation's ability to deliver a conventional payload to strike any target on the globe within one hour of a go-ahead. The Navy is looking to its Trident II D5 submarine-launched missile, while the Air Force is considering a land-based design using decommissioned Peacekeeper and Minuteman rocket motors on a Minotaur launch vehicle tipped with a conventional munition.
U.S. scheduled airlines are on a hiring binge. April was the third consecutive month of employment increases, with full-time equivalent employee (FTE) levels up 1.3% over April 2006, says the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Two part-time positions count as one FTE. Low-cost carriers (LCCs) led the way--all posted employment increases except ATA Airlines, whose FTEs fell 15%. Low-cost carriers have posted increases for seven consecutive months, after 18 consecutive months of decreases.
An experiment in using a large transport for aerial bombardment of wildfires has been called off in California, at least temporarily, after a converted DC-10 clipped treetops while battling a mountain blaze and had to make an emergency landing.
Chinese airframe manufacturer Avic I has declared its bid to buy all six of the factories that Airbus proposes to sell under its Power8 restructuring program. The Chinese company, at the center of a national project to develop a commercial aircraft industry that would rival Airbus and Boeing, says it would spare no effort in developing the businesses as Airbus suppliers.
Classic military wisdom says there is safety in numbers, and some wars are won through sheer attrition. The Pentagon's own bureaucracy is like that, sometimes. As the Air Force continues to make a grab for oversight of all the Defense Dept.'s unmanned aerial vehicle programs (except for the small, inexpensive ones), the Navy is restructuring management of its own UAV offices at NAS Patuxent River, Md. The office responsible for all Navy/ Marine Corps UAVs, headed by a single captain, is being divided into three separate management offices, each headed by its own captain.
In an effort to end Austria's Eurofighter Typhoon acquisition saga, EADS and the government have agreed to cuts in price and numbers. In the run-up to the national election, one of the eventual government coalition partners said it would axe the purchase. Instead, the air force will receive 15 rather than 18 aircraft.
Satelitos Mexicanos may be ready to issue a request for information for a new 48-transponder C-/K u-band satellite, despite a failed attempt to find a new owner for the troubled Mexico City-based operator. SatMex had said it would send out the RFI as soon as its new Satmex 6, launched last year, reached its final 113 deg. W. Long. orbital slot, which LyngSat says it has now done. Satmex 7 would take advantage of the buoyant broadcasting and telecom demand in the U.S.
Boeing will begin issuing 60-day layoff notices to 265 employees at its Oak Ridge, Tenn., facility this month and close it by the first quarter of 2008. Part of Boeing's Fabrication Div., Oak Ridge produces deck consoles, forward instrument panels, aisle stands and other machined parts for 777s and 787s. That work will be shifted to its Salt Lake City facility or outsourced.
Airbus has completed the joint venture agreement for the A319/A320 final assembly facility in Tianjin, China. Airbus holds 51% of the consortium, with the 49% belonging to the Chinese, divided among the Tianjin Free Trade Zone (60%), Avic 1 (20%) and Avic 2 (20%). The agreement also apportions more of the 150 Airbus single-aisle aircraft China said last year it would buy. Shenzhen Airlines will get 28, Sichuan Airlines 18, China Aviation Suppliers Import and Export Group Corp. 15, Hainan Airlines 13, and six each for Spring Airline and Juneyao.
Military microwave components provider Herley Industries Inc. can't stay out of trouble with the Pentagon, and investors are paying the price. The company disclosed last week that two of its eight manufacturing facilities have been suspended from work on new U.S. government contracts after Herley employees allegedly falsified test data on equipment delivered to a defense contractor.
The European Defense Agency by next July should deliver its first Capability Development Plan, a road map for future spending, the agency's steering committee decided last week. Initial elements of the document should be ready early next year. The plan is to lay out priorities, initial steps to be taken and opportunities for cooperation. The panel also has authorized a study to devise a European approach to network-centric warfare.
Six SkyTeam Alliance member airlines applied for antitrust immunity June 28 with the U.S. Transportation Dept. for transatlantic routes, the first such application under the EU-U.S. open skies treaty. Air France, Alitalia, CSA Czech, Delta, KLM and Northwest applied for the authority, which includes a joint-venture agreement among Air France, Delta, KLM and Northwest that would create a comprehensive and integrated partnership across the Atlantic. Delta currently holds antitrust immunity with Air France, Alitalia and CSA, while Northwest has immunity with KLM.
Italian low-cost carrier Alpi Eagles has launched three-times-weekly regular service from Venice to Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport (see photo), operating 94-seat Fokker 100s. Previously, only charter flights operated in peak tourist season, an airport official says. The Venice-based, privately owned carrier operates a fleet of eight Fokker 100s on 25 routes to destinations in Italy and European tourist centers, such as Barcelona and Prague.
The FAA has adjusted baselines again in its projections for air traffic controller retirements in the current fiscal year--to 800, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca). In June 2006, the agency estimated that 643 would retire in the year ending Sept. 30, and it increased the total in March to 700.
Airbus has sold six A320s to Uzbekistan Airways, with an engine decision still pending. It is the first Airbus narrowbody purchase for the carrier, which operates both Russian- and Western-built aircraft. Meanwhile, EasyJet has announced it would exercise options for 35 more A319s, to bring its total order with Airbus to 227.
Researchers using NASA's Swift gamma-ray burst satellite have spotted two supernovae that exploded in the same galaxy only 16 days apart, an "extremely rare" coincidence. This combination of red, green and blue images of the galaxy MGC +05-43-16, taken June 9 and 12, shows the two events. First seen on May 19, SN 2007ck is a Type II supernova in which a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses into its own gravity, blowing itself to pieces.
