A mounting crisis of confidence in the EADS management team and its ability to resolve technical and organizational concerns is acquiring political and ethical overtones that threaten to sweep aside top managers and force a change in the company's two-headed executive structure.
Air Canada is expanding U.S. transborder flights from Western Canada. On Sept. 7, it plans to launch twice-weekly nonstops to Las Vegas from both Edmonton and Winnipeg; on Dec. 15, it will offer the only daily nonstop from Calgary to Palm Springs, Calif.
Boeing is ready to begin delivering a new group of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets--and it is devising upgrades to ensure the multirole fighter will remain combat-capable well into the future.
Russia's Irkut Corp. is in discussions with India for 12 Sukhoi Su-30MKIs to replace 18 secondhand Su-30s India is selling to Belarus for the modernization of its aging air force fleet. Irkut will start delivering 28 Su-30s to Algeria and nine to Malaysia in 2007.
Market Focus 11 U.S. airline industry poised to post collective profit in 2006 News Breaks 18 Flight testing begins on upgraded USAF C-5s 18 France, Italy will jointly study a dual-use broadband satellite system 19 FedEx shows record financial results for fiscal year 20 Engineering software firm Altair buys supplier to airframers 20 Indian Space Research Organization plans independent satnav system 22 Sagem in flight trials of extended- range version of Sperwer UAV
Airports waiting to start their Registered Traveler (RT) programs will have to wait a bit longer. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was scheduled to announce the addition of 10 to 20 airports in the program on June 20, but no firm release date has been set. The program currently operates at Orlando International, and San Jose, Calif.; Indianapolis, and Cincinnati airports are waiting for a green light from TSA to start signing up passengers.
The U.S. airline industry is finally getting the supply and demand equation right and as a result, it's poised to do the unthinkable: end the year with a collective profit.
Peter Papadakos, Owner (Gyrodyne Helicopter Co., Reno, Nev.)
Between one reader suggesting UAV operators are not pilots and questions about the value provided by the $7-million Predator that was lost, I'd like to point out the recent program-sunset of the only deployed VTOL UAV: the QH-50 Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter. For 44 years, the QH-50 flew, first as a weapons platform for the U.S. Navy (1962-70) with more than 800 aircraft delivered, and then towed targets for the Army (1970-2006) at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., achieving a 97.5% successful utilization rate that no manned aircraft could approach.
Fallback safety measures taken in the wake of the Columbia accident will permit another shuttle launch as early as Saturday, despite continued unease among senior shuttle managers about the risk of falling external-tank foam. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin decided STS-121 is go-for-launch after a contentious flight readiness review (FRR), but conceded that another "major incident" probably would be the end of the shuttle program.
The TDI-J45, a miniature turbojet 4.5 in. in diameter and 6-in. long, provided the propulsion and electrical power for recent flight tests at Eglin AFB, Fla., of the Air Force's low-cost autonomous attack system (Locaas) and the Army's loitering attack missile (LAM). Lockheed Martin and the Air Force Research Laboratory launched the Locaas flight-test vehicle from a KingAir 200, which flew more than 40 naut. mi. in 15 min. The test vehicle detected three stationary target vehicles. The test required an air launch and a windmill engine start of the TDI-J45.
Awards nominations are now open for Aviation Week & Space Technology's Product Breakthrough Awards-2006. Four categories are represented: Best Operational Breakthrough and Best Design Breakthrough (for suppliers primarily to commercial/business aviation customers) and Best Operational Breakthrough and Best Design Breakthrough (for suppliers primarily to the defense community). The competition is limited to companies with revenues under $600 million. Within these broad categories, breakthroughs could occur in myriad disciplines, such as software, MRO and avionics.
Confirming earlier analysis, Air Transport Assn. (ATA) yield data for May show continued substantial growth and indicate good prospects for second-quarter financial results (AW&ST June 12, p. 40). Using fare data from mainline operations at seven major U.S. airlines--not including Southwest--the ATA reports an overall domestic yield of 12.98 cents per revenue passenger mile (RPM), up 11.9% from May 2005. May 2006 is the 13th consecutive month of year-over-year increases, and the gains are growing.
Goodrich Corp. has broken ground on a 300,000-sq.-ft. expansion of its Goodrich Aerostructures Service Center-Asia nacelle/thrust reverser maintenance, repair and overhaul facility in Singapore. Expected to be complete by December 2007, the building more than doubles the footprint first built in 2003. Nacelle/thrust reverser overhauls will account for 400,000 sq. ft. of the 530,000-sq.-ft. facility.
Drawn-out contractual negotiation over buying the Hawk 128 advanced jet trainer is near conclusion, but the emergence of a Royal Air Force fallback position over a key future training program is causing friction. Worries over any potential delay to securing the training program, the 14-billion-pound ($25.7-billion) Military Flying Training System (MFTS), appears to have prompted the RAF to ponder, at least informally, a "Plan B" option.
NASA exploration strategists still haven't decided whether the agency will need a robotic precursor to the generic human and cargo lunar lander that is expected to be a key element in future Moonbase infrastructure. Tony Lavoie, newly named acting program manager for NASA's Lunar Precursor and Robotic Program, says the decision on a robotic lander will be driven by the strategy for lunar surface operations, which is still in development. "It is not completely given that a robotic lander will be needed to support NASA's overall lunar objectives," Lavoie says.
6-7 Correspondence 8 Who's Where 13 Industry Outlook 15 Airline Outlook 16 In Orbit 17-20 News Breaks 21 Washington Outlook 44 Inside Avionics 45 A European Perspective 58-59 Classified 60 Contact Us 61 Aerospace Calendar
NASA is issuing contracts that will be important for landing new space vehicles on both Earth and Mars. Irvin Aerospace of Santa Ana, Calif., will help model landing airbags that could enable the crew module for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to use ground landing sites (see front cover) under a 5-year contract from Langley Research Center. The old Apollo capsules could only safely land in water. Normally the CEV would land in the western U.S., but in launch emergencies it also could land in the Atlantic Ocean off Kennedy Space Center.
Initiatives to boost operational efficiency and safety of the airline industry have run into stiff headwinds that are slowing the implementation of those efforts and have forced carriers to scale back some ambitions.
The U.K. government is providing 1.7 million pounds ($3.14 million) in seed funding to support development of instrument packages for the European Space Agency's ExoMars program. Areas of development include organic materials search, a panoramic camera, atmospheric experiment package and an X-ray diffractometer. ExoMars is due for launch in 2011.
Using its Sniper targeting pod, an F-15E Strike Eagle crew detects a band of insurgents smuggling weapons into Iraq. But it's dark, the pod's infrared images are a bit fuzzy, and the crew is reluctant to attack without corroborating information.
Flight operations at Birmingham International Airport, the fifth largest in the U.K., were severely disrupted on June 15 as the result of a main runway being partially closed. Airport officials said only about 10% of the 115 scheduled departures took place between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time, when the main runway was reopened.
Airservices Australia and German air navigation service provider DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung have signed a cooperative agreement to pursue business opportunities in several nations in the Persian Gulf region, India and China. The partners are sharing market intelligence and analysis and will develop strategies to market ATC, tower and airside products and services.
An income boost from concessions, parking and car rentals pushed Denver International Airport's (DIA) 2005 operating revenues to a record $494.5 million, a 3.5% gain over 2004. DIA recorded 43.3 million passengers, a 2.6% increase over traffic a year earlier. The average cost per enplaned passenger declined for the fifth straight year to an average of $12.90 (AW&ST June 5, p. 33), compared to $15.28 in 2001. The decline was due to the rising volume of passengers, flat debt-service payments and within-budget operations, says aviation manager Turner West.
You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.AviationNow.com/conferences or call Lydia Janow at +1 (212) 904-3225/+1 (800) 240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada Only) Sept. 19-21--MRO Asia Conference & Exhibition, Xiamen, China. Oct. 24-26--MRO Europe Conference & Exhibition, Amsterdam. Nov. 13-15--Aerospace & Defense Programs, Phoenix. PARTNERSHIPS Oct. 31-Nov. 5--Airshow China, Zhuhai. www.airshow.com.cn July 17-23--Farnborough air show.
Next to the big question of who will get to build NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the source selection also will determine how big a gap there will be between the space shuttle's retirement in 2010 and the first flight of its replacement. NASA plans to pick the winner--either Lockheed Martin or a Northrop Grumman/Boeing team headed by Northrop Grumman--late in the summer and "have the contractor up and running by the start of the fiscal year," says Caris (Skip) Hatfield, CEV project manager at Johnson Space Center.
