Those business fliers thought to be forever lost to low-cost operators might be returning to the legacy airlines. In its semi-annual survey of U.S. travelers, management consultant Accenture found "a small but sustained shift back to using major network carriers and away from low-cost carriers over the past year for business travel."
Boeing Co. and the world's largest titanium maker, Russia's VSMPO-Avisma, have agreed to establish a joint venture for titanium parts for aircraft manufacturing. The 50/50 enterprise will be based in Verkhnaya Salda, where VSMPO's production is located. Currently, VSMPO provides more than 50% of Boeing's titanium needs and nearly 55% of Airbus's, supplying raw metal and forgings. The joint facility, which will require at least $30 million in investment from each partner, is slated to start delivering titanium parts by 2008.
Graham Webb (see photos) has been named general manager and Joaquin Castro manager of Defense Dept. strategy and business development at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's facility in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Donald A. Premel has been named managing director of business development and Randy P. Smith managing director of team resources at Kitty Hawk Inc. Premel was a cargo executive with Continental Airlines, while Smith was vice president-human resources for CompUSA.
Mario Ciampini has become business development director for North America and Asia of the U.K.-based Bodycote International Group. He was CEO for the Americas and Asia for Ipsen International.
Wind tunnel tests at the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center are beginning to show that potential new foam problem areas on the shuttle external tank can be corrected with minor changes and minimal risk to a July launch schedule. The new concerns arose this month when modified tank foam components blew off an external tank mockup undergoing wind tunnel tests at AEDC. Engineers tweaked the design of the components, and later tests were favorable, with no foam loss. Liftoff of Discovery on STS-121 is planned for July 1.
Very light jets will probably not be as big a phenomenon in Canada as in the U.S., where the FAA expects 4,950 of these under-10,000-lb. aircraft to be delivered by 2017. Of course, Canada now has only 3-4% as many business jets as the U.S. and only 2,000 private pilots with instrument ratings, according to Nav Canada, the private air navigation service provider. This is compared with nearly 60,000 private pilots with instrument ratings in the U.S., based on FAA statistics for 2004.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is making progress expanding its Registered Traveler program--but not as much as originally promised. TSA says it plans to extend the public-private program somewhat starting this summer, but is delaying a full national rollout until 2007. The agency's original intent, announced late last year, was to start a nationwide fee-based program to expedite security checks for previously vetted trusted travelers in June (AW&ST Nov. 14, p. 46).
Britain's air safety watchdog is calling on both Airbus and Boeing to take action on failure modes in their respective narrow-body aircraft that can result in the loss of electronic cockpit instrumentation.
Can a former copy machine repairman who happens to be friends with Bill Gates reinvigorate the general aviation industry by adopting the low-cost, mass production model used for personal computers? The world is about to find out.
In an unusual move, Japan Airlines has opened a 180-million-yen ($1.5-million) Safety Promotion Center, which is focused on the most deadly civil air crash in the airline's history, the 1985 loss of a Boeing 747 that killed 520 people when a bulkhead failure caused most of the aircraft's tailfin to be blown off.
The U.S. responded rapidly to the need to screen baggage for explosives at U.S. airports after 9/11, but simply installing equipment in airport lobbies doesn't address how to manage all these resources. A recently incorporated New York-based company, led by Israeli high-tech and security specialists, has developed software to automate the management process.
Aviation Week & Space Technology annually gives special awards of recognition to Tomorrow's Leaders: people who have demonstrated exemplary leadership and academic skills, and plan to pursue careers in aviation and aerospace. They will take over from today's leaders and visionaries, and deserve encouragement and support. Outstanding cadets at the service academies, with a demonstrated interest in aviation, receive Breitling Aerospace watches, courtesy of Breitling USA.
Robert Peckham has been named interim president/general manager of the Sea Launch Co., Long Beach, Calif. He was vice president-sales and marketing. Peckham succeeds Jim Maser, who has become president/chief operating officer of Space Exploration Technologies.
Scientists hope to use a fleet of six new weather-monitoring microsatellites to answer questions ranging from the temperature effects of global warming on the upper atmosphere to the distribution of water vapor in three dimensions. An Orbital Sciences Corp. Minotaur I, the ground-launched version of the company's air-launched Pegasus vehicle, orbited the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (Cosmic) mission into its 500-km. orbit from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Apr. 14.
Philippe Jung, President, History Commission (Assn. Aeronautique Et Astronautique de France, Grasse, France)
While the end of aircraft production in California is a shock to any aviation lover, to conclude that no name has been more closely associated with the development of aviation (AW&ST Feb. 27, p. 50) is a stretch.
Russian controllers aborted a brief test of the International Space Station's two engines Apr. 19 after the station crew noted that an engine cover had not opened fully. The engines at the aft end of the Zvezda service module have not been used since the module reached orbit in July 2000, and NASA says the small reboost they would have provided won't be necessary for the planned Apr. 26 arrival of a new Progress cargo vehicle at the station. Engineers at Mission Control Center-Moscow were studying the anomaly, but had not scheduled another test attempt at week's end.
Airbus has received EASA certification for the A340-600 high-gross- weight version. Qatar Airlines is the lead customer. Emirates also was looking to buy the aircraft, but has asked to delay its deliveries and is mulling converting some of its orders to A380s.
Cynthia Cole, an engineer at the Boeing Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems, has been elected president of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE Local 2001. Bob Wilkerson, a manufacturing engineer at Boeing in Renton, Wash., was elected treasurer. Elected secretary was Dave Baine, an engineer at Boeing in Auburn, Wash. Cole succeeds Jennifer MacKay, a manufacturing engineer at Triumph Composite Systems Inc., Spokane, Wash.
Flight testing of a modified Chengdu FC-1 light fighter is expected to begin shortly. The aircraft, prototype No. 4, was rolled out recently in China, with the additional leading edge wing-chines clearly visible. The airframe has been modified from the first three prototypes, with the addition of larger air intakes. The aircraft's top speed is now predicted to be Mach 1.8, rather than the Mach 1.6 of the original design.
The airline industry has seen its unit costs for maintenance, repair and overhaul services decline by 19% in the last four years even as the MRO industry exhibits healthy growth rates, particularly in outsourcing. The mandate for MRO of faster turnaround times, on-time deliveries, and high quality and reliability remains strong as competition from third-party providers grows, according to forecasts by TeamSAI/BACK Aviation in the April issue of Aviation Week's Overhaul & Maintenance magazine.
