The European Commission will take an important step next month toward tackling airport capacity problems looming in Europe, which are seen as a major roadblock to improving air traffic flow by 2025.
Craig Covault (Kennedy Space Center), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
NASA and its International Space Station partners will accelerate launch of the European Columbus and Japanese Kibo pressurized ISS modules on the space shuttle ahead of any attempt to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The schedule change involves a major repackaging of ISS elements in the assembly sequence to ensure the full station configuration can be completed as early as 2009, before termination of shuttle flights in late 2010.
The tribute to Robert B. Hotz (AW&ST Feb. 20, p. 110B) was fitting for a great journalist, editor, and unabashed American leader and patriot during the Cold War. Would that publishers and television news producers read that tribute carefully, especially that sentence: ". . . withheld information it (AW&ST) thought critical to national security, such as the existence of the Mach 3 SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft."
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Douglas Barrie (Tel Aviv)
French efforts to build a European unmanned long-endurance reconnaissance capability face collapse if prime contractor EADS cannot come up with additional financing. A top-level review of the country's unmanned aerial vehicle strategy recommends pursuing the French-led collaborative medium-altitude long-endurance program, known as EuroMALE, but only if it is modified, and more countries actually sign up.
M. Spence (Ron) Howard has been appointed president of Division Americas of Reston, Va.-based Gate Gourmet. He succeeds Peter A. Pappas, who is now president of the Global Aviation Services unit. Howard was vice president of the Chelsea Food Services and the Inflight and Food Services divisions of Continental Airlines.
The development program for the Airbus Military A400M transport is entering a critical phase as engine tests ramp up to prove basic turboshaft performance, and governments try to work out how to support the aircraft for the long haul. There's little margin for error, with a tight development and fielding schedule. Already, engine makers have asked their workforce to put in extra hours to keep the program on track.
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates reported an 11% jump in 2005 revenues, to $833 milllion, from 2004 levels. The Canadian-based supplier of space- and Earth-based information products and services netted $68 million, compared to $52.5 million a year earlier.
Arianespace and NASA have rescheduled launches this month that were delayed earlier. After a telemetry problem with Eutelsat's Hot Bird 7A forced a slip in the Feb. 24 launch date of its heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA rocket, Alcatel Alenia Space has reverified the telemetry system and cleared the satellite for launch. A subsequent umbilical line disconnect forced a rollback Feb. 25 at the launch facility near Kourou, French Guiana, so a new connector could be installed.
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French company Thales has initiated legal action against the India-based weekly publication Outlook, claiming it printed a defamatory article accusing Thales of bribery to obtain a contract worth $3.4 billion to build six Scorpene submarines. The company is suing the publication for about $4 million. Outlook has been directed to send its reply to the courts.
Airline seat data for Denver in last week's Market Focus Commentary (p. 12) should have been listed as seats per week, counting arrivals and departures.
French President Jacques Chirac's concept of levying airline ticket taxes to help pay for development of Third World countries received a boost last week when 11 countries joined France in pledging to introduce such a levy. Although the list included some nations, such as Ivory Coast, in France's orbit, heftier players, such as Brazil, also figured prominently. Chirac received strong backing from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan. His support drew a retort from International Air Transport Assn.
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World freight traffic growth is showing a "definite strengthening trend," according to Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Assn. December 2005 showed 5.5% growth compared with the same month in the previous year, and January showed 6.2%--marking the first time in one year the industry had two consecutive months of freight traffic above 5%, notes Bisignani. In the first month of the year, the Asia-Pacific region led at 8.3%, compared with a full-year growth of 4.2% for 2005.
Torbjorn Karlsson has become a principal in the Singapore office of Heidrick & Struggles International, joining its Industrial Practice Group, which focuses on aviation, aerospace and transportation. He was head of Honeywell Aerospace's Asia-Pacific commercial business.
Boeing's board has amended the company's bylaws to require the annual election of directors, putting all directors up for a vote at this year's shareholders meeting, set for May 1 in Chicago. The board is expected to eliminate a 75% supermajority provision from its bylaws and charter documents.
BBA Aviation Services Group has acquired Ontic Engineering & Manufacturing Inc., a supplier of original equipment manufacturer (OEM)-licensed parts and an MRO services provider based in Chatsworth, Calif. The company's chief focus centers on developing product licensing agreements with major OEMs and having full responsibility for supply and support for a specific OEM product or service. Ontic is the latest in a series of acquisitions by BBA Aviation aimed at strengthening its MRO business.
Improved communications protocols could make spacecraft function better in network settings, and networking giant Cisco Systems is now working with others toward a standard- ized set of formats. If a good protocol set can be devised, the company plans to publish it openly. Cisco's interest is not so much in the spacecraft communications link itself, but in how a merged ground-space architecture increases the number of ground systems using Internet Protocol (IP)--its primary market.
Artist's concept depicts an XB-70-like carrier aircraft dropping a manned spaceplane at high altitude. Possibly developed in the late-1980s, the highly classified two-stage-to-orbit "Blackstar" system could place a small payload in low Earth orbit or serve as a rapid-response reconnaissance platform. The two vehicles were seen several times throughout the 1990s, but may have been shelved in recent years, according to officials familiar with the program (see p. 48). Graphic by James Petty and Travis Thatcher.
Gulfstream Aerospace netted 12 orders for new business jets in China and other Asia-Pacific nations last year, accounting for nearly 10% of its total sales of 124 aircraft. "We've spent a decade cultivating business alliances in Asia," said President Bryan Moss. "It is obviously starting to pay dividends."
When the Airbus A380 wing failed its static ultimate load test roughly 3% short of the required 1.5 times limit load on Feb. 14 (AW&ST Feb. 20, p. 44), it raised serious issues: *Ultimate load includes a required safety factor of 1.5 times limit load.
Boeing will build six flight test airplanes for the standard 787-8, scheduled to begin flying late next year and enter service in mid-2008 with All Nippon Airways. This version will carry 220-250 passengers and have a range of 8,000 naut. mi. Two airplanes will be built for the 787-3 version, which will accommodate up to 330 people and will fly 3,000 naut. mi. Another two airplanes will be built to test the 787-9. It will have a maximum gross weight of 540,000 lb. and a range of 8,600 naut. mi.
The H-1 helicopter upgrade program has completed developmental testing. It is to replace aging U.S. Marine Corps UH-1N transports and AN-1W gunships with upgraded UH-1Y Venoms and AH-1Z Vipers. Two of five developmental test aircraft have been transferred to operational testing. Sixteen aircraft are under production contracts totaling $297 million. Plans call for the aircraft to enter fleet service in Fiscal 2008.
Germany and the U.S. are finalizing agreements to allow a German optical data relay system to be tested on the Defense Dept.'s Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE), which is tentatively set for launch this fall.
