Daisuke Enomoto, a Japanese IT entrepreneur, is on track to visit the International Space Station as a tourist after Russian flight surgeons cleared him for orbital flight. Space Adventures Ltd. says Enomoto--known in Japan by the nickname Dice-K--is set to ride in the so-called taxi seat on the replacement Soyuz vehicle scheduled to reach the ISS in September. After about a week, he would return with members of the outgoing Expedition 13 ISS crew and their old Soyuz lifeboat.
David Blanding, a senior engineer with Boeing Phantom Works in Huntington Beach, Calif., is among the winners of the national 2006 Black Engineer of the Year Award. He is credited with helping to develop electric actuators for advanced unmanned air systems, space vehicles and commercial airplanes. He is considered an authority on electrically powered and fluid subsystems.
Fourteen years ago a Sukhoi Su-27M fitted with a British laser-designator pod appeared, and the rest, as they say, is history. The dustbin of history, that is. With exceptions that can be counted on fingers, Russian industry's hopes of significant military collaboration with Western companies has until now proved mostly illusory. Unsurprisingly, 40-odd years of military confrontation has proved difficult to unlearn, while international relations has doggedly failed to conform to a once-touted "New World Order."
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines' inability to secure leases on two Boeing 747-400s has delayed its planned June launch of Hong Kong-London Gatwick services to September. The carrier, one of the few in the region to consider low-fare long-haul flights, has also secured rights to operate from Hong Kong to Oakland and Chicago.
Neelam Mathews (New Delhi), Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
India's nascent commercial space-launch industry could get a boost under new bilateral agreements that should clear U.S. export-control roadblocks for spacecraft and their components.
THE FAA PLANS TO TERMINATE GRANTING EXCEPTIONS to Mode S transponder requirements affecting FAR Parts 121 and 135 after Mar. 1, 2007. As a result, Mode C transponders will no longer be permitted. New transponders installed after that date would have to be Mode S. Agency officials say, however, that if a Mode C unit is installed under an existing exemption before Mar. 1, 2007, the transponder can remain in service after that date. It would have to be replaced with Model S equipment when it becomes irreparable.
David A. Fulghum (Canberra), Amy Butler (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London)
Confronted by a narrowing window of opportunity, Australia is moving quickly to acquire the Boeing C-17 to meet strategic airlift needs. Several other countries, including Britain, must now rapidly solidify their acquisition plans.
David C. Hurley has been appointed to the board of directors of the Hexcel Corp., Stamford, Conn. He is vice chairman and former CEO of Geneva-based PrivatAir. Hurley also is a director of B/E Aerospace Inc.
Marcus Wallenberg has been nominated as chairman of the Saab board of directors to succeed Anders Scharp, who has declined reelection. Wallenberg has been deputy chairman. Lennart Johansson has been proposed as a board member. He is head of business development at Investor AB.
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) Apr. 5-6--U.S. Defense Dept. Budgets and Programs Conference, Arlington, Va. Apr. 25-26--MRO Military Conference, Phoenix. Apr. 25-27--MRO USA Conference & Exhibition 2006, Phoenix. May 16-17--MRO Military Europe, in conjunction with ILA air show, Berlin. Sept. 19-21--MRO Asia Conference & Exhibition, Xiamen, China.
Singapore Technologies Aerospace will establish an airframe and heavy maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Panama, marking its first advance into Latin America. One of the industry's fastest-growing regions, Latin America is drawing increasing attention for its potential for low-cost airframe overhauls, especially for narrow-body aircraft. Major investments have been expected for several years by the industry's overhaul giants.
A two-thirds jump in fuel prices caused annual profits for Cathay Pacific Airways to fall by 25% last year, even though revenues were up 19.1%. The Hong Kong-based carrier reported profits of HK$4.42 billion ($570 million) on revenues of HK$50.9 billion. Aside from its fuel costs, which reached HK$15.6 billion, Cathay was able to cut unit costs by 1.9%. It carried 15.4 million passengers, up 13.7 million from 2004, and had strong demand in first and business classes.
JEPPESEN IS TAKING AIM AT THE MARKET FOR HELPING AIRLINES make the transition from paper to digital flight decks. It is teaming up with Rockwell Collins to offer airlines and military transport operators an electronic flight bag (EFB) that can be tailored to their needs. The partners will employ all or part of the EFB hardware made by Rockwell Collins and all or part of the software developed by Jeppesen. They will also provide the ground-based infrastructure and configuration control to support the flight-deck systems.
China plans to increase military spending this year by 14.7% to $35.3 billion. The increase would be the largest in the past four years and is being driven by political tension between China and Taiwan. Funding for science and technology is up 19.2% compared with 2005. Defense representative Jiang Enzhu says China spent only 1.35% of its GDP on defense, compared with 3.6% for the U.S. and 2.59% for the U.K.
More groups of U.S. airline engineers could soon be seeking union protection, now that their counterparts at United Airlines have signed a contract with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
Finnair is progressing with its strategy to expand long-haul operations, in a bid for higher profits. New routes to Nagoya, Japan, are to be opened in June and New Delhi in November. The carrier is also adding frequencies to China and come mid-May, operations to Hong Kong will be nonstop, with the elimination of the layover in Bangkok. Mid-year, the service on that route will also increase to four frequencies per week from three.
National Air Support (NAS), a private contractor that handles aerial coastal surveillance for the Australian government, has ordered three Bombardier Q300 turboprop Maritime Patrol Aircraft worth $53 million. NAS recently won a 12-year, A$1 billion ($0.73 billion) renewal of its contract with the Australian Customs Service. The maritime surveillance program uses five twin-engine Bombardier Dash 8/Q200 airplanes that have logged more than 70,000 hr. in the air since 1995.
Joshua Wachsmuth has been promoted to general manager of Signature Flight Support's FBO at Des Moines (Iowa) International Airport from operations manager at Minneapolis/St.Paul International Airport.
NASA says it's pleased with the number of bids it received Mar. 3 for its $500-million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program from "the full spectrum of industry." But the space agency doesn't plan to announce any winners until this summer, and some industry insiders won't be surprised to find only familiar--and big--corporate names on that list. The COTS program was designed to spur private investment by space entrepreneurs willing to take some risks hauling cargo and eventually crew to the International Space Station.
Technology is moving expert linguists from the collection point to rear areas in aircraft-based eavesdropping missions. A top strategic defense planner describes an Air Force experiment that points toward a change in current practice, in which RC-135 Rivet Joint and EP-3 aircraft carry linguists forward to a coastline or an adversary area so they can listen in on conversations. "How do you find the right conversation?" the planner asks. "You can't do it by moving the person to the conversation.
Workings of the Cape Town Treaty, which establishes an international framework for protection of asset rights of owners, underwriters and lessors of aircraft and engines, will be the focus of a conference Apr. 27-28 at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington (AW&ST Mar. 6, p. 18). The conference's keynote address will be given by Ambassador Lorne S. Clark, chairman of the DJ Air Group, who headed the International Air Transport Assn. delegation to the Cape Town diplomatic conference.
Boeing and NASA are completing a series of wind tunnel tests in the National Transonic Facility at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The experiments are designed to validate the high-lift flap for the Boeing 787 and are based on a 5.2% semi-span model of a Boeing 777 wing featuring a 787 flap configuration. The model provides detailed information on the new flap without building a dedicated 787 model.
Airbus officials are upping their aircraft demand projections, giving rise to hopes that any industry downturn will be less severe than in the past. After coming under criticism from their management for failing to anticipate the strength of demand in Asian growth markets, Airbus forecasters have undertaken a detailed review, particularly of India. And while India was already seen as a hot growth market, the in-depth assessment says the picture is even more positive than thought.
