Senior defense industry executives are giving a thumbs-up to President Bush's Fiscal 2007 budget request, but caution that it could undergo major changes before a final appropriation clears Capitol Hill. The $439.3-billion budget that Bush submitted last week would boost top-line military spending by 7% over the budget approved by Congress last year and is missing some of the draconian program cuts that investors had worried about for more than a year.
On the strength of an order from All Nippon Airways, Boeing is launching a 5,510-naut.-mi. variant of the 737 that was inspired by the Boeing Business Jet. Called the 737-700ER, it combines the fuselage of a -700 with the wing and landing gear of a 737-800. A -700's normal range is 3,365 naut. mi. but with up to nine auxiliary fuel tanks, the -700ER can travel more than 2,100 naut. mi. farther.
Ronald D. Sugar, Ph.D., is chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-headquartered Northrop Grumman Corp. This article is excerpted from an address on U.S.-U.K. defense cooperation he delivered Feb. 2 in London to the Royal United Services Institute.
NASA has modified its order for the big external tanks that carry cryogenic propellant on space shuttle missions to accommodate retirement plans for the shuttle in 2010. But the order still provides enough hardware to launch all of the International Space Station modules supplied by its international partners and to send astronauts to service the Hubble Space Telescope one more time. An order for 35 tanks signed in 2000, when NASA thought it would be flying shuttles at least until 2020, has been trimmed to 18.
Eutelsat is studying the limited deployment of a digital audio radio service in Europe as a possible predecessor to a full-fledged system at the turn of the decade--yet another sign of interest in the fast-growing satellite radio field.
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY HAS TAKEN DELIVERY OF TWO CESSNA SKYHAWKS EQUIPPED WITH GARMIN G1000 FULLY-INTEGRATED, ALL-GLASS FLIGHT/AVIONIC SUITES. THE AIRPLANES ARE PART OF THE OHIO UNIVERSITY'S PROGRAM TO UPGRADE ITS FLEET OF TRAINING AIRPLANES. IN OTHER COLLEGIATE AVIATION NEWS, THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA'S JOHN D. ODEGARD SCHOOL OF AEROSPACE SCIENCES HAS ACQUIRED FOUR SINGLE-ENGINE CIRRUS SR20S FEATURING GLASS COCKPITS FOR USE AS ADVANCED TRAINERS. UND HAS A FLEET OF 120 AND 2,100 STUDENTS WHO FLY MORE THAN 110,000 HR. ANNUALLY, ACCORDING TO THE UNIVERSITY.
Big boosts have gone to sustaining the U.S. Air Force's C-130J fleet with contracts of $164 million for Lockheed Martin and $72.6 billion to Rolls-Royce for logistics, program management and spares.
Air One has won an important round in its legal battle to avoid Alitalia taking over Volare. Last week, a tribunal in Rome sided with Air One's request to bar Alitalia from the auction because it received state aid. Alitalia is appealing.
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.
I can understand Jerry Bradley's frustration about being selected for a personal search while traveling non-revenue. I had similar thoughts until I realized there's a reason for the search. Thanks to the less restrictive dress code for non-revenue travel, airline employees now blend in better with the rest of the passengers. If an employee was to produce an airline ID to the TSA screeners in the hope of ending a pre-departure search, more attention to his/her status as an employee might be brought to the attention of an observant hijacker.
The U.S. Air Force is battling internally as planners struggle to draft a request for information (RFI) that will determine several key requirements for a new tanker.
SOUTH KOREA'S CIVIL AVIATION SAFETY AUTHORITY has certified the Enstrom 280FX, F28F and 480B helicopters, and Brazil has added the 480B to its list of approved aircraft. Enstrom Helicopter Corp., based in Menominee, Mich., manufactures piston- and turbine-powered rotorcraft.
The European Commission and Eumetsat have concluded a preliminary agreement outlining their respective responsibilities and roles in creating a pallet of operational services based on the Global Monitoring for Environ- ment and Security network. The accord lays out near-term areas of cooperation, principally involving the start-up of trial services in 2008, and forms a basis for a final agreement.
Star Navigation Systems Group of Toronto has introduced an Inflight Safety Monitoring System that provides data analysis, monitoring and diagnostics. The system utilizes various databuses inflight to monitor systems that exceed preset norms set by the manufacturer or aircraft operator. The data is satellite-linked to Star Navigation's ground station, which stores it for end-of-flight analysis. If a safety-of-flight issue is indicated, the ground station alerts the cockpit crew.
Let me see if I have this right: U.S. tax- payers lift $2.5 billion off the shoulders of US Airways by handing the underfunded pension to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. This saves the airline $100 million per year. US Airways says "thank you" by buying 20 Airbus A350s (AW&ST Dec. 5, 2005, p. 17).
Airbus has installed the first Engine Alliance GP7200 engine on an A380. All four engines to be fitted to the flight trials aircraft, MSN009, are already in Toulouse. Flight trials are scheduled to begin in the spring. The General Electric/Pratt & Whitney joint-venture powerplant received FAA airworthiness certification late last year, following an eight-engine test program that ran 21 months. The engine is certified for 76,500 lb. thrust, the level needed for the A380-800 freighter. The passenger version would operate at 70,000 lb. thrust.
Satellite radio is taking the world by storm, with soaring subscription rates and big plans for new applications. While that's good news for on-the-air personalities such as shock-jock Howard Stern, and for potential non-commercial users who need data delivered to remote locations, it still doesn't necessarily spell demand for new satellites. Aside from a couple of replacement birds that will be needed by XM Satellite Radio, there are no plans yet to add more Digital Audio Radio Services (DARS) spacecraft.
Mobile satellite system operators are wagering that the arrival of hybrid terrestrial/ satellite services and Inmarsat's mobile broadband network will help their sector finally rise from the ashes of the Iridium and GlobalStar debacles.
India has finally moved on its airports privatization process. Airports Authority of India has awarded a $1.3-billion contract for New Delhi to a consortium led by Bangalore-based construction firm GMR that includes Fraport, the Frankfurt Airport consultancy, and Malaysia Airports. A $1.2-billion contract for Mumbai went to GVK, a Hyderabad-based construction company, and Airports Company South Africa. The move has been opposed by unions and the ruling party's communist allies, which fear job cuts.
Anyone hoping to launch a successful U.S. airline might have their sanity questioned, but that doesn't bother Virgin America CEO Fred Reid. The former president of Delta and Lufthansa sees a unique opportunity to use the powerful Virgin brand molded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson. Reid's plan: win back disgruntled customers with a creative product, attentive customer service and an ultra-efficient operation. Armed with $177 million in funding, San Francisco-based Virgin America recently applied for U.S. Transportation Dept. and FAA approvals.
Arianespace's Starsem affiliate has completed a dry run to validate the readiness of a new 4.1-meter-diameter, 11.4-meter-long fairing for the Soyuz booster. The fairing is intended to fly for the first time with Eumetsat's Metop 1 polar-orbiting satellite later this year, as part of the Soyuz 2-1a upgrade.
South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has concluded a memorandum of understanding with Alcatel Alenia Space to collaborate in the space market. Potential areas of cooperation include geospatial data, landcover mapping, satellite broadband, navigation and astronomy. Alcatel Alenia also concluded a three-year preliminary agreement to develop broadband medical imagery applications for Africa in cooperation with Global Imaging Online, a French firm specializing in medical treatment and diagnostic imagery.
THE SECOND PRODUCTION CESSNA CITATION Mustang made its first flight on Jan. 27 in Wichita, Kan. The twin-engine jet will be dedicated to systems certification, FAA Function and Reliability flights, and service testing after the Mustang enters service. It will join the prototype and first-production Mustangs in the flight test program. Plans call for obtaining certification late this year. In addition, all 23 major static airframe tests were completed on Jan. 9, according to program manager, Russ Meyer, 3rd.
