China's Civil Aviation Flight University in Guanghan has selected the Ascent FFSX full-flight simulator from Mechtronix Systems of Montreal for its Boeing 737NG pilot training services.
SES Americom's AMC-23 telecommunications satellite is set to launch on Dec. 6 on an ILS Proton Breeze M rocket. The 20 K u-band transponders on the C/K u-band spacecraft, to operate over the Pacific, will serve the Connexion by Boeing inflight broadband service.
EADS Space Services will supply K u-band satellite communications for the French navy under a new deal that marks the first time the navy has resorted to commercial capacity for its broadband requirements. The agreement, which covers the training vessels Jeanne d'Arc and Georges Leygues, is the third issued under a framework contract with EADS earlier this year, including at least one from the air force (AW&ST June 13, p. 192).
The James Webb Space Telescope--an infrared follow-on to the Hubble Space Telescope--won't launch until 2013, but Ball Aerospace & Technologies is accelerating critical work related to focusing the satellite's huge 18-segment, beryllium primary mirror in orbit.
The South African National Police Service is planning to beef up its air wing to handle border and sea patrol duties--assigned to the service last year--and prepare for the country's hosting of the 2009 Fed Cup and 2010 World Cup. A. H. Lamoer, who heads the force's operational response arm, says the air wing wants to add two helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft per year through the end of the decade. Last week, the service took delivery of the first of four new AS 350 B3 Ecureuils--the 3,000th single-engine Ecureuil to come off the assembly line (see photo).
We love "little engine that could" stories from space, even though JAXA's Hayabusa odyssey to the asteroid Itokawa may not have a happy ending. We applaud the audacity of sending a spacecraft 200 million mi. to set down just long enough to take samples from a revolving asteroid and then bring them back to Earth. Who else but the Japanese, champions of the miniature, would build Minerva, a robot weighing just 21 oz., to sprint from Hayabusa, hop along the asteroid's surface and take pictures and temperature readings?
Delta Air Lines stands between a rock and a hard place. The pilots union will not meet the airline's plea for more concessions, and the airline will not accept the union's counteroffer. Now it's up to bankruptcy court to decide if Delta will void the pilot contract and impose its demands.
Recriminations are flying over the "failure" of the British Defense Ministry's Defense Aviation Repair Agency as senior politicians ponder the breakup of the six-year-old organization. The ministry's military aircraft and helicopter repair and maintenance agency's sites are either being shut or are under consideration for sale to the private sector (AW&ST Nov. 14, p. 30).
Eutelsat Communications is again poised to reenter the ranks of publicly traded satellite operators, following an unexpected relaunch of an initial public offering on the Paris Euronext stock exchange last week.
Dubai looks set to continue its growth into a major international air transport center, with the launch of a multibillion-dollar airport project that will erase capacity constraints for the foreseeable future.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. spending bill signed by President Bush last week takes another bite out of the Wright Amendment, which limits long-haul flights out of Dallas Love Field. The measure adds Missouri to the limited number of states with direct flights from Love. A slight victory for Love Field-based Southwest Airlines, which wants the law repealed, the bill prompted Dallas-Fort Worth-based rival American Airlines to announce it, too, will start Love-Missouri flights.
Robert Wall and Michael A. Taverna (Bordes, France)
Turbomeca is in the middle of an aggressive production ramp-up to keep pace with the surge in demand for helicopter engines, although long-term market trends remain uncertain. Not long ago, Sikorsky and Eurocopter were building a combined 30-50 helicopters a year in the S-76/EC145 class, notes Christian Hamel, Turbomeca's head of commercial strategy. Now, he says, each of the helicopter makers is building that many rotorcraft. Within a year, Sikorsky alone will be turning out 75-80 units annually.
More than one-third of the total of 1,715 senior and middle management posts at British Airways are to be axed by March 2008. Senior managerial positions are to be cut by 50%, and those of middle management by 30%. The intent is to save the airline 50 million pounds ($86.6 million), as part of its plan to cut overall costs by 300 million pounds by March 2007.
Russian and French engine makers are setting up the infrastructure for their SaM146 turbofan program and hope to have the major pieces in place by year-end to support completion of the first prototype by next April. Safran's Snecma Moteurs and NPO Saturn just inaugurated the VolgAero production facility 240 mi. north of Moscow, where NPO Saturn is based. An open-air test bench should be in place soon.
Pierre Jambon has been named general manager for global aviation for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio. He has been director of finance planning and analysis for the North American Tire unit.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. has installed the vertical stabilizers for the first pre-production F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, marking another step toward the airplane's first flight scheduled for August 2006. The stabilizers were built by program partner BAE Systems in Samlesbury, England. According to LMAC, the installation process was uneventful thanks in large part to the "digital thread" approach used by the F-35 team to design and build the fighter. BAE Systems has been a leader in that technology.
Blue Sky Network of La Jolla, Calif., has received FAA approval for a panel-mounted control head, the ACH1000, that allows pilots to send and receive short messages to a home base manager. Blue Sky uses the Iridium satellite network for voice and data communications, including flight map services. The business model focuses on cargo and executive jet operators, allowing them to keep in touch with their home base regardless of where they are flying.
Joseph Ackerman (see photo) has received the Israel Export Institute's Exporter and Entrepreneur Prize for 2005. He is president of Elbit Systems. Ackerman was cited for helping to solidify Israeli defense industries in general and Elbit Systems in particular, as leading manufacturers and exporters.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has fired its six course-correction engines for about 20 sec. to adjust its flight path toward a Mar. 10, 2006, rendezvous with Mars. The 4-lb.-thrust engines are located on the outer periphery of the spacecraft and will later be used to adjust aerobraking maneuvers designed to fine-tune its orbit after the spacecraft uses its larger main engines to achieve Mars orbit capture. Since launch Aug. 12, the high-resolution orbiter has covered about 65% of the distance for its trip from Earth to the planet, and must fly about 25 million mi.
The European Space Agency aims to expand collaboration with China under an initial agreement signed on Nov. 18. The framework agreement is intended to facilitate cooperation in space science, Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and microgravity research. Among possible areas of future collaboration is space exploration (AW&ST Oct. 10, p. 32).
Most commercial airplane builders and suppliers are prospering from the post-9/11 rebound, but executives at Bombardier Inc. can't seem to shake their company's stock out of its doldrums. After a brief surge this summer, shares in the Canadian airplane and train builder are back below C$2.50 ($2.14), about where they opened the year and far below the stock's heyday of five years ago, when it topped $C25.
Mike Luethye has become vice president-national sales West, Gordon Vieth vice president-national sales East and Trevor Esling vice president-international sales, all for the Cessna Aircraft Co., Wichita, Kan. Luethye was division sales director for the Western U.S., while Vieth was Citation sales director for the Eastern U.S. Esling was Citation sales director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Likely targets for the search for water and life on Mars may have to be revised following findings from Europe's Mars Express, including initial results from the mission's Marsis sounding radar. The findings--including the first-ever readings of the planet's deep subsurface, its so-called "third dimension"--were presented along with results from the Huygens Titan mission here last week.
It's a sorry fact that the Bell/Boeing V-22, while a technological marvel, may never be fully suited for U.S. Marine Corps service. It is too "delicate" to take concentrated hostile fire, but too expensive to be wasted on routine missions that can be perform- ed by helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft.
