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The Washington-based Air Transport Assn. and FAA have named members of the winning team for the FAA-ATA Nondestructive Testing "Better Way" Award. The award was established to recognize a team of government and airline industry individuals who developed and applied a technology, technique, process or policy to advance inspection or testing of aircraft structure, aircraft components or aircraft systems.
U.S. astronauts will still be able to conduct long-duration missions on the International Space Station under an amendment to the five-year-old Iran Non-Proliferation Act (INA) adopted by the House last week. The Senate passed a similar measure Sept. 21. Under a compromise worked out by the House, Senate and White House, the Senate is expected to pass the House version and send it to President Bush for his signature. Without the amendment, NASA would have been blocked from using the ISS after its original agreement with Russia expires in April 2006.
Southwest Airlines, which will launch service in Denver on Jan. 3 (see p. 44), will add 49 flights in 42 city-pairs, some current and some new, on Nov. 12 and Feb. 5. The carrier continues to take delivery of Boeing 737-700 aircraft and faces several months of less-than-optimum aircraft utilization because it had to suspend operations at New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Eight of the new flights will involve New Orleans, which Southwest says is its top-priority city for expanded service.
Seattle-based Horizon Air has converted seven options for Q400 turboprops into firm orders and added five more in a deal valued at $294 million at list prices. Deliveries are set for the fourth quarter of 2006. In addition, Caribbean Aircraft Leasing will acquire three Q300 turboprops. Deliveries are set for the second quarter of 2006.
The U.S. Air Force is said to be backing off its earlier plan to persuade senior Pentagon leaders to buy 381 Lockheed Martin F/A-22s, enough to round out 10 squadrons and provide airframes for attrition reserve. Seeing a budget crunch on the horizon, the Air Force is now considering a push for about 300 Raptors, higher still than the 180 already in the budget. Meanwhile, top Pentagon leaders are considering the fate of the Joint Strike Fighter, also manufactured by Lockheed Martin, in the Quadrennial Defense Review. Under then-Chief of Staff Gen.
USAF Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy chief of U.S. Central Command, will take over U.S. Joint Forces Command based in Norfolk, Va. He also will be supreme allied commander of transformation. Lt. Gen. Daniel P. Leaf has been appointed deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii. He has been vice commander of Air Force Space Command, Peterson AFB, Colo. Maj. Gen. Loyd S. Utterback has been named deputy commander of Pacific Air Forces, Hickam AFB, Hawaii. He has been commander of the Second Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, Keesler AFB, Miss.
The industry consortium slated to build NATO's airborne ground surveillance equipment has completed a 22-million-euro ($26.5-million) study to coordinate development of the total system with that of the radar. The results last week went to NATO as part of a meeting of national armaments directors. The Alliance Ground Surveillance project is supposed to yield a mixed fleet of Airbus A321s and Global Hawk UAVs fitted with a modular synthetic aperture radar. Most of the program activity has been focused on coordinating industrial efforts.
The U.S. Marine Corps has taken delivery of the first two AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters developed under the H-1 Upgrade Program. Both have completed the engineering manufacturing development phase and are slated to begin operational evaluation (Opeval) in the first quarter of 2006. Another two aircraft will join Opeval in December, according to Bell Helicopter Textron. Plans call for Bell to remanufacture 180 AH-1W Super Cobras to the AH-1Z configuration. Bell will build 100 new UH-1Ys instead of remanufacturing the UH-1N as originally planned.
"Actual combat wasn't as tough as Red Flag" is a comment from veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that is music to Col. Dirk Jordan's ears. It validates a decades-old concept that the U.S. Air Force's highly realistic, large-force Red Flag exercises are giving inexperienced pilots the equivalent of their first 10 combat missions, greatly improving their chances of survival in real-world situations.
MRO provider Ameco Beijing has received the first United Airlines Boeing 777 under a five-year heavy maintenance contract. Within three years, more than 50 airplanes are scheduled for work at the facility, and 80 will be completed in the contract period. Ameco Beijing is a joint venture between Air China and Lufthansa German Airlines established in 1989.
A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-led demo last month validated an Internet-like high-speed, ad hoc, airborne network that enabled tactical aircraft to quickly engage time-critical targets. The Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNC) system transmitted data at speeds up to 2 megabits/sec. over 100-naut.-mi. distances, using TTNC phase-three terminals on F-15E, F/A-18, E-2C and other aircraft. Imagery was transmitted at high speeds between airborne platforms and a surrogate Combined Air Ops Center at China Lake, Calif., and other sites.
NASA's new stripped-down human exploration plan stops at the Moon, and doesn't carry a "funding wedge" to move on to Mars. Nor does the plan's $104-billion price tag include money for more than a couple of lunar "sorties" a year. Douglas Stanley, a Georgia Tech engineering researcher who headed the Exploration Systems Architecture Study that produced the NASA plan, says his team used a wedge of 2-3% per year--essentially an adjustment for inflation--to calculate long-term exploration affordability.
Russian flag carrier Aeroflot has placed orders for seven Airbus A321-200s powered by CFM56-5 engines. The jets will have 20 seats in business class and 150 in economy. Initial deliveries are scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2006. The A321s will replace 60 obsolete aircraft in the fleet. Aeroflot is the largest Russian carrier operating Airbus airplanes; it has eight A319s, seven A320s, three A321s, plus nine Boeing 767s and four DC-10 freighters.
Members of the Dutch parliament were calling for an independent investigation last week after fire in the prison complex at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport killed 11 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation and injured 15 others, including some firefighters and police. Officials declined to comment on reports that a prisoner may have set the fire and that the cells were unsafe, according to the Associated Press. The cells are used to detain passengers who fly into Schiphol but are denied entry into the Netherlands.
Michael J. Morrison's letter regarding the shift of emphasis by United Airlines from the excellence and professionalism of its own mechanics to the savings of outsourcing heavy maintenance of its Boeing 777s to China (AW&ST Oct. 10, p. 6), prompts me to write from the passenger viewpoint.
Senior U.S. defense officials are proposing to halt further buys of the C-17 and C-130J airlifters by the end of the decade, a move that would effectively cede future military transport production to Europe.
In a move that will tighten its already strong defense links to the U.S., the Japan Defense Agency is centralizing its command authority in response to a rise in regional threats, particularly North Korea's ballistic missile program, and in international terrorism.
The U.S. Air Force is expanding its only air-to-air adversary unit by adding F-15 Eagles to the current F-16 Fighting Falcon fleet based here. Sometime next year, about eight F-15s will join the 12 F-16s now flown by the 64 th Aggressor Sqdn. (AS), bringing the unit up to a full squadron-size complement. All of the fighters will be painted in unique brown, or blue, camouflage schemes, making them visually identifiable as "bad guys" during Red Flag and other training exercises.
Tribhuvan Singh, who is president/CEO of Hi-Tec Systems Inc., Egg Harbor Township, N.J., has won the 2005 New Jersey Minority Small Business Person of the Year award from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Singh's company supports programs for the FAA and Transportation Security Administration. He was chosen based on his company's overall financial strength; growth in sales, profits and number of employees; and participation in community and charitable events.
Southwest Airlines' initial routes when it launches service Jan. 3 at Denver International Airport will put the city's two hubbing airlines, United and Frontier, in the crosshairs occupied in recent years by US Airways.
If NASA is held to the same rigorous accounting requirements that U.S. corporations face under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, would the space agency's chief financial officer sign off on its annual fiscal report? "At this point, no sir," NASA CFO Gwendolyn Sykes tells the House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee chairman, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). Under the 2002 federal law, corporate CFOs face prosecution for approving false or erroneous financial statements.
People may look back on 2005 as the "good old days" in the aerospace industry. At least that's the impression they would get reviewing many earnings results for the quarter ended Sept. 30.
Germany's aerospace research agency (DLR) and China's Aeronautical Establishment (CAE) are expanding cooperation to further involve industry through a "2+2" formula under which efforts will be conducted with DLR and one German industry partner and CAE with a Chinese company. The goal is to lay a foundation to transition research efforts into product development.
