The venture capital Carlyle Group is adding another aerospace company to its portfolio. U.K.-based NP Aerospace, a manufacturer of composite molded products such as aircraft seatback frames, is being sold by parent company Reinhold Industries for $53.4 million. Carlyle is making the purchase through its European technology fund. U.S.-based Reinhold plans to use up to $25 million of the proceeds to pay down debt.
No matter how much the industry complains about flight delays and the operational troubles they cause for U.S. airlines, the congestion has only grown worse and there's no consensus on how to fix the problem.
France will acquire a pair of long-range airlifters on long-term lease in a move that may serve as a template for future transport buys. The French armaments agency (DGA) last week detailed an agreement inked in July with Ingepar, a financing arm of the Groupe Caisse d'Epargne bank, and TAP Air Portugal to lease two A340-200s to replace aging DC-8s owned by the French air force.
Shannon A. Brown has been named senior vice president-human resources of Pittsburgh-based FedEx Ground. He was vice president-human resources services/chief diversity officer for FedEx Express in Memphis.
The French government wants to earmark more than $1 billion for a new aircraft carrier, and appears increasingly convinced that the new vessel can be built in close cooperation with the U.K.
China Central Television (CCTV), the Chinese communist party's media outlet, is selling advertising time specifically tied to the upcoming Shenzhou 6 human spaceflight mission. Indications are the 5-7 day flight with two astronauts will be launched about Oct. 13. CCTV is asking 2.56 million yuan ($316,000) for 5 sec. of time and more than $1 million for 30 sec. That is about half the cost of a similar time block on U.S. television during the Super Bowl. Three two-man crews are finalists for the flight.
As always, I was impressed by the good accident/fatality statistics of U.S. airlines (AW&ST Aug. 22/29, p. 78). Although the minuscule rates are impressive, they are hard to grasp as presented, so I'd like to present them in a different way. Based on the fatal accident figures in your article for 2000-04, if you took a flight a day forever, you could expect to be involved in a crash (with fatalities) every 13,200 years. That includes the four on 9/11. If you exclude those crashes, then the rate jumps to a fatal accident every 20,750 years.
Engine Alliance, a General Electric-Pratt & Whitney partnership, has shipped the first four GP7200 compliance/flight test engines for the A380 to Toulouse (AW&ST Aug. 8, p. 38). Airbus is to begin installing the nacelle and airplane system components on the engines this month. The manufacturer hasn't said when ground and flight tests are to begin, but they are expected in first-quarter 2006. Meanwhile, GP7200 tests continue at Pratt and GE facilities in the U.S. Last week, the test program passed the 5,000-cycle milestone.
Malaysia Airlines has added the Jeppesen Terminal Charts application to the Class 3 Boeing Electronic Flight Bags it has on board two 777-200ERs. MAS was the first Asia-Pacific carrier to use the EFB, which provides the flight-deck crew with a digital library of technical and operational manuals. Another option gives pilots access to Jeppesen's library of more than 40,000 charts for airports worldwide.
At the same time the GPS constellation in space is being upgraded, so is its ground control capability. Six National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) ground stations around the world have just been added to the program to update and control all GPS spacecraft.
The winnowing has begun for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's national qualification events at the California Speedway in Fontana, on the road to the "2nd Darpa Grand Challenge" on Oct. 8. The 20 finalists that emerge from the more than 40 entrants in the qualifier will navigate robotic ground vehicles through 150 mi. of rugged terrain starting and ending in Primm, Nev., after looping through treacherous parts of the Mojave Desert. The exact course won't be revealed until 2 hr.
The aerospace industry is finally beginning to acknowledge that advanced sensors packages for the Pentagon's newest combat aircraft--like the F/A-22 and F-35--are capable of electronic attack with high-power bursts of directed radar energy and, with upgrades, invasion of enemy networks using microwave communications.
Christopher Scolese has been appointed chief engineer for NASA, succeeding Rex Geveden, who is now associate administrator. Scolese has been deputy director of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
French authorities have placed under formal investigation the first of five former Concorde program officials over the 2000 crash of the supersonic transport that killed 113. Former chief flight test engineer Henri Perrier is being investigated because authorities argue that too little was done to fix known Concorde problems.
The Falcon launcher program took a step closer to reality on Sept. 29 when a USAF/Boeing C-17 dropped a dummy air-launched rocket from 6,000 ft. at Edwards AFB, Calif. The design is by AirLaunch and is a leading contender for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Falcon program to build a responsive, inexpensive rocket to place 1,000 lb. in orbit (AW&ST Sept. 5, p. 65). The 65-ft.-long, 87-in.-dia. full-scale mockup is the largest object ever dropped from a C-17, and close to the prior record of 60,000 lb. for the heaviest.
Northern Command is compiling lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and at the top of the list are survivable communications and command and control. Katrina's devastation was "so bad that we couldn't figure out how bad it was," Keating says. "Our ability to get eyes on target is critical." By the time Rita struck, "we had everything from overhead [satellite] systems to people on the ground in Humvees with satellite telephone radio systems ready. . . . We're going to take it on as a significant mission . . .
Although international frustration over the Pentagon's muddled approach to future F-35 buys continues, separate Australian and Turkish firms have received contracts from Northrop Grumman for work on the program.
Eurocontrol is devising a follow-on to its European Strategic Safety Action Plan, says the organization's director-general, Victor M. Aguado. The new agenda will address incident reporting and data-sharing, safety management and culture as well as development of European safety legislation.
EADS is mounting an effort to see if it can parlay military virtual maintenance and procedural training activities into ventures in commercial aerospace. The company, which is building the virtual maintenance system for the Eurofighter Typhoon, has begun making presentations to Airbus to see if its activities can have traction. But the near-term focus, at least for now, remains on winning A400M work. The A400M work will largely be parceled out depending on the multi-national program's intricate workshare requirements.
The Russian air force has unveiled the first in a family of rocket-boosted precision-guided glide bombs. The weapon, designated UPAB-1500, was displayed at the air force's Ahktubinsk test and evaluation center in southern Russia. The basic airframe design is similar to that of the UAB-500, which has, so far, only been shown in model form. The 3,000-lb.-class UPAB-1500 likely uses TV-guidance. The weapon shown at Ahktubinsk is a test round of some form, with possibly a dummy guidance section.
French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie says she wants to forge a European consensus on military space cooperation before undertaking projects beyond those already in the pipeline. Speaking at the presentation of the 2006 military spending bill (see p. 36), Alliot-Marie said she had approached Javier Solana, the European Union high representative for common foreign and security policy, about putting milspace on the agendas of the new European Defense Agency, and including it for discussion at the next NATO summit.
Turkey is being offered full partnership in the Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft program. With a Greek deal to purchase the Typhoon near moribund, Eurofighter is turning its attention to Athens' Aegean neighbor as it seeks export sales. Greece is expected to compete its fighter requirement once again; Typhoon had been provisionally selected. The likely re-bid is partly caused by funding problems with the original procurement.
Although the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency says it doesn't know anything about using big phased array radars to focus energy on ballistic missile warheads to disable them, Adm. Timothy Keating, chief of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, says his planners are interested in the technology. Aerospace researchers say they can focus radar and high-power microwave energy to disable enemy guidance, communications and warhead electronics--including those in reentry vehicles at ranges of 100 km. (62 mi.) or more.
Europe's financial analysts and aviation experts are increasingly puzzled by the U.S. airline industry's dire straits. They don't understand why legacy carriers can't adapt to a new environment, maintain workable yields and restore profitability. Moreover, Europeans are concerned to see icons like Delta Air Lines lengthening the list of airlines operating under Chapter 11 protection.
The Canadian federal government has upheld a regulatory decision approving the grant of licenses for satellite digital audio radio services (DARS) to Sirius Canada and Canadian Satellite Radio, a venture backed by XM Radio. The ruling, issued in June, had been attacked by Canadian media and music interests, which voiced concern about domestic program content. A final green light must await public hearings set to begin later this year.
