The U.S. may be the engine that drives the world economy, but American airlines certainly are not fueling the current commercial aerospace recovery. Cash-strapped U.S. carriers could account for just 5% of civil jet orders this year, far below their 30-40% share in past recoveries, according to a new report from a team led by Byron Callan, Merrill Lynch's senior aerospace analyst. Underpinning this upswing--and the accompanying rise in the stock prices of aircraft builders and their suppliers--is a boom in orders from Asia.
Growth in passenger load factors and strong unit revenues are bolstering European airlines. But unrelenting fuel-price increases and terrorism concerns could jeopardize the bottom line for the second half of the year.
The Pentagon has "stumbled repeatedly" in supplying equipment needed by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan due to a "large, cumbersome acquisition process where no one is responsible for the totality," says John Hamre, CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a former deputy Defense secretary. "You cannot get complete accountability" because the process is fractured between acquisition, budgeting and operational communities, so responsibility must be given to the service chiefs.
India's travel agent associations say they would be willing to settle for a 5%-plus-service-fee concept in hopes of halting the rapid movement toward zero commissions. Major associations have filed a petition in court against airlines that have reduced commissions to 5% from 9% since Sept. 11, 2001. Airlines, however, say the move to zero commissions is inevitable as they increasingly rely on Internet sales and try to eliminate high distribution costs.
Bell/Agusta Aerospace Co.'s BA609 commercial tiltrotor (see photo), which flew for the first time in full airplane mode last month, reaching a speed of 190 kt., will be flown to a maximum speed of 293 kt. in the next two weeks as the flight test envelope continues to be expanded, says Jack Gallagher, executive director for Bell/Agusta programs. On Aug.
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Robert V. LaPenta retired in April as president and CFO of L-3 Communications Corp., the defense and homeland security company he co-founded with CEO Frank C. Lanza and Lehman Brothers. Two months later, LaPenta announced the formation of L-1 Investment Partners, a private firm focused on the emerging biometrics market (AW&ST June 13, p. 31).
Richard Tranquilli (see photo) has been appointed vice president-organizational development of Cincinnati-based Executive Jet Management. He was a principal in Performance Builders in Cincinnati and had been retail education manager for Fifth Third Bancorp.
James F. Johnson has been appointed chief operating officer of the Boeing Travel Management Co., Tukwila, Wash. Isabelle Donovan has been named vice president-global operations and account management, based in Huntington Beach, Calif. Johnson succeeds Marsha Landgraf-Leeg, who is retiring. Donovan succeeds Dennis Hextell, who has retired.
Angela Boyle, a member of Raytheon's Ames Consolidated Information Technology Services contract team, has received the NASA Public Service Medal at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Boyle supports the NASA Advanced Air Transportation Technologies project office. The project, valued at $400 million, is devoted to improving air traffic management operations in the national airspace system by using expertise at three NASA centers and through collaboration with the FAA.
The competition is taking shape for the U.S. Army's Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) program as Lockheed Martin and MD Helicopters signed a teaming arrangement that pits them against expected proposals from Bell and Eurocopter. The Lockheed Martin-led team will offer MD Helicopters' Explorer, a twin-engine aircraft using the no-tail-rotor anti-torque system, which officials from the companies say is a safety feature. It would also use Pratt & Whitney's 207E engines.
Space Adventures Ltd. wants to send tourists to the far side of the Moon, provided they have $100 million for the fare. Drawing on a study by RSC Energia, the Arlington, Va.-based space tourism company would send a three-seat Soyuz capsule to an in-orbit docking with a Block DM upper stage. That stage would kick the Soyuz into a lunar swing-around trajectory, and the Soyuz would use its own propulsion system for a reentry burn at the end of the nine-day mission.
Austrian aerospace composite specialist Fischer Advanced Composite Components (FACC) expects to double its revenues in the next two years, as the company participates in the ramp-up of key civil aircraft projects and takes advantage of a surge in Boeing winglet production.
Japanese tests of the MTSAT-1R multi-function transport satellite system could interfere with certain Rockwell Collins communications equipment in the region and beyond, according to a safety bulletin issued by the U.S. Airline Pilots Assn. The Japan Civil Aviation Board plans to begin tests on Aug. 26, and interaction between the signal and communications data units could render some radios inoperative. As many as 180 flights daily in the North Atlantic also could be affected by the tests. A software fix is being developed to eliminate potential problems.
BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4 has completed a set of hot-weather trials with the first overseas trip for the developmental aircraft. The MRA4 spent 10 days at Italy's Sigonella, Sicily, air base, with temperatures reaching 104F. BAE Systems adds that two MRA4s have logged more than 100 hr. combined, with the longest mission lasting 4 hr. 35 min. The test aircraft have reached 35,000 ft. altitude. A third MRA4 is to join flight trials soon.
At Bagram AB, Afghanistan, a USAF C-17 rolled off the runway while landing, damaging the nose and right main landing gears. The runway was partially closed for 30 hr. until Army and Air Force engineers could remove the cargo, drain the fuel, lift the aircraft's nose with a crane and place it on a flatbed trailer to substitute for a nosewheel. Two bulldozers pulled the aircraft to the parking ramp.
Flyby imagery from NASA's Cassini Saturn probe shows the moon Mimas to be so heavily battered that its craters even have craters. Imaged at a range of about 42,500 mi. against the backdrop of Saturn's rings, Mimas reveals little or no evidence of internal activity. But the 247-mi.-dia. moon has been repeatedly shocked with violent impacts. Its largest craters appear to be filled with rock shaken loose by subsequent collisions, and that material itself displays newer craters that suggest the original landslides are ancient.
NASA's Centennial Challenges technology-push effort is offering a $250,000 prize for an astronaut glove that is more dexterous, less tiring to use and stronger. At a competition to be held in November 2006, competing glove bladder-restraint elements will be tested for the force required to move the fingers and thumb and in standardized dexterity tests against the clock. One glove from each entry will be pressurized to failure, with points going to the glove that can withstand the greatest internal pressure.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] Aug. 22-25--Third Annual Ankara International Aerospace Conference. Middle East Technical University, Metu Ankara, Turkey. Call +90 (312) 210-4289 or see www.ae.metu.edu.tr/aiac Aug. 22-26--Aerospace Lighting Institute's Aircraft Crew Station/Exterior Lighting Short Course. Airport Marriott Hotel, Los Angeles. Call +1 (727) 791-0790, fax +1 (727) 791-4208 or see www.aligodfrey.com
USAF Col. (ret.) William C. Slattery (Vista, Calif.)
The crew rest problem on long-duration flights is not new and may not be solvable (AW&ST July 11, p. 46). In the 1960s, I was pilot in command of B-52H aircraft flying 22-hr. airborne alert missions in the Strategic Air Command. Our normal crew of six was augmented by one additional pilot. When you could get out of the seat for a break, you tried to sleep on a mattress on the deck. I could never sleep--it was more of a rest period.
European Space Agency engineers are preparing the CryoSat ice measurement satellite for shipment, after completion of environmental and software tests on the spacecraft. The first of the agency's Earth Explorer missions, CryoSat is intended to monitor precise changes in the thickness of floating sea ice and the polar ice sheets in an attempt to determine whether global warming is causing them to shrink. ESA's first mission with the Rockot booster--a modified SS-19 ballistic missile--CryoSat is scheduled to fly from Plesetsk, in northern Russia, on Oct. 7.
Goodrich has lost Rick Schmidt, its chief financial officer, to a new company formed out of the commercial aerostructures business sold off by Boeing. Schmidt, an 11-year veteran at Goodrich, will become CFO of Spirit AeroSystems Inc., the Wichita, Kan.-based operation sold by Boeing this year to Onex Corp., a Canadian private equity company. Goodrich has replaced Schmidt with Scott Kuechle, who has served as the company's comptroller since last year.
