High jet-fuel prices are driving home the need for Russian airlines to acquire modern, fuel-efficient airplanes. And that means buying Western aircraft, even in the face of continued financial disincentives the Russian government has instituted to protect domestic manufacturers.
BAA USA Inc. has doubled the amount of retail space it is managing at U.S. airports with a new 10-year agreement with the Massachusetts State Port Authority that calls for investing $12 million to develop 32,600 sq. ft. of retail space at Boston's Logan International Airport. This long-term agreement adds 15,000 sq. ft. of new retail space with BAA investing $4.8 million in the upgrade. BAA was also selected last year to manage 84,000 sq. ft. of retail space at Baltimore Washington International. This is 60,000 sq. ft. more retail area than previously existed at BWI.
Raytheon is suing its partner, Lockheed Martin, on a lucrative U.S. Air Force ground-station contract after the latter announced its departure from the team to join forces with rival Northrop Grumman for the next increment of work.
AirTran Airways plans to install XM Satellite Radio service in all 83 of its Boeing 717 jets by the end of the year. The service is already available on 37 of the airplanes, and AirTran provides XM service on one of 13 Boeing 737s.
Thales will begin full-scale development of an unmanned aerial vehicle system intended for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, under a 700-million-pound ($1.2-billion) contract signed on Aug. 4.
The Aviation Week Group is proud to announce the launch of a new publication: Aviation Week Contrails, a bimonthly electronic magazine or "e-zine." Both an extension of and editorial departure from Aviation Week & Space Technology, the new magazine is an outgrowth of the extremely popular Contrails feature that appears monthly in AW&ST. The first three issues of AW Contrails are free, and Issue No. 1 is available for viewing and downloading at www.contrailsmagazine.com.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] Aug. 15-18--Eighth Annual Space and Missile Defense Conference. Von Braun Center, Huntsville, Ala. See www.smdconf.org
The Aerospace Industries Assn. is expressing frustration with some Bush administration defense policies--or lack thereof. "What is the administration's plan to support a long-term strategy in the war on terror?" CEO John Douglass wonders aloud. He says the industry has little to no insight into Pentagon officials' assumptions regarding the industrial base as they conduct the Quadrennial Defense Review.
Ryanair posted a 31% increase in net profit for the first quarter. The airline earned 69.9 million euros ($83 million) compared with the same period last year. Revenues increased by 35% to 405 million euros. The Ireland-based low-cost carrier maintained projections that it would earn 295 million euros this year despite rising fuel costs and the recent terrorist attacks in London.
F-16 are usually thought of in terms of Block 40 aircraft specialized for ground attack and Block 50s for suppression of enemy air defenses as Wild Weasels. Now U.S. Air Force engineers and pilots are testing an avionics package--M4.2+ core avionics suite upgrade--that combines the two missions with an air superiority capability. The 85th Test and Evaluation Sqdn. from Eglin AFB, Fla., and the 416th Flight Test Sqdn. from Edwards AFB, Calif., are working together on the program. The final system is to be operational in about two years.
NASA's Messenger Mercury probe completed the first of six planned planetary gravity assists 1,458 mi. over central Mongolia early on Aug. 2, almost exactly a year after it was launched, swinging that close to Earth for a slingshot pull from Earth's gravity that will take it 18 million mi. closer to the Sun. The "flawless" maneuver set up a Venus gravity assist in October 2006 as the spacecraft heads for orbit around Mercury in March 2011.
A National Research Council panel has compiled a single-spaced list almost five pages long of Earth and space science missions that are funded or candidates to be funded, underscoring the task NASA managers face as they try to squeeze together a Fiscal 2007 budget plan that finances President Bush's ambitious exploration program.
Capt. Brian Wilson, Instructor Pilot (Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Atlanta, Ga.)
As a 10-year instructor pilot with a regional airline that has an ab-initio program similar to the one that Clark Fraser demeans, I can say with authority that the graduates of our program are some of the most qualified First Officers we get. They are minutely screened, intensely trained and closely monitored in one of the highest quality, standardized and demanding programs in existence.
An order confirmation by Chile's LAN Airlines for a combination of six Boeing 767-300 freighters and -300ER passenger transports adds to a growing backlog that is prompting Boeing to keep its production line open long after it assumed the line would close. The company previously listed the order as coming from an unidentified customer. The purchase boosts LAN's backlog to 12 airplanes with a list price value of $1.73 billion. First delivery, a freighter for LAN's Absa Cargo affiliate, occurred late last month.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force is making a bid to capture interest among both women and the country's youth by selecting 35 women directly out of high school to be astronaut candidates. The 35 women, as young as 17, are accomplished high-school graduates who will attend the Aviation University of the PLA. They will receive university degrees, and they also will be trained specifically for careers as pilot and engineer astronauts. The first mission for members of the class is planned by 2010.
THE EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT ASSN.'S AIRVENTURE 2005 convention and sport airplane exhibition held late last month at Oshkosh, Wis., was attended by about 700,000 people (a 7% increase from 2004), including 1,813 visitors from 65 nations. EAA officials say there were more than 10,000 aircraft at Wittman Regional Airport and surrounding airfields, including a record 1,267 homebuilt aircraft, 924 vintage airplanes, 386 warbirds, 196 ultralights, 130 seaplanes and 24 rotorcraft. In addition, 789 exhibitors attended, as well as 904 representatives of the global media.
BAE Systems is examining the potential of shielding a fighter aircraft's radar antenna and ancillary systems to reduce the platform's radar cross section. A significant reduction in RCS can be achieved by cutting the reflectivity of the radar antenna and ancillary systems, while the sensor is itself not emitting or being used in the passive mode.
THE THEME FOR THIS YEAR'S business aviation Safety Stand Down, scheduled for Oct. 25-27 in Wichita, Kan., is "War on Error." The event, sponsored by Bombardier Learjet, is aimed at improving corporate aviation safety and will include recurrent training for international flight operations, medical training, handling emergencies, fatigue countermeasures, high-altitude physiology, aerodynamics, performance and safety. For further information, e-mail: [email protected].
Bell Helicopter beat out a Boeing-MD Helicopter team for the U.S. Army's Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) contract worth up to $2.2 billion. The Army is planning to buy 368 of the militarized 407s from Bell for use as a forward, armed scout aircraft and light attack bird. The aircraft will replace the Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters.
Alenia Aeronautica will build fuselage parts for Boeing's new 787 under an initial 900-million-euro ($1.1-billion) contract signed last week, which covers an initial batch of 150 center fuselage sections. Alenia is a risk-sharing partner in the program, in which it plans to invest 500 million euros over the next three years. To this end, the company is establishing a dedicated production plan at Grottaglie, Italy, to produce large fuselage sections, and a plant in Foggia is being overhauled for production of the 787 horizontal stabilizer.
Flight controllers on the STS-114 shuttle mission to the International Space Station see some valuable lessons for future exploration missions. After more than a week overseeing the sort of delicate extravehicular activity (EVA) choreography that is needed to assemble and maintain the ISS, the Apollo way of doing things looks pretty attractive to them. "Building a space station or a spaceship Tinker Toy style . . . ain't the way to do it," says STS-114 Lead Flight Director Paul Hill.
Glenn Rogers (see photo) has become group lean director for Parker Aerospace, Irvine, Calif. He was a lean consultant and manufacturing engineering executive for McDonnell Douglas and Garrett Airesearch.
Lockheed Martin snagged a $55.4-million contract increase to buy 800 electronic warfare components, described as "other useful loads" for F/A-22 Lot 4 aircraft. The work will be done by BAE Systems' Nashua, N.H., site.
Clark Fraser says that a new pilot with about 340 hr. should not become First Officer of an RJ (AW&ST July 18, p. 6). He obviously isn't familiar with the concept of ab-initio training. When I started flying 30 years ago, I accumulated 340 hr. on Beech 33, Beech 55 and Beech 90 at Lufthansa Flight School before I started my ground course and simulator training for the Boeing 737. I can't recall how many sim hours I had, maybe 60. After that, I had 8 hr. of flight training with 45 landings before I started flying line flights under supervision for about 130 hr.
The air transport sector in Russia has experienced astounding growth rates, giving a boost to a handful of the country's huge number of carriers. Those are seen as attractive prospects to Western aircraft makers. But European carriers want a share of the business, and the European Union is aiming for easier access to the Russian market. Strong traffic is projected well into the next decade, but a slowdown this year shows Russia's airlines can't be complacent.
