A 30-month program to adapt the Ariane 5 booster for the Automated Transfer Vehicle will be completed by January 2006, says the European Space Agency. The 74-million-euro ($90-million) program, led by French space agency CNES and Ariane 5 prime contractor EADS, primarily involved reinforcing the interstage adapter that will mate the ATV to the launcher so it can support the 20.8-metric-ton vehicle--more than twice the mass of any previous Ariane 5 payload (AW&ST May 17, 2004, p. 35).
The U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee's chairman and senior Democrat are threatening to subpoena Defense Dept. records unless the Pentagon produces more documents supporting its recommendations for military bases to be closed and realigned.
Northrop Grumman has started building its first X-47B, a large version of its X-47A, as its demonstrator for the U.S. Joint Unmanned Combat Air System program. The surveillance/ strike design is to be operated from land bases and aircraft carriers. Initial production of the forward fuselage is underway at partner company GKN Aerospace.
FAA's two-month operational assessment of the New York Tracon (Terminal Radar Approach Control) facility found it more than adequately staffed for safe operations, but that union-controlled scheduling practices were "wasteful"--driving overtime costs to $4 million in 2004 alone. The overtime was more than double that of Chicago, Southern California, Atlanta and Denver Tracons combined. Overtime allowances allowed 21 controllers to earn more than $200,000 in 2004; 51 controllers are forecast to do the same this year.
This year's top performers from the publicly traded airline study were identified, in large part, by results derived from CSFB HOLT's cash flow return on investment computation, a metric that gauges how efficiently a company is employing its assets. Predictably, all five of the winners carried rates that were listed in the top 10 of the 60 airlines surveyed. But were these managers really as good as their cash flow return on investments (CFROIs)?
Canadian aircraft builder Bombar-dier Inc. swung back to a profit during the three months ended Apr. 30, reporting pre-tax earnings of $48 million (C$60 million), or 3 cents a share. That compared with a loss of $136 million a year earlier. Revenues grew 8.7% to $3.8 billion, bolstered by a 71% gain in deliveries of business aircraft.
Orbital Sciences Corp. says it's cooperating with a federal investigation following a search that sent employees of the company's sprawling Chandler, Ariz., facility, home early, and disrupted some offices at its Dulles, Va., headquarters as well. Agents of the Defense Criminal Investigation Service and Air Force Office of Special Investigations executed search warrants at the two locations on behalf of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix.
Delta Air Lines and major lenders General Electric and American Express have reached an accord on relaxing covenants on nearly $1.1 billion in loans that are the mainstay of its current liquidity (see p. 66). The lenders reduced specified levels of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and aircraft leases that Delta must achieve.
Airports Council International Director General Robert J. Aaronson reported during a recent ACI meeting that airports spent a record $30 billion in 2004 to expand capacity. Passenger traffic increased 10% over the past year and is forecast to double by 2020. Aggregate airport profits have dropped over the past three years, but diversification of aeronautical income streams helped airports ride out the downturn that put Air Transport Assn. members a cumulative $4.8 billion into the red.
Cargo conversions for ATR 42 and 72 transports will increase to 65 aircraft from the current 40 by year-end, says John Moore, senior vice president-commercial, for the Alenia Aeronautica-EADS joint venture. He adds that Pratt & Whitney PW 100 turboprop fuel efficiency is an attractive enhancement. FedEx operates 31 ATRs. The Large Cargo Door conversion of the ATR 72 was certified in 2002. The next year, Switzerland's Farnair and Northern Air Cargo of Alaska launched the cargo ATR 42 program. Aeronavali, part of Alenia, is the exclusive outfitter.
The Top-Performing Companies study for 2005 was expanded to include 29 non-publicly traded U.S.-based airlines. The ranking included privately owned or wholly owned affiliates of larger publicly traded U.S. carriers doing business under separate operating certificates. Overall results clearly separated the U.S. airline industry's strong business segment from its weak counterpart. Seven of the 10 freight airlines surveyed this year were ranked in the top 10. Only six passenger airlines (out of 19) ranked higher than the median score for the entire group.
Your magazine once published a quote from a Boeing X-32 test pilot to the effect that "to save weight, I'd take off my underwear." The successor F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program has been embarked in an exercise to reduce aircraft weight. The process, however, is somewhat akin to urgent balloonists tossing everything not bolted down (and some items that are) over the side to lighten the load.
The Tupolev Tu-204-300 passenger twinjet has obtained a Russian airworthiness certificate. The aircraft accommodates 142 passengers in two-class configuration and has a maximum range of up to 9,200 km. (4,970 naut. mi.). The launch customer is Vladivostok Avia, which has leased four aircraft, with six more on option, from Ilyushin Finance. The first unit, built by Aviastar-SP in Ulyanovsk, was delivered on May 20. A second is to be handed over in June and two more by the end of the year.
Business aviation operators are bullish about the possibilities offered by the growing crop of very light jets, but attach a range of caveats to development of this new segment.
Entrenched rules governing transatlantic airline operations could be shaken up if a European investor took a significant stake in a struggling U.S. carrier, argue industry executives at the recent Phoenix aviation symposium. At issue are both the regulations limiting foreign ownership of U.S. airlines and liberalization of transatlantic service.
I read with interest USAF Lt. Col. (ret.) Robert Brun's letter, which states that when he flew, he would always find "three-engine transport operations" (on four-engine transports) in the emergency section of the aircraft manual (AW&ST May 2, p. 8).
Federal, state and local officials working at or near Boston's Logan International Airport are readying plans to deal with a mock transoceanic jet hijacking this week. The drill calls for a United Airlines flight from Paris to Chicago to be diverted by military jets to Logan, where authorities will have to handle mock hijackers and their "hostages," a simulated release of a possibly dangerous chemical and a large number of mock casualties, says security consultant Peter LaPorte, who helped design the scenario.
Technicians at Kennedy Space Center will spend the next week shifting the space shuttle Discovery to a new external tank/solid rocket booster stack, but shuttle managers still hope for a launch to the International Space Station in July.
Rich Dinkel has been appointed Houston-based vice president-strategic business development of the ARES Corp. He was director of Boeing's Strategic Planning and Business Development (NASA) Div.
USAF Col. John I. Pray, Jr., commander of the 436th Airlift Wing of Air Mobility Command (AMC), Dover AFB, Del., is among the colonels nominated for promotion to brigadier general. Others are: David E. Price, comptroller at AMC Headquarters, Scott AFB, Ill.; Philip M. Ruhlman, commander of the Air Combat Command's (ACC) 20th Fighter Wing, Shaw AFB, S.C.; David J. Scott, vice director of operations at Headquarters North American Aerospace Defense Command, Peterson AFB, Colo.; Dana A.
Launch of a freighter version of the 777 means Boeing will enter the Paris air show in two weeks having filled out the family, which has now accumulated 681 firm orders from 38 customers. As expected, Air France-KLM's May 19 order for five 777 freighters (with three options) was enough to launch the freighter program. Air Canada previously said it will include two freighters in its order of 18 777-300ER/200LRs (AW&ST May 2, p. 36).
The Russian government, Moscow council and private sector are jostling for market share as development and planning at the city's three passenger airports continue apace. Substantial expansion at the privately operated Domodedovo Airport is due to be completed by year-end; rival, state-supported airport Sheremetyevo's long delayed Terminal 3 project may finally be progressing; and city-backed Vnukovo intends to have planning for further terminal expansion finalized by August.
Two Republican congressmen from north Texas, Sam Johnson and Jeb Hensarling, introduced legislation May 25 to repeal the Wright Amendment, the 1979 measure that limits mainline commercial service from Dallas Love Field to seven nearby states. Continuing its campaign to dump the restrictions (AW&ST May 16, p. 19), Southwest Airlines made its executive chairman and former CEO, Herb Kelleher, available to media the following day.
