Bombardier's Global Express XRS business jet made its first flight Jan. 16 from Downsview, Ontario. The airplane is a next-generation version of the Global Express and can fly 6,150 naut. mi. at speeds up to Mach 0.85. Certification is scheduled for early this year with deliveries beginning in one year. In other news, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. rolled out the first G150 business jet at Israel Aircraft Industries in Tel Aviv. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2006.
Italy faces a hole in its defense procurement budget for this year of up to 1.3 billion euros ($1.69 billion), as the government scrambles to reduce overall expenditure. There is little sign 2006 will be any better. With Rome intent on freeing funds for tax cuts, government expenditure is under increasing pressure. The defense ministry is hoping the worst cuts can be offset by selling some real estate, but how much it will recoup remains a matter for conjecture.
When Dale Gibby is finished laughing out loud (AW&ST Dec 6, 2004, p.10), he should go back and reread Adam Smith. After a long exposition on the virtues of free markets, the hallowed patron saint of free marketeers explained why the Navigation Act, which protected British merchant ships from foreign competition, was good for Great Britain.
Gail Grimmett has been named managing director and assistant treasurer for business analytics and treasury development at Delta Air Lines. She was managing director of investor relations. Grimmett has been succeeded by Laura Fuselier, who was general manager of performance measurement in flight operations.
Precision Castparts Corp. reported that operating profit more than doubled from a year earlier to $62 million in the quarter ended Jan. 2. Quarterly revenue at the supplier of jet engine components surged 65% to $744 million.
Three months after Congress dropped a requirement for Intelsat to go public, a spacecraft failure is again threatening to hold up a $5-billion deal by Zeus Holdings Ltd. to acquire the global satellite operator. Zeus, a group of four investment funds, was renegotiating the deal's terms after an electrical anomaly triggered the Jan. 14 failure of Intelsat 804, which was launched in 1997 and served customers in the South Pacific. The Lockheed Martin-built satellite wasn't insured, and Intelsat estimates a $73-million impact from the loss.
Rosalind Doyle, CEO of Houston-based information technology company Cimarron, has received the NASA 2004 Woman Owned Business of the Year Award. As a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and the United Space Alliance, Cimarron provides technical support for expeditions to the International Space Station and to the Johnson Space Center Mission Control Center and space shuttle program. Cimarron was cited for "performance, entrepreneurial spirit and unique commitment in providing support" to NASA.
Your ongoing Boeing versus Airbus correspondence calls to mind a situation, possibly still relevant, from the 1960s. One somewhat embittered interpretation was that the U.S. lent money to Europe (at a goodly rate of interest) so they could buy "past-break-even" military aircraft, thus enriching U.S. industry and making Europe the first line of defense for the U.S.
Qantas has bought seven Bombardier Q400 turboprops for its QantasLink regional subsidiary, with options for 10 additional aircraft. The contract, valued at $168 million, calls for first deliveries in early 2006.
Lockheed Martin has completed a series of tests of its tri-mode seeker for the Joint Common Missile during which the sensor tracked a vessel traveling up to 30 kt. at ranges of 1-6 km. The sensor uses imaging infrared, millimeter-wave radar and semi-active laser modes to track a target. Lockheed Martin is eager to tout the success of the December tests at Eglin AFB, Fla., because the Pentagon is threatening to eliminate the program's funding.
Driven by a need to cut costs, Qantas is looking to outsource jobs, products and services abroad. The airline did not outline specifics and would say only that about 7,000 cabin crew and maintenance staff would be hit hardest. CEO Geoff Dixon stressed that the airline had no plans for "wholesale redundancies." In the fiscal year ending June 2004, Qantas posted a record profit of $492 million, second to Singapore Airlines in the region.
NASA managers say no decision has been made on a European offer to provide an Ariane 5 booster to launch the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due to replace Hubble in 2011. U.S. industry reportedly is pressing the agency to employ an American launch vehicle, even though it doesn't have to for international missions such as JWST.
A British Airways 747-400 returned to Heathrow Airport on Jan. 12 after U.S. authorities learned that a person on the no-fly list was on board. BA Flight 175 was 3 hr. into its trip to New York JFK International Airport when it turned around. Deirdre O'Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, says BA had the no-fly list but the person on it was allowed to board for reasons unknown. The matchup was discovered when the passenger manifest was transmitted after wheels-up to the Customs and Border Protection arm of the U.S.
Lloyd R. (Skip) Sorenson has been named executive vice president/chief financial officer of Vought Aircraft Industries of Dallas. He succeeds William McMillan, who has retired. Sorenson was controller of Dell Inc.
Commercial avionics is rapidly becoming a software-dominated business in which major manufacturers are delivering some products composed entirely of software.
The U.S. Air Force is starting to explore options for a very long-range nuclear cruise missile that could replace the stealthy Advanced Cruise Missile or Advanced Land-Attack Cruise Missile. The new weapon is intended to provide the U.S. continued air-launched nuclear cruise missile capability past 2020. At that point, the current inventory will have reached the end of its service life. Moreover, advances in adversary air defenses will necessitate a more capable cruise missile design, say USAF officials.
Now that the last of Italy's Panavia Tornado air defense aircraft are back in Britain, this role is being met solely by Lockheed Martin F-16s. The first of the 24 Tornados leased from the U.K. entered service in 1995, and the Italian air force accumulated 22,500 hr. on the type. During the Kosovo conflict in 1999, Italy flew 233 combat sorties using the type (pictured below).
John Edwards (Forecast International/www.forecastinternational.com)
The U.S. Defense Dept. is the world's single largest buyer of commercial satellite services, and this need is driving a rush of acquisitions among larger industry players.
Thomas Colella has been named Washington-based global leader for the Aerospace and Defense Market for Korn/Ferry International. He is rejoining the firm after being chief of staff to the U.S. defense representative to Pakistan.
The fighter aircraft now used by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) to interdict potentially hostile aircraft might someday be replaced by other kinds of platforms, suggests a top Pentagon official. Paul McHale, assistant secretary for homeland defense, also says there might be better ways to identify aircraft that are being flown with hostile intent, and it may be possible to develop technology to remotely influence the flight path and altitude of commercial airliners that have been taken over by terrorists.
Air Canada continues expansion of its Asia-Pacific services. On July 1, the carrier is to introduce three-times-weekly nonstop Airbus A340-300 (see photo) flights between its main hub at Toronto and Seoul, South Korea. The flight (14 hr. 15 min. west- and 12 hr. 55 min. eastbound) is to save 3 hr. 20 min., compared with daily nonstop flights from the carrier's Asia-Pacific gateway, Vancouver. From the two airports, Air Canada offers up to 12 nonstop round trips daily between Canada and eight Asian points.
Program leaders have cleared the integration of a European-designed fire control system for the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System--an upgrade of the Multiple Launch Rocket System led by Lockheed Martin and scheduled to become available in 2006 (AW&ST Nov. 24, 2003, p. 23). The fire control system, developed by EADS along with the French and Italian units of Thales and Krauss-Maffei of Germany, was successfully demonstrated during tests at Greding, Germany, last autumn.
The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer is in position at Salina, Kan., to start its round-the-world flight as soon as next month, after its first cross-country flight from the Scaled Composites facility in Mojave, Calif., on Jan. 6. Pilot Steve Fossett encountered a thin 1,400-ft. overcast cloud layer at Salina municipal airport, but was able to get through it to make a runway flyby followed by a landing at dusk (see photo). There was snow at the airport and the temperature was 18F. GlobalFlyer has no ice protection except for pitot heat.
James E. Schuster has been elected chairman for 2005 of the Washington-based General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. He is chairman/CEO of Raytheon Aircraft Co. Schuster was vice chairman of GAMA and chairman of its Security Issues Committee. Succeeding Schuster in both positions is Dean M. Flatt, president/CEO of Honeywell Aerospace Electronic Systems. Other committee chairmen are: Safety Affairs Committee, Robert A. Barrett, president of PerkinElmer Fluid Sciences; Technical Policy Committee, Peter G.
