AGE 60 STILL RULES The FAA has dismissed another challenge to its 43-year-old mandate requiring captains to give up the left seat when they reach their 60th birthday. In defense of its decision, the agency rejected claims it has heard before, namely that the rule has always been about economic benefit to the airlines, not safety; that pilot incapacitation is predictable and can be dealt with if it occurs. But the latest challenge included a new twist--10 petitioning pilots asked for exemptions to the rule instead of permanent changes.
THALES AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT WILL BE PROVIDING two ILS 420 Instrument Landing Systems for Linz Airport, Austria, a Category 3 on Runway 27 and a Cat. 1 on Runway 09. Each ILS will have a DME 415 Distance Measuring Equipment co-located. Vienna-Schwechat International Airport is also buying a Cat. 3 ILS for Runway 29. All installations are slated for this year. Thales will also upgrade its Eurocat ATM system which provides en route control of Slovakian airspace as well as approach and tower control for the Bratislava airport.
Nobuteru Ishihara has been named minister of land, infrastructure and transport in the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He succeeds Chikage Ohgi. Ishihara was deputy minister of administrative reform. Toshimitsu Motegi, who was deputy minister of foreign affairs, has been named minister of science and technology. Shoichi Nakagawa, who has been minister of agriculture and fishery, will be minister of economy, trade and industry. Shigeru Ishiba remains as defense minister.
PAYING PAYLOAD WANTED Arianespace is still pursuing a commercial customer for the first qualification launch of its modified Ariane 5 EC-A heavy-lift booster, set for the first half of next year, according to CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall. "We have several candidates," Le Gall said, gainsaying comments in June by European Space Agency launcher chief Antonio Fabrizi that there would be no commercial payload on that flight.
Regarding "Extra Shuttle Flight" (AW&ST Sept. 22, p. 25), the answers to the ISS/shuttle situation are staring us in the face: Buran, Soyuz, Hermes and, yes, Shenzhou. NASA must solicit international cooperation on a scale never before seen. Russia, Europe and even China can now provide the technical assistance and support to put manned spaceflight back on track. A combination of tried-and-true and state-of-the-art design philosophies and technologies makes sense. NASA should not be so arrogant as to want to go it alone.
Pratt & Whitney has begun trials of the first production configuration F135 engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The engine, designated FX631, has already been taken to flight idle and will gradually step-up in thrust to full intermediate power--full engine power without afterburner. The tests are being run at Pratt's West Palm Beach, Fla., facility.
China's first manned space flight, carrying astronaut Chinese air force Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, climbs away from new pad facilities at the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi Desert. The 192-ft. Long March 2F lifted off on 1.3 million lb. of thrust from its four liquid strap-on boosters and four first-stage engines. Total liftoff mass, including the 17,000-lb. Shenzhou 5 spacecraft, was about 1 million lb. See p. 22. AP/Wide World photo.
DaimlerChrysler was expected to downselect two bidders for its MTU aero engine business late last week (AW&ST Sept. 1, p. 40). The Financial Times said bid teams led by the U.K.'s Doughty Hanson and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and JF Lehman of the U.S. would make the cut, leaving other candidates, including Carlyle--which acquired Fiat's aero engine unit earlier this year--high and dry. DaimlerChrysler wants to choose a preferred bidder by November and to sign a final agreement by year-end.
Chinese military space research and development hardware has been flown on previous unmanned Shenzhou test flights, and the Chinese can be expected to assess the military value of humans in orbit as they continue the program, U.S. defense sources said.
THE USE OF INEXPENSIVE ORGANIC MATERIALS to make transistors and circuits has found niche applications in large-area electronics and on flexible substrates that do not require high performance. Recent improvements in performance and applications will be presented at the IEDM meeting. A University of California-Berkeley team working on electronic cloth has fabricated pentacene transistors directly onto the fibers, using a non-lithographic process that is compatible with textile manufacturing, they say.
Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines on Oct. 16 signed the "final transaction agreement" to implement a proposed share exchange. It should lead, in the second quarter of 2006, to the creation of Air France-KLM, a holding company set to control the two airlines and unify their strategies.
The highly charged issue of work-share is reemerging as Eurofighter partner nations play brinksmanship as they struggle to conclude tricky Tranche 2 negotiations. Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain are locked in contract negotiations for the second production run of the Typhoon aircraft. Along with industrial issues, the four partner-nations are trying to thrash out the technical baseline for the Tranche 2 standard which will have a significantly improved air-to-surface capability.
ACJ TRAINING STATESIDE Simulator manufacturer CAE and Airbus have formed an agreement leading to Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ) courses being available in North America for the first time. The two companies also will offer ACJ customers enhanced training in recognition of the special needs of business jet operators. The enhanced courses are set to begin in January.
Thwarting attacks by guerrillas using home-made bombs on U.S. troops in Iraq, and developing faster missiles are quickly emerging as investment priorities for the Pentagon.
David Bond and Frances Fiorino (Washington), Edward H. Phillips (Dallas)
Delta Air Lines, mindful of the critical need to protect its balance sheet, plans to sell and defer a total of 19 Boeing 737-800 aircraft that were scheduled for delivery in 2005. The announcement last week coincided with the carrier's release of its third-quarter financial performance. It reported both operating and net losses for the three-month period ended Sept. 30, although they were much improved from the same period a year ago. However, the airline continues to be stymied in trying to cut pilot costs.
The planned cessation of all Concorde flights this week really brings the end to an era. The retirement of the first and only supersonic commercial transport is not a step back for future fast air travel; it instead reveals our failure to take a step forward. While there may be plans sitting in some aircraft manufacturer's dusty bins or computers for the next-generation SST, there does not appear to be any immediacy to introducing a new transport of this category.
OPTICIAN WANTED The House Science Committee, NASA's principal overseer on Capitol Hill, has taken its response to the Columbia accident a step beyond return to flight, and committee members from both parties have asked the White House and congressional appropriations panels to do the same. At a wide-ranging hearing on the future of human spaceflight last week, the committee heard a range of recommendations from a blue-ribbon group of witnesses for getting humans out of low-Earth orbit.
INDIA AND IAI AWACS India will become an export customer for Israel Aircraft Industries Phalcon airborne early warning and control system aircraft under a $1-billion deal that will see the dome-mounted units placed on a Beriev A-50 airframe. India's air force is to take delivery of the first of three aircraft in 2006. A memorandum of understanding for the deal was signed during Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent visit to India by Indian Defense Secretary Ajay Prasad Sibat, Israeli Ministry of Defense Director Maj. Gen.
For the first time, a Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft has landed in Germany where it will hold a surveillance flight demonstration program for the German defense ministry. The RQ-4A, carrying an EADS-developed electronic intelligence sensor payload, touched down at the German navy's Nordholz AB at 4:05 a.m. after a 20-hr. 53-min. flight from Edwards AFB, Calif. A total of five flights are scheduled for Oct. 29, Oct. 31 and Nov. 4. If successful, the Germans may develop and produce a sensor platform called Euro Hawk based on the larger RQ-4B aircraft.
Reynald Seznec (see photo) has become senior vice president of France-based Thales Air Traffic Management. He was senior executive vice president of Thales' Air Defense Business Group. Michel Mathieu has been named senior vice president-Air Defense Business Group of Thales. He was managing director of Airsys ATM.
Concepts being designed here for futuristic unmanned aircraft missions reach far beyond the standard intelligence-gathering mission to very long-range strike, vertical operations and ultra-long-endurance surveillance.
Michael Mecham (San Francisco ), Michael A. Dornheim (Los Angeles)
Boeing made a lengthy 5.8-hr. single-engine flight of its new 777-300ER transport last week, as the aircraft entered its final two months of flight and ground tests before receving airframe certification. The company reports the ultra long-haul aircraft is bettering fuel burn and takeoff field length performance predictions and is on schedule for its first delivery next April.
TIGERS IN SPAIN Barely weeks after being selected for the Spanish multirole helicopter award, Eurocopter was back in Spain last week with a pair of Tigers for a live demonstration of its capabilities. The EADS subsidiary also garnered a follow-on award for four AS355 N Ecureuils and two EC120Bs from the Spanish interior ministry, further establishing its Iberian foothold. The aircraft, worth 12 million euros ($14 million), will be used for traffic surveillance and flow control. In addition, the company sold eight EC135s to the Czech police.
