AirTran Airways, Spirit Airlines and ATA Airlines are seeking FAA authority to operate a few more flights at New York LaGuardia Airport. Their big competitors don't like it.
The war in Iraq will likely cause the Pentagon to miss its aggressive foreign military sales goal for this fiscal year, but Defense Dept. officials are already looking to next year and key competitions to again top $13 billion in deals.
Michael O'Leary, low-cost carrier Ryanair's chief executive, took the opportunity of last week's annual general meeting to try to dispel concerns over the potential for damage resulting from the EU commission's pending investigation that the airline's agreement with Charleroi airport in Belgium represented an unfair government subsidy.
Sikorsky Aircraft's S-92 hovers near Le Bourget Airport during the Paris air show in June. The helicopter is powered by two General Electric CT7-8C turboshaft engines and is expected to enter service in early 2004. The VH-92 version is a candidate for presidential use later this decade (see p. 44). Sikorsky Aircraft photo.
SETTLING UP Orbital Imaging Corp. has settled a dispute with Canada's MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates Ltd. (MDA) over marketing rights for data from Canada's delayed Radarsat-2 satellite, clearing the way for the U.S. company to reorganize and emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Basically, Orbimage sold its limited marketing rights to MDA for $12 million, which it will use to market its new OrbView-3 satellite data. The deal will give Orbimage $10 million immediately, with MDA paying the balance over the next two years.
Chinese government officials and news outlets are continuing to highlight the approaching first manned space flight by a Chinese astronaut on board the new Shenzhou spacecraft. Xu Guanhua, China's science and technology minister, said last week that preparations for the historic flight were "going smoothly" although he declined to discuss the launch date. A launch in October is likely, but the Chinese have said preflight preparations could extend to December.
MIX AND MATCH Lockheed Martin is looking at some mix-and-match options for its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter customers. One idea for those in the Pacific and Asian region where long, over water flights are standard is to take the big wing from the U.S. Navy version of the aircraft and graft it onto the lighter USAF design. By also adding fuel in one weapons bay and the lift-fan space behind the cockpit, range would grow significantly.
Eiichiro Sekigawa (Tokyo), Michael Mecham (San Francisco)
In addition to a higher capacity version of the H-IIA, Japan's aeronautical establishment is intent on drawing from that exercise to develop an entirely new heavy-lift launch vehicle in the next decade. As yet unnamed, this "new generation" launch vehicle (NGLV) is expected to emerge 10% lighter than the 285-metric-ton H-IIA and, at 55 meters (180 ft.), 2 meters longer. Like the H-IIA, it is to have two cryogenic stages with multiple mix capabilities for strap-on boosters. But the NGLV is to have 10-20% greater lift capacity than its predecessor.
David Fuller's comments on NASA/U.S. Navy ignoring the human element, especially in crew resource management (CRM) concepts, in their recent safety initiatives were ironic (AW&ST Aug. 11, p. 10). I relied upon the NASA research data in drafting the first NTSB CRM recommendation (after the 1978 United Airlines DC-8 fuel-exhaustion crash).
REPLACING TOMAHAWKS Britain's anticipated purchase of Raytheon's Tactical Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles has progressed another step. The Pentagon recently filed the requisite congressional notification to sell 105 of the missiles to the U.K. If all options are exercised, the deal could reach $143 million. The missiles are to replenish Tomahawks the U.K. fired during the war in Iraq.
A DC-9 captain trainee attempting to check out on the "glass cockpit" of an A-320: "Now I know what a dog feels like watching TV." Never trade luck for skill. In aviation, gravity is a law not subject to repeal. Airspeed, altitude or brains: two are always needed to successfully complete the flight. Will Rogers never met a fighter pilot. A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication. We have a perfect record in aviation: we never left one up there!
The U.S. House has approved $368 billion in Fiscal 2004 defense appropriations by a 407-15 vote--the $87 billion war-cost supplemental is not included. The Senate then approved the measure 95-0. The conference report made several changes to earlier committee recommendations. Among them was a move to restore much of the cut to the Jassm cruise missile, allowing the Air Force to buy 200 missiles (with $85 million), the minimum number allowed without breaking the contract with Lockheed Martin.
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Lorrie Murray, director of business management for advanced capabilities development within the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector, has been selected for the Alumni Wall of Fame at Loyola Marymount University's College of Science and Engineering in Los Angeles. Murray was chosen for helping the school promote its mission through her involvement with the Dean's Council and for assisting in the recruitment of Loyola engineering, mathematics and business administration graduates to work at Northrop Grumman.
Lord Robertson has been appointed a non-executive director of the London-based Smiths Group, effective Feb. 15. He is scheduled to retire at year-end as secretary-general of NATO and was U.K. secretary of state for defense.
The U.S. Marine Corps rushed a new infantry radio headset to the war in Iraq with good results, even though there was initial resistance to the idea in the field.
AgustaWestland and Kawasaki Heavy Industries have signed off on the license and purchase agreement covering the Japan Defense Agency's acquisition of 14 EH-101 medium-lift helicopters. The Anglo-Italian helicopter company also recently concluded a long-running deal for the sale of the Super Lynx 300 to South Africa. South Africa has ordered four, with a possible option for a further two.
U.S. NAVIGATOR In the 16th and 17th centuries, Dutch navigators plying the world's oceans laid the basis for modern navigation. Now the Dutch have turned to a U.S. company, Northrop Grumman, to provide key navigation equipment for the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory. The large infrared telescope is scheduled to be launched in 2007 on an Ariane 5. Northrop Grumman will provide Dutch Space (formerly Fokker Space) with a specialized "scalable space inertial reference unit" (SIRU) for the observatory.
The U.K. Royal Air Force wants to make its ground-attack Tornados more survivable in a high-threat environment, but the Pentagon has been slow to address technology release issues concerning two participating U.S.-based supplier candidates.
Like many large defense contractors, Lockheed Martin is reorganizing part of its business to address the Pentagon's network-centric warfare requirements.
The ideas behind network-centric operations continue to percolate at the Pentagon, think tanks and universities. In this report, Aviation Week & Space Technology Senior Editor David Hughes talked to some of the leaders involved in the net-centric effort, and a few skeptics who see flaws in this new approach to warfare. In addition, the report spotlights a few examples of net-centric systems and how one aerospace company has organized itself to support this new direction in the market.
Aeris, a Toulouse-based airline operating charter flights and domestic low-fare routes last week filed for Chapter 11-like protection from creditors. It is expected to submit a recovery plan by the end of October.
