EADS can be expected to announce in the next few weeks earnings before interests and taxes for 2002 of about 1.4 billion euros, despite the space division's heavy losses, Philippe Camus, the European group's co-CEO, said late last week. He added that Airbus' military unit is scheduled to secure soon the long-waited A400M airlifter cross-border contract valued at about 18 billion euros.
Maytag Aircraft Corp. has won a six-month $1.8-million contract to provide air terminal and ground handling services at Al Mubarek Air Base in Kuwait City International Airport.
has given approval for national flag carrier Malaysia Airlines to acquire six Airbus 380s, with an option for four more, although the order will not be placed until pricing is fixed. A senior industry official said negotiations are underway with GE Capital Aviation Services to purchase 10 of the 555-seat aircraft and with Atlas Air to purchase five, with options for five, in a freighter version. Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific and Korean Air also have held order talks.
Boeing rolled out the first 737 with a new rudder actuator system designed to reduce the possibility of dual failures that could cause loss of control, and to eliminate the need for special flight manual instructions and piloting skills to handle uncommanded rudder (AW&ST Oct. 14, 2002, p. 42). The 737-800 with the new system made its first flight on Jan. 7. The new system is mandated by an FAA airworthiness directive, and retrofit kits will start shipping this spring. Boeing is shouldering the nearly $1-billion cost to retrofit about 4,200 737s worldwide.
The Independent Pilots Assn. will be urging the 108th Congress and Bush administration to make cargo security a top priority in 2003. The union, which represents 2,500 UPS pilots, points out that the new baggage screening regulations, which became effective Jan. 2, require screening or X-ray of every passenger bag--but excluded cargo, which is vulnerable to terrorists. It cites a recent incident in which a woman jumped a fence protecting the perimeter of the Fargo, N.D., cargo airport and climbed into a UPS aircraft that was ready for departure.
The NTSB quickly set out to determine what caused the Jan. 8 crash of Air Midwest Flight 5481 shortly after takeoff from Charlotte-Douglas (N.C.) International Airport. According to the NTSB, the Beech 1900D, N233YV, powered by twin Pratt & Whitney PT-6A engines, was climbing out from the airport's 10,000-ft. Runway 18R when it suddenly veered left and crashed near a US Airways maintenance hangar at about 8:50 a.m. There were no survivors among the 19 passengers and two crewmembers who were en route to Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C., about 45 min. away.
A 450,000-lb. Boeing 767-400 flown by a suicide pilot wouldn't be able to penetrate containment vessels at nuclear power plants, according to a recent nuclear power industry study.
Commercial off-the-shelf signal processing hardware continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and engineers trying to solve problems like radar and target recognition couldn't be happier. Annapolis Micro Systems recently put forth its Dream Catch- er network of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) boards that can process up to 65.1 gigabytes/sec. of input/output bandwidth. Dream Catcher is built of the company's Wildstar II processing boards that each have up to 3 Xilinx Virtex II 8000-6 FPGAs (AW&ST Feb. 22, 1999, p. 17).
International Space Station Expedition 6 cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin has been disqualified for medical reasons from an extravehicular activity (EVA) planned on the ISS Jan. 15. He will be replaced by astronaut Don Pettit who will perform the EVA with mission commander Ken Bowersox. Privacy rules prevent NASA from discussing the nature of the medical issue, but the agency said Budarin's "on-orbit medical data raised concerns among U.S. flight surgeons responsible for medical certification" for EVAs.
The Transportation Security Administration is scheduling the work of passenger and baggage screeners with airline software--the Sabre Resource Management System. Unisys Corp., the TSA's information technology managed service provider, awarded Sabre the contract expected to be worth $17 million in the first year. The work includes establishing in six major cities training facilities on how to use the system. It includes StaffPlan software to project manning needs and StaffManager to react quickly to operational changes.
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Following a series of top-level meetings at the end of 2002, the Russian government and military are attempting to reinvigorate the near-stalled effort to move to a smaller professional armed forces. First proposed in November 2000, little if any tangible progress has been made in effectively restructuring Russia's military. Under a newly approved plan, 92 high-readiness units of land, airborne and marine units will be fully staffed with professional military by 2007, employing 40,000 officers and 126,000 soldiers.
The FAA has approved 90 pilots to use the Enhanced Vision System installed on the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. G-550 long-range business jet. EVS imagery uses IR technology to overlay the airport scene when it is obscured by darkness or low visibility due to weather. Pilots are receiving the special training in FlightSafety International's Gulfstream V full-flight simulator (FFS) at its Savannah, Ga., Learning Center. An FFS for the G-550 featuring an EVS is scheduled to be available for training in mid-2003.
The AH-1Z Super Cobra for the U.S. Marine Corps has completed envelope expansion after accumulating more than 400 hr. during the first 24 months of the flight test program at NAS Patuxent River, Md. Pilots flew the aircraft to a maximum speed of 220 kt., an altitude of 16,000 ft. and maneuvered to -0.3g to +3.5g, according to the Marine Corps. The fleet of three Super Cobras has begun testing the jettison of external stores from the aircraft's six hard points.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is likely to post an operating loss for the current financial year and may end up in the red next year, too, after the company reported it has been suffering from a slowing demand and travelers' concerns about a possible war in Iraq.
Cessna Aircraft Co. has delivered the 1,000th 208B Grand Caravan to Supap Puranitee, based in Thailand. The airplane will be operated chiefly for personal transportation, according to the company. Since the original Caravan's introduction in 1985, Cessna has delivered more than 1,300 of the single-engine, turboprop-powered utility transports, and the worldwide fleet has accumulated more than 6 million flight hours. The Caravan's dispatch reliability rate has exceeded 99.9%, according to Cessna.
United Airlines late last week awaited a court decision to impose a 13% temporary wage cut on 37,000 workers represented by the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers--the only one of the carrier's unions that did not agree to pay reductions aimed at helping the company meet requirements of Chapter 11 financing. The Air Line Pilots Union agreed to a 29% cut and the Assn. of Flight Attendants, 9%; while the Transport Workers Union (meteorologists) and Professional Airline Flight Control Assn. (dispatchers) each accepted a 13% cut.
The Congressional Budget Office reports that the demand for defense spending could keep growing after 2007 when the defense budget is expected to reach $408 billion annually (in 2002 dollars) versus $359 billion for this year. The $408 billion estimate comes from the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) submitted with the Administration's 2003 budget request.
An agreement in principle to extend the current FAA-National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. contract by two years, through Sep- tember 2005, defuses but doesn't eliminate the hottest of Natca's hot-button issues--privatization. Pay will be frozen except for government-wide cost-of-living increases. And staff levels during the extension period remain to be worked out. The union argues that more controllers are needed, especially to replace an increasing number of retirement-eligible veterans.
The Model 2015 ProBalancer is designed for users (aviation hobbyists, owners, small maintenance shops) that have basic balancing and vibration analysis requirements but don't need to purchase more advanced/expensive analytical equipment. The unit covers basic propeller and rotor balancing and vibration analysis, and offers some advanced capabilities such as spectral analysis. A propeller balance kit that includes Model 2015 plus accessories such as cabling costs less than $4,000. The kit to perform a typical helicopter rotor balance is available for about $7,500.
The German bankruptcy court overseeing Fairchild Dornier has concluded a conditional purchase agreement for the 30-seat 328JET with U.S. investors AvCraft and Dimeling, Schreiber & Park. The deal would include a customer support unit. The pact, however, hinges on clarification of legal and financial aspects but is expected to be finalized soon. The investors are interested in resuming production of the 328JET but would face serious challenges.
