ANNUAL UTILIZATION OF BUSINESS JETS by members of the National Business Aviation Assn. (NBAA) in 1999 averaged 456 hr., with piston-powered aircraft utilization averaging 257 hr. and turboprop aircraft at 407 hr. Helicopters, which account for 7% of the NBAA fleet, flew 322 hr. that year--the latest for which information is available. Fortune 500 companies operated 1,372 aircraft including large-cabin jets (33.2%), midsize-cabin jets (44.1%) and entry-level jets (0.4%), according to AvData. Turboprop-powered aircraft accounted for about 8% of the Fortune 500 fleet.
Israel Aircraft Industries plans to expand its business aviation enterprise despite the sale earlier this month of its Galaxy Aerospace Corp. subsidiary to General Dynamics. The super midsize-cabin Galaxy, along with the midsize Astra SPX jet, is assembled at IAI's facilities in Tel Aviv and ferried to Galaxy headquarters at Alliance Airport north of Fort Worth, for completions and customer deliveries. Plans call for that procedure to continue under General Dynamics' ownership.
NASA is completing the first phase of its massive Earth Observing System--a $7-billion effort that has built 22 spacecraft to monitor the interaction between humankind and the Earth's climate--and is moving into a second generation of platforms that will see many EOS data streams converted to operational weather satellites.
Aviation regulators have ginned up a plan to help airports build more runways faster--widely regarded as the linchpin for easing aviation gridlock. FAA Administrator Jane F.
USAF Lt. Col. Bob Catlin has become director of contract policy at the National Reconnaissance Office in Washington. He has been commander of Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, Calif. Succeeding Catlin will be Lt. Col. Celeo Wright, an instructor in the Contract Management Dept. at the School of Systems and Logistics of the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Aeroflot Russian Airlines, which has recently seen changes in its shareholder structure, saw significant improvement in its financial performance last year.
Retired Rockwell International Chairman Donald R. Beall has been appointed ``non-executive'' chairman of Rockwell Collins Inc., which is being spun off from its parent company. When the planned spinoff was announced last December (AW&ST Dec. 18/25, 2000), Clayton M. Jones, president of Rockwell Collins, indicated he would become chairman and CEO upon the spinoff's completion. Now he's being identified as president and CEO-designate.
Mark Champion has become manager of group public affairs for Air New Zealand. He was manager of corporate communications for Vodafone New Zealand. Champion succeeds Alastair Carthew, who is now director of corporate communications for Asia for Star Alliance.
Thales is proceeding with a technology demonstration program for its pod-mounted synthetic aperture radar/moving target indicator (SAR/MTI) under contract to the U.K. Ministry of Defense. The demonstration would center on high-resolution imaging by the radar, installed in a reconfigurable pod on Tornado jets, and for gathering high-bandwidth MTI and SAR data from a maneuvering platform. Flight testing of the radar is to begin in 2003.
Operating with limited funding, Australia's military research organization has opted to concentrate on a few areas of expertise, rather than pursuing projects across a broad technology spectrum. The Defense Science and Technology Organization has an annual budget of about $110 million. While that level may increase in the near future as a result of last year's defense white paper, it is not expected to drastically shift the scope of work DSTO undertakes.
Global commercial launch companies face a deepening financial crisis, the collapse of weaker projects and growing pressure for more consolidation, as the market for heavy commercial payloads continues to stagnate. Projections show a sustained market for the launch of at least 30 commercial geosynchronous satellite missions per year. But it also shows little growth to support multiplying launcher developments and dwindling insurance reserves.
Predicting fuel prices is like predicting the weather, says Paul H. Stebbins--the most anyone can say with absolute certainty is that, over time, prices will go up and prices will go down. Stebbins, the president of World Fuel Services Corp., says many airlines, nevertheless, try to outfox the market for fuel. Only a handful of very large airlines have been successful in using their huge purchases to manage fuel costs with their own trading departments, though.
The Association of Profesional Flight Attendants' board of directors and senior officials plan to meet this week to decide whether to accept a proffer of arbitration from the National Mediation Board and continue negotiations with American Airlines. An APFA official said the union may reject the proffer, ending last-ditch efforts to hammer out a new labor contract and avert a strike that could begin next month against the nation's largest airline.
Fresh on the heels of major takeovers in the U.K. and France, German tour/charter operator Preussag has concluded a deal that will give it a top position in the Italian leisure travel market.
NASA astronaut Patricia Hillard Robertson, 38, was hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns last week after the Wittman Tailwind home-built aircraft she was in crashed during takeoff at an airfield in Manvel, Tex. Robertson, a physician, is a crew support astronaut for the ISS Expedition 2 crew now on the station.
Swissair affiliates Air Liberte and AOM are embarking on a far-reaching rescue plan in a last-ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy. Air Liberte (the combined carriers' surviving name) plans to slash 1,328 jobs, including 260 pilot and 360 flight attendant positions, and reduce its fleet to a meager 27 aircraft, down from 50. A plan to replace MD-83s and DC-10-30s by an all-Airbus fleet has been abandoned.
The Thiokol division of Alliant Techsystems Inc. and Marshall Space Flight Center were poised late last week for a shuttle solid rocket motor test in Utah to qualify a new insulation design on the booster's nozzle. The firing was set for May 24. There are four major certification objectives on the Flight Support Motor-9 test. One of the more important is a change in the insulation design in the nozzle-to-case J-leg. Previous designs used polysulfide, a putty-like material applied to the joint during assembly.
Broadband satellite service, long heralded as the next big thing for the commercial communications satellite industry, is finally moving into the starting position despite unexpected financial and technical hurdles.
Former German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher has been named as arbitrator in the ongoing pay dispute between Lufthansa and its pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC). Both sides agreed negotiations had failed after a seventh round of inconclusive talks last week. VC has lowered its initial demands from a more than 30% increase to 24% for this year, plus bonuses based on the carrier's financial performance (AW&ST May 21, p. 60). Lufthansa is offering 10.6% plus bonuses. VC said it will not strike during arbitration, which can last several weeks.
Congress is weighing further defense acquisition reform and industry is enthusiastic, saying the paramount need is higher federal investment in the education and training of the government's acquisition workforce.
BE Aerospace this month was granted a STC Supplemental Type Certificate from the FAA for its Boeing 777-200 overhead crew rest compartment. The company, a leading manufacturer of aircraft interiors, says the compartment offers a few advantages: it weighs less than two-thirds as much as crew rest quarters installed in lower cargo areas and provides all aircraft crew access to fire-fighting equipment and exits in the event of an emergency. BE Aerospace says El Al Israel Airlines and Varig have selected the overhead compartment for their -200s.
Airlines and pilot unions held dueling conferences here last week to air issues on how much time transport pilots can spend on the job before getting some sleep. The events--a union-supported Pilot Fatigue conference and the Air Transport Assn.'s Alertness Management in Flight Operations symposium--were mutually exclusive, however, with pilot unions boycotting the ATA event, and ATA members unable to attend the unions' closed meeting.
The launch of the shuttle Atlantis carrying the International Space Station's large Boeing airlock module has been delayed at least a week to June 20 to enable extra drying of the vehicle's reentry tiles soaked by a rainstorm. Canadian station arm software problems also continue to be assessed. In other ISS news, the Russian Progress M1-6 tanker/transport docked with the ISS' aft port May 22, following launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on May 20.
Those FAA workers won't be making extra money, though. The extra 8% pay raise for headquarters workers that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees negotiated with FAA management in February crashed and burned. (Unlike most agencies, the FAA doesn't have to go by the standard federal pay scale.) But the White House Office of Management and Budget gave the deal a thumbs-down, fearing it would have other bureaucrats griping.
International air service led traffic growth in 2000, with revenue passenger miles (RPMs) increasing 7.2% to 184.3 billion, flights up 7.5% to 538,518 and freight revenue ton miles (RTMs) up 9.7% to 13.1 billion, according to figures compiled by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). On scheduled domestic service, RPMs grew 5.8% to 508.1 billion, flights rose 4% to 8,453,163, and freight RTMs grew 9% to 7.9 billion. Transportation Secretary Norman Y.
