Qantas Airways is considering the purchase of three Boeing 747-400s and two 767-300s from South Korea's Asiana, a move that could delay its plans to choose from among the 777 and Airbus' A340 for new purchases. As it battled its own cost worries over the last two years, the Australian carrier has avoided a fleet renewal. But in the past two months Qantas has begun looking for bargains from among Asian carriers downsizing their fleets in response to the region's currency crisis.
GENERAL ELECTRIC HAS recommended that 30 GE90 engines powering China Southern and British Airways 777s should undergo an on-wing borescope inspection to determine whether they have a misassembled first-stage stator. GE officials have determined a misassembled stator caused the low-pressure turbine of a GE90 to fail on a British Airways 777-200 IGW at Heathrow Airport on Mar. 12. The aircraft, which had reached a speed of about 80 kt., performed an aborted takeoff as a result of the failure.
Samuel K. Skinner has been named to the board of directors of Midwest Express Holdings Inc. He is president of the Commonwealth Edison Co. of Chicago and a former U.S. Transportation secretary.
Strong sales and healthy backlog are giving more credibility to Airbus Industrie's primary goal of capturing a sustainable 50% share of the commercial transport market. Airbus' combined production rate will increase rapidly to an estimated 280-300 aircraft per year in the wake of solid sales. It plans to deliver 235 aircraft in 1998 and about 280 in 1999, up from 182 in 1997. The European consortium is set to manufacture an average 19 narrow-body and five wide-body transports per month next year.
Roberta Bradley has been named director of communications for the Port of Oakland (Calif.). She was head of her own consulting firm, Ranier Associates.
THE ISRAELI AIR FORCE grounded its Cobra fleet for inspections last week following the Mar. 15 crash of one of the helicopters, which resulted in the death of both crewmen. The helicopter was being piloted by Brig. Gen. Shmuel Eldar, commander of the Palmachim AFB. An explosion blew the helicopter apart over the Mediterranean while it was en route back to the base after a training mission. It marked the second fatal accident in two weeks for the Israeli air force. An F-15 fighter crashed on Mar. 1. Both crewmen were killed.
The worldwide cargo business is undergoing explosive growth--nearly twice that of passenger business in most major markets--and is forecast to nearly triple in size by 2015, with the greatest increase occurring in the Asia/Pacific region. The fleet will double over the next two decades to meet the increasing demands for cargo services by growing numbers of competitors transitioning from a regional to a global market arena.
China doesn't expect to solve its airline pilot shortage soon. A study by the China Institute of Aeronautic System Engineering (CIASE) projects that China's airline industry will need 8,000- 10,000 pilots by 2015, including about 400 new pilots a year for growth and to replace retirements. The pilot training rate now is 600 a year, CIASE said. However, it takes an average of 12 years to become captain-qualified on a large jet transport. The shortage has affected Chinese aircraft utilization, limiting it to about 7 hr. a day compared with 10 hr.
The first of several new Global Broadcast Service defense communications satellites designed to provide the U.S. with revolutionary new ``information warfare'' capabilities is being commissioned in space this week by a Hughes, Navy and Air Force flight control team.
U.S. airline officials last week finally won their new long-sought routes to Japan. Now comes the hard part: making money in a currently declining market against so many new competitors. ``These frequencies don't come around very often, so you have to take a strategic view,'' one airline official said.
Also, Aeroacoustics Award, John M. Seiner, leader of the Jet Noise Team at NASA Langley; Ground Testing Award, Ivan E. Beckwith, distinguished research associate at NASA Langley; Thermophysics Award, Amir Faghri, head of the Mechanical Engineering Dept. at the University of Connecticut; Fluid Dynamics Award, Anatol Roshko, Theodore von Karman professor of aeronautics emeritus at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena; and Jeffries Medical Research Award, Frank M.
The Joint Strike Fighter isn't that far off its money mark, Air Force Brig. Gen. Leslie Kenne says. The JSF program director, Kenne was stung by reports that what is supposed to be an effort to develop a relatively low-cost stealthy fighter could hit $40 million a copy (AW&ST Mar. 16, p. 27). ``This is all fluid, nothing is in concrete yet,'' she says. ``Our plan is to go lower than our current estimates, not higher.'' Firm operational requirements, which will help dictate costs, will not be established until December 1999, she said.
NASA started full-scale tests this month of its X-38 concept for a space station lifeboat, leading to a seven-person Earth-return vehicle that could be operational in 2003. The unmanned flights here will be studying the latter stages of the spacecraft's mission, when it transitions from subsonic lifting body flight to descent and landing under a large parafoil. The deployment and operation of the parafoil are challenging and showed some flaws in the Mar. 12 first flight (AW&ST Mar. 16, p. 18).
The commercial space industry is bigger and stronger than ever, but the next few years will indicate whether billions of dollars invested in new consumer-oriented communications satellites will yield the payoffs that have been promised.
AlliedSignal has completed initial full-power tests of an advanced core engine that could serve as the basis for a new generation of engines in the 4,000-9,000-lb.-thrust range. Company officials say the new core demonstrator is laying the groundwork for future high-reliability engines that can lower powerplant cost of ownership by about 10-20%, when compared to current technology powerplants.
THE LAUNCH OF FRANCE'S Spot 4 Earth observation satellite has been delayed by an anomaly on a pyrotechnic device backup control circuit. The circuit controls release of the Pastel optical communications terminal, an element of the Silex experimental intersatellite link that forms part of the Spot 4 payload (AW&ST Mar. 16, p. 41). The launch, initially set for Mar. 20 on Ariane Flight 107, was rescheduled for Mar. 23.
Edward C. (Pete) Aldridge, Jr., (see photo), president/CEO of The Aerospace Corp. of Los Angeles, has received the Bob Hope Distinguished Citizen Award from the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the National Defense Industrial Assn. The award is presented annually to recognize contributions to improving communications and relationships between the armed services and defense industry.
Chris Burman has become vice president-sales and marketing for Europe and Samer Kaissi manager in Beirut for Darien, Conn.-based Air Express International (AEI).
Alfred J. Eichenlaub has been appointed senior vice president/general counsel for Polar Air Cargo Inc., Long Beach, Calif. He was senior partner in the Washington law firm of Ginsburg, Feldman and Bress.
While a report of an asteroid coming dangerously close to Earth in 2028 proved to be a false alarm, a pair of astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have discovered 100 previously undetected asteroids, some of which could migrate toward Earth. Robin Evans and Karl Stapel- feldt led a three-year search of 28,000 archived images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2. They looked for wide, looping streaks of light, the telltale signatures of asteroids. This Hubble image (right) shows an asteroid trail as a blue streak. The 2 km.-dia.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has approved a long-awaited bill to foster the growth of the commercial space industry by cutting government red tape. Supporters now hope to bring the Commercial Space Act to the Senate floor for a vote before the Easter recess early next month. The House approved its version of the bill last November (AW&ST Nov. 10, 1997, p. 27). A key provision in both bills would legalize the return of commercial payloads to Earth from space--something developers of reusable launch vehicles desperately need.
