Aviation Week & Space Technology

Insitu taps Australia’s Orbital to develop a new, more reliable engine for Scan Eagle UAV

The first CFM Leap-1 engine begins flights tests; Airbus and Boeing versions will be following soon

The RQ-7Bv2 incorporates several improvements, including extended endurance, encrypted data link and reliability upgrades. The U.S. Army plans to upgrade all of its 102 Shadow systems, each with four aircraft, to the new configuration. The biggest capability change is introduction of the Ku-band tactical common data link, already carried by the Army’s larger General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS.

Royal Air Force (RAF) commanders may be revisiting their strategy on the rapid removal from service of the Panavia Tornado GR4. Less than six months before the disbandment of a third squadron of the aircraft in the past year, officials have decided to postpone their plans so that Tornados and crews are available to fly missions to counter Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria.

While the Air Force and Navy programs will share elements and technologies, the two services have distinct requirements that likely cannot be reconciled into a single program. Still, the two services continue to pursue a joint analysis of alternatives to fully vet the need for separate programs.

Production readiness for Leap engines initiates at GE and Snecma facilities around the world

Some of the answers were on display at the 65th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) just concluded in Toronto, both in the remarks of many participants and the actions of the host government in Ottawa.

Gregory H. Gernhardt has been appointed president of Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engines, East Hartford, Connecticut. He succeeds David M. Brantner, who has left the company. Gernhardt has been head of the company’s PW1100G-JM engine program for the Airbus A320neo.

The current security policy all but guarantees that the Air Force won’t get its new, Long Range Strike Bomber.

Brazil’s capacity to grow sugar cane as an energy crop is helping to bolster airlines’ interest in sugar-to-jet biofuel

The problem is that Boeing corporate management is taking a one-size-fits-all approach to labor relations.

Of the big three U.S. carriers—American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines—American’s route network in Asia-Pacific is by far the weakest, but recent moves by the Dallas-based carrier suggest the fastest-growing air travel region in the world is again in American’s sights.

New aircraft and increasing government intervention mean a changing game for Fixed Base Operators (FBO).

Russia’s banking system is finding access to capital markets harder because of sanctions imposed as a result of the Ukraine conflict. But the government nonetheless has told two state-owned banks to support the country’s most critical civil aircraft program, the Superjet 100.

Virgin Galactic is finally on the verge of full-duration powered test flights and the start of commercial suborbital flights in 2015. Providing a rare glimpse of progress on a second spacecraft under assembly at sister organization, The Spaceship Co., Virgin Galactic Vice President of Operations Mike Moses says, “we are ready for space.”

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is performing system checks on the first MRJ in preparation for a first flight due in the second quarter of 2015. Nearby in the same Nagoya factory building, MHI technicians have progressed far into final assembly of the second aircraft and started working on the third.

Bombardier’s CSeries test fleet is rebuilding momentum and will soon be joined by the first aircraft to be configured with a full interior, marking two welcome developments for the hard-pressed Canadian manufacturer and its engine supplier, Pratt & Whitney.

Raytheon’s win of USAF’s Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar competition has larger ramifications for rivals Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman

Virgin Atlantic’s decision to jettison Little Red goes beyond financial considerations; it partly stems from a new focus on transatlantic routes

This week, one of the more curious market distortions in the airline industry will finally go away.

JetBlue Airways CEO Dave Barger is worthy of an honor that has been bestowed upon a dozen other airline chiefs.

Etihad, with it establishment of Equity Partners, an alliance-type arrangement, has sent a powerful signal that the game has changed

Australian composites manufacturer Quickstep will close its U.S. facility and transfer the equipment to licensee Vector Composites of Ohio. The two companies have been working on qualifying Quickstep’s economical out-of-autoclave composites process for the Lockheed Martin F-35 program. Part of Quickstep’s business is to license its technology, which is based on using glycol to cure composites, achieving faster and more controlled changes in resin temperatures than are possible with autoclaves.

Giuseppe Orsi, the former president and CEO of Finmeccanica, has been given a two-year suspended prison sentence for false invoicing along with the former CEO of AgustaWestland, Bruno Spagnolini. The pair were found guilty in the corruption case relating to the sale of 12 VIP helicopters to the Indian government in March 2010. However, both men were acquitted of charges relating to international corruption.

The French defense equipment agency DGA took delivery of the first of 10 modernized Dassault Rafale fighters for the nation’s navy Oct. 3. Upgraded to the current F-3 standard, the Rafales will replace Super Etendards as of 2016, when they will become the navy’s only strike fighters. Produced hastily to the F1 standard in the late 1990s in an effort to replace aging F-8 Crusaders, these 10 navy Rafales have been limited to superiority and air defense missions.