By the time you read this, the December holiday season will be almost upon us and this year, decade, century and millennium will be almost over (unless, of course, you count the new decade, century and millennium as beginning on Jan. 1, 2001; then the cost of champagne is being driven up for no good reason).
Airbus Industrie opened its new Airbus Training Center, Miami. The 100,000-sq. ft. facility will train pilots, mechanics and cabin crews on Airbus aircraft operations and systems.
GE Engine Services signed a $40 million deal to support CF34-3B engines powering Kendell Airlines' fleet of Canadair CRJ regional jets. Work will take place at GE's Strother Field, Kan. facility.
Photograph: With six narrowbody production lines, Air Canada Technical Operations in Winnipeg wants to be the premier provider of third-party maintenance for Airbus A320-series airliners in North America. Air Canada Like most managers in contemporary industry, those running Air Canada's Winnipeg Maintenance Facility in Manitoba tried in the 1990s to implement modern management strategies along the ``Total Quality Management'' school of thought. And the ideas didn't take. That is, the ideas didn't take when management tried to implement them.
Securaplane received parts manufacturing approval (PMA) to install its wireless smoke detection system on Boeing 737-200 aircraft to upgrade Class D cargo holds to Class C.
C-S Aviation Services entered into an agreement with Part 145 repair station Air India Ltd. and Aviation Sales Distribution Co. to perform maintenance on C-S' CF6-50C2 engine fleet. The five-year deal is valued at about $100 million, with a five-year option. Air-India will perform heavy maintenance at its newly built $50 million, 150,000-sq. ft. facility in Mumbai.
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace delivered its 75th Airbus passenger-freighter conversion, an A300B4, to European Airtransport. DASA has converted 30 A300s and 45 A310s.
AlliedSignal Aerospace will provide MRO services for all AlliedSignal APUs in the Executive Jet fleet of business jets. The 10-year contract is valued at more than $100 million, covering about 300 aircraft.
Pemco Aeroplex will provide programmed depot maintenance for KC-135 tankers under an extension of a contract from the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker AFB. The contract also provides for drop-in maintenance, which will include strip and paint, and major structural repairs for the KC-135. Contract is valued at $100 million, and work will be done at Pemco's Birmingham, Ala., facility.
Industry representatives hoping for more time to comment on FAA's proposed rewrite of FAR Part 145, which governs repair stations, had to settle for half a loaf when the agency extended the comment period on the proposal by 45 days to Dec. 4 instead of the 90 the representatives sought.
BFGoodrich Aerospace won an FAA Aviation Maintenance Technician Corporate Diamond Award with Significant Achievement. The award recognized BFGoodrich for prompting 800 of its A&P mechanics to earn AMT awards by participating in recurrent and initial training on FAA regulations, policy and maintenance.
Camp's maintenance management program will be offered by Airbus to its Airbus Corporate Jetliner customers under an agreement with Sonovision-Itep, a CAMP partner. The program, CAMP SP, tracks required maintenance and inspection tasks set out by Airbus.
Boeing will install glass cockpits on 16 Naval Air Systems E-6s under a $123 million U.S. Navy contract. Boeing will adapt its Next Generation 737 cockpit and avionics architecture to the E-6 fleet to help the aircraft comply with Global Air Traffic Management requirements.
Ray Valeika, senior vice president of technical operations at Delta Air Lines, was named 1999 recipient of SAE's Marvin Whitlock Award. Named after the late senior vice president of maintenance for United, the award recognizes an individual for ``outstanding management accomplishment that has resulted in superior aviation maintenance integrity.''
Elbit Systems, Ltd., completed its acquisition of International Enterprises, Inc. (IEI), for $15.9 million. IEI, based in Talladega, Ala., provides depot-level maintenance and repair for a variety of electronic systems on board aircraft and ships.
Singapore Technologies Aerospace, through its U.S. subsidiary ST Mobile Aerospace Engineering, will convert Boeing 757-200 passenger aircraft to freighters in cooperation with Boeing Airplane Services. The parties will jointly develop an engineering design and obtain an STC. Boeing recently secured a launch order from DHL to convert 44 757-200s to freighters. ST Aero anticipates investing about $10 million in the development process over the next 24 months.
Photograph: DASA subsidiary Dornier Flugzeugwerft is handling long-term product support activities for 18 German Navy Breguet 1150 Atlantic maritime patrol aircraft, including extensive upgrades to extend their useful lives to around 2010.
Air France Industries will provide full support to the French Air Force Air Mobility Command's long-range fleet, which includes two McDonnell Douglas DC-8-72CF and two Airbus A310-300 aircraft.
Lufthansa Technik won a 10-year contract to provide its Total Technical Support (TTS) program for Spanair's fleet of 33 Airbus A320-family aircraft. Support package includes all maintenance from B checks up, and includes engine and component maintenance.
One Australian and three U.S. groups are competing for the US$318.5 million Project Echidna (Air 5416) electronic warfare self-protection (EWSP) program to equip selected RAAF combat and support aircraft with common EW suites.
Tecstar Demo Systems received a contract from the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center to improve and upgrade the user interface capabilities of their Data Transfer System 6500. It will give users ability to load unique executable files without performing lengthy reprogramming of each system, enhancing aircraft operational readiness.
AAR Corp. won a contract to provide landing gear support and overhaul for Grupo TACA's 42 regional aircraft. Work will take place at AAR subsidiary AAR Tempco Hydraulics in Miami.
Improved synergy and competitiveness are being sought by DaimlerChrysler Aer-ospace (DASA) from its 1998 concentration of all product support activities for large German and NATO military aircraft within its Military Aircraft Division's Manching factory. Since early 1998, these operations also have been shared with DASA's Dornier Flugzeugwerft (DFW) subsidiary, which moved to Manching at that time.
