Aircraft & Propulsion

GE Aviation has opened a new indoor jet engine test facility at its Peebles, Ohio site.

Rolls-Royce, trying to regain investors’ confidence in the face of its declining revenue performance, has unveiled a cost-reduction plan that will include 2,600 job cuts.

Lufthansa began to modify its Airbus A320 family fleet last month with vortex generators to reduce noise. The first modified aircraft was an A319.

Irish budget carrier Ryanair is planning to finalize its order for 100 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft during an internal meeting at the end of November.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) has crashed into the Mojave Desert after experiencing an inflight “anomaly” during the first test of a new hybrid rocket motor at Mojave, California on Oct. 31.

Monarch Airlines has finalized an order for 30 Boeing 737 MAX 8s, worth more than $3.2 billion at current list prices.

SriLankan Airlines has taken delivery of its first of six A330-300s, becoming a new operator for the variant.

Greg Morris, head of additive manufacturing strategy for GE Aviation, likes to talk about his Angel Trumpet engine. This tiny gas turbine will never power an aircraft, but previews how 3D printing could be applied throughout a future full-size commercial turbofan.

Bombardier has conducted more than 120 hours of CSeries flight testing since the test program resumed Sept. 7 after a 100-day grounding, and is holding to a second half of 2015 entry-into-service target.

Moscow-based VIM Avia plans to sell eight Boeing 757-200s.

Aircraft News-Oct. 30, 2014

Belgian regional VLM Airlines, which is in the middle of a management buyout, is to launch the Sukhoi Superjet SSJ100LR in Europe after detailing plans to take up to 14 of the type.

British Airways (BA) has launched a 3X-weekly direct service from London Heathrow to Singapore’s Changi Airport using an Airbus A380.

Virgin Atlantic intends to firm up its four remaining options for Boeing 787-9s, as it brings the first of the fleet into service.

Airberlin plans to eliminate a further 200 jobs of administration and ground personnel staff during 2015, several German media outlets have reported.

American Airlines, which has the most exposure to Venezuela of any US carrier, expects the country’s economic travails to result in a 2%-4% decrease in the carrier’s system-wide fourth-quarter unit revenue.

Alaska Airlines added 8% in capacity year-over-year in the third quarter, but most of the increase was due to replacing smaller aircraft with larger ones and adding seats to existing fleets, the carrier’s executives said in a conference call with analysts this week.

The Airbus A350 XWB and A330 have been approved for common type rating for pilots training to fly the aircraft.

Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines is moving forward in its fleet modernization program after reaching a framework agreement for a new group collective wage agreement for approximately 3,200 flight staff.

Boeing’s third-quarter net income rose 18% year-over-year to $1.36 billion driven by a strong performance by its Commercial Airplanes unit.

Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. (SCAC) will withdraw three SSJ100s from Indonesian Sky Aviation.

Boeing and Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC) have opened a demonstration facility—called the China-US Aviation Biofuel Pilot Project—that will turn waste cooking oil, commonly referred to as “gutter oil” in China, into sustainable aviation biofuel.

Speedy package delivery in urban areas by small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) “is absolutely going to happen,” according to Nick Roy, the founder of Google’s Project Wing program.

The Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC) is planning to design a new widebody aircraft with Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. next year, according to COMAC chairman Jin Zhuanglong.

Boeing has broken ground on its new 1 million sq. ft. 777X composite wing center at the Everett, Washington campus.