The aircraft that made the news at last week's 50th Paris air show are largely enabled by advances in propulsion technology that allow their manufacturers to offer big reductions in fuel burn over the previous generation of airliners. The savings of 15% or more are driving the orders. Whether it is the Airbus A320NEO with the CFM International Leap-1A or Pratt & Whitney PW1100G, Boeing 737MAX with the Leap-1B, Bombardier CSeries with the PW1500G, Embraer E-Jet E2 with the PW1700/1900G or Mitsubishi MRJ90 with the PW12000G, the engines are critical.

Bell Helicopter is attempting to reinvent the JetRanger and reenter a market it left behind five years ago. Juggling development of the Bell 525 super-medium and V-280 Valor, the company's tiltrotor candidate for the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift requirement, Bell has added the Short Light Single (SLS), revealed at the Paris air show here, in a bid to regain market share lost to types such as the Robinson R66 and Eurocopter EC120 that have leaped into the gap created when JetRanger production ended 2.5 years ago.

A “discussion draft” of a two-year NASA reauthorization bill is running into bipartisan opposition in its originating House space subcommittee, illustrating how lawmakers' divergent opinions about NASA spending are inhibiting progress. Democrats are complaining about cuts in Earth Science funding. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), the panel's vice chairman, promises to vote against the bill unless more money is provided for the Space Launch System program in his district.

CSeries customers assembled here by Bombardier to talk up the aircraft say they are comfortable with the program's progress so far, as the company aims for a first flight by the end of this month. “On performance and timing, we are very confident we will get what we contracted for when it is wanted,” says Nico Buchholz, Lufthansa executive vice president for group fleet management. Lufthansa has 30 110-seat CS100s on firm order for subsidiary Swiss.

Airbus and Boeing are heavily invested in widebody product lines and configurations that could remain the same for decade.

LOT aims at quick turnaround to find new investors

Airbus kicked off the flight-test campaign of its newest clean-sheet widebody, the A350, on June 14. Test aircraft MSN001 took off from Toulouse-Blagnac airport at 10 a.m. local time and remained in the air for 4 hr., 5 min. Chief test pilot Peter Chandler was at the controls along with Guy Magrin, an A350 project test pilot. They climbed to 10,000 ft., then 25,000 ft., reaching 340 kt. at both altitudes. The landing gear were retracted for the first time 33 min. into the flight.

Embraer serves existing customer base, looks for new markets