Having endured more than its fair share of test failures in the early days of the GE90, General Electric has enjoyed a relatively problem-free run with the GEnx-1B engine for the Boeing 787—until now.

A story in the July 23 issue (p. 34) incorrectly characterized the landing minimums at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru. The airport's Category-2 instrument landing system allows a decision height of 100 ft., and Cat.-3 operations would allow a decision height of 50 ft.

With commercial aerospace booming and defense markets cooling, business leaders in the sector are searching for a recipe to guide their actions in these uncertain times.

The carrier is adding routes internationally and inter-island

The problem with five-year plans is that they come around only once every five years. That can be a long time in commercial aviation. As available production slots for reengined Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies move rapidly to the right, China is under pressure to set aside its usual stately planning process and hurriedly sign a round of big airliner orders.

Operators and OEMs are lining up against the FAA over a proposed Boeing 757 airworthiness directive (AD) that they see as an unsubstantiated shift in the agency's view on the likelihood of fuel tank explosions on older freighters—a change that could have broader rulemaking ramifications.

There are not many secret technologies or materials in the jet engine business. All the major engine makers are working with exotic materials in the search for weight savings, emissions reductions, coatings that extend life cycles and technologies that allow faster production of complex parts. The question is always when new technology and/or materials are ready to move from the laboratory into production.

After dueling foreign policy speeches before the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week, the U.S. presidential candidates unleashed their surrogates on Washington, where a discussion at the Brookings Institution underscored both candidates' inability to answer questions on defense spending.