Aviation Week & Space Technology

Boeing’s latest schedule slip on 787 deliveries is having little impact on commercial aviation’s $42-billion annual aftermarket, but it is forcing customers to support older aircraft longer than they planned while stretching out Boeing’s own timeline for finding customers for its Goldcare maintenance program.

Production of piston-powered general aviation (GA) aircraft had reached a plateau and begun to fall even before the credit crisis hit the world economy in the autumn of 2008. Deliveries plummeted in 2009 to a level not seen since the 1990s, and little improvement was seen in 2010.

In the hunt for roadside bombers, full-motion video has proved to be a powerful tool, but the single unmanned aircraft carrying a single sensor with a narrow field of view has its limitations. Multi-camera surveillance sensors able to watch a wide area and track multiple targets are being fielded in growing numbers.

The new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says his panel will maintain a “war footing,” staying nimble to investigate event-driven issues “to ensure current operations remain the top priority of the committee.” Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) promises the focus will fall “heavily” on the fiscal health of the Defense Department and military services.

Entering 2011, the aerospace and defense industry is waiting for not one, but two shoes to drop. One is the U.S. Defense Department’s Fiscal 2012 budget request, the other is Boeing’s response to the launch of Airbus’s reengined A320. Several other smaller impacts are expected to be felt through the year, including the long-delayed delivery of Boeing’s 787, decisions on the U.S. Air Force’s 179-aircraft tanker contest and—potentially—India’s 126-aircraft fighter competition.

Although Embraer is starting to see a rebound in the size of its order backlog, the Brazilian aircraft maker still ended the year with airliner deliveries and its total backlog down substantially from a year ago. Total aircraft deliveries were up slightly to 246 units from 244, for both regional jets and business aircraft.

Wartime experience in the demanding hot-and-high environments of Iraq and Afghanistan has led commanders to question the capabilities of their heavily used helicopter fleets, mostly consisting of aircraft originally designed in the 1970s.

The Republican who defeated then-House transportation leader James Oberstar has been named to the No. 2 position on the aviation subcommittee. Chip Cravaack (Minn.), a former Northwest Airlines pilot and Air Line Pilots Association official, unseated Oberstar in one of the biggest surprises of the November elections. On the aviation subcommittee, 10 of the 17 Republican members are also freshmen. On the Democrats’ side, Nick Rahall (W.Va.) will be the ranking member on the full committee.

The boards of Chile’s LAN Airlines and Brazilian operator TAM have backed a binding agreement that would create one of the world’s largest carriers within 6-9 months. LAN will assume a controlling role within the new entity, as well as the new holding company’s name Latam Airlines, while TAM eventually will be folded into the new corporate structure. The LAN and TAM brands will continue to operate separately.

As all strategic planners and business development executives are aware, the market and geopolitical forces bearing down on aviation and aerospace convey a decidedly uncertain future for programs and fleet renewal for at least the next few years.

Intelsat appears poised to recoup use of Galaxy 15, the wayward “Zombie Sat” that terrorized telecom satellite neighborhoods around the globe until it was brought under control late last month. Among those breathing the biggest sigh of relief are the FAA, which is faced with the prospect of purchasing another transponder to ensure sufficient redundancy for its Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) out of its tight budget if the spacecraft cannot be recovered.

Eutelsat has awarded Arianespace a contract to orbit a satellite in 2012 using its Ariane 5 heavy-lift booster. Arianespace says the launch is one of 12 orders received in 2010, and will apply to a spacecraft Eutelsat plans to launch between now and mid-2013.

An Airbus Military KC-30A tanker in testing for the Royal Australian Air Force was damaged during a refueling exercise with the Portuguese air force. The tanker was participating in F-16 refuelings; more than a dozen had taken place when the refueling boom detached from the tanker during a contact with an F-16, which also suffered damage. Both aircraft safely returned to base. So far, Airbus Military does not expect any impact on the first delivery of the tanker to its lead customer, the RAAF.

The U.S. Navy’s plans to electrify its ships were boosted in 2010 with a successful land-based test of the electromagnetic launch system that will replace steam catapults on its future aircraft carriers. Electric catapults reduce manpower and maintenance, and testing must stay on track through 2011 if the first Ford-class carrier is to enter service with them in 2015.

Given that the number of narrowbody aircraft nearly triples that of widebodies, it is not surprising that Boeing 737 and Airbus A320-family aircraft will generate more maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work from airframes to engines this year than other types. Consider C checks—the regular, 3-5-day airframe structural maintenance events that must be scheduled every 18-24 months. This year marks the beginning of a generally steeper period of growth than the MRO industry has experienced in the past three years (see chart).

Powerplants for the next generation of narrowbody airliners will take to the air this year, with the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G geared turbofan flying on a Boeing 747 testbed while CFM International finalizes the design of its Leap-X advanced turbofan.

Revelations by WikiLeaks have managed to land at least one top space executive in hot water. Last week, the supervisory board of OHB System sacked CEO Berry Smutny over revelations published Jan. 13 in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, based on a secret 2009 diplomatic note from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin obtained from WikiLeaks.

U.S. research into configurations and technologies for future theater airlifters will wind up in 2011 without a clear path ahead to developing an eventual replacement for the widely used C-130. A six-year effort by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to mature technologies for a high-speed short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) transport will end this year with the completion of wind tunnel and flight-simulation studies.

Cyberoperations and electronic warfare are two of the three areas that can expect to survive in the next decade’s environment of shrinking defense budgets. The third will be the technologies needed to find targets for those computer, network and electronic attacks.

Manufacturers of military fixed-wing trainers are forecast to produce slightly more than 1,600 aircraft worth almost $19 billion during the next decade. A number of programs are underway or are being launched to replace fleets built in the 1970s and 1980s—or in the case of the U.S. Air Force’s T-38s the 1960s—but the market for trainers will be much smaller than it was back then.

A generational change is underway in fighter cockpits. Just as electro-mechanical gauges gave way to cathode-ray tubes, today’s limited-area, limited-function displays will be superseded by cockpit-spanning touch-screens. While the enabler is the commercial availability of large touch-sensitive liquid-crystal displays, the driver is the growth in information coming into the cockpit, and the need to elevate the pilot to battle manager rather than system operator.

Bell Helicopter has launched the Magellan program to develop a new product as part of an effort to revitalize its commercial rotorcraft business. Bell has talked of following the all-new Model 429 light turbine twin with a new medium twin to supersede the Model 412, and potentially compete with the AgustaWestland AW139 and Eurocopter EC175.

Where is the next combat aircraft? Domestic and export orders will keep U.S. and European production lines running through the middle of the decade. But development work is diminishing and design teams dissipating, and the gap between new programs stretches out.