Further to your article “The Soap Opera” (AW&ST Oct. 20, p. 38), Boeing already has set the stage with its huge outsourcing on production of the 787, with a minimum of work left for final assembly. Boeing has firmly adopted the benefits of this method, which leads to slashed manpower levels and assembly time per jet. This left Boeing in a difficult position in settling the recent machinists’ strike in which “less outsourcing” was the critical union position. Perhaps the only solution is to outsource the little work left in “final assembly.”
Chinese-owned lessor BOC Aviation has ordered Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines to power five A330 freighters due for delivery in 2012-13. The decision will make it easier to place the aircraft in China, where all major airlines use Trent 700s.
Just weeks after industry leaders expressed hope that their record backlogs would cushion them from the global financial crisis, some business aircraft manufacturers are cutting deliveries and workers as orders slacken and used aircraft pile up.
Airshow China 2008, held in Zhuhai Nov. 4-9, marked a change in fortune for the event. The 600 civil and military exhibitors were complemented by increasingly evident state support. Vice Premier Zhang Deijang and Defense Minister Liang Guanglie attended the opening ceremony. The show hosted the official debut of the Chengdu J-10 fighter—with the event notable for a substantial increase in Chinese air force participation—and introduced the restructured Chinese manufacturing conglomerate Avic. The Airbus A380 also took part in the daily flying display.
With several major fighter competitions due to be decided in the coming months, backers of the Rafale multirole fighter are pulling out all the stops to show off its latest operational and equipment enhancements.
Boeing rolled out the first F-15SG designed for the Republic of Singapore Air Force Nov. 3 at the company’s St. Louis facility. Singapore plans to buy 24 of the two-seat F-15E variants. The aircraft includes a Raytheon active electronically scanned array radar and Lockheed Martin Sniper targeting pod. The first flight took place Sept. 16. Officials from Singapore declined to allow visitors at the rollout ceremony to view or photograph the back of the aircraft, where electronic warfare antennas, thought to be made by Israel, are said to be located.
In the coming years, the Iraqi air force (IQAF) plans to add C-130Js to its transport fleet. It’s also considering a smaller, tactical transport. While a type decision hasn’t been made, U.S. military officials working with the Iraqis say the C-27J is a candidate, although other, similarly sized transports haven’t been ruled out. What the exact system requirements should be is now being discussed. The tactical transport purchase would come along with plans to buy 10 C-130Js, which are to be fielded around 2012.
Edward Petkus, who has been vice president-new product development for the Hawker Beechcraft Corp. , Wichita, Kan., also will be acting vice president-engineering. He will succeed Randy Nelson, who will be retiring Dec. 1 as senior vice president-product development and engineering.
Airbus has completed the initial flight test phase of a Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan fitted as one engine on a four-engine A340 testbed. The first phase, which ended Oct. 31, involved nine flights and 27 flight-test hours and no major issues were identified. Modifications are now taking place to begin the acoustic test campaign, which will take place in Moron, Spain. Final results of data analysis now underway are not expected until 2009.
Machiavelli’s advice on mercenaries should be chiseled above the entrance to every graduate business school. It is: Mercenaries are a bad idea. If they are ineffectual, they will lose your country for you. If they are competent, they will take it away from you. Don’t use mercenaries. MBA grads don’t think of anything but the next quarter’s profit that determines their bonuses. And so they outsource, and give away the intangible heart of American industry: its institutional knowledge and creations, its advantages, its future (AW&ST Oct. 27, p. 10; Oct. 20, p. 43).
A drop of more than 50% in oil prices since last July has transformed assessments of the U.S. airline industry from bleak to bright. Analysts are now projecting domestic carriers will rake in billions of dollars of profit next year. Michael Derchin of FTN Midwest Securities went so far as to predict last week that the industry will return to profitability this quarter.
The shuttle Endeavour is set for liftoff this week with launch safety enhancements and a regenerative life-support system payload important for the space station and future missions to the Moon and Mars. The STS-126 launch from Pad 39A is scheduled for Nov. 14 at 7:55 p.m. in the middle of a 10-min. rendezvous window to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission marks the 27th flight of the shuttle to the ISS and occurs almost exactly 10 years since the first shuttle ISS assembly flight.
Diana Clasen (see photos) has been promoted to manager of corporate communications from product marketing manager at the Wichita (Kan.) Cessna Learning Center of FlightSafety International . Scott Galdi has become marketing manager for Part 135 customers.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is developing a reusable spacecraft called DragonLab, which will accommodate pressurized or unpressurized payloads and is designed to be boosted by the company’s upcoming Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft can provide a platform for in-orbit experiments, according to SpaceX, and will allow for payload recovery. Meanwhile, development continues on Dragon, the spacecraft co-funded by NASA that SpaceX is building to supply the International Space Station.
Paul Bourgon and Joseph M. Silvestri have been appointed to the board of directors of the Triumph Group , Wayne, Pa. Bourgon is president of the Aeroengine Div. of SKF USA and has been executive at Rolls-Royce Canada and Heroux-Devtek Inc., while Silvestri is managing partner of Court Square Capital.
Any U.S. Air Force move to buy only MQ-9 Reapers could impact a brewing battle to provide a new ground control station for Predator-family unmanned aircraft. Raytheon is pushing to oust platform prime General Atomics Aeronautical Systems as ground-station provider, and is awaiting an Air Force response to its unsolicited proposal for an open-architecture common ground control system (CGCS), initially for the MQ-1B Predator.
Last week’s Air Traffic Control Assn. conference in Washington drew more than 1,100 ATC and aviation experts trying to sniff the winds of change in tough economic times. On the day before Barack Obama became the president-elect, Civil Air Navigation Services Organization Secretary General Alexander ter Kuile said the next administration has an opportunity to move air traffic management (ATM) to a new level of performance.
China will build a small turbofan to propel itself into the business of integrating and manufacturing complete civil aeroengines, probably the hardest part of the commercial aircraft sector to break into. The 7,100-8,800-lb.-thrust powerplant is aimed at a small business jet proposed by another newly formed subsidiary of Chinese aerospace conglomerate Aviation Industry Corp. of China (Avic). It could also be used for a small airliner.
EADS is cutting back output rates for the A400M airlifter to bring production in line with the development schedule, which is running more than a year behind the original timetable. Officials at EADS’s Airbus Military Aircraft unit say the slowdown is not linked to discussions underway to waive penalties for late delivery in return for agreement on a revised delivery timetable (AW&ST Nov. 3, p. 47).
Tim Jors (see photo) has become Standard Power business unit leader for Crane Aerospace & Electronics , Redmond, Wash. He was vice president-supply chain for the Electronics Group.
Boeing is exploring adding a millimeter-wave radar seeker onto its Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) family of weapons, says Dan Jaspering, who oversees direct attack weapons for the company. The new seeker would add an all-weather capability to the JDAM and could be useful against maritime targets. Specifically, Jaspering says a radar JDAM could counter the “swarming boat problem.” Already, the company has met with success by funding the addition of a laser head to the weapon, and the Air Force and Navy are each buying 400 units of the laser JDAM.
USAF Maj. Gen. Gary T. McCoy has been appointed commander of the Air Force Global Logistics Center, Scott AFB, Ill. He has been director of logistics readiness/deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. McCoy will be succeeded by Maj. Gen. Robert H. McMahon, who has been director of maintenance/deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support at USAF Headquarters. Maj. Gen. James P.
China Great Wall Industry Corp. has concluded a contract to build and launch PakSat-1R, a C-/Ku-band satellite intended for Pakistan. The 30-transponder spacecraft will be built by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. using China’s new-generation DFH-4 bus. PakSat-1R is the third Chinese telecom satellite to be supplied for an export customer under a China Great Wall in-orbit delivery contract, after Nigcomsat-1, orbited in May 2007.
As a frequent business traveler, deregulation has been a mixed blessing (AW&ST Oct. 27, p. 48). The flying experience has deteriorated but with lower prices, I am not sure the trade-off has been worth it. The calls for re-regulation will be heard seriously when travelers are stranded for days because of a weather event this winter. There is no capacity for travelers if a few flights are canceled, particularly at non-hub destinations.
Order cancellations for Airbus in October far outpaced new commitments, reducing the order intake for the first 10 months of the year to 675 aircraft from 737 the month prior. The biggest hit came on the A319 line. The entire net reduction of 62 aircraft is associated with the bankruptcy of Columbus, Ohio-based Skybus, which leaves the product line with a 28-unit negative order balance for the year so far. The A318 suffered a further drop of six aircraft; for the year, the total is a negative 13 units.
