High fuel costs and a weak economy may have doomed Skybus, but the Total Support Package that the airline created for its A319 fleet is one for which Airbus sees potential. For the first time, Airbus agreed to provide TSP as a complete maintenance service for the startup as a part of the purchase contract. Dispatch reliability in the year the airline survived was better than 99%, highest for any member of the A320 family, says Airbus.
Within three years, the U.S. Navy’s fleet will have fielded the technology for precisely locating small, flying targets. The target set embraces some of the Navy’s latest nightmares, including the next-generation of stealthy—sometimes supersonic—cruise missiles.
Following close behind the NMT (NATO midterm) E-3A is the U.S. Air Force’s E-3B/C AWACS Block 40/45 upgrade. Based on the same building blocks as the NMT, the timescale of the Boeing-developed Block 40/45 is heavily dependent on funding. Initial operational capability for the first five USAF AWACS aircraft is scheduled for 2013, three years later than originally planned.
Pilatus management is anticipating difficult times ahead that could eventually translate into slowing growth for the Swiss aircraft maker. But for now, operational results remain strong.
China Eastern Airlines reports a 586 million yuan profit for 2007, compared with a 2.99-billion-yuan ($427-million) loss for the previous year, partly thanks to the appreciation of the yuan against the U.S. dollar, which is cutting its financing costs. Turnover grew powerfully, as is usual for a Chinese airline. The company’s operating turnover was 43.53 billion yuan, up 14% from 2006.
The crash of a DC-9 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo highlights the need for enhanced safety measures in Africa—a continent beleaguered by a fleet of aging aircraft, poor infrastructure, and lack of a skilled workforce. Investigators and United Nations workers late last week continued to seek clues to what caused the Apr. 15 runway overrun and crash of a Hewa Bora Airways DC-9 at Goma Airport. The U.S. NTSB plans to assist Congo authorities with the investigation as necessary.
Northrop Grumman’s E-2D—the world’s newest airborne early warning, command and control aircraft—looks familiar on the outside, but represents a new design inside including an electronically scanned array radar with a 360-deg. sweep. Articles beginning on p. 52 examine progress in airborne network-centric operations from the bottom up, plus thinking about changes in the top-down industry view of the future. Illustration by James Veccia of Northrop Grumman.
The instances of non-compliance with airworthiness directives (ADs) fall into three categories, FAA officials tell Aviation Week’s MRO Conference & Exhibition. The first, says John Hickey, FAA’s director of aircraft certification, is outright non-compliance, for which aircraft are grounded. In the second instance, airlines believe they have complied with the AD, “but the workmanship hasn’t been very good,” says Hickey. Frequently such cases involve wiring. “If work is below the AD, aircraft could be grounded,” he says.
Tony Spehar (see photo) has been appointed sector vice president/general manager for Kinetic Energy Interceptors program for the Northrop Grumman Corp. , Fair Lakes, Va. He has been the program’s vice president/deputy general manager.
ESA has named heads of four all-new or rescoped directorates created to meet the agency’s expanding priorities in space exploration navigation and telecommunications. For full details of the reshuffle go to www.aviationweek.com/extra.
Emery (Kip) Wiltse has become senior administrator for final-phase aircraft completions and support for supplemental type certifications for Gulfstream Aerospace , Savannah, Ga. Wayne Burk has been named director of sales for materials services for Gulfstream facilities in Dallas, Long Beach, Calif., and Appleton, Wis. And, Brian Waymire has been promoted to general manager from operations manager of the General Dynamics Aviation Services facility in Las Vegas.
WorldSpace Satellite Radio says it has received approval from German authorities to use 12.5 MHz. of L-band spectrum for a terrestrial repeater network to provide digital audio radio service in Germany. Italy and Switzerland had previously licensed the DARS service, which is to start up in Italy in 2009. France recently approved use of WorldSpace’s ETSI standard, and is expected to license the system later this year. WorldSpace is one of several companies seeking to roll out radio and other mobile satellite services in Europe.
Alison Wood, BAE Systems head of strategy, has resigned as of the end of May to join U.K. power company National Grid. She will be succeeded by Andrew Davis.
Joseph (Jay) Malo has been named deputy chief engineer in the aviation unit of CH2M Hill ’s Houston office. Charles H. (Chip) Snowden has become Southeast U.S. aviation manager and senior technical support for the Mumbai, India, airport project. He was chief operating officer of Jacksonville (Fla.) International Airport. John Thompson has been appointed a project engineer in the West Palm Beach, Fla., office. He held a similar position at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (Pa.) International Airport.
Thales has reshuffled its management structure to reinforce international sales and foster more transverse synergies across the company. The company appointed former international chief Jean-Paul Perrier as vice chairman in charge of key customer accounts, and named three executive vice presidents to manage its three major regions of activity. U.K. CEO Alex Dorrian will oversee North America, the U.K.
Italy expects to further grow its armaments trade surplus this year, building on a trend that began in 2005. But industry is seeking changes in regulations that could accelerate growth even more.
French defense officials say there are no plans for additional helicopters to support the 700-man force that President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to shore up the NATO mission in eastern Afghanistan. The two rotorcraft in the central Kabul region will be needed to back France’s assumption of the rotating regional command this summer. The six-aircraft close-air-support fleet in Kandahar also will remain unchanged.
Bruce Gunter has been appointed vice president-domestic sales, Gary Black jet sales coordinator and Carroll LeBoeuf Eastern U.S. divisional director for the Cirrus Design Corp. , Duluth, Minn. Honors and Elections
After completing the first test of in-trail climb procedures over the North Atlantic using ADS-B, Airbus aims to certify the technique by 2010 so airlines can reap substantial fuel savings and cut emissions.
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The “Vulture” program, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency unmanned aircraft effort, has been awarded to Aurora Flight Sciences. The aircraft is being designed around the radical notion of staying aloft for five years—about the lifetime of a satellite—to provide communications, surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. The problems to be overcome encompass energy management, extremely high-reliability electronics and control systems and autonomous refueling.
The Japanese lunar probe Selene has collected images of the Earth equivalent to a full Moon: round and without a shadow. The Selene team says the high-definition video, shot on Apr. 6 with a camera supplied by the Japanese television network NHK, is notable because the orbits of the Moon, Earth, Sun and Selene itself had to be in a precisely straight line. Such an opportunity would come only twice during Selene’s year of scheduled observation. In an Earth-rise picture taken by the satellite on Nov. 7, the planet was partly in shadow (AW&ST Nov. 19, 2007, p. 17).
A convergence of demographic changes and short-term corporate policies is creating a crisis that threatens the very foundation of the U.S. aerospace industry.
Western European air forces are preparing to play a bigger role in multinational network-centric operations. Key tools to dynamically manage Link 16 tactical networks, and to train realistically with them, are being introduced into service and were used for the first time in a large-scale exercise this month. One tool involved was a Thales-supplied dynamic network management system. Another was a U.S.-developed system to inject simulated participants and threats into a live Link 16 network.
