An Israeli Boeing 747 undergoing heavy maintenance nearly fills an Ameco Beijing paint hangar, which was being used for such visits due to limitations on facility capacity. Ameco Beijing since has opened a new major hangar large enough to accommodate four Airbus A380s. Many MRO providers are expanding to their capacity to capture work increasingly outsourced by the world’s airlines (see p. 70). AW&ST photo by Ed Hazelwood.
Tim Quilter (see photo) has been named director of product management and Werner Langhans director for Europe, Middle East and Africa for the Reston, Va.-based Era Corp.’s Air Traffic Management Div. Quilter was head of air traffic management strategy for Roke Manor. Langhans was head of technology development and head of strategic business development for Austro Control.
Amy Butler (Peterson AFB, Colo., and Colorado Springs)
The U.S. Air Force is readying its first space-based sensor designed specifically for the mission of space situational awareness—monitoring other satellites in orbit—for a launch by next April.
Aero Vodochody has created a line to produce door hinges and inner structural elements for Latecoere under a 1-billion-Czech-crown ($63-million) subcontract signed in October 2007. The line, expected to be in full operation by February 2009, will supply six different doors and four types of hinge assemblies for the Embraer 170 and 190 regional jet program. Two door types have been delivered to date. The Czech manufacturer says it is also preparing to supply machined parts to Latecoere via Technometra Radotin, its wholly owned landing gear affiliate.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Minneapolis)
The Pentagon says its estimate of acquisition costs for top programs has dropped to $1.66 trillion from $1.7 trillion. But warning lights are flashing as analysts and military officials contend that the 2007 report’s “up-front spending increases” are real, while estimates of decreasing inflation and production costs are little more than guesses—and not inspired ones at that.
NASA and Lockheed Martin have pushed back by three months the first test that will actually get the Orion crew exploration vehicle off the ground, citing “procurement problems.” Originally set for September at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the 90-sec. Pad Abort Test-1 will begin to validate the solid-fueled rockets designed to pull Orion off a failing Ares I launch vehicle. The Launch Abort System will lift a boilerplate Orion off the ground and then separate from the capsule mockup, which will return to Earth using three 116-ft.-dia. parachutes.
The Pentagon expects to decide this month whether to terminate the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm) or continue with production. This comes after a year of work on developing and testing a fix to its GPS receiver and implementing a reliability improvement plan.
Singapore Airlines will fly fewer services to Los Angeles as part of a change in schedules that will shift aircraft to closer destinations in Asia and Australia. Network capacity will rise, but a redistribution will reflect “changing patterns in demand for travel,” the airline says.
China Eastern Airlines has suspended two regional managers and an undisclosed number of pilots after 21 flights returned to their origin airports last week as part of a contract dispute. China Eastern says there were weaknesses in the management of the branch in Yunnan province. The airline and the pilots at first said the flights had returned because of bad weather, a claim that met with skepticism even in China’s usually docile official media. China Eastern now says the pilots chose to turn the flights around, rather than being forced to do so by the weather.
Donald R. Forest has been appointed chief operating officer of the Arlington, Va.-based Aerospace Industries Assn. He was a business consultant on East Asia and had been vice president/chief representative of Citigroup CitiInsurance in China.
Alan Wiechman, who is vice president-advanced systems for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in St. Louis, has received the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aerospace Design Engineering Award. He was cited for work toward advancement of aircraft survivability through radar signature reduction, including test range fixture experimental validation of low-observable characteristics and leading low-observables integration for demonstrator and operational aircraft.
The Bell-Boeing V-22 consortium scooped up a $10.4-billion, five-year Pentagon contract for 167 Ospreys: 26 CV-22s for Air Force Special Operations and 141 MV-22s for the Marine Corps and options for additional aircraft. The company recently completed the 100th V-22. Meanwhile, Vought Aircraft Industries has signed a $400-million multiyear contract with Bell Helicopter to manufacture the empennage, ramp and ramp door for the V-22.
Trade associations, united with an environmental group, are calling for beefing up NASA and FAA to boost aeronautics research and development programs keyed to environmental issues. The Air Transport Assn. and the International Air Transport Assn. urged the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warning to bolster the R&D programs to look for environmentally friendly efficiencies and cost savings.
I am appalled at some of the reaction in the U.S. concerning the award of the tanker business. If the reasons are substantial (erosion of the industrial base/award of a critical defense asset to a foreign contractor/job losses and so forth), then the competition should never have occurred. Trying to reverse it after the winner is not to their liking implies that the only reason a second bidder was allowed to compete was to save face in what was to be an arranged award to Boeing. The U.S.
W. Timothy Carey (see photo) has become vice president of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems organization of Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems , McKinney, Tex. He succeeds Michael L. Proch, who is retiring. Carey has been vice president/and deputy for National and Theater Security Programs at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.
The first of a new wave of hybrid high-speed mobile service satellites is preparing for launch, although significant regulatory and funding hurdles remain. ICO G1 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral on Apr. 14 atop an Atlas V booster. Backers say the hybrid geostationary system will be the first to offer nationwide two-way high-speed cell phone and wireless broadband service, and the second of its kind in the industry—after the Japanese-Korean MBSAT network.
The third VH-71 helicopter built for the presidential helicopter program, Test Vehicle 3 (TV-3), has arrived in the U.S. and will be the first VH-71 to undergo final assembly at Lockheed Martin Systems Integration in Owego, N.Y. Once outfitted with specialized mission systems, TV-3 will join TV-2 and TV-5, which are already in flight testing.
Indianapolis-based ATA, which abruptly filed for bankruptcy protection and shut down on Apr. 3, says it’s still trying to understand why FedEx dropped the carrier from its military airlift contract team in January, lucrative contract charter work whose loss proved in the end too much for ATA to overcome.
Mitsubishi and Pratt & Whitney plan to deliver the first MRJ airliner and its GTF engines in 2013 after a project launch that marks a renewed Japanese attempt at commercial aircraft making and the arrival of a revolutionary powerplant. A new Nagoya-headquartered subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), tentatively called Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp., will build the aircraft, whose structure will boast extensive use of composites. The company is slated to have eventual capital of ¥100 billion ($1 billion) and, at first, 200 employees.
David G. Faulkner has been appointed chief technology officer and Paul Metz vice president/chief test pilot of Rocketplane Global of Oklahoma City. Metz was vice president-flight test for the Lockheed Martin F-35 program.
Trading in secondary market Certified Emission Reductions has picked up in the last two weeks in the wake of the launch of CER futures trading on the European Climate Exchange (ECX), according to market sources. The increased transparency offered by the new contracts has also led to a gradual shift in the CER price curve, the sources add, with the 2008-12 price curve for the project-based credits beginning to move into line with the European Union Allowance curve.
France plans to deploy another 1,000 troops to bolster a 2,400-man force it already has in Afghanistan. The new contingent reportedly will include special operations forces to replace those withdrawn at the end of 2006.
Barely a week after its debut, the U.S.-European Union open skies agreement is already facing serious questions about its future. Negotiators are preparing to reopen talks over major unresolved differences, and if they cannot find common ground, there is a real risk that it could be rescinded.
Consolidation is bandied about as a ready solution to the U.S. airline industry’s dilemma of costs rising out of control. Executives are promoting mergers publicly and talking together privately. Wall Street endorses consolidation, foreseeing shareholder gains. For certain, mergers can increase revenues, gain efficiencies and can reduce costs. But the track record for airline marriages is more blotched than beneficial.
Malaysian Airline System has ordered 35 Boeing 737-800s and taken options on 20 more, in a long-awaited deal to overhaul its narrow-body fleet, which is based on 737-400s. Deliveries are expected to begin in September 2010.
