French executive shuttle startup L’Avion plans to add a second aircraft to meet strong demand for its all-business class Paris Orly-Newark, N.J., run, after just six months of operation. Company executives say the Boeing 757-200 used on the route is now flying 78% full for its six weekly rotations, more than double the figure in the early weeks and 10% above initial projections. A second aircraft will enable L’Avion to double the number of frequencies available to its clientele, which is evenly split between U.S./European and business/leisure travelers, executives say.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has declared a round of ground tests to validate the fire control loop to engage a boosting ballistic missile from the Airborne Laser a success. During flight tests, ABL used its beacon lasers to track a target representative ballistic missile on an aircraft in parallel flight, and for the first time employed a surrogate high-energy laser through its nose-mounted turret. The surrogate laser emitted from the ABL’s modified 747-400 freighter is low-power.
Elbit Systems is instituting a new revenue target after having effectively reached its $2-billion goal set a decade ago. Through a wave of acquisitions, Elbit has transformed itself into Israel’s primary publicly traded aerospace and defense contractor. Now, Elbit President/CEO Joseph Ackerman says he’s ready for the next stage. The stated sales target is $3 billion annually. Revenue this year should reach around $1.9 billion, and backlog could top $4 billion for the first time.
Airbus and Boeing are booking orders at a pace that, if maintained, will enable them to surpass the numbers they achieved in 2005, when records were blown out of the water. One of the big questions for the remainder of the year is whether the torrid rate of order intakes can be sustained to achieve a new high for the industry.
Lufthansa will move its operations in Moscow from Sheremetyevo to the privately run Domodedovo airport as part of the larger shift for all Star Alliance carriers. Operations from Domodedovo will begin in April. Lufthansa also signed an agreement to make AiRUnion a strategic partner. It is an alliance of domestic operators led by KrasAir. Both sides agreed to a joint route network with an aim to optimize transfer traffic through Moscow. The arrangement with AiRUnion, which also uses Domodedovo, puts the carrier group on track to become a Star Alliance member.
The U.K. Defense Ministry is to try out the BAE Systems Herti unmanned aerial vehicle in an operational environment. The Herti could be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan for experimental trials in support of ongoing British military operations.
Airbus is still facing some serious behind-the-scenes discussions with its most important customer about design details of the Airbus A350XWB. Steven Udvar-Hazy, chairman/CEO of International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC), confirmed on the sidelines of the Boeing 787 roll-out in Seattle that he is still not happy with the A350 set-up. “There are engineering teams working at Airbus on what can be changed,” he revealed. Udvar-Hazy has voiced concerns about the way Airbus plans to build the composite fuselage.
Safran’s first-half sales in the aerospace business were up 11.3% (compared to 2006 results), reaching €4.9 billion. The increase was driven particularly by 15.5% growth in the engine business (or 22.6% on a constant dollar basis). Sales would have been higher if not for delays in the Airbus A380 program. But the company’s overall sales growth was held back to 4.7% due to continued problems in the commercial communications segment, where sales fell 22.2% compared to the first six months of last year.
Besides having a good week with its Trent 1000 hanging from the 787 at Boeing’s rollout ceremony, Rolls-Royce also added new customers. Royal Brunei Airlines will use Trents to power four 787-8s it is leasing, and the Nakash Group ordered engines for two 787-9s on behalf of Tel Aviv-based Arkia Israeli Airlines (see p. 28).
Norway's Avinor has ordered 70 high-definition liquid crystal displays for controller workstations from Eg-Electronic GmbH. of Wolfratshausen, Germany. The FD2K-2824 displays provide 2048 X 2048-pixel resolution (2k X 2k) and will replace Sony CRTs at several Norwegian ATC centers. Avinor, a limited company owned by the Norwegian government, provides ATC services in that country. The German electronics company is one of the world’s largest suppliers of 2k X 2k displays for ATC use, according to President Christian von Stuelpnagel.
Northrop Grumman has won a $408-million contract add-on from the U.S. Navy for procurement of three E-2D Advanced Hawkeye pilot-production aircraft. First flight of the new aircraft with its 360-deg. AESA radar is expected in mid-August. Work is to be completed by August 2010. The company also pulled in a $32-million contract to provide maintenance and upgrade work for the fleet’s E-2C and C-2A aircraft.
The Mars rover Opportunity has emerged unharmed from a fierce regional dust storm on Mars, and could begin its descent into Victoria crater as early as later this week, says John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Just a note to express the fury that swept over me upon seeing the photo accompanying Pierre Sparaco’s “Errors in Taste” article (AW&ST May 21, p. 59).
When it comes to growth, Rockwell Collins CEO Clay Jones is more concerned with improving efficiency and profit margins than expanding the avionics company’s sales at any cost. “If you look at the history of this industry, there has been far more wealth destroyed via acquisitions than there has been created,” he said recently. “We don’t want to replicate that story.”
The Swedish government this year plans to issue a tender to outsource some of its satellite communications needs. The contract is supposed to cover 3-5 years of support for existing and new satellite communications systems. Additionally, the government may outsource systems integration activities.
Several distinctive external features of the 787 were clearly visible for the first time at rollout, including a protruding keel beam, larger air scoops, smaller flight control and flap surface actuators, as well as the smooth butt joints between the adjacent one-piece composite fuselage barrel sections.
Virgin America expects to begin flights from San Francisco International Airport to New York John F. Kennedy International Airport in August, following FAA authorization to begin service and approval by the Transportation Dept. to begin selling tickets.
Lapses in Boeing’s security for confidential internal documents were exposed by a worker, who subsequently was fired and who is said to have downloaded 320,000 pages of documents because he was disgruntled over inspection of parts. Gerald Lee Eastman has been charged with 16 counts of computer trespass. Boeing says it has tightened its computer security standards.
Don’t talk to Blake Emery about airplanes without windows for passengers. Emery studies how Boeing can differentiate its products in the marketplace. His work takes him into all sorts of things, like trying to quantify what makes passengers happiest. Or, the opposite. He’s been doing this as part of the company’s research into the cabin environment for the 787 along with Klaus Brauer, Boeing’s guru on passenger satisfaction and revenue. Much of what they’ve found goes well beyond the 787.
Despite the proliferating and increasingly sophisticated cruise and ballistic missile threats in Asia, Japan isn’t displaying much urgency in preparing defenses. The Patriot advanced PAC-3 missiles—designed for cruise missile and terminal ballistic missile defense—arrived in Japan a year ago, but in a recent assessment they weren’t rated fully mission-capable because of bureaucratic snarls. The problem is that the radios used to link all the scattered firing units into a single defensive system use frequencies assigned to the Japanese cell-phone industry.
This year’s rankings of publicly traded aerospace and defense contractors and airlines are the result of a composite scoring of four performance categories that place significant emphasis on operating excellence. The four categories are:
U.S. military planners are increasingly interested in buying electro-optical scene-matching capability for some weapons that would allow them to discriminate and confirm targets using previously captured imagery. Israel’s Rafael is producing the Spice weapons-guidance kit with this capability. As the Pentagon makes its weapons yields ever smaller to reduce collateral damage, the need to discriminate a target within feet is growing, Navy Capt. Peter Murphy, an air warfare expert in the Pentagon’s acquisition office, tells the Precision Strike Assn.
Securing funding for a weapon family and a potential purchase of an Airbus facility are emerging as milestones for Diehl, as the company tries to grow its defense and aerosystems business. Diehl recently decided to break defense and aerospace activities into separate units. Claus Gunther, head of Diehl VA Systeme, says the two markets are diverging, and to properly serve them Diehl Defense and Diehl Aerosystems will operate separately beginning in October. Following the restructuring, Gunther will be in charge of the defense product line.
