China, Japan and many other Asia-Pacific nations have this in common: they must achieve greater internal civil and military ATC cooperation if civil aviation is to continue to grow at current rates.
Boeing officials are considering the U.S. Air Force secretary's proposal to reduce production rate and extend manufacturing of C-17 transports. But, this option is not likely to balance the mismatch between constrained budgets and the potential for additional airlift requirements.
I respectfully disagree with your editorial position (AW&ST Feb. 26, p. 74) that Congress should not enact a passenger bill of rights because "treatment of passengers . . . is a customer-service question." In the same issue (p. 50), you report that Southwest Airlines "allows its people to evaluate each situation." Other airlines, of course, do likewise. Passengers have no firm knowledge of what to expect in an adverse situation and have to rely on the mercy, or goodwill, of airline staff.
Australia will maintain its full requirement for F-35 Lightning II fighters even as it confirms a plan to buy Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets that previously looked likely to rob the Lockheed Martin aircraft of funding. The government has unexpectedly--and unusually--stepped in with A$6 billion ($4.6 billion) of supplementary funding for the 24 Super Hornets, which will be bought as temporary replacements for F-111 strike bombers now scheduled for retirement in 2010.
Consolidation at the aerospace supplier level continues at a brisk clip, as evidenced by last week's agreement by U.K.-based Meggitt plc to pay $1.8 billion for K&F Industries Holdings, a New York-based manufacturer of aircraft brakes and wheels. The combination of K&F with the Dunlop operation acquired by Meggitt in 2005 would position the company as the No. 2 aircraft brake supplier behind Goodrich Corp. If the deal receives shareholder and regulatory approvals, it will expand Meggitt's position in the U.S.
Inmarsat reported a 5% hike in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in 2006, to $332 million, driven by a 4% surge in mobile satellite service revenues. The company's new Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), which started last year, contributed $9.5 million of revenue as the number of active terminals increased by 28% to 7,119 units in the fourth quarter.
With the arrival of the first production Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Middle East last year, the program transitioned from a mere concept demonstration project to a fully operational weapon system supporting the Iraq war. Though the high-flying aircraft still has a lot to prove, operators are growing increasingly confident in its intelligence-gathering capabilities. But it has yet to demonstrate its ability to carry more advanced sensors, so commanders remain unwilling to fully transfer high-altitude reconnaissance missions from the venerable U-2.
NASA plans to reuse the main portion of the Orion crew exploration vehicle "where it makes sense," following a system requirements review (SRR) of the human-carrying U.S. spacecraft intended to pick up where the retiring space shuttle leaves off. "Based on the current design concept and level of understanding, the crew module portion of the Orion will be largely reused from flight to flight," says Helen Grant, program executive for the Orion crew module.
NASA says it will deliver its Fiscal 2007 operating plan to Capitol Hill "soon," and a couple of big shoes will drop once it does. The plan will detail how the agency intends to absorb a $545-million cut in its budget this year, and a lot of that money will come from sending robotic scouts to the surface of the Moon in advance of a human return there by 2020. Mapping is the top lunar-robotic priority, to be handled by NASA's 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and upcoming orbiter missions by India, Japan and perhaps China.
Finnair is bolstering its Airbus long-range aircraft fleet in conjunction with a decision to accelerate the phaseout of its MD-11s by 2010. The carrier says it is adding to its planned buy of Airbus's new twin-widebody, the A350XWB, and has become the first customer to sign firm orders for the type. The carrier now has 11 firm orders and four options. It also has committed to using Rolls-Royce TrentXWB turbofans. Finnair would get the first aircraft in 2014. Finnair also bought seven A330/A340-300s, although the mix hasn't been settled.
UPS has followed FedEx in canceling its A380 freighter, bringing to zero from 27 the backlog for that aircraft type and to two the number of customers to have walked away from the A380 program because of prolonged delays. But, ultimately, UPS's cancellation has more to do with bad customer communications on Airbus's side than delays. UPS was apparently willing to wait until 2012 for the aircraft, a three-year delay.
The debate over a single engine source for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) continues. After losing a bid last year in Congress to kill the alternative to Pratt & Whitney's F135, the Pentagon is back with a Fiscal 2008 budget request that again omits funding. The Defense Dept. believes it can save about $1.8 billion by dropping the General Electric-Rolls-Royce F136 engine. But Bill Storey, president of the Teal Group, predicts Congress will overrule that plan.
Lockheed Martin has rolled out its precision DAGR missile, which is designed for urban combat by limiting collateral damage. The 2.75-in. guided rocket is compatible with the larger Hellfire II missile.
Raytheon Aircraft Co. is relocating its international sales headquarters to Chester, England, from Geneva this month. The move will combine the company's sales function with production and service facilities already at Chester. The company's international business has gone from 16% of overall sales in 2004 to 35% last year, says Brad Hatt, president of commercial sales. Chester, birthplace of RAC's Hawker 800 series business jets, serves as its hub for service and support and is a major heavy maintenance base for NetJets Europe.
William Freeman has been appointed chairman of TerreStar Networks Inc., Reston, Va. He has been a director and was CEO of Leap Wireless International Inc. and a senior executive at Verizon.
The U.S. Air Force is crafting a reconnaissance operational concept that could dramatically alter how the military collects imagery and could--for the first time--draw on the long-dwell attributes of the new Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. For decades, the old way allowed regional four-star commanders purview over their own small fleet of U-2s to collect imagery and signals intelligence on targets in their areas of operation.
When the news came on Mar. 2 about Boeing's plans to terminate C-17 production by mid-2009 and the expectation that the company and its suppliers would have to lay off 7,500 people, I immediately thought about your articles on the "Vanishing Aerospace Engineer" (AW&ST Feb. 5, p. 44). How can we expect our young people to go into aerospace if they hear news like that every time a program is terminated. The mentality of aerospace management is to lay off people immediately, and by the thousands. Who wants to go into a career like that?
Russia's newly integrated aircraft industry is trying to define an initial product strategy and gauge the amount of government assistance it will require in the near-term to rebuild an industry battered by years of neglect, inefficiency and failing products. The group is preparing a "launch package," aimed at restarting series production of existing airliners, renovating manufacturing technologies and devising improved civil aircraft, says Alexey Fedorov, chairman of the Russian United Aircraft Corp. (OAK under its Russian acronym).
Countries in the wider Persian Gulf region will place orders in the next few years worth billions of dollars for air defense and integrated command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) systems, according to what major U.S. and European defense companies expect. Particularly, the improvement of air and missile defenses is an urgent requirement for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, as well as countries including Pakistan, say senior executives attending the Idex defense exhibition last month in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Japan's Solar Physics Satellite captured a partial eclipse when the southern part of the Sun blocked the northern area of the Moon, a sight that could not have been observed from the ground.
The modest extension planned for the shorter of Tokyo Narita's parallel runways will allow operation of flights to the U.S. The 320-meter (1,050-ft.) lengthening of the runway to 2,500 meters, due to be completed in early 2010, has previously been billed as facilitating regional Asian services, but airport officials now say it will also serve more distant destinations. A southern extension to the runway was long planned, but the airport was unable to persuade a farmer to sell the land.
Arthur D. Collins, Jr., chairman/CEO of Medtronic Inc., has been appointed to the Boeing Co. board of directors. Collins is expected to step down as CEO in August but remain chairman.
The U.S. Air Force needs to pare down its requirements for the KC-X tanker. A Boeing KC-17 would fit into the mix nicely for several reasons. USAF pilots know how to fly it and maintain it, and the service needs more C-17s. Buying a commer- cial-off-the-shelf tanker would require more of the above and the bucks aren't there. Also, Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley is right to be less than enthusiastic about the choice of the CH-47 for the CSAR-X (AW&ST Feb. 5, p. 21). In Operation Anaconda--during the fighting in Afghani-stan--CH-47s were shot down easily.
After an 18-month study, the U.S. Energy and Defense Depts. say they will continue with a Reliable Replacement Warhead program to improve the safety of the nuclear stockpile with new designs and manufacturing. Defense officials say the new design will produce a more flexible nuclear infrastructure and, eventually, a smaller stockpile of nuclear weapons. On the other side of the nuclear equation, the U.S. Air Force says it will retire the nuclear-armed, hard-target-kill capable Advanced Cruise Missile.
