A man who flew his unmanned air vehicle over a BAE Systems submarine-testing facility in the north of England has been prosecuted and fined for breaching U.K. Civil Aviation Authority regulations. Robert Knowles is the first person in the U.K. to be prosecuted for the illegal flying of an unmanned aircraft. Knowles was found guilty of taking his UAV into the restricted airspace around the plant at Barrow-in-Furness and a single count of flying the machine within 50 meters (165 ft.) of a structure.
When Aviation Week visited Iberia Maintenance in March, digital message boards across the engine shop floor lit up informing employees that the MRO has been certified by Spain’s air safety agency to repair the IAE V2500 engine. The certification is welcome news for Iberia’s technical director, Jose Luis Quiros, who says the V2500 certification will help increase the volume of work by an additional output of 100 engines in 2015. In 2013, Iberia handled 184 engines.
An Arianespace Soyuz rocket has orbited the first Sentinel satellite built for the European Commission’s (EC) Copernicus Earth-observation program, lifting off from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 5:02 p.m. local time on April 3. The launch of Sentinel-1A marks the seventh Soyuz mission to lift off from Europe’s South American spaceport since October 2011. Built by Thales Alenia Space under contract to the European Space Agency, Sentinel-1A is based on the Prima platform.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is aiming to strengthen its commercial engine business by consolidating all such operations in a new subsidiary beginning Oct. 1 while also agreeing on cooperation with Japan’s main aero-engine specialist, IHI. The new company, in which IHI will make a “modest investment,” will handle sales, engineering, manufacturing and repair, says MHI.
The NTSB is asking the FAA and Boeing to study aids that could help MD-11 pilots avoid hard and bounced landings in the trijets, which can lead to a broken wing spar and “rollover” on the runway. As of August 2012, the NTSB says the MD-11 had the highest rate of hard landings among 27 large Western-built transport category aircraft, at 5.63 per 1 million flight cycles. Between 1994 and 2010, there were at least 13 hard-landing hull loss accidents around the world.
United Airlines opened a third widebody hangar at Newark Liberty International Airport that provides greater configuration capabilities for the line maintenance operation. The 90,000-sq.-ft. hangar can accommodate a Boeing 747-400 or a 767 and midbody such as the 737-900ER. Having this $35 million hangar also provides broader maintenance flexibility since certain functions, such as borescope testing, should be done indoors.
Recent guidelines put forward by U.S. and European regulators to enable passengers on approved carriers to use their personal electronic devices (PED) during all phases of flight have been warmly welcomed by wireless inflight entertainment (IFE) and connectivity providers. Allowing passengers to use their smartphones and tablets gate to gate “fuels the trend very positively” for the wireless IFE market, says Norbert Mueller, vice president of Lufthansa Systems’ BoardConnect unit.
Alenia Aermacchi is building its own production-representative M-346 trainer to continue development and testing for the young program after mishaps claimed two of three of its original prototype aircraft.
By 2020, the Italian air force will have overhauled the way it trains pilots, with a fleet of new aircraft, a new training structure and increased use of simulation paving the way for pilots to fly types such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and UAVs such as the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper and Piaggio Aero Hammerhead.
The paperless initiative is part of an organization-wide effort to improve United’s bottom line through increased efficiency. Like most U.S. carriers, United is practicing strict capacity discipline and trying to squeeze more profits out of its existing assets. The airline cut capacity 1.3% in 2013, marking three straight years of decline. It expects to grow 1-2% in 2014, but that will come through upgauging, not with a larger fleet.
The anti-corruption drive of Chinese President Xi Jinping over the past year could well have been a crisis for business aviation in the country if it had frightened wealthy Chinese and the companies they control away from buying business jets. There is a tradition in Communist China of keeping one’s head down, even if that conflicts with a much older tradition of showing off wealth.
Australia is likely to commit to buying 58 more Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightnings this month, setting aside the alternative of consolidating its combat aircraft squadrons on the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The decision will increase the country’s total commitment to 72 F-35s and expand the Royal Australian Air Force’s fast-jet fleet, counting a separate order for 12 EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft as additional to, not part of, the fighter force renewal.
The crisis in Russia is forcing a more detailed discussion about getting not just astronauts but also military space assets into orbit. A Pentagon study of alternatives to Russian rocket engines, due in May, includes production of an indigenously produced engine, Gen. William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, told lawmakers April 3. And while the potential to increase the U.S. rocket engine industrial base is attractive, “money is our problem,” says Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.
True high-speed inflight Internet for passengers is in its infancy, but LiveTV is betting it will soon be taken for granted, and is laying the groundwork for a major shift in how airlines leverage aircraft connectivity. LiveTV’s K a-band inflight Wi-Fi offering rolled out last year when launch customer and LiveTV owner JetBlue Airways launched its FlyFi service. The results—scores of passengers streaming media and (on the media demo flight, at least) video chatting—stand in sharp contrast to those of the competition.
Imagine this: A few hundred people walk into a shopping center at once. They have money to spend, time on their hands and are waiting to be served. They stay for a few hours, then leave, having bought virtually nothing and left no clue as to why they were there, what they might have wanted to buy or if they will return.
Record-high operating profit margins being reported by U.S. defense prime contractors could be sustained for another year, perhaps even three, but later this decade and into next, margins may come under pressure. Of course, this has to be considered on a company-by-company basis, but there are some broader changes to consider
Steve Meyer (see photo), director of aerospace and defense global sales for the Lord Corp., Cary, N.C., has been appointed to the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Association’s Supplier Management Council Board of Managers.
