Embedded inflight entertainment (IFE) systems have become synonymous with long-haul air travel, providing a welcome distraction to passengers seated in tight quarters for many hours
V incent Sandoval (see photo) has become group president of Circor Aerospace & Defense, Burlington, Mass. He was president of TransDigm Group Inc.’s Semco Instruments subsidiary and had been an executive at the Parker Hannafin Co. Sandoval succeeds Michael Dill, who has resigned.
Boeing has revealed the air-launched microsatellite vehicle it is developing for the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (Darpa) Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program. Conventional boosters comprise a stack of stages, each with its own engines and fuel tanks, but in Boeing’s Alasa design, the engines are moved to the forward end of the 24-ft.-long launch vehicle.
A recent U.S. Export-Import Bank press release touting financing of Brazilian carrier Gol’s engine maintenance contract with Delta Air Lines—which is suing the bank over financing of Boeing widebodies for some Delta competitors—turned some heads. Among U.S. MRO providers, it should have—but not for political reasons.
The identity of what appears to be a blended wing-body aircraft type photographed over Amarillo, Texas, on March 10 remains uncertain, with the U.S. Air Force declining any comment on the aircraft.
Closing half the runways at one of the busiest West Coast airports for four months could be a recipe for chaos, but San Francisco International Airport is hoping that a new traffic-flow system will prevent taxiway bottlenecks and keep flight delays to a minimum.
Jean-Yves Le Gall, the newly named president of France's Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), is Aviation Week's 2014 Laureate for Space, based on his work as chairman and CEO of Arianespace. Named to the helm of Europe's world-beating launch service provider in 2007, Le Gall turned around the performance of the Ariane 5 during his tenure at the company. Under his leadership, Arianespace accomplished 54 consecutive successful missions.
The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has thrown a harsh light on the fragile nature of internal and cross-border relationships in Southeast Asia, as a lack of coordination hampered both detection of the flightpath and response to its disappearance.
In the “Warning Sign for the Supply Chain” (AW&ST Mar. 17, p. 66), Tom Captain forecasts that when original equipment manufacturers (OEM) pressure sub-tier suppliers to reduce prices, bad things might happen in our industry. He is right, except for the timing. It is already happening. One OEM is asking for cost reductions that would total 15% over five years—and this is for legacy parts, where margins are already razor thin.
Although Airbus remains publicly ambivalent about its willingness to develop a reengined A330, a growing sector of the market is voicing support for the move.
Emirates has seen significant double-digit growth each year since it started in 1985, but this year promises to be more muted due to infrastructure work at its main hub.
When presenting Brussels Airlines' results for 2013 and outlook for this year, CEO Bernard Gustin compared the carrier's efforts to become profitable to the grueling bicycle ride to the top of 1,912-meter-high (6,273-ft.) Mont Ventoux in the French Alps. “We covered 40 to 50 percent of the slope; we still have challenges but we will get to the top,” vows Gustin, an avid cyclist.
A joint safety effort between Boeing and Embraer launched in late 2012 is yielding its first fruits to help with runway excursions, events where an aircraft veers off or overruns the runway. Products of the collaboration include new training aids and updated operating procedures for both manufacturers' aircraft and, coming in late 2015, new flight-display safety tools for the Boeing 737NG.
It will be summer before an FAA preliminary rule to upgrade full-motion simulators with extended models to handle full stall training hits the streets, and nearly five years before airlines have to officially put the updated machines to work. Despite the long grace period, the industry is taking a proactive stance on the safety improvements triggered by new flight-training rules, finalized in November and designed to help pilots recognize and recover from fully developed stalls and attitude upsets, often caused by stalls.
Karem Aircraft has been confirmed as one of four competitors selected for the preliminary design phase of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (Darpa) Vertical Takeoff and Landing ((VTOL) X-Plane program. The program aims to demonstrate a vertical-lift aircraft that can cruise at 300-400 kt., with a 75% hover efficiency, cruise lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) of at least 10 and a useful load of at least 40% of the vehicle's gross weight. Conventional helicopters have a maximum speed of around 170 kt., hover efficiency of 60% and L/D of 4-5.
April 1-2—SpeedNews Second Annual Aerospace Manufacturing Conference. The Battle House Renaissance, Mobile, Ala.speednews.com/aerospace-manufacturing-conference April 8-10—MRO Americas. Also, April 9—MRO Military. Both at Phoenix Convention Center. events.aviationweek.com/current/mro/index.htm April 11—Society of Experimental Test Pilots' East Coast Section Symposium. NAS Patuxent River, Md. www.setp.org/table/east-coast April 14-17—Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition. Shanghai. www.abace.aero/2012/
USAF Col. (ret.) Gene Cirillo (Gold River, Calif. )
There has been a lot of talk from the “experts” on TV regarding the number of 5,000-ft.-long airports that could accommodate a Boeing 777. A TV-station-generated analysis that states there are 634 such airports is being bandied about recklessly. This flawed analysis ignores the fact that a runway must be strong enough to accommodate a 777. Since the empty-fuel-max-operating weight of the aircraft is 190,600 lb., I doubt there is a 5,000-ft.-long runway in existence strong enough to withstand that amount of weight.
India imports nearly three times as many arms as China and Pakistan, a Swedish-based research institute says, firming the country's position as the world's leading buyer of military weapons: 65% of its hardware. India increased its arms imports by 111% over the past five years, compared with 2004-08, and now accounts for 14% of the world's weapons imports, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) says in a new report last week. The second-highest importers, China and Pakistan, each account for 5% of international defense imports.
