Boeing and CFM International are scrutinizing fuel supplies and the Honeywell-built fuel-control system in the CFM56-7B following a series of thrust-instability events on Boeing 737NG aircraft.
Is the merger of American Airlines and US Airways a good idea? It would certainly seem so if you listen to the upbeat reaction from the financial community, labor unions representing the two airlines' employees and assorted pundits (see p. 24). The link-up, which will create the world's largest carrier, is being touted as providing critical mass to compete against Delta Air Lines and United Airlines while promoting capacity discipline that will enhance profitability across the U.S. airline industry.
Shortly after the Obama administration unveiled its so-called pivot to Asia-Pacific in early 2012, top Pentagon leaders began warning everyone that the new defense strategy could not survive further budget cuts. So sure were they that the 2011 Budget Control Act's automatic, across-the-board spending cuts would not be allowed to occur that White House and Pentagon officials had no qualms with pegging the pivot's foundations to the last five-year defense budget plan.
A simple graph explains Australia's declining strategic position. Relative to the two countries that its defense planners must consider most carefully, Australia will by 2017 have just a quarter of the economic clout it enjoyed 25 years before.
As the Boeing 787 enters the second month of its fleet-wide grounding, the manufacturer is poring over data collected on a series of flight and ground tests and says it is making “good progress” toward a solution.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (ret.) Joseph M. Cosumano has been named president of Scottsboro, Ala.-based CFDRC. He was the commanding general of the Space and Missile Defense Command at Redstone Arsenal.
Jared Fox has been appointed director of business development for San Jose, Calif.-based TWC Aviation's Private Jet charter Services group. Fox has been VP-charter sales at Corporate Jets.
Prof. Jonathan Katz Physics Department Washington University (St. Louis, Mo. )
One reason that the lithium-ion batteries failed so frequently in the Boeing 787 may be because acceptance testing may not have included pressure cycling. A cell or battery not equipped with a pressure-relief mechanism deforms during pressure cycles.
Todd Borkey has become chief technology officer and VP-strategic initiatives of Clarksburg, Md.-based Thales Communications. He held the same title at DRS Defense Solutions.
Production ramp-ups amid a transition into new products, particularly the CFM Leap single-aisle engine series and GE90 successor for Boeing's proposed 777X, are behind the late 2012 surge of acquisitions and joint ventures by GE Aviation, including the $4.3 billion purchase of Italian gearbox, turbine and transmission specialist Avio.
The future of the Tupolev Tu-204 narrowbody airliner looks ever more uncertain after Russian authorities suspended the air operator's certificate of the largest operator, Red Wings. The program is already in limbo, with no commercial orders at the moment.
The truth is that the future of air traffic management is already here and it is time to start running to meet it. It may be an uphill run, but to achieve our common vision of a globally harmonized and interoperable air navigation system we need to recognize what needs to be done and set about doing it.
Brazilian arms manufacturer Avibras has become a stakeholder in Harpia Systems, the joint company formed in 2011 by Embraer and Israeli-owned AEL Systems to develop unmanned aircraft systems. The Falcao medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft, under development by Avibras for the Brazilian air force, will become part of Harpia's product line. The Falcao made its first flight in 2012.
The Northrop Grumman/Bell Helicopter Fire-X unmanned helicopter has completed a 250-flight envelope-expansion program at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., in preparation for the transfer of testing to the U.S. Navy's MQ-8C Fire Scout endurance upgrade program.
David Rushton has joined New York-based FlightSafety International as commercial marketing manager-visual simulation systems. He was VP-business development for VDC Display Systems.
Teledyne Brown Engineering will support International Space Station operations at NASA's Johnson Space and Marshall Space Flight centers under a mission operations and integration contract worth as much as $120.1 million over the next five years. The Huntsville, Ala.-based company has agreed to support all phases of flight.
Military intelligence confronts a potential adversary that is secretive and authoritarian, but not for the first time. The media have changed, but like the Soviet Union, China releases what it wants to release. Every large-scale model at the upcoming Idex defense show in Abu Dhabi, every glossy data sheet handed out by a smiling booth attendant (in 2011 at least, the Chinese industry had not switched to memory sticks, because most people aren't that stupid) and the images on the Internet are there for a reason. Promoting exports?
Azerbaijan launched its first satellite Feb. 7 atop an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from Europe's equatorial spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. Built by Orbital Sciences Corp. for Azerbaijan satellite operator Azercosmos, the Azerspace/Africasat-1a spacecraft carries 24 C-band transponders and 12 Ku-band transponders to deliver communications coverage to Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Europe and Africa. The satellite was dual-manifested with Spain's Amazonas 3 satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral for Hispasat of Spain.
Unlike major customer Gulf Air, which hopes to cut its costs by 24% this year as part of a major three-year restructuring plan, Gulf Technics is growing. The MRO in Bahrain recently started offering Airbus and Embraer airframe maintenance services, has plans to build a two-bay widebody hangar at Bahrain International Airport and is evaluating whether to launch component repair capabilities to supplement its spares inventory.
