The Persian Gulf area carriers have been among the winners of the seismic shift in global air transport. As they continue to grow, upgrading infrastructure will be key to sustaining the pace.
Graham Warwick (Washington), Larry Dickerson (Forecast International)
As war winds down and the focus shifts from Afghanistan to China, missile manufacturers will see a move away from today's heavy use of precision air-to-surface weapons toward an emphasis on long-range anti-ship and strike systems. Influenced by that trend, the world missile-systems market will see a steady increase in value over the next five years, but a drop in deliveries as production shifts to more expensive weapons. More than 194,000 missiles of all types are forecast for production between 2013 and 2017, valued at $61.9 billion.
Variable-area fan nozzles on the latest high-bypass engines could increase fuel efficiency and reduce airport noise. Pratt & Whitney is introducing the concept on its PW1100G for the Airbus A320NEO. but not on smaller versions of the geared turbofan. Current engines have fixed-area fan nozzles, designed as a compromise between climb and cruise. But the exit area needs to be larger for takeoff and smaller for cruise, so a variable nozzle optimizes the fan flow for each flight condition.
Australia's competition watchdog says a proposed Qantas-Emirates partnership should be allowed to proceed, although the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has also signaled its intention to impose capacity conditions on routes between Australia and New Zealand. The commission has issued a draft approval for the Qantas and Emirates plan to cooperate closely, particularly on routes from Australia to Europe via Dubai.
India is likely to buy two additional Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to strengthen its air defense, according to Defense Minister A.K. Anthony. The air force currently has three Israel Aerospace Industries/Elta Phalcon radar systems mounted on Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft, under a $1.1 billion deal with Israel and Russia signed in 2004. Anthony did not say whether India will proceed with a follow-on option for the Phalcon or release fresh tenders.
Todd Witchall (see photo) has been appointed VP-finance and CFO of Redmond, Wash.-based Crane Aerospace and Electronics. He was senior business operations manager at Lockheed Martin.
A Pinnacle Airlines contract with its pilots, if ratified in mid-January, will provide Delta Air Lines with its path to reducing the number of 50-seat jets operated by its regional airline partners to 125 or fewer. Doing so could reduce its maintenance costs.
This has been quite a year. Neil Armstrong has passed on, but Curiosity is alive on Mars. One of the most amazing sights that I have seen was in October 1957 when I witnessed the first visible pass of Sputnik over California. I was a medical intern at Los Angeles County Hospital at that time. I, along with numerous others, went to the athletic field at CalTech to observe this event. Someone called out “There it is!” And there it was. All of us gathered there knew in an instant that the world had changed.
One day in the distant future, air traffic will certainly stop growing. The current annual growth rate of 5% per year cannot be sustained forever. If it were, the world's population would eventually spend more time in the air than on the ground.
NASA 's fuel-depleted Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) A and B lunar mission probes slammed into a mountain near Goldschmidt crater at the Moon's North Pole late Dec. 17, ending a one-year mission. The carefully targeted impact of the two washing machine-sized spacecraft, renamed Ebb and Flow, occurred on schedule, with Ebb striking first at 5:28 p.m. EST, and Flow striking 32 sec. later. The spacecraft impacted the Moon at 3,800 mph.
It's a classic chicken or egg dilemma. Small satellites are not being built because there is no cheap way to launch them, and small launchers are not being built because there are no satellites to launch on them. So the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is attacking the problem from both directions simultaneously, with dual programs to develop $500,000 imaging satellites of less than 100 lb. and air-launched boosters to place them in low Earth orbit for $1 million a flight.
Jan. 22-23—MRO Middle East. Dubai, United Arab Emirates. March 5-6—Defense Technology Requirements. Arlington, Va. March 7—Aviation Week's Laureate Awards. Washington. April 16-18—MRO Americas/MRO Military. Atlanta. May 7-8—Civil Aviation Manufacturing. Charlotte, N.C. May 14-15—MRO Eastern Europe. Vilnius, Lithuania. Sept. 24-26—MRO Europe. London. You can now register ONLINEfor Aviation Week Events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/events or call +1 (212) 904-4682.
Allan Stanton has become VP for international sales in the Middle East for Savannah, Ga.-based Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. He was sales director for Hawker Beechcraft in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
Constantine Karayannopoulos has been named interim president and CEO of Greenwood, Colo.-based Molycorp, succeeding Mark A. Smith, who has left the company. Karayannopoulos was president and CEO of Neo Material Technologies.
Six completed Boeing 787s are idle, awaiting a type certificate that the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) will probably not issue until March. Hainan Airlines, owner of three of the aircraft, is particularly anxious to take delivery, because it needs the aircraft to open planned routes, say industry sources. China Southern owns the other three, and it will put the type into Chinese service first. The CAAC's target is March.
“On the Covers” on the Table of Contents in the Dec. 17 issue (page 6) misidentified the aircraft on the cover of the MRO Edition. It is an Air Canada Embraer 190.
Jan. 7-10—AIAA's 51st Aerospace Sciences Meeting including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition. Gaylord Texan Hotel and Convention, Grapevine, Texas. See www.aiaa.org/asm2013 Jan. 9-10—Fourth Annual China Aerospace Manufacturing Summit. Post Hotel, Harbin City. See www.galleonevents.com/2013CAMS Jan. 9-11—Army Aviation Symposium and Exposition. Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center. National Harbor, Md. See www.ausaaviation.org
(L to R): Photographer, author and archivist DANA BELL has retired after a 30-year career with the U.S. government. Starting as a photo researcher with the Air Force in 1976, he moved to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington in 1982. Bell has written 32 books on aviation history, and is now a full-time author. This year marked his 16th as a photo contest judge.
