European airlines are suffering. Almost every one of the continent's legacy carriers has its own restructuring program in place to reduce losses, minimize the pain and somehow climb out of the abyss they are in. That's the case for the very big players such as Air France-KLM, Lufthansa or the International Airlines Group's Iberia unit, and even more so for smaller carriers. Hardly any European airline is going to make a profit this year, and if they do, then it's more because of non-flying activities such as Lufthansa Technik.
Saudi Arabia will acquire £1.6 billion ($2.51 billion) in military training equipment. The deal includes 22 BAE Hawk advanced jet trainers, 55 Pilatus PC-21s and support elements under the Saudi air force aircraft training effort.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has completed wind tunnel tests to assist Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in developing a reusable Falcon 9 first-stage. SpaceX's long-term vision is to bring back the first stage for a vertical landing near the launch site, thereby increasing the reusability of the entire launch system and cutting overall costs. The company is developing a technology testbed for the concept called the Grasshopper, which consists of a single-Merlin-powered Falcon 9 first stage with a set of landing legs.
Mary Neff has become VP-supply chain at JetBlue Airways. She was director of the operations program management office and has been program director of airports and system operations.
Tim Strauss (see photo) has been appointed managing director of cargo at Hawaiian Airlines. Strauss was VP-transportation and logistics at Emery Worldwide (now UPS Supply Chain Logistics) and has held management development roles in the cargo divisions of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
Airbus Military and its A400M development program face a mixed situation. After years of schedule struggles, company officials exude confidence that they will hand over the first airlifter earlier than expected despite a new round of engine problems. Late last week, engineers were poised to begin a key test phase that should lead to civil type approval in July, according to program chief Cedric Gautier. The initial military type certification is due in August or September, says Airbus Military head Domingo Urena-Raso.
The new owners of bankrupt Mexicana de Aviacion are shooting for a June relaunch of the grounded carrier. Med Atlantica, the investment consortium that took effective control of Mexicana earlier this month, says it is in talks with the airline's two largest creditors, Banorte and Bancomext, and has requested Mexico's transport ministry to return route rights it had lent to Mexicana's rivals after the airline ceased operations.
NASA is spending about $3 million on the initial SEP studies, originally set up by the technology element in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.
Norwegian will lease two Boeing 787-8s from International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC) to bring its current fleet for the widebody to eight aircraft. The airline had already inked agreements to acquire three 787-8s and lease three from ILFC to underpin its long-haul ambitions. The new lease is for 12 years, with both aircraft to enter service in 2014. Norwegian expects to field its first 787-8s next year, with three aircraft to be delivered. Four will follow in 2014 and one in 2015.
Boeing delivered the 50th 767-300 Freighter to the customer that launched the model in the mid-1990s, air-cargo carrier UPS on May 22. UPS, which already has the largest 767-300F fleet in service, has nine additional 767-300Fs on order. The carrier also operates 75 757-200 Package Freighters and eight 747-400Fs.
Initial results of the investigation into the crash a Superjet 100 in Indonesia on May 9 do not show any technical problem with the regional jet, aircraft maker Sukhoi says.
“Miracle at Kham Duc,” painted by preeminent aviation artist Keith Ferris, depicts the moment when Col. Joe Jackson's Fairchild C-123 was most vulnerable to enemy fire as he and his crew were performing a daring rescue. It is one of Ferris's favorite paintings. “I always become part of events as I research and paint them; my mission is to bring the viewer into the scene with me,” he says. “This story was a real cliff-hanger, with the aircraft under continuous fire.
Contestants for the Google Lunar X Prize will have to be careful around Apollo hardware and other human artifacts on the Moon as they vie for prize money promised for returning images of historic spacecraft with their landers. The X Prize Foundation, which organized the $30 million prize, has agreed to include NASA guidelines for preserving historic sites on the Moon as it evaluates proposals from the privately funded teams in the competition. Teams are looking for ways to add to the winnings, and selling up-close imagery is one possibility.
XCOR's Lynx vehicle mockup (AW&ST May 14, p. 26) looks broadly similar to the design of the never-flown Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, a single-pilot spaceplane that was canceled by the U.S. Air Force in December 1963. I wonder if there has been some migration of data from that earlier project to the Lynx, perhaps via subsequent spaceplane design efforts that benefited from the Dyna-Soar work. Clearwater, Fla.
There is no magic formula for a profitable airline business model, says Lim Kim Hai, head of Australia's Regional Express (Rex). Rather, success comes from focusing on a raft of minor details, and constantly searching for new ways to do them better.
The personal animosity generated by US Airways' very public advances toward AMR Corp.'s American Airlines division and the union furor that preceded that action have obscured something very important that is about to occur in the U.S. airline industry: Regardless of who is involved, more consolidation is coming, and it will likely bring an end to US Airways.
William Clarey (see photo) has become Mid-Atlantic sales director for Savannah, Ga.-based Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. He succeeds Bill McLeod, who was promoted to VP-Central U.S. sales. Clarey was the Pacific Northwest sales director for Hawker Beechcraft.
General Electric has increased its 2020 revenue target for its business and general aviation engine segment because of strong orders. The company had set a target of reaching $1 billion in business jet powerplant revenue by 2020, but with orders already booked, the company knows it will surpass that level, says Brad Mottier, vice president and general manager for GE Aviation business and general aviation. The engine division also is closing in on several key milestones for its product portfolio.
With a half-dozen Boeing CH-47Fs already acquired, the Netherlands is moving to standardize its fleet by replacing CH-47Ds with “F” models. The goal is to extend the service life of the transport fleet to 2045, the defense ministry tells legislators. Spending for the purchase will run through 2019.
On Jan. 17, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. would not sign the EU's Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. Instead, the U.S. would invite other spacefaring states, including members of the EU, to negotiate an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities using the EU document as a launching point. The administration's new direction should not come as a surprise, but will prove counterproductive in achieving its own goals.
All congressional eyes are on the Air Force's F-22 Raptor, given the Lockheed Martin fighter's problems with its oxygen-delivery system. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta placed restrictions on Raptor operations May 15—including a noteworthy deployment to the United Arab Emirates—and ordered the Air Force to rush into place an automatic back-up system. The first retrofit is due in December, and starting in January, 10 aircraft will be retrofitted per month.
In a recent interview, Leo Christodoulou, program manager of the Energy Department's Advanced Manufacturing Office, made many excellent points regarding the need to design manufacturability into product concepts and initial designs (AW&ST May 7, p. 53).
