This year is supposed to be pivotal for Europe's ambitious effort to redraw its convoluted airspace. But even if states meet deadlines to form new cross-border airspace blocks, airlines are skeptical that this will bring the project's promised efficiency gains any closer to reality.
In perhaps a sign of its seriousness in wanting to balance its defense equipment plan and budget, the U.K. is contemplating reversing a key modernization decision by again switching which F-35 Joint Strike Fighter model the country will buy.
A table listing stored passenger aircraft in the March 5 edition (p. 24) contained an error regarding Boeing 747-400s. Last week, Aviation Week Intelligence Network data showed 58 of the 747 variant were parked. An industry source indicated several of those would return to revenue service soon.
Low-cost carriers such as Ryanair are capturing more market share in Italy, which has prompted Alitalia to fight back by seeking to acquire Blue Panorama and Wind Jet. Blue Panorama, owned by Franco Pecci, operates both charter and leisure flights, as well as scheduled traffic through its low-cost arm, Blu-Express. It has a fleet of 12 mostly leased Boeing aircraft, half of them widebodies, and operates from bases at Rome's Fiumicino Airport and Milan's Malpensa Airport. In 2011, it carried around 2 million passengers.
A billion passengers will board U.S. airlines in 2024, and revenue-passenger-miles will nearly double over the next two decades, the FAA predicts in a new forecast. That number sounds impressive—and it is—but consider it in context: A year ago, the FAA thought enplanements would hit the billion mark by 2021 and that RPMs would more than double in 20 years. What changed? More U.S. airline consolidation and another bankruptcy, for starters, the FAA says.
Israel usually does not telegraph its punches or hype new technology, but now its leaders have done so. They say they are upgrading the long-range, high-altitude Arrow and other anti-missile systems and intend to test them soon. “We are introducing Block 4,” says a senior Israeli official. “That involves the new Green Pine radar [with more and better transmitter/receiver modules], new software for command and control, and enhanced performance of the Arrow 2 interceptor missiles against a variety of threats, including a much-expanded battlespace.”
The saga over the crash of an Air France Concorde in 2000 that killed 113 people continues, with a French appeals court last week kicking off a proceeding. The appeals process is expected to last around nine months. It will reexamine issues such as whether there was a design flaw in the Concorde and whether a component of a Continental Airlines DC-10, which preceded the supersonic airliner on the runway, left debris that caused damage to the following aircraft.
International Editor Robert Wall's “Close Encounter: Typhoon and Rafale”—on the Ares defense technology blog—deals with a cementing of ties between U.K. and French military forces. Comments are informative about the evolution of the aircraft, with involved exchanges. Portions of these include: TangoViking noting: The RAF also visited Bodo, Norway, with two Typhoons recently. Perhaps it was Cold-Response related. Pappy musing:
Ray LaHood calls the EU emissions trading system (ETS) “one of the biggest irritations” of his tenure as Transportation secretary. “This system makes no sense at all!” he fumes. The ETS could violate the landmark U.S.-EU open-skies treaty, he says, adding, “I'm working very closely with Secretary [of State Hillary Rodham] Clinton on the things we can do.”
A junior German politician is trying hard to undermine EADS's newly restored peaceful governance. Peter Hintze, aviation coordinator of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, claims that Germany's interests in the aerospace and defense group are not being preserved. This surprising assertion comes in the aftermath of Thomas Enders's proposal to consolidate in Toulouse the group's double headquarters, which are now in Paris and Ottobrunn, Germany. Enders, who is currently Airbus chief, will become EADS's leader in May when Louis Gallois retires.
For a brief moment in 2011, fledgling rocket maker SpaceX silenced critics with a deal to launch a commercial telecom satellite for one of the largest fleet operators in the world.
Christopher Jones (see photo) was honored with Northrop Grumman's Career Achievement in Industry Award for engineering at the company's Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) Global Competitiveness Conference. Jones is senior VP and general manager of the Integrated Logistics and Modernization Div. Yolanda Murphy (see photo), media relations manager in the Electronics Systems Sector, won the Corporate Promotion of Education Award. Diona Chenier (see photo), a multidiscipline engineer in Electronics Systems, received the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award.
U.S. and Canadian ground control teams have started the first robotic refueling demonstration outside the International Space Station, which they hope will lead to the robotic removal of a satellite gas cap by mid-summer and eventual in-space refueling. The Canadian Space Agency's Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator wielded the tools in the two-armed robot's first technology demonstration assignment beginning March 7.
Neil Gibson (see photo) has been named to the senior management team of the London-based Gama Group. He was director of PremiAir's Charter & Management Div.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are teaming up on support for military aid to Israel. Cantor and Hoyer announced they would be sponsoring a U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act. The bill would require a report from the Obama administration about six months after enactment that considers Israel's “urgent requirement” for the Joint Strike Fighter and how to improve the “cost efficiency and timely delivery” of the F-35.
Craig Lowe has joined Washington-based Airlines For America (A4A) as director of security. He was A4A project manager for the Known Crewmember program and president/founder of Lion's Gate Services.
Boeing confirmed an agreement with mobile satellite service Artel to distribute Inmarsat-3, -4 and -5 bandwidth to potential U.S. government users. The Boeing Commercial Satellite Services and Artel deal is focused initially on providing Ka bandwidth on Inmarsat-3 and -4 satellites. Inmarsat-5 global satellite communications will be available starting in late 2013. The agreement includes provisions for users to be able to conduct compatibility testing on Inmarsat-5 terminals starting in the middle of 2013.
Avio and Snecma have finalized a deal to cooperate on the CFM International Leap-X engine, expanding their relationship on the CFM56. The deal comes as Avio's private equity owner is considering the sale of its share in the business. Snecma-parent Safran is seen as a potential buyer, although industry officials say the sides remain apart on a price.
Satellite operators see hopeful signs that their spacecraft eventually will play host to payloads supplied by cash-strapped governments trying to save a buck in today's tight budget environment, but so far concrete new deals have yet to materialize. In July 2011 Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, head of the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), set up a dedicated hosted-payload office (HPO) to look for military space missions that could take advantage of piggyback rides on other spacecraft, and to help develop and integrate the resulting payloads.
David Louzado has been appointed sales director for the Risk and Asset Management Div. of Airclaims, London Heathrow Airport. He was VP-fleet services at Falko Regional Aircraft, formerly BAE Systems Asset Management.
A sigh of relief swept the room last month at the European Space Agency's headquarters in Paris as top ESA and industry officials watched the signing of the 19-nation organization's largest and possibly most politically charged satellite contract.
Icing has been a threat to aviation since the dawn of the aeronautic age, and as manufacturers pursue efficiency improvements measured in fractions of a percent, the power demanded to protect aircraft—whether by bleed air or electrical heating—is coming under attack. At the same time, unmanned-aircraft developers see the need to operate in all weather conditions, but cannot afford the power and weight penalties associated with traditional anti-icing systems. Nanotechnology may hold the answer, at both ends of the spectrum.
A recent cover story touts “Cabins, Connectivity and Comfort” (AW&ST Feb. 27, p. 44). Really? For whom? Certainly not for the occasional traveler. The illustrative photo of a passenger is insulting to those of us who are not “business travelers.” They have priority boarding, pack the overhead bins with oversized luggage and recline seats recklessly. Two things could better improve comfort: restrict/eliminate seat recline except for extremely long flights and actually enforce size limits for carry-on luggage.
It is not just the defense industry that fears draconian budget cuts in the next 10 years. If lawmakers fail to overturn a looming $1 trillion penalty, known as “sequestration,” aerospace industry officials say that could end the FAA's NextGen air traffic modernization program and set back efforts to use UAVs in civilian airspace. Congress recently expressed its support for NextGen, setting deadlines for the implementation of key technologies by 2020 in the FAA reauthorization bill.
