A high-level German government meeting over the future of the EADS shareholder structure has failed to resolve how to deal with Daimler’s request to reduce its stake in the European aerospace and defense giant. Daimler wants to again trim its shareholding, now at 15%. But such a move would upset the Franco-German balance in EADS unless a new German stakeholder can be found to maintain national parity. There have been discussions of whether the German government would take the shareholding directly.
Your history of “The Shuttle Era” (AW&ST Dec. 6, 2010, p. 48) was quite thorough, however one item, the description of the “Costar” role in repairing Hubble, bears clarification. Your description, while accurate, is not relevant to the repair of Hubble. The important point is that the late Jim Westphal’s CalTech/JPL Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC) played the leading role in characterizing the misshapened primary mirror so that corrective optics could be made integral with the “WFPC-2,” which had already been built as a spare camera.
Safran will create an aircraft wiring joint venture with Comac and supply the engine nacelle for Airbus’s A320NEO family in moves that will reinforce the French engine and aero-equipment manufacturer’s future narrowbody sales and help position it for the coming market uptick.
The question sweeping the U.S. defense establishment is: How low did Boeing go? Nearly three years after the U.S. Air Force’s selection of a Northrop Grumman/EADS A330-based tanker was found by government auditors to be flawed, the service has now chosen a Boeing design to replace its aging KC-135 refuelers. The Air Force based its selection largely on life-cycle price, and Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn says: “Boeing was a clear winner.”
Ashton Carter Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (Washington, D.C.)
Your recent editorial (AW&ST Feb. 21, p. 66) deplores the idea, supposedly advocated in a speech by me, of consolidation among so-called lower-tier defense companies. But no such idea appears in the speech on industrial policy I gave on Feb. 9 at the Cowen Group or of the speech I gave at Aviation Week’s A&D Technology and Requirements conference on Feb. 16.
Sikorsky has begun certification test flights of its improved S-76D commercial helicopter, which is flying over the company’s test center in West Palm Beach, Fla. Upgrades include new engines, avionics and a dual-speed rotor for reduced noise. Certification is planned by year-end and when deliveries begin early in 2012, the S-76D will be the first of a wave of new rotorcraft to enter commercial service. Sikorsky Aircraft photo.
The Pentagon’s next bomber will protect itself against enemy aircraft and air- or ground-launched missiles with an electronic attack weapon, probably based on an advanced array whose effects can be moved at the speed of light around the battlespace.
Go to the website www.armyaircrews.com/index.html and select Kiowa to see how many of those helicopters were shot down both in Vietnam and Iraq. As an light-observation helicopter pilot flying the Bell Helicopter’s OH-6, we saw numerous OH-58s shot down and aircrews die needlessly due to lack of survivability of this weapon system.
As the aviation industry fights for dwindling federal funds to pay for programs crucial to advancing the air traffic control system and improving airport facilities, it finds itself in an unusual situation—one of great uncertainty on how the Republican-controlled House will square its four-year fiscal 2011 FAA reauthorization bill with the two-year Senate bill, or how it will handle the plethora of amendments expected.
The turmoil shaking the Middle East and North Africa is creating uncertainty about weapon programs. Several competitions are in doubt, and suppliers are anxious about whether they need to step back from the market.
John Burnum, Jr. (see photo) has been named director of business development for Business Jet Access of Dallas. He was regional sales manager for King Aerospace.
Politicians and diplomats may be struggling to understand the fast-moving events in the Middle East, but those who watch U.S. defense exports expect little change (see p. 22). As Wall Street analysts at RBC Capital Markets put it, look at the buyers and sellers during 2009 and 2010. Over those years, 88% of U.S. defense exports to the Middle East went to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Egypt.
ViaSat and African operator RascomStar-QAF are introducing a low-power portable GSM cellular uplink station that should significantly lower the cost of serving cell-phone customers in rural areas and sharply reduce satellite price disparities with respect to terrestrial networks.
Mark Carreau (Houston), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
With the lengthy assembly of the International Space Station drawing to a close, NASA is moving to extend use of the orbiting laboratory to other federal agencies, academia and the private sector through a fast-paced competition to select a non-profit manager for oversight of the broad, cutting-edge research agenda envisioned by Congress under a National Laboratory designation.
Embraer has unveiled the first of three EMB-145s ordered by India as testbeds for an indigenously developed airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system. The first aircraft—equipped with the antenna structure for the phased-array radar under development by the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization’s (DRDO) Bengalaru-based Center for Airborne Systems (CABS)—will be flight-tested at Embraer before its scheduled delivery to India in August.
The most experienced crew of astronauts in space shuttle history is in orbit for the final mission of the shuttle Discovery, working through a busy timeline to equip the International Space Station (ISS) with an equipment storage compartment and an external platform securing a spare thermal control system radiator. Also aboard are 5 tons of cargo, including Robonaut 2, an experimental humanoid developed by NASA in partnership with General Motors.
Treg Manning (see photo) is the new vice president of sales at American Eurocopter , Grand Prairie, Texas. He comes from the Med-Trans Corp., where he was senior vice president of business development.
Allowing increased foreign ownership in U.S. airlines and changing the definition of “control” of them is a debate whose time has come—again. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee steered clear of any language in the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011, now awaiting full House debate. Erstwhile Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) had tried to reduce the amount of foreign ownership allowed but he lost re-election.
Airbus Military and the Europrop International (EPI) engine consortium appear close to a settlement over claims and counterclaims on cost overruns in the Airbus A400M program. MTU Aero Engines, a key EPI partner, has dissolved a €45 million ($62 million) provision for possible Airbus claims, the company revealed in its annual results presentation. Such a step is only possible if management believes there is a better than 50% chance it will no longer need the money.
During the years in which Emirates has grown from an important regional carrier to a worldwide powerhouse, rivals have often claimed—with modest proof—that the airline merely has benefited from a range of special privileges and circumstances. Soon the accusers will have the opportunity to test their hypothesis as one of those supposed perks—cheap export financing for aircraft—goes by the wayside. And judging from Emirates’ reaction, this perk, like most of the others, appears to count for less than meets the eye.
Facing a flat sales outlook and bleak budget environment, European defense companies are looking to streamlined operations and targeted acquisitions to help sustain profitability.
The FAA’s new 20-year aerospace forecast underscores the recovery U.S. carriers have made in the past year—but also the greater-than-usual uncertainty about the future of the market. Regarding the former, the FAA forecast released here Feb. 15 in conjunction with its 36th Aviation Forecast Conference predicts more than 1 billion passengers will board U.S. airlines in fiscal 2021.
Tim Rens (see photo) is the new chief financial officer of Executive AirShare , a Kansas City, Mo.-based fractional ownership company, where he had been a consultant. He was chief financial officer and treasurer of CVR Energy Inc.
Boeing is 80% of the way through its test program for the Rolls-Royce-powered 787 and 60% for the General Electric version, says 787 Vice President and General Manager Scott Fancher. The focus now is “about getting the Rolls-Royce [version] through its final 20%,” he adds. The engine maker has delivered the first upgraded Package B variants, which are designed to bring fuel burn closer to specification. “We recently got the first engines and they will be put on aircraft in-flow,” says Fancher.
