Will Horton: December 2009 Archives

This spectacular photo was the winner in the Big Birds category of our 2009 Flight International cover competition. It was taken by AirSpace user DRMonk. It depicts a RAF Lockheed L-1011 TriStar landing at Brize Norton at Sunset.
 

Embraer has clinched US certification for its Phenom 300 light business jet less than two weeks after the Brazilian civil aviation authority ANAC granted type and production certification for the $8.14 million, seven-seat aircraft. Read more...

Chinese state-owned helicopter manufacturer Avicopter is considering the launch of a new engine programme for the EC175/Z15 medium twin that it is developing jointly with Eurocopter.

Eurocopter chief executive Lutz Bertling says that while Eurocopter had no plans to equip the EC175 with any engine other than the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6C-67AE, the Chinese partner was understood to be in talks with Turbomeca about a possible alternative powerplant for the helicopter (which it has brand-named the Z15). However, no agreement had yet been reached, he says. Read more...

The British Antarctic Survey has been awarded the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO) registration, after a rigorous assessment by the International Business Aviation Council. BAS says the accreditation was given in recognition of its safe working practices and procedures in the Antarctic's extreme environment.

This photo of a Eurocopter Tiger over the French Alps (in preparation for the aircraft's Afghan debut) accompanied our exclusive World Air Forces Directory in Flight International.

Boeing has completed the first flight test of three critical technologies that partly form the AH-64 Apache Block III upgrade programme.

The "structures vehicle" test flight on 23 November demonstrated the all-new split-torque face gear, composite main rotor blade, more powerful General Electric T700-701D engines, says Boeing programme manager Scott Rudy. Read more...

(Photo: Boeing)

Bombardier's Belfast plant is gearing up to begin series production of the CSeries' carbonfibre wing as it prepares to begin ground-testing its recently completed demonstrator structure. The first wings will be shipped to the Montreal assembly line in 2011. Read more...

This photo of a Hondgu Aviation JL-8 K-8 accompanied our exclusive World Air Forces Directory in Flight International.

Our final edition of Flight International for the year features the winner of this year's cover photo competition. The photo depicts a Raytheon Sentinel ASTOR taking off from RAF Waddington in the UK. It was taken by AirSpace user Sunshine Band. Congratulations!

The magazine also features the winners in specific categories. Upload your photos to AirSpace for a chance to win in next year's competition, or to be featured as our image of the week.

Editorial content includes:

• Can Vulcan return for 2010? The Vulcan Operating Company (TVOC) pulled off what many thought was impossible when it returned XH558 to the air from Bruntingthorpe on 18 October 2007 after 14 years on the ground. To the delight of many, the delta-winged bomber - which had been the last Vulcan to fly in 1993 - made a triumphant return to the air display circuit in 2008. But as the year progressed, there were doubts amid the banking crisis that sufficient funds could be secured to get the aircraft back for a repeat in 2009.

• 787 first flight is just the start for gruelling programme: For Boeing, first flight may have been the end of a long road to get the 787 flying, but the milestone signals a start of a gruelling flight-test programme to validate and certificate technologies never before seen on a commercial aircraft.

• On a lighter and more festive note, we've put together Uncle Roger's Christmas quiz 2010. This is the first time we've put this quiz online and unlike in Flight International, we've afforded you multiple choice. This quiz is not easy, but if you know your eX2s from your GP7200s then you'll do fine. 

Usually on Monday we feature the Image of the Week from our AirSpace community. Due to this week's cover featuring the top image of the year, there is no Image of the Week. Check back tomorrow for the results of the top photos from AirSpace.

Using battery power, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA made its first flight with a 350m hop at 3ft (1m) altitude on 3 December along a runway at Dübendorf airfield, north-east of Zurich, Switzerland. Designed to fly with solar power, the hop, at 13:11 local time, ends the first development phase. Now the HB-SIA will be transported to the Swiss military airfield at Payerne, west of Bern. There in early 2010 it will carry out solar-powered test flights that will gradually increase in duration until the aircraft makes its first night flight using energy stored during the day. Original Article

Icelandic charter company Icejet is seeking to widen its product and services by adding larger, longer-range aircraft types to its all-Dornier 328JET fleet and providing a corporate shuttle service to European corporations.

"We are in discussions with a number of companies who are moving a lot of people around Europe regularly and for whom a tailored corporate shuttle service would make business sense," says Jon Ingi Jonsson, managing director of the three-year-old company, which is owned by New York-based Nordic Partners. Read more...

(Photo: Icejet)

After more than two years of delays and speculation about the impact of excess weight on the 787's carbonfibre airframe, Boeing has increased the maximum take-off weight of all three variants and opted to shrink the wing of the 787-9 stretch.

The changes, disclosed in the December 2009 revision of the 787 Airport Compatibility document, identify the MTOW of the baseline 787-8 as 227,900kg (502,000lb) - up 8,400kg from the initially planned 219,500kg - while the 787-9's weight has grown by 2,270kg to 247,400kg. The short-range 787-3 has seen a 5,000kg increase to 170,250kg. The ranges of three 787 variants are not specified on this document. Read more...

(Image: Boeing)

European turboprop manufacturer ATR has handed over the fourth and final VIP ATR 72-500 to the Royal Thai Air Force as interest in the executive version of its twin-turboprop regional airliner family continues to grow.

The Thai aircraft - used exclusively by the country's royal family, government and military officials - have helped to spur interest in the ATR 42 and 72, particularly from other customers in Asia, says ATR. "We have opened discussions with a number of potential clients in Asia and across the world who are looking for aircraft with low operating costs and large cabins," says the EADS and Alenia joint venture. Read more...

(Photo: ATR)

For the past 40 years, Russia's cosmodromes in Baikonur and Plestesk have been home to the Samara Space Center's Soyuz launcher, but from next year, South America will play host to the world's most frequently launched rocket.

In July 2010, the flight of a Soyuz 2-1a from French Guiana will be the first use of a Russian rocket outside European Russia or a former Soviet state. French Guiana was studied as a Soyuz launch site in the 1990s. Its equatorial location enables the rocket to place 3,000kg (6,600lb) into geostationary orbit, compared with 1,800kg from Baikonur. Read more...

(Photo: Arianespace)

This week Flight International features a review of what's next for the Airbus A400M. It may have flown, but there's still a lot left to do to get the embattled programme back on track. The scheduled first flight of the A400M transport on 11 December is the starting point for three years of intense flight-test activity. To be conducted throughout Europe, and later at many other locations across the globe, the work will prepare the type for its revised entry into service target of December 2012. Read more...

We also look at:

• A-Z of air forces: we detail every nation's military fleet in our special survey (premium content)
  
• Korean Air's order for the Boeing 747-8I. Boeing's reply to the A380 has struggled for orders. So how important is the Korean Air deal?
• Going Galactic: Unveiled in Californian celeb-fest, Virgin's space transport powers up to prove its credentials
  

You can subscribe to Flight International here or here for the digital version.

This week's Image of the Week (featured on page 3 of Flight International), is taken by AirSpace user Ralph Schendl. It depicts an Air Dolomiti CRJ taken air-to-air. Ralph says: "I was flying the B25 for Red Bull and we where hired as a photo platform for taking air to air pix." He captured this CRJ during the photo shoot of the BAE 146. He adds, "This picture was taken out of the side window of the B25 over the Adriatic Sea near Ronchi (Trieste) flying at 2000ft."
 

Gulfstream's G250, the aircraft built to replace the G200 in service, has performed it's first flight successfully in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The G250, a super midsize cabin, mid-range business jet, took off from Ben Gurion International Airport today at 8:16 a.m. local time, reaching an altitude of 32,000 ft and a speed of 0.7 mach. Landing gear was retracted during the flight. Read more...

Bombardier is targeting a production rate of 20 aircraft per month for its CSeries aircraft by 2016 as the airframer readies to enlarge the Mirabel site dedicated to producing the aircraft.

Gary Scott, president of Bombardier commercial aircraft, says the 65,000m2 (700,000ft2) factory that currently supports production of the CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ1000 aircraft will be expanded by just under 92,900m2 to support the CSeries. Read more...

How Bombardier's Mirabel facility will expand for the CSeries

(Flightglobal/Bombardier)

Airbus Military's first A400M transport took off from San Pablo airport near Seville, Spain at 10:15 local time on its historic first flight.

Aircraft MSN001 landed at 14:00 local time, after a sortie lasting 3h 45min.

Airbus says the first A400M reached its top speed of 300kt (555km/h) as planned during the flight, and that the aircraft performed as expected. Read more and see our photos and video...

United has divided its widely-anticipated widebody order evenly between rival airframers Airbus and Boeing, ordering 25 A350XWBs and 25 Boeing 787s.

The airline is also taking options to purchase 50 additional aircraft of each type.

"One of our financial objectives was to ensure any aircraft order not impact the work we are doing to strengthen ourbalance sheet and improve our liquidity. The deal needed to drive strong economics to justify the investments, as well as provide fleet flexibility over the long term," says carrier CEO Glenn Tilton. Read more...

Below: Illustrations of what the A350 and B787 will look like in United's livery. By Flightglobal artist Tim Bicheno-Brown.

Israeli missile developer Rafael has confirmed that the ground-based Stunner interceptor is the focus of internal deliberations to possibly become the firm's next-generation air-to-air missile.

The Stunner could succeed Israel's Python and Derby missiles. Read more...

Russian airline Transaero has reiterated its commitment to acquire its outstanding Tupolev Tu-214s, but is also considering the modernised Tu-204SM variant. Read more...

This week Flight International features an update on the 787 Dreamliner as the aircraft prepares for its first flight later this month. While Boeing crunches the data from the latest volley of static tests to validate the side-of-body reinforcement, sources within the company are increasingly confident that the long-delayed program could fly not one, but potentially two 787s later this month. Read more...

We also look at:

• All business airlines: Bombardier explores low-density configurations for CSeries
• Flight impressions: Cessna's Skycatcher 162 sets course for leading role in flight training
• Biofuels: Can industry and government make it economical for aircraft to be fuelled by algae?
  

You can subscribe to Flight International here or here for the digital version.

This week's Image of the Week (featured on page 3 of Flight International), is taken by AirSpace user Joris van Boven. It depicts a Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16 taking off from Vokel Air Force Base during a demonstration test flight.

The European Aviation Safety Agency has issued an airworthiness directive that will remove flight attitude restrictions for Honeywell Primus Apex-equipped PC-12NGs in lieu of a software upgrade or hardware change-out.

The regulator in early April had issued an emergency AD against the integrated avionics suite, alerting operators to the possibility that both primary flight displays could indicate an erroneous roll attitude offset of up to 10° in the same direction when the Apex-equipped aircraft were taxied on to the runway in an accelerated turn, with take-off immediately following. Read more...

Boeing broke ground in North Charleston, South Carolina for the second 787 final assembly line today, marking the first all-new commercial jetliner assembly plant in the US since then-Lockheed built its L-1011 final assembly line in Palmdale, California in 1968. Read more...

Boeing's depiction of what the Charleston facility will look like:

Setting a goal to prove that a heavier-than-air aircraft can fly for more than five years without landing seems difficult enough, but perhaps raw longevity is really the easy part.

The US Department of Defense's research and development arm, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has invited bids to build the Vulture programme's near-full-scale demonstrator, considers its promise of extreme long endurance as shaking the foundations of how the military and the aerospace industry operate and support an aircraft. Read more...

Airbus plans to deliver almost 100 aircraft in China next year, following a better-than-expected 2009 in the rapidly growing Chinese market.

The A320 final assembly line in Tianjin, opened in September 2008, has delivered nine aircraft to date and is on track to delivering the remaining two to Hainan Airlines subsidiary Deer Jet by year-end. Read more...

This blog also covered the delivery of the first Tianjin-assembled A320 back in June.

European researchers developing a magnetic heat shield that could augment or replace the traditional ablative materials hope to make a test flight in the next decade.

Under development by EADS Astrium, with support from German aerospace centre DLR and the European Space Agency, the magnetic field-protected vehicle will be launched from a submarine on a suborbital trajectory to land in the Russian Kamchatka region. Read more...

This week Flight International features the Gulf Air restructure: Gulf Air's new chief executive has unveiled an "immediate redirection of strategy" for the loss-making Bahraini carrier that will see it focus on short-haul operations and realign its network towards strong connections through its hub under a three-year restructuring programme. Read more...

We also look at:

• The emerging MRO boom in Asia, focusing on four providers in India, Indonesia (here and here), and the Philippines
  
• DARPA re-thinks aircraft acquisition and operations with Vulture

And don't forget about our cover competition (closing 6 December!) where YOUR photograph can be on the cover of Flight International.

You can subscribe to Flight International here or here for the digital version.