February 2010 Archives

Wonderful news about the Vulcan's reprieve. As any of our regular readers know, Flight International does not focus on historic aircraft, but for years we've been poised to write the obituary of this wonderful bird as a performing air show aircraft. Two weeks ago, it was in intensive care with the doctors about to switch off the life support. Now an anonymous donation has almost guaranteed its return to the air show circuit this summer.

Given what we do for our historic buildings, our great artwork and other cultural icons, it seems strange that national treasures such as aircraft so often have to struggle for commercial sponsorship and private donations to remain in the public eye - and especially for countries such as the UK with such a rich industrial, technological and military heritage.

Yes, we have museums, but the most stunning historic aircraft parked in a museum is only about half as awesome as seeing, hearing and smelling it take off and land. It's the difference between seeing a rare wild beast up close on safari and one in a zoo cage.

For anyone who hasn't caught up with the news, this is the press release from the Vulcan to the Sky trust:

 

Surprise windfall reprieves Vulcan XH558!!

After months  of uncertainty, when the prospect of Vulcan XH558 ever appearing at airshows again was looking unlikely, an anonymous donation of over £400,000 has virtually guaranteed XH558's return to airshows this summer.

John Sharman, Chairman of the Vulcan to the Sky's (VTST), Board of Trustees says: "This most significant donation comes as a very welcome surprise on top of all of the thousands of donations and pledges received over the past four months from XH558's incredibly loyal supporters, and has enabled the Board of Trustees now to commit to the wide-ranging and vital engineering programme, and to return XH558 to airshows around the UK this coming summer. On behalf of XH558 and all her supporters, a heart-felt thank you to all of you who have helped "

Including the anonymous donation and all the pledges, VTST has now raised over £900,000 against its original target of £800,000.  Because the campaign did not reach its target at the end of December, the start of the winter engineering programme had to be postponed, and will now commence in the next few days.

However VTST will continue to run its funding campaign under the original "50^th Birthday"  banner right up until the 25^th May, the Golden Anniversary of XH558's first ever test flight, with the aim of building a sizeable cushion of additional donations as a prudent contingency. This funding campaign will run alongside VTST's attempt to set a record for the number of greetings on a single birthday card, to commemorate XH558's 50^th anniversary.

John Sharman said; "It is vital that we continue our efforts to recruit more supporters from the 2.5 million people who saw XH558 fly last year. VTST's business plan currently shows ongoing donations as the major revenue stream; we ask all of our supporters to do everything that they can to spread the word and bring many more people on board to ensure that XH558 keeps flying!"

Dr Robert Pleming of VTST says: "Over the past few weeks, we have had countless people say to us that XH558 must carry on flying, and have backed that up with a pledge. But it's also been very noticeable this year that people are less able to help, even if they would like to - the recession has made the progress of our campaign this year much slower. So the timing of this amazing anonymous donation could not have been better. I have to believe that XH558 has a guardian angel, who has appeared more than once to save her when all seems to have been lost!"

Vulcan XH558 has attracted record crowds wherever she has appeared, thrilling audiences and creating the so called "Vulcan Effect". As defence becomes an issue of current debate, the Vulcan is a unique reminder of the importance of deterrenceas a strategy.

VTST's plans will now be geared to ensuring that XH558 flies down the Mall on 4th June 2012, in celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's - and the Vulcan's - Diamond Jubilee. These plans will include the launch of a new Annual Appeal running for the twelve months every year, starting on XH558's "Birthday" on 25^th May, and a further rigorous review of operating costs.

Like many fast-growing aviation markets, India aspires to have an aerospace infrastructure to match its status as a customer for Western-built airliners and military aircraft.

In the cover story of the 2-9 February issue of Flight International, Siva Govindasamy looks at just how big that challenge is.

Formal and informal offset has been the traditional way customers of foreign-built defence equipment (and occasionally civil airliners) have used their spending power to boost their industry. At its crudest, a western manufacturer will simply buy a factory or its products (it could be timber or tin cans) in exchange for a contract. A more sophisticated form is for the government to channel investment into large state-run aerospace and defence manufacturers, whether through supplier contracts, aftermarket agreements or joint ventures to assemble aircraft.

All well and good, but this form of direct offset often leads to horrendous inefficiency, stripping away any competitive elements and handing contracts to favoured, often nationalised local manufacturers.

In India's case, Hindustan Aeronautics has ended up as the recipient of most government contracts in the aerospace field. The company, reports Siva, comes across more as a division of the Indian civil service with legions of pen-pushers and forms in triplicate, than a modern manufacturing company able to compete in a global market. It is an impression the company's relatively new chief executive is keen to change. Find out how in this week's issue.

 

Intriguing country Belgium. Just returned from there and the Netherlands for a feature on the aerospace industry in Benelux which will appear in our 13 April issue. Increasingly, the small nation is split north and south into two autonomous regions, each with its own culture, language and little love lost for their neighbour. In fact, about all that holds them together is the king and Brussels, the bilingual capital of Europe that straddles the border between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia.

Unlike, say Switzerland, with its largely self-governing French-, German- and Italian-speaking cantons, there appears to be little Belgian identity among the Belgians themselves, even though the "Belgian brand" is used widely by the tourist authorities. Language in Belgium is a hugely contentious and uncompromising issue, so much so that in Wallonia you will struggle to hear any Dutch spoken or find a Dutch newspaper...and vice versa.

Unsuspecting drivers (yes, I got caught out) have to watch out for the road signs to cities which have a very different name north or south of the language line. For example, to find the highway to Liege from the Brussels ring road (in Flanders) you have to follow Luik. Once in Liege, the road to Antwerp (Antwerpen in Dutch) is sign-posted Anvers. Fair enough, I suppose, if that is the local language. But there is little allowance made by the leaders of either region to how their fellow Belgians speak. In fact, the only time I saw a bilingual road sign was on the road to Lille (Rijsel in Dutch)...but that is in France, so doesn't count.

As far as aerospace is concerned, companies tend to be members of either the Flemish or the Wallonian association and the regional government is responsible for inward investment and promoting its industry. There are one or two "national" companies, but most of these are identified with one region or the other. The aerospace industry tends to be concentrated in Wallonia (that's where the coal mines were, so steel and heavy industry followed and many of these companies ended up producing aircraft parts). Flanders, with its coast and big sea and inland ports, focused on shipbuilding and trade, although it is keen to establish itself as an aerospace player too.

I'll be writing more about the aerospace industry in Belgium - and also the Netherlands, where I visited a revitalised Fokker Aerospace among others - in our special feature on 13 April. 

 

Okay, we couldn't resist this week's coverline - FLOWER POWER - for our feature on biofuels. I know the pedants out there will say that algae and other organisms from which biofuels are created are not flowers, but as some, such as jatropha, are we thought we could get off with it. My colleague Niall O'Keeffe has really done a great job in explaining the politics, the economics and the science around the subject and it makes a great read.

David Learmount is not a Copenhagen cynic. Continuing the environmental theme, he, along with many influential voices in the industry, argue in this week's issue that last year's big climate change summit was not all hot air and no firm action, as many argue.

There are news stories too on a study into the contribution of pilot handling errors to airliner accidents, on the resurrection of the US presidential helicopter programme, progress on the 787 flight test schedule, and much else besides.

Don't forget you can subscribe to Flight International and have it delivered weekly to your home or office, or get the digital version sent by link. Details on flightglobal.com .

 

 

One of the trickiest decisions each week on Flight International is deciding what to put on the cover.

The most obvious criterion is the image has to be strong. It has to be impactful and of a sufficient resolution. It has to be relevant too. Tempting though it is to adorn the cover with a fantastic image of Keira Knightley or Tiger Woods, the average Flight International reader usually wants to see an aircraft or at least something aviation-related on there (not that we never depart from that rule...but when we have the covers have often not been particularly successful).

But the hardest decision often comes when we have a brilliant and timely image - the first shot of a new aircraft, for example - but do not have enough material to back-it up inside. It is this classic "overpromising and underdelivering" that can get certain readers upset.

This week, we could have gone for the Bell 429 helicopter. We had a striking image and had a whole civil helicopters package to accompany it. However, the same aircraft was on the cover of the February edition of one of our competitors - Business & Commercial Aviation.

Instead, we went for an exclusive first flight shot of the Boeing 747-8F over the clouds and mountains of Washington State. The cover story is a one-page report of the maiden sortie and prospects for the reborn jumbo (pictured).

 

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Ever wondered how Flight International comes out every week? (Believe me, we do too sometimes). In this new blog, I'll be shedding some light on what goes on during the five days it takes to pull together the world's longest-running aviation magazine, talking about forthcoming highlights and generally letting you know what it's like to work on Flight International.

The magazine, which entered its second century last year, is of course these days just part of a family of products under the Flightglobal banner, that includes the industry's biggest web site, a portfolio of premium news and data services and everything from conferences and awards to daily newspapers at all the major air shows (interactive as well as print).

Editing Flight International, which I have done since 2001, is an enormous privilege. I get to work with the best journalists in the business, travel the world (this is me at the recent Bahrain air show) and delve into the affairs of the industry's most important executives. My colleagues and I get to select and produce what ends up between the covers of the magazine each week, drawing on the resources of a Flightglobal content team that spans three continents.

I look forward to keeping you up to date on what's going on at Flight International and hearing your views - good and bad - on the magazine.