March 2011 Archives

As the Libyan air campaign continues, with the outcome far from certain, this week's issue of Flight International (out today, 29 March) focuses on how the coalition's airborne assets have been used against Gaddafi. the cover features an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon, with the new warplane making its combat debut.

Ahead of the Interiors Expo in Hamburg, we also look at how manufacturers are stripping out weight from cabins without compromising comfort, while "Runway Girl" Mary Kirby explains how the in-flight entertainment market is being given a fresh shot of dynamism by a group of new suppliers not content to play by the old rules.

Meanwhile, Airline Business Editor Max Kingsley-Jones shares some intelligence on the shape of the regional aircraft market.

Regular readers will be familiar with Flight International's long-running cutaways. These intricate drawings showing the innermost workings of the latest aircraft have been a feature of the magazine since the 1930s.

Initially hand drawn, these illustrations have evolved into highly-complex, all-colour representations. Part technical graphic, part work of art, the cutaways team is led by Giuseppe Picarella alongside veteran artist Tim Hall.

Tim was responsible for our latest poster, the Bombardier CRJ1000, the latest stretch version of the Canadian airframer's successful line of regional jets. We also have a programme update. If you don't get a chance to buy the magazine this week (out today, 29 March), you can read all about our cutaways and the CRJ1000 itself here.

Most week's Flight International runs a letters page. Next week's (29 March) missive from Tim Hiles is a sample of the lively debate sparked by previous letters and what our journalists have been writing about.

I have noticed a trend in Flight International to criticise low-cost carriers, but I must challenge your Comment "Time to heed the warnings on pilot skills" (Flight International, 15-21 February), where you endorse a report from Australia that the "overly commercial approach to pilot recruitment and training has emerged with the ascendancy of the low-cost carriers".
Apparently this will be exacerbated by the imminent pilot shortage and consequent flow of experienced low-cost carrier pilots to the legacy airlines for more money and better conditions. You also say there has been a change in pilots' attitudes towards flight training, leading to a change in attitude towards their jobs.
Where is the evidence? May I suggest the opposite is true? Most pilots coming into aviation over the past 40 years have travelled the self-improver route, working their way up through low-cost air taxi, executive flying and small regional carriers with no simulators or professional training resources.
The average cadet now joining low-cost carriers typically has a science degree and has worked several years in non-flying jobs to raise money for a licence and ratings. These bright, highly motivated young people are then given a high-quality, in-house type rating course and the end product released to the line is outstanding.
Obviously, if legacy carriers can afford to sponsor their pilots, this is perfection, but we live in a commercial world, where a quality degree is expensive, making a commercial pilot's licence and type rating seem good value.

For the past few weeks, the media has been full of the turmoil in the Middle East. But references to the Middle East, as if it were some homogenous entity, have always been misleading. The region - even if you exclude North Africa - takes in a diverse swathe of the Arab (and non-Arab, when you include Israel and Iran) world. It extends from poverty- and conflict-striven Palestine and Yemen and natural resource-starved Jordan to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, flamboyant Dubai and Qatar, with one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world.

Even when you narrow the scope down to the Gulf, the contrasts are huge. Despite its wealth, conservative Saudi Arabia has simmering political tensions and a restless Shia minority. Neighbouring Bahrain, with a thriving, open economy and one of the most liberal political cultures in the region, succumbed to the groundswell of demand for political change that started in Tunisia and Egypt and the heavy-handed reaction of its government will have tarnished the reputation of the small, relaxed island for decades.

I've just been to probably the only two countries in the entire region that have not been in some way affected by popular revolts of some sort in recent weeks: Qatar and the UAE. What both have in common is that, though technically autocracies under the rule of hereditary rulers, they are prosperous, benignly-administered with a fair degree of political freedom and relatively corruption-free and without the religious/cultural divides that you find in many other states in the region, including Bahrain, Yemen and of course Lebanon.

Both countries have become major aviation players in the past decade, with the UAE's Dubai-based Emirates leading the charge. Dubai airport, of course, has become one of the chief crossroads of the world and Emirates getting on for the biggest connector. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad has also emerged on the scene in the past seven years and the UAE capital is also keen to establish itself in the aerospace manufacturing and services sector. Qatar is some way behind, but the small Gulf state is building an international airport to rival Dubai's and its flag-carrier is about to add its 100th aircraft to its fleet.

I was in the region to research our Middle East Careers Guide. The wider region, but especially these two countries, are desperate for expatriate professionals to come to work there, as they look longer-term to develop the competencies of their own citizens. The guide will be published with Flight International on 26 April, and this year, for the second time, we will also have an interactive version available on flightglobal.com, with articles on working in the region and video interviews with many of the leading recruiters.

Here's last year's interactive edition and here's the full version that appeared in print.

Almost a decade after abandoning its Sonic Cruiser concept for what was to become the top selling widebody ever, the 787, Boeing faces another momentous strategic decision: what to do with its 737 cash cow following Airbus's decision to re-engine its rival A320 family, and with Bombardier's CSeries gaining momentum as a third player in the narrowbody segement.

This week's Flight International focuses on Seattle's dilemma. In our cover story, Flightblogger Jon Ostrower examines Boeing's favourite option: a clean-sheet design that could see it leapfrog both its competitors. But that option would come with a cost and a risk. Producing an all-new aircraft is a lot more expensive than simply adding one of the revamped engines on the market. Boeing is also still bruised by its 787 experience. The radical Dreamliner may have proved a fuel-efficient winner with airlines, but getting it to certification has proved an exhausting and costly experience.

Also in the issue, the advice two of the most influential customers - Steven Udvar-Hazy and Qatar Airways' Akbar Al Baker - have for the big airframers. Hazy wants a direct replacement for the 757 while Al Baker is sceptical about Airbus's re-engining strategy for the A320.

We look too at what EADS does now in the USA. Has the experience of competing unsuccessfully for the KC-X tanker helped or hindered its chances of spending some of its cash pile on a New World empire?

Our Comment piece asks why patriots in the USA are getting hot under the collar about the Chinese buying the country's most successful general aviation start up of the past two decades, Cirrus, when barely an eyebrow was raised during the decade or so the company was under Middle Eastern control.

Finally, after a decade of flying the Boeing C-17, why the UK RAF's love of its giant C-17 transports is undiminished. 

In this week's issue (8 March) we have a four-page analysis on the fallout from the KC-X tanker contest. We look at why Boeing won and what EADS could do next. Plus our Comment piece notes that competition is good for getting value in military procurement but warns against the competition's apparent lack of transparency.

We also set the scene for this week's Asian Aerospace in Hong Kong with an appraisal of the Comac C919 - one of the stars of the show. We also look at how the maintenance, repair and overhaul sector is equipping itself for the surge in the Chinese airliner fleet.

The jury is still out on whether Hong Kong's Asian Aerospace - organised by our sister company Reed Exhibitions - can become the definitive gateway show for the huge Chinese market. On the surface, it has everything going for it. Its location, Hong Kong, is easy to get to and visitor friendly. It's timing - now switched from September to March - puts it 11 months away from the Singapore air show, successor to the "old" Asian Aerospace, which Reed ran in the southern Asian island state for many years until 2006.

The trouble for Reed is that, while Singapore has continued to be the must-attend show for defence exhibitors keen to sell into the region's burgeoning military market, Asian Aerospace must compete with two other Chinese shows for the civil business. It makes much of its independence - the other Chinese shows are run by arms of local government so there is an element of domestic exhibitors "having" to attend. No one is at Hong Kong, says Asian Aerospace, who does not want to be there.

I will be at the show next week, along with several colleagues, to produce another of our multimedia extravaganzas, with three issues of Flight Daily News produced on site for visitors, plus two editions of our interactive daily. We will also be covering the show in words, pictures and video on flightglobal.com itself, as well as on Twitter. And our 15 March issue of Flight International will have a full report on the event. Catch all our coverage here http://www.flightglobal.com/air-shows/Asian-Aerospace/

Peter Gray's flight test of the Robinson R66 helicopter - the Californian company's first turbine-powered machine and founder Frank Robinson's last project before he retired - gave us the opportunity to do the HERE'S TO YOU MR ROBINSON coverline.

That aside, the flight test is also a first for Flight International. We had the opportunity to put one of our other journalists, John Croft, in another helicopter alongside the R66 that Peter flew with one of the company's test pilots. It gave us some cracking air-to-air shots and also some great footage for the web, which you can view on flightglobal.com/r66.

I had an interesting email communication last night from a long-standing Flight International subscriber, wondering why we had not covered the result of the KC-X tanker contest in our issue this week (1-7 March) and instead referred readers on P6 to our coverage on the web site. With a bit of journalistic licence - which I'll explain - we noted that the competition had ended and referred readers to our coverage at flightglobal.com/kc-x.

The announcement was due to be made last Thursday about an hour after we would normally close for press. Even to turn around a largely pre-written story (we would have prepared two versions, each explaining that one of the rivals had been successful) would have pushed us two or three hours past our print deadline.

Even had we done that - and there have been precedents when big stories, such as the JSF winner almost a decade ago, broke late on our press day - the best we could have done in print was a very basic story saying that Boeing had won and with perhaps some instant reaction from the European side.

In the time between us going to press and the issue being published, the story, as covered on flightglobal.com, would have moved on considerably. That's why we figured that our readers would be better served by pushing them towards our web site.

Does that mean my correspondent should simply cancel his subscription and use our web site, as he himself asks? No, because in our 8 March issue we'll be running up to four pages (we are still planning it) on one of the biggest military aerospace stories in a decade. It may not be hot news, but it will be knowledgeable, reasoned analysis, and this is what a print publication such as Flight International does best in a media landscape that is becoming increasingly digital.