July 2011 Archives

I've just flown back from the EAA's AirVenture in Oshkosh, officially my favourite air show, even though I am neither a pilot nor a died-in-the-wool spotter.

The show is simply phenomenal, attracting 600,000 visitors (although I'm slightly sceptical about that figure), many of whom fly-in on their own aircraft. The rather sleepy airport and the fields around it at the similarly sleepy Wisconsin city of 60,000 souls becomes for a week the busiest airport in the world in terms of movements, and a giant campsite and aircraft park which takes the best part of an hour to traverse.

Why do they come? Well Oshkosh is a fascinating mix of community (owners and clubs come together to compare aircraft and swap maintenance tips and aviation tales), air display (spectacular aerobatic performances), air museum (veteran warbirds galore) and trade show (GA manufacturers and suppliers turn up to show off and sell their wares). There isn't really another industry event like it.

For us, there are plenty of hard business stories too (see our landing page at www.flightglobal.com/oshkosh) as the show does attract plenty of CEOs and other big hitters from the OEMs.

The show proves beyond doubt that aviation and flying remain tremendously popular in North America, despite worries that the GA sector there is slowly dying. Importantly, unlike the big trade shows, it attracts families during the summer holidays, and there is plenty of interest for the kids.

What I love about it - and what ensures the manufacturers turn up in force - is that because everyone dresses casually you can never tell if the husband and wife wandering around the exhibit are a working class couple who save the pennies to take their ancient kitplane to Oshkosh once a year, or multimillionaires looking to add a jet to their portfolio of luxury personal transport. It's a very egalitarian, open show with few of the hidden-away meeting rooms where the negotiations take place at a Paris or Farnborough. Instead, the "chalets" rarely stretch beyond a small marquee or a trailer. 

That's what we've called legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan in our cover story this week (Flight International, 19 July). Stephen Trimble's retrospective recalls the engineer's aircraft - some of them iconic, others less memorable - and analyses Rutan's contribution to the wider industry on his retirement. Even his failures yielded innovation, argues the author. You can still vote for your favourite Rutan design on our web site poll.

The feature is part of a 14-page pre-Oshkosh special, which also includes a flight test of the Epic LT and an update on Sikorsky's Firefly electric aircraft. We also assess the health of the GA industry in its biggest market, the USA, ahead of the country's biggest (by far) aviation gathering.

A decade ago, after losing the Joint Strike Fighter competition to rival Lockheed Martin, with an ageing product portfolio, and with everyone predicting that the future lay in unmanned strike aircraft, Boeing's future in manned combat aircraft looked precarious.

In mid-2011, that outcome might not be so certain, as Stephen Trimble explains in our cover feature this week (Flight International, 12 July). The company that gained a tactical aircraft capability when it acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997, has backlogged orders for the F-15E and F/A-18E/F extending to the middle of the decade, and in the case of the Super Hornet, Boeing bosses are confident production could be stretched into the 2020s.

But, more significantly, beyond that, Boeing is preparing to be a contender for the next manned fighter programme in a restructuring of its defence business that the leader of its military aircraft arm calls a "mindset change".

Elsewhere in the issue, Michael Gerzanics takes a simulator ride in the Block II F/A-18E/F and Dan Thisdell looks at Europe's plans in manned spaceflight. Craig Hoyle examines the latest UK initiative to improve military aviation safety, which come almost five years after one of the country's worst air accidents, the loss of a Nimrod MR2 surveillance aircraft over Afghanistan. And Siva Govindasamy reports from Tokyo, where Boeing 787 launch customer ANA finally got its hands on its first Dreamliner, albeit a validation aircraft rather than the first passenger version.  

If you are a fan of seaplanes, you won't want to miss this week's Flight International (5 July) in which Mike Gerzanics and John Croft take a trip to the lakes around Seattle and hitch a ride with Kenmore Air on one of its DHC-2 Beavers on floats. It's a fascinating read with some stunning photos, one of which makes the cover image.

Also in the issue, David Learmount keeps his feet on the ground - almost - as he takes to the air in a Boeing 787 simulator.

I visit Dubai several times a year and the city's unbounded ambition never ceases to astonish me. Two or three years ago, the emirate was on its knees...or so it seemed. Things were pretty grim. The property bubble had burst spectacularly - the effect can still be seen in terms of the giant To Let signs on partly-filled office blocks that roll out for kilometres along the Sheikh Zayed highway to Abu Dhabi. The government - to all intents the Al Maktoum ruling family - had to borrow money from their cousins and rivals in Abu Dhabi to stay solvent.

But many areas of Dubai's economy did not seem to be affected by the crash. In fact, if anything, they prospered: namely tourism and aviation. Visitor numbers to the city state have continued to grow and Emirates and Dubai International airport each month release traffic figures that defy gravity.

The latest development is a $7.8 billion (yes, that's billion) plan to develop Dubai International, a hub that is straining towards capacity on the back of the success of Emirates, the emergence of its smaller sibling flydubai and demand from international carriers. What is even more remarkable is that the investment is being made at a time when Dubai World Central, the super hub being constructed at Jebel Ali, is being touted as the city's eventual new airport.

What it comes down to is that Dubai invests for the future, but an immediate future, not some indeterminate tomorrow when everything will be shinier and better. That means spending on massive infrastructure improvements at Dubai International even though - in theory - the airport will be redundant by the beginning of the next decade.

Not everything in Dubai goes according to plan. Dubai World Central was meant to be operating fully by now with an airport city under construction as part of the development. That schedule was hit by the global financial crisis, and DWC, although officially open for business, is still largely a concept and a giant building site in the desert. But it remains critical to the long-term Dubai vision.

Dubai wants to be the global crossroads of the 2020s and 2030s. But it also wants to be able to serve that role this decade too, and that's why the money is being spent on Dubai International.