FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1985
1985 - 1305.PDF
WORLD NEWS BCal reshuffles ' LONDON The Caledonian Aviation Group, owner of British Caledonian Airways, has installed a new top-level team to prepare the parent company for flotation. In a senior management reshuffle BCal managing director Alastair Pugh becomes group executive vice-chairman and director of strategy. He is joined as an executive vice- chairman by group finance director Trevor Boud. Pugh and Boud will be responsible for guiding the company towards a stock-market flotation. Although no date for going public has been announced, chairman Sir Adam Thomson says that it will be in the "foreseeable future". Pugh is succeeded as BCal managing director by his deputy, David Coltman. Pro jects director John Prothero Thomas takes on the new post of director of projects and quality assurance. His brief will be to develop BCal's shorthaul services in time for the introduction of Airbus A320s in 1988. ESA funds Columbus module PARIS The European Space Agency (ESA) has agreed on parti cipation in the $8,000 million US Space Station, and is to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Nasa specifying the terms and con ditions under which it will co operate. It has also agreed to spend $64 million on studies of the Columbus pressurised module, intended both as a plug-in laboratory element of the Space Station and, even tually, as an autonomous European station. The decision follows the ESA ministerial meeting in *-January, in which the US offer of a share in its station was accepted on the under standing that Europe is given FLIGHT International, 4 May 1985 complete responsibility for design, development, and exploitation of a complete Space Station element. ESA's overall contribution could consist of Columbus, free-flying payload carriers for both low-inclination and polar orbits, a servicing vehicle, and a resources module to provide electric power for both the pressurised module and the platform. In addition, ESA studies will also cover ground facili ties for mission preparation and support, and a data-trans mission system. Columbus, as proposed by West Germany and Italy, will probably com prise a manned module for launch in 1992-93 and a polar- orbiting space platform for launch in 1993-94. RAF wins Space race LONDON Britain is the seventh country to provide a national repre sentative to take part in the US Space Shuttle programme. Royal Air Force Sqn Ldr Nigel Wood has been named payload specialist for the seven-man Mission 61H, scheduled for launch on June 23, 1986. The mission commander will be Michael Coats. The pilot is John Blaha, and mission specialists are Anna Fisher, Norman Thagard, and Robert Springer. The first British astronaut's job aboard Shuttle Columbia will be to help deploy the first Skynet 4 UK military-communications satellite. The second Skynet 4 is planned to be deployed on Mission 71D from Shuttle Atlantis, which flies no earlier than December 15, 1986. Prime payload specialist on that mission will be Cdr Peter Longhurst of the Royal Navy. Backup payload specialists for the two missions will be Maj Richard Farrimond (Royal Signals) and civil servant Christopher Holmes (Minis try of Defence), respectively. Sqn Ldr Wood will be the 27th Shuttle passenger, and the seventh national repre sentative to fly on the US vehicle after those of West Germany, Canada, France, Saudi Arabia, Holland, and Mexico. Record 747 hull payment expected PARIS The largest hull payment on a single destroyed aircraft is expected to be made by avia tion underwriters soon. A Boeing 747-300, bought for $100 million by UTA of France, was destroyed by fire on the ground at Charles de Gaulle Airport on March 16. The fire is believed to have been started by a cigarette dropped by a cleaner. Insurers' agents and Boeing agreed that the aircraft was a total loss, but that $15 million could be salvaged from its engines. According to UK news paper Financial Weekly, the aircraft was insured by French underwriters led by Robert Malatier for $85 million, 45 per cent of which was reinsured through broker C. T. Bowring at Lloyds of London. The accident occurred only hours before the insurance policy was due to expire; a renewal had already been negotiated at a higher rate. UTA, which had used the aircraft on its twice-weekly Paris-Noumea (New Cale donia) route, has been leasing alternative aircraft from Air France and MEA. It now wants to take delivery of another 747-300 in January, rather than March 1986. "If we can find another -300 on the secondhand market we will buy it, too," UTA tells Gilbert Sedbon. Finnish trainer crashes KUOREVESI ~ Valmet's new turboprop trainer, the L-80TP, has crashed less than three months after its maiden flight. The crash happened near the Finnish manufacturer's plant at Halli on April 24. Test pilot Lt Col Paavo Janhunen, who had flown the aircraft on its maiden flight on February 12, was killed; flight engineer Auhani Jaas- gelrinen also died. FLIGHT WfTEMNATtOHAl NEXT WEEK V v/ WW The aircraft operated by the world's commuter airlines are described and tabulated in John Trevett's directory. Ian Goold and Janice Lowe fly on a fisheries patrol aboard a Turbine Islander of Britain's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, and describe the operations which guard the country's offshore waters. Air Portugal is one user of the Flight Data Company's system enabling in-flight performance and problems to be monitored and evaluated quickly. Harry Hopkins reports.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
