FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1986
1986 - 2489.PDF
WORLD NEWS EAP funding sought LONDON Continued funding of the British Aerospace EAP fighter demonstrator, shared by industry and the UK Gov ernment, "now has to be nego tiated so that it is carried for ward for the benefit of the European Fighter Aircraft programme," said British Aerospace managing director Sir Raymond Lygo, at last week's meeting to announce BAe's half-year results. Some funding contribution by Bri tain's German, Italian, and Spanish partners is, he thinks, "fair". Chairman Sir Austin Pearce, announcing a 1986 half-year pretax profit of £80 million (a £12 million increase on the previous period), confirms that he will continue as chairman beyond his five-year contract, to the end of April 1987. BAe's order backlog has leapt from £5,138 million to £8,287 million, due prin cipally to the major Tornado and Hawk agreement reached with Saudi Arabia. Sales for the six months went up ten per cent to £1,443 million, two-thirds for export. Profit came from the mil itary and space businesses. Civil products made a loss of more than £5 million, prompting the chairman to say about this sector: "We must ensure that we do not accept a greater degree of risk than future profitability warrants". The final BAe profit allows for more than £44 million to cover the cost of closing the Weybridge factory. The posi tive effect of the closure on profits will not be felt until 1988. FanStar makes first flight MOJAVE The American Aviation Industries FanStar business jet, powered by two General Electric CF34 turbofans, has made a successful first flight from GE's flight development centre at Mojave. AAI chief pilot Raymond Wilcox was at the controls, and two other company officials were on board during the 35min flight. The aircraft reached 10,000ft and 200kt. "This flight of the FanStar clearly indicates the viability of recycling sound airframes to take advantage of the latest state-of-the-art powerplants and avionics," says AAI chief executive officer Geoff Miller. The FanStar is an updated version of the Lockheed Jet- Star, but flies on two turbo- fans instead of four Pratt & Whitney JT12 turbojets. Although the prototype Fan- Star is flying with CF34-1A engines, production models will use the higher-thrust CF34-3A. Saudis organise Tornado finance LONDON A consortium of banks, led by Lloyds, has agreed to provide a £1-5 billion pool to cover short-term financing prob lems in Saudi Arabia's £5 bil lion deal with British Aero space for 30 Hawks, 30 Pilatus PC-9s, 48 Panavia Tornado IDS, and 32 Tornado ADVs. The barter contract with British Aerospace was signed when oil was selling at $26 a barrel, and initially Saudi Arabia shipped 300,000 bar rels a day to BP and Shell. But the fall in oil prices, by over 50 per cent, coupled with higher- than-expected front-end production costs, has led to a cash flow problem. Saudi Arabia did not want to cut back its order or to extend the delivery schedule, so more money had to be found. The cost of the over draft facility will be met by increasing the oil export to 400,000 barrels a day, back dated to February. Manchester disaster re-examined MANCHESTER Some interesting expert opin ions have been presented to the Coroner at the inquest into the British Airtours Boeing 737 accident at Man chester International Airport, England, in August last year, but no fundamentally new relevant information beyond that released already by the Accidents Investigation Branch (AIB) of the Depart ment of Transport has been discovered. The AIB had confirmed last year the basic detail revealed in a Flight report (September 7, 1985, page 4) that a port engine combustion chamber (flame tube) had failed and then exploded, rupturing both the engine casing and a wing fuel tank, allowing fuel in considerable quantity to come in contact with the still- operating engine hot section. This basic detail has been supported by evidence pre sented by witnesses to the inquest. But Wg Cdr Ian Hill, an Aviation Department pathologist, has ventured the opinion that this was "a totally survivable accident", and that if smokehoods had been available and properly used no-one need have died. Evidence has been accepted that some fire hydrants in the vicinity of the conflag ration were not operational owing to system improvement work. Since that accident, the Coroner heard, British Air ways has instructed all air crew involved in a take-off incident to stop straight ahead and evacuate immedi ately, assuming the worst. FanStar: a new lease of life for an old airframe design FLIGHT H • t K Making a profit in the air- line business is difficult enough, but when you CM\ only operate for six 'days a week the problem'-- are magnified. . Mike . Gaines reports on El Al. Israel's six-da? airline. if designers had a greater understanding of pro-' ductksn, costs could be minimised. Harry Hopkins Gilbert Sedbon visits 'the Royal Hong Kong Auxil iary Air Force, as it faces, the co Chinese sovereignty.- - : = HHtii FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 20 September 1986
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
