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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 3095.PDF
INTERNATIONAL Number 4137, Volume 134 ISSN 0015-3710 IN THIS ISSUE UK announces £600m ATC plan BAc denies plant closure plans BA buys Boeings worth $1 • 8bn NBAA REPORT Swearingen teams with Gulfstream Collins unveils Pro Line 4 Omac displays Laser 300 University to buy 250 Pipers AUSA REPORT Kuropeans cool to LUX Hypervelocity missile stays on target N2 rethinks airline sale Lawsuit sinks Singer sale Mitterrand: "Rafale goes ahead" International team advances UHB Navy awards AAAM contracts Stol Lagle goes transonic Shuttle reprise B BUSINESS t^ PUBLISHING 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 The Fokker 100 at work 20 David LearmourH looks at the FlOO's in-service record after six months with Swissair. Replacing the Shuttle 26 As the first launch of a Titan IV approaches, the new booster is previewed by Tim Furniss. Tacamo: E-6 takes charge 29 John Bailey describes Boeing's replacement for the Lockheed HC-130Q in the US Navy's airborne commu nications role. 757s fit Collins Acars CRS announces link Norway joins CFM56-5C2 Letters Straight and Level 32 33 34 35 36 NEXT WEEK Mike Gaines and Janice Lowe provide an on-the-spot report on Exercise Golden Eagle, a 66-day circum navigation of the globe by Tornadoes of 29 Sqn, Royal Air Force. Front cover: Launch customer Swissair has been operating the Fokker FI00 for six months. We report on the aircraft's performance in this issue. OUR VIEW, Vigour in the corporate sector Not for many years has so much inter esting news emerged from a business aircraft convention as has come from this year's NBAA show in Dallas, Texas. The interesting developments concern two main areas. One is the maturing of a large number of projects which were launched and developed during the dark days of the aerospace depression, five or so years ago. The other is the launch of a new concept in the business jet area, which might just be perfectly timed, as well as nicely priced, to take advantage of a substantial surge in the market during the early and mid 1990s. Of the existing projects, the most signifi cant must be the return to Dallas of the Beech Starship, five years after its first appearance there as a proof-of-concept scale version. The aircraft is now nearing the point where the first production vehicle will roll out, to begin a flight test programme that should be completed by April next year. Across town back home in Wichita, Cessna has been busy on its Citation V, and anticipates certification in about six months. It sold 36 units from the planned 1989 production schedule. The European manufacturers are as active in the market as ever, and Dassault has begun flight testing a re-engined Falcon 20, using Garrett TFE731 engines. Certification in France for that aircraft is, similarly, expected next spring. The Avtec 400 has been lying somewhat dormant since it was launched in the heady days of the original advanced-composite concepts, but is on the move again with new funding. Four prototypes are now to be built, incorporating a range of aerodynamic changes. The Avtec 400A comes with a vari ety of interesting statistics, including a claimed orderbook for 112'copies, faster and further performance than the Starship's, as well as better economy, and a price tag of a mere $1.75 million. But the most exciting announcement of the convention concerned the SA-30, a new business jet to be launched by a group of companies which together comprise one of the most variegated quartets in the business. Gulfstream will be the parent company on the airframe, committed to lending the weight of its marketing expertise to the project. The design is by Ed Swearingen, highly respected for the aerodynamics of his productions. The engine for the SA-30 is the 1,8001b Williams FJ44, and this will be its first commercial application. It is a devel opment of the engine whose use so far has been confined to powering cruise missiles. For this application, Williams will have the backing of Rolls-Royce, providing technical and marketing support and supplying engine components, and the all-important mainte nance and engineering support through its worldwide network. These companies together plan to take advantage of the new generation of tech nologies, claiming, with arguable justifi cation, that the technologies currently employed in the business jet area were origi nal 20 years ago. Their aircraft will use composites extensively on non-primary structures, and its format will be six to eight passenger seats, with a 2,500-mile range, and a 500 m.p.h. cruise. But the most interesting feature of the aircraft is its price, which at this stage is projected at about $2 million. The challenge will be to keep the price down to that level when comparable aircraft are costing two or three times that much, and when the interiors alone of some business jets come out at around that level. If this mini-consortium can achieve the projected design and keep the price in the target range, it stands a good chance of achieving the 1,000 sales which Alan Paulson projects for it. It also has on its side a potential growth in the market which ultimately could amply justify the faith placed in all these projects by their investors. Globally, business is expanding, and will almost certainly continue to do so. The projected expansion in tourist travel to the end of the century, which itself will come mainly from the leisure sector, will generate demand on the public transport system to the point of frequent overload. Travel within business regions, on terms acceptable to the time-conscious executive, will be achievable only by independent transport. Taken together, those factors will change the accepted view of the privately operated aircraft. A company without its own aircraft or, more properly, without its own balanced fleet, will be seen as failing to provide its executives with adequate working tools. If ahe industry has failed to get that message over to the business sector before now, it can probably rely on the crowded system to do so ..during the 1990s. After that, there is a yawn- ing'market waiting to be served by a variety of ^genuinely long-range intercontinental business aircraft. Doing business effectively means doing it independently. Dallas, at last, showed that aerospace is offering the tools for customers to implement that principle. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 29 October 1988 1
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