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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 0056.PDF
HEADLINES Foreign sponsor sought by Avtek Californian manufacturer Avtek is seeking to raise $25 million from foreign sponsors, to complete the cer tification of the Avtek 400A, a six- to ten-seat twin- turboprop canard-pusher. The company has held exploratory talks with potential financiers in South Africa and Asia as well as in the USA. Avtek marketing director Robert Honeycutt expects the financing to be set up some time in the next six months; certification should then take 22 months. Avtek has already spent $32 million on pre- certification work, flown a proof-of-concept aircraft and finalised design of the certifi cation aircraft. The site for the production of the aircraft and its potential follow-ons, the 19-seat 419 Express and the Explorer surveillance/patrol variant, is tied to sources of financing. Avtek says it has 82 paid deposits for the 400A. D Shuttle jobs face axe A bout 4,000 Space Shuttle staff working for NASA under contract at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) — one-sixth of the total — will be laid off over the next five years as part of an agency drive to reduce the Shuttle operating budget by 15%, in a programme to cut $1.8 billion from the Shuttle budget. About 100 Shuttle manage ment jobs will also be moved to the KSC from Washington as part of the reorganisation. The 3%-a-year budget redu ction will not affect flight safety, says new KSC director, Robert Crippen, a four-flight veteran on the Shuttle. "Safety is our num ber one concern and it will remain so," he says. Crippen says that eight Shut tle missions are planned for 1992, and up to ten a year after this may be possible. The oper ating budget for the Shuttle in 1991 was $2.8 billion. This has been cut by $1 million for 1992, and will be maintained at a similar level until 1996. • Air France buys share in CSA BY JULIAN MOXON IN BRUSSELS AND GILBERT SEDBON IN PARIS Czechoslovakian national car rier CSA has become the first East European airline to find a western partner — selling a holding in itself as part of its privatisation. A consortium led by Air France will take a 40% stake in CSA, in a deal which values the Czech airline at $150 million. The French carrier is expected to take about half of the consor tium's stake. The remaining 60% will be retained by the Czecho slovakian Government and na tional financial and municipal institutions. The two airlines signed a me morandum of understanding earlier this month, under which they would cooperate in a long- term strategic, commercial and technical partnership. Approval by the French and Czechoslova kian Governments is expected by the end of March. There was considerable com petition for the CSA deal, espe cially from British Airways, but also from Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Austrian Airlines. It is understood that Air France made the most attrac tive offer. "The deal, as struc tured, is very good," says CSA privatisation chief Frantisek Bis. Air France leads a consortium that includes the London-based European Bank for reconstruc tion and development, and the French financial institution Caisse des Depots et Consigna tion. Each will contribute about $20 million to the deal. Last year, Bis said that CSA was looking for a partner, pref erable European, "...to improve CSA A310 - Czech airline looks for more Western aircraft \ i ' \ ^w — •* K—jstai .. .•..•.• .• • iSWv -J3L gssKS: SB ti —r~ our route structure, contribute management skills, and help move towards general liberalisa tion in Europe" (Flight Interna tional, 4-10 December, 1991). CSA director general Oldrich Churain said the alliance "...rep resents an excellent platform for CSA's future development as an airline based in the heart of Europe, and for Prague as a major hub". Air France will help the Czeckoslovakian airline to mod ernise its fleet and update its maintenance and operations fa cilities. CSA had already decided to replace most of its Soviet aircraft — including the Tuoplev TU-134, which will be replaced with a western 150-seater. It is also planning to buy four ATR72s, and possibly another three later. The airline had also decided to rationalise many of its routes, dropping its Havana, Ho Chi Minh and Mexico City services, cutting St Petersburg, Bucharest and Sofia flights, and increasing schedules to Bankok, Jakarta and Singapore. CSA also plans to extend Montreal serives to Chi cago, and perhaps to increase New York flights. How all this will be affected by the Air France interest has not as yet been decided. "We're still preparing a busi ness plan — there are a lot of things to consider," says Bis. "But one thing is sure. We both want Prague to become a major European hub." • GEC taps BP's water spray technology GEC Avionics and British Pe troleum (BP) are in talks, which could lead to an agree ment whereby BP would give the aerospace systems manufacturer sales rights to its aircraft-cabin water-spray technology. A deal could be agreed by the middle of the year. Although GEC Avionics re fuses to confirm the move, the company says: "After a period of preliminary work with BP, GEC Avionics is now investigating design philosophies for high- integrity, easily-maintainable and crash-survivable cabin water-mist systems." GEC Avionics, in association with BP, presented a paper on 14 January at the 17th Interna tional Conference on Fire Safety at the Clarion Hotel, San Fran cisco International Airport. BP has carried out extensive testing on a Trident IE fuselage at British Aerospace's Hatfield site to demonstrate its water- spray technology, which was de veloped at its Research Centre at Sunbury-on-Thames. It centres on an air/water atomising noz zle, which generates a water spray with the special character istics needed to suppress fires rapidly and effectively using only small amounts of water. Certification authorities in Europe and the USA are investi gating the technology, which could be approved for use from the middle of the decade, pro viding the authorities are con vinced that its all-round reliability is assured. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 - 21 January, 199?
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