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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0006.PDF
J£MD <&) NEWS IN BRIEF • QATAR CONFLICT Sheikh Hamad Ali Al-Thani, the former chief executive of Qatar Airways, claims that his departure from the airline followed moves by the board to co-operate rather than compete with Gulf Air, for which the chairman is Qatari general sales agent. Contrary to our report (Flight Inter national, 10-17 December, 1996, P10), Hamad was in favour of competition and describes the chairman's Gulf Air relationship as a "conflict of interest". He claims that the Gulf Air busi ness brings in $10 million annually in commissions. • ONE OF THE LADS Bombardier Regional Air craft division's de Havilland Dash 8 Series 200B has been selected by LADS of Ad elaide, Australia, as an air borne platform for a hydro- graphic survey of shallow coastal waters. The aircraft will be delivered in June for modification and fitting with Laser Airborne Depth Sounder equipment. Service entry is due in mid-1998. F-22 production restructured as overruns slow development GRAHAM WARWICK/ATLANTA THE US AIR Force is to restructure the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 programme because of a development-cost overrun of more than $2 billion. Four pre-production verification (PPV) F-22s have been eliminated, and production ramp-up has been slowed to provide the $2.16 billion in extra funding required to com plete the Si8.7 billion engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) programme. The PPV aircraft were to have been used for the USAF's initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E). Now die last two of nine EMD aircraft and the first two low- rate initial production (LRIP) F-22s will be used for IOT&E. Eliminating the PPV phase will save $706 million. Another $1.45 billion will be saved by slowing the ramp-up of production during the LRIP. Instead of producing 76 aircraft between 1999 and 2002, Lockheed Martin/Boeing will now build 70 F-22s over five years. Although the Low-observable fighter, high-profile price EMD has been extended by nine months, to June 2003, to "com plete flight testing", F-22 initial operational capability is still planned for November 2004. Faced with a potential $13 bil lion overrun on the 438-aircraft production phase, the L SAP" and F-22 industry team have agreed initiatives to reduce unit costs and keep the programme within the overall budget. Modelled on the strategy used successfully to bring down production costs on the McDonnell Douglas C-17, these include multi-year contracting. Industry has agreed to build an integrated hardware-in-loop avi onics test rig which will be used during flight tests, but will also be part of the F-22 depot-level main tenance centre. • AI(R) courts Saab for new regional-jet programme JULIAN MOXON/PARIS AERO INTERNATIONAL (Regional) (AI(R)) has made what are described as "serious overtures" to Saab Aircraft to join the European consortium as a risk- sharing partner in its forthcoming regional-jet programmes. While neither side will confirm the talks officially, it is understood that British Aerospace, one of the three existing AI(R) partners (with France's Aerospatiale and Italy's Alenia) has led the discussions, which come as the Swedish manu facturer is involved in wider nego tiations with Airbus Industrie on joining the A3XX programme as a risk-sharing partner. One source says, however, that Saab is "lukewarm" on the AI(R) proposal, and is "already talking to a number of people" - including South Korea's Samsung, India's HAL, and an unnamed US manu facturer - about future regional- aircraft projects. Saab has made it clear that it intends to retain a pri mary role in any such programme, and is unwilling to drop its slow- selling 50-seat Saab 2000 from any product line-up. BAe is understood to have suggested that the existing 29-seatJetstream 41, sales of which stood at only 15 aircraft in 1996, might be dropped from the AI(R) line-up and replaced with the 38- seat Saab 340. While this would bring the aircraft into conflict with AI(R)'s ATR 42, both would con tinue to be sold. "They have slight ly different markets," says one The Saab 340 could replace the AI(R) Jetstream 41 source. Saab and odier AI(R) risk- sharing partners would then join in designing and marketing the future range of 55-68-seat regional jets now under consideration. • AI(R) announced a string of orders for ATR 42s and ATR 72s at the end of a year of poor sales, with contracts for nine new and 11 used aircraft. The new sales are with Air Lithuania (one ATR 42-300), Air Tahiti (three ATR 72-210s), an undisclosed Asian operator (three ATR 72-210s), Venezuela's IAACA (one ATR 72-210) and Air Gua deloupe (one ATR 72-210). Apart from the 15 Jetstream 41s, total AI(R) sales for the year stood at 14 ATR 42s, 11 ATR 72s, 18 Avro RJ85s and two RJ100s, bring ing total aircraft sales to 60 for the year, with 85 deliveries. Turnover for the year was $1.3 billion. • 4 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 1 - 7 January 1997
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