All aerospace news – Page 1769
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Workshop
Norwegian low cost airline Color Air has signed a five-year engine support contract for its three Boeing 737-300s with Shannon Engine Support in Ireland. The deal for work on the CFM56s will be extended to cover five aircraft when the airline increases its fleet size next April. GE Engine Services ...
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AirTran pins hopes of return to profit on introduction of 717
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES AirTran Airways is poised to introduce the first of up to 100 117-seat Boeing 717s to support its efforts to become profitable this year for the first time since 1995, says chairman and chief executive Joe Leonard. The arrival of the 717 "will be ...
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Greek minister killed in Falcon 900 flight incident
Greece's deputy foreign minister and five others were killed when the Greek Government-owned Dassault Falcon 900B presidential jet suffered an unexplained flight incident on descent into Bucharest, Romania on 14 September. The Falcon 900 (SX-ECH) descended rapidly from 15,000ft (4,600m) to 2,000ft, where the crew recovered control. Although ...
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Zeppelin heads for airship approval
Kate Sarsfield/LONDON Zeppelin's new-technology airship flight test programme has passed the halfway mark with over 300 flying hours chalked up. The milestone comes 60 years after the German company halted development of its original family of rigid machines following the loss in May 1937 of the Zeppelin Hindenburg after a ...
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Volga-Dnepr ponders new strategies
Chris Jasper/SHANNONOutsize cargo specialist Volga-Dnepr plans to launch scheduled freight services as part of a major expansion of its operations. The Russian carrier, which offers cargo charters with its Antonov An-124-100 freighters marketed through the UK's HeavyLift Cargo Airlines, may take four Ilyushin Il-96Ts freighters to launch the service, but ...
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Four form joint union
Cabin crew unions from the Netherlands and Italy have formed a new joint organisation in the wake of the KLM/Alitalia strategic alliance. The Wings Cabin Crew Union (WCCU) ties together VNC of the Netherlands and Italy's SULTA, ANPAV and UGL, with the Dutch union claiming the four represent the ...
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SAA's Sun Air bid is rejected
Pretoria has vetoed South African Airways' (SAA) planned take-over and closure of Sun Air after refusing to write off R20 million ($3.3 million) owed by the defunct regional. The UK's Virgin Atlantic Airways is touted as a possible alternative investor. The South African Government says the proposed sale of ...
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Airbus roll-out
Germany's Lufthansa Technik has rolled-out the first of two Airbus A319CJs for the Italian Air Force in its full livery. The Frankfurt-based maintenance and completion centre, which took delivery of the aircraft on 24 August, will outfit the cabin for January delivery. The second aircraft is due for delivery in ...
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'Free' launch for Australia's FedSat
Australia's experimental FedSat micro-satellite will be launched free of charge by the Japanese National Space Development Agency (NASDA) in return for access to scientific data. The satellite will be carried as a piggyback payload aboard an H-IIA rocket launch planned for the last quarter of next year, with a ...
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Beal booster may fly late next year
Beal Aerospace, the privately funded company that is developing the Beal satellite launcher, could test fly a version of the booster from Cape Canaveral late next year or in early 2001. The all-liquid-fuelled three-stage BA-2 model will be as large as the Titan 4B, the USA's most powerful unmanned ...
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Fregat qualification
Starsem, the Arianespace/Aerospatiale/Russian Space Agency/Samara consortium which markets the Soyuz booster for commercial launchers, has completed qualification of the Fregat upper stage for the vehicle. Added to the Soyuz, the Fregat will improve the booster's low and medium earth orbit capability and enable it to complete planetary-type missions. The Soyuz-Fregat ...
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Joining the jet age
Turbofan power is giving the 328 regional airliner a new lease of life Andrew Doyle/OBERPFAFFENHOFENIt is an unconventional way of bringing a regional jet to the marketplace. Fairchild Aerospace has created a capable 30-seat aircraft by re-engining the Dornier 328 turboprop with turbofans. First deliveries of the 328JET were made ...
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Unmanned alternatives
II(AC) Sqn pilots see unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) as a viable alternative to the manned aircraft for certain missions, particularly suppression of enemy air defences, and because of the political pressure to avoid casualties. A flight commander says the difficulty with UCAVs "is the physical pushing of the button. ...
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GE Harris signs Comair CRJs for datalink trial
US regional Comair has committed two Canadair Regional Jets (CRJs) to test a high-speed wireless datalink system developed by General Electric-Harris joint venture GE Harris Aviation Information Solutions. GE Harris Aviation's automated On, Off, On, In (OOOI) datalink will be installed on the first CRJ in mid-November. The second ...
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BAe to relaunch regional jet family with update of RJ85
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC British Aerospace expects to launch development of the re-engined Avro RJ-X programme with the RJ-85 as a result of stronger market interest in the smallest version of the regional jet family. Two unbuilt RJ airframes have been allocated to the development programme, aircraft serial numbers ...
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Uzbekistan takes first 757-200
Uzbekistan Airways has received the first of two Boeing 757-200s for international scheduled services. The 184-seat aircraft, which includes a 26-seat business-class cabin, will be used on services from Uzbekistan to points in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The new 757-200 joins two 767-300ERs, three Airbus A310s, three Avro ...
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Parachute deployment cuts short first flight of Helios
NASA and AeroVironment, makers of the huge and unconventional Helios flying wing, are investigating the inadvertent deployment of the flight termination system parachute. It brought to a premature end a successful first flight of Helios at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, California, on 8 September. The 75.3m (247ft)-span ...
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P&WC begins work on PW127 variant
Pratt & Whitney Canada has begun work on a turboshaft version of its PW127 turboprop, initially to power the Mil Mi-38 helicopter to be developed by Mil, Kazan and Eurocopter. There is no other turboshaft in the PW127T/S' class, says P&WC vice-president, marketing and international business, Joe Torchetti. The ...
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Mission possible
EW aircraft, tankers and AWACS turn the impossible into the achievable Stewart Penney/RAF Brize Norton & RAF Waddington DeeDee Doke/Aviano AB & RAF Mildenhall Missions over Iraqi and Yugoslavia would not be possible without force multipliers such as the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), electronic warfare (EW) assets ...
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'Fighter phonebox' studies expand
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON Lockheed Martin plans to widen its study into using commercial satellites for military telecommunications following the successful demonstration of a call from a supersonic F-16 fighter using the Iridium low-earth orbit constellation. Commercial off-the-shelf communication systems are being viewed as a low-cost alternative to increasingly oversubscribed military ...