All aerospace news – Page 1827
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Common theme
Graham Warwick WASHINGTON DC Can airlines agree to buy a standard aircraft, in the hope of reducing costs, or will each continue to demand hundreds of custom changes that set its aircraft apart from any other carrier's? That is the question facing an airline task force which is to ...
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Adventure star
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Lockheed Martin's venture to develop and operate a fully reusable launch vehicle has always been acknowledged as risky; just how risky was brought home by the news that engine manufacturing problems have delayed the first flight of the X-33 technology demonstrator by six months, to December ...
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Bell/Agusta tie-up made official
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Bell Helicopter Textron and Agusta have signed the agreement creating the Bell/Agusta Aerospace joint venture to be responsible for development and marketing of the BA609 civil tiltrotor and the AB319 medium twin-turbine helicopter. Bell is the majority shareholder. The agreement cements a relationship which began ...
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Kaman/AlliedSignal complete K-MAX fuel tests
Kaman and AlliedSignal have completed initial fuel pressure tests on the K-MAX fleet and have found no more fuel-pump driveshaft spline failures. Investigation of the fatal crash of a K-MAX in Germany in early September revealed that both the primary and secondary pump splines had failed in the T5317A-1 turboshaft ...
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Raytheon teams with Angel on HALO-Proteus
Raytheon has signed a teaming agreement with St Louis-based Angel Technologies to develop stratospheric broadband wireless services, using the High Altitude Long Operation (HALO) aircraft. The prime electronics systems integrator will be Raytheon, with responsibility for the airborne and ground segments of the HALO network. Angel will deliver fixed and ...
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Airbus may ditch A3XX thrust reversers to slow down costs
Andrew Doyle/LONDON Airbus Industrie is discussing with airlines a plan to remove the thrust reversers from its A3XX ultra-high capacity airliner design as part of efforts to further reduce the aircraft's direct operating costs. Airlines have generally reacted favourably towards the idea of dropping the system from the outboard engines ...
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Troubled Endeavour mission falls under the spotlight
Tim Furniss/LONDON All eyes are on the much-delayed STS88 Endeavour mission on 3 December, the purpose of which is to carry the Unity Node 1 and link it with the Russian Zarya control module, to establish the first part of the International Space Station (ISS). Endeavour's mission depends ...
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HUMS acquisitions
Smiths Industries has acquired health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS) producer Stewart Hughes for £8.3 million ($13.8 million). The company is already a leading player in the aerospace diagnostic systems field and is buying its UK-based rival, particularly for its expertise in rotor track and balance vibration monitoring sensors. Hughes ...
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UK airlines renew call for air rage research and funding
David Learmount/LONDON Efforts to undertake research into the causes of air rage attacks on cabin crew are being held up by a reluctance to fund the work, it has emerged at a Passenger Behaviour seminar held at Heathrow Airport, London, on 29 October. The UK's Cranfield University has ...
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GB Airways follows BA with A320 family deal
GB Airways has followed the lead of its franchise partner, British Airways, and decided to drop its Boeing 737 fleet in favour of the Airbus A320 family, with a deal for up to 14 aircraft. The airline, which operates franchise flights for BA to North Africa and the western ...
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Collins offers pay by the hour support
Rockwell Collins has formed a new business unit to provide a wider range of avionics support services to commercial and military customers. Options to be offered by the new Collins Support Services (CSS) unit include the ability to pay by the operating hour for avionics support. For the first ...
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Universal targets corporate jet market with flightdeck family
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Universal Avionics has launched a bid to become a major supplier of flightdeck equipment for corporate and commercial aircraft with the introduction of its System-1 product line. Building on its UNS-1 flight management system (FMS), Universal's System-1 includes flat panel displays, a terrain awareness and warning system ...
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SAir Group acquires major Air Europe stake
Marco Messalla/MILAN Swissair parent SAir Group is to grow its increasing portfolio of small European airlines by taking the maximum permitted stake in Italian long-range charter carrier Air Europe, through the purchase of 49.9% of Dutch-based holding company Tegel. The move follows the recent purchase of 44%of France's Air ...
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Calm down
A new and unsettling problem for the airlines - dubbed "air rage" by the media - has been emerging over the last few years. The problem is unsettling because it appears to be global and growing rapidly, and although the airlines can describe it, they cannot define it. This intractable ...
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Muscular Malibu
Dave Higdon/WITCHITA In developing the Meridian, a turboprop derivative of its Malibu high-performance piston single, New Piper Aircraft is counting on the fact that customers will find the transition to turbine power both attractive and manageable. To test this premise, Flight International evaluated the Malibu turboprop conversion developed by JetProp ...
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Ion cruiser
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA's Deep Space 1 (DS1) spacecraft is being propelled to its rendezvous with an asteroid by an ion propulsion system, the first use of such a system in the history of interplanetary exploration. The DS1, which was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 24 October, is the first ...
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Eurocopter achieves sales boom in US market
Off-shore operator Tex-Air Helicopters has purchased 11 Eurocopter helicopters for use in the Gulf of Mexico. The Houston, Texas-based company will take delivery of six AS350s by year-end, and seven EC120s will arrive next April. The aircraft will be used on contracts for Amoco and other oil companies. The ...
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Socata's diesel range kicks off with petrol prototype
Andrzej Jeziorski/SEOUL Socata has begun construction of the first prototype of what will eventually become a range of diesel-engined aircraft. The French manufacturer hopes to fly its MS250 Morane light single at next year's Paris air show in June. The prototype of the four/five-seat Morane will have a ...
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Lufthansa holds China talks as SIA prepares to be a Star
Andrzej Jeziorski/SINGAPORE Lufthansa is in talks with three airlines in a bid to extend the Star Alliance into mainland China, according to Jürgen Weber, chairman and chief executive of the German airline. Early talks on a potential Chinese partnership are under way with Air China, China Eastern Airlines ...
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Eurocopter seeks partner for tiltrotor
Julian Moxon/PARIS Eurocopter is seeking to develop a 15/20-seat civil tilt-rotor and says that it is now looking for European partners to invest in the project. The Franco/German company says that while the eight/nine-seat Bell BA609 civil tiltrotor "presents no direct competition in the short term", there is a need ...