All aerospace news – Page 1959
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R-R and airlines wrangle over cost of -524G/H problems
Rolls-Royce is facing demands that it bear the brunt of the massive costs airlines are incurring because of reliability and performance shortfalls of their RB.211-524G/H engines. The problems, which affect more than 100 RB.211-powered Boeing 747-400s and 767-300s, are estimated already to have cost the airlines more than $200 million ...
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New Piper launches Seneca V
TWO YEARS AFTER starting work on the aircraft, New Piper Aircraft has unveiled its Seneca V cabin-class piston twin, its first new product since emerging from the bankruptcy of the former Piper Aircraft (Flight International, 8-14 January). "We look at the Seneca V as a dual-purpose aircraft, with ...
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MDC lines up MD-80 freighters
McDonnell Douglas (MDC) has had "informal" talks with China Eastern Airlines about the setting up of a cargo-modification line for MD-80s in Asia, and particularly China. Although freighter versions of the DC-9 were built, MDC has never delivered a main-deck cargo-door-equipped MD-80. The talks are believed to have ...
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Solar storm is suspected in Telstar 401 satellite loss
NASA scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, believe that a Solar storm on 6 January created enough geomagnetic activity to knock out the AT&T's Telstar 401 communications satellite in geostationary orbit (GEO) on 11 January. The satellite is a total loss (Flight International, 22-28 January). The ...
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MDC goes digital
McDonnell Douglas has selected Avtech to supply a digitally controlled audio system for the MD-95 100-seat airliner. The system manages flightdeck communications and uses a databus to connect the audio control panels to the remotely mounted audio management unit. Source: Flight International
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Malev privatisation
Hungary is reported to be looking at a further step in the privatisation of flag carrier Malev. The state could reduce its holding from 64% to just over 50%. The first stage of privatisation took place in December 1992 when Alitalia took a 30%stake, with 5% going to an Italian ...
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Sabretech talks
Sabre Tech, the maintenance operation which lost business after being linked with the ValuJet crash investigation last year, is due to be acquired by Commodore Aviation, the overhaul subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) also based in Miami, Florida. Commodore, which had sales of $35 million in 1996 and expects ...
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China Eastern prepares to list in New York and Hong Kong
China Eastern Airlines has taken the initial steps towards a share listings on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchange, which will make it the first mainland Chinese carrier to undergo a public flotation. The Shanghai-based airline has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and ...
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UK ignores EC warning on BA
The UK Government has brushed aside warnings from the European Commission (EC) that it could be taken to court if it approves the proposed British Airways alliance with American Airlines, without imposing tougher conditions to ensure transatlantic competition. The spat has also exposed more fundamental legal questions over the extent ...
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Message to Saturn
The European Space Agency (ESA) is inviting members of the European public to write and sign short personal messages for a CD-ROM to be fitted to the Huygens probe scheduled to be flown towards the planet Saturn in October and land on the ringed-planet's moon, Titan, in 2002. ...
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Competing powers
"The EC competition commissioner's interest in the BA/AA alliance is curious - the competition department has failed to involve itself in more significant airline competition issues." By seeking to stamp his authority on the proposed alliance between British Airways and American Airlines, the European Commission (EC) competition commissioner, ...
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Building a new India
Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) boss R N Sharma's announcement at the Aero India '96 show in December that he intended to start negotiations to license-build a 50-seat turboprop, and to buy a stake in a regional-jet programme, raised a few smiles among the Indian press corps. They had heard it all ...
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NASA plans interim module for Space Station
NASA IS TO build its own Interim Control Module in an attempt to reduce the effect of the delay in the production of the Russian Service Module for the International Space Station (ISS) (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996). The Service Module, the third major component of the ISS, ...
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Japanese airlines finalise low-cost plans
Japan Air System (JAS) and Japan Airlines (JAL) are planning to incorporate new low-cost subsidiary carriers shortly, in the face of growing domestic liberalisation and the entry of new competing start-up airlines. JAS also announced that its new subsidiary operation, Harlequin Air, was to have been established on ...
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OSC contracts to launch Kompsat
The contract between Korea Aerospace and Orbital Sciences (OSC) to launch in 1999 the TRW-built Kompsat multipurpose satellite aboard a Taurus booster from Vandenberg AFB, California, has been formally signed. The Taurus has been flown just once (in 1994), but OSC has two firm contracts for launches on ...
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'Abrupt failure' results in loss of second Telstar 4 satellite
AT&T Skynet says that its Telstar 401 satellite experienced an abrupt failure of its telemetry and communications on 11 January. It is the second in-flight loss of this spacecraft series. The company restored services to only those 401customers whose contracts called for transfer of their transponder services, to ...
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Reaching for free flight
Forecasts of extraordinary growth in civil air traffic have become commonplace. The details vary, but a projected doubling of traffic by 2010 and a tripling by 2020 are widely accepted. There is just one problem - those numbers are not feasible, given the existing operational infrastructure. The problem is worst ...
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Building for the future
In the race to WIN what promises to be one of the world's largest air-transport markets in the 21st century, aircraft manufacturers in recent years have been busy beating a path to Beijing bearing all manner of industrial and infrastructural inducements. Airbus Industrie is about to take the wraps of ...
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Auxiliary Power International (APIC)
Auxiliary Power International (APIC) is now wholly-owned by Sundstrand, after the company acquired Labinal's 50% stake in the company late in 1996. APIC, which is to be integrated into Sundstrand's San Diego, California-based Power Systems division, was formed by the US company and France's Labinal in 1989, to produce APUs ...