Editorial opinion – Page 24
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Opinion
OPINION: Rotorcraft sector must go back to basics
"There doesn’t seem to be a strategy to expand the industry. We’ve been suckling too long on the oil and gas teat.” However provocative, that stray comment from one of the organising team at the HAI Heli-Expo show neatly captures the state of the rotorcraft sector.
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Opinion
OPINION: Why airframers opposed Honeywell's UTC merger move
Industry consolidation has many useful purposes. Combining two organisations enlarges the economic and intellectual pool of resources, allowing the merged company to accept more risk to compete and innovate. It reduces overlapping back-office functions, making the entire industry more efficient and focused on the most essential tasks: developing, making and ...
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OpinionOPINION: Can Airbus deliver this year with A400M transport?
Early last year, Airbus Group chief executive Tom Enders took the highly unusual and humbling step of publicly apologising for the development and production delays that were hindering the company’s delivery performance on the A400M, and promised to improve the situation.
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OpinionOPINION: E2 roll-out highlights Embraer transition
Embraer’s public roll-out of the E190-E2 on 25 February offered both a snapshot of the company’s remarkable last two decades, and a hint of what’s to come.
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Opinion
OPINION: Why territorial concerns dominated Singapore show
The sun-dappled waters next to the site of last week’s Singapore air show pulled more than a few longing glances from sweaty delegates, but it was a patch of ocean just a few hours by air to the northeast that was preoccupying military delegations at the show.
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OpinionOPINION: Is Air Canada commitment game-changer for CSeries?
Over the eight-year saga of Bombardier’s star-cross’d CSeries programme, few moments seemed more monumental than Air Canada’s new commitment to buy up to 75 CS300s, announced on 17 February.
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Opinion
OPINION: Can NASA's new X-planes transform aviation?
It was the golden age of flight experimentation when Scott Crossfield arrived at Edwards AFB, California, in 1950. The soon-to-be legendary test pilot likened the atmosphere to an “Indianapolis 500 without rules”, as each flight attempted something – a speed, an altitude or some combination – that no human had ...
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Opinion
OPINION: F-35 budget woes deflate transatlantic celebrations
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II has become a lightning rod for quick-hit budget savings in the Pentagon’s latest military spending plan, despite what the programme office would have you believe.
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OpinionOPINION: What next for Boeing?
Having abandoned a clean-sheet design to replace its 737 in 2011, Boeing has moved swiftly towards flight testing a re-engined version. But its focus may now shift to something larger
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Opinion
OPINION: Dassault excels in balancing act
“We had the impression the crisis was over and the world was back to recovery.” The downturn in markets that as recently as 2014 were darlings of Dassault, and its rivals in large-cabin business jets, surprised the French firm’s boss Éric Trappier, but it illustrates the fragility of a sector ...
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OpinionOPINION: Is Boeing at risk of slowing?
A landmark in Boeing’s illustrious, 99-year history passed unnoticed last year, on 20 February, when its shares traded at $158.31. In nearly a century of achievement, Boeing’s market value had never been higher. More ominously, that value was a distinct peak.
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Opinion
OPINION: Is the world ready for new era of supersonic travel?
Those who mourn the passing of the Concorde era have cause to do more than mark last week’s anniversary – now a full 40 years ago – of the inauguration of commercial supersonic air service. For there is much cause to hope that NASA is poised to drive forward into ...
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Opinion
OPINION: Airbus faces price pressure on A380 sales
Willie Walsh’s enthusiasm for the A380 – and disclosure that British Airways is looking at adding up to half a dozen used examples to its fleet – only serves to remind us what an enigma the Airbus big beast is.
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Opinion
OPINION: Boeing defence unit under pressure to win big
While their colleagues in the commercial sector face the challenge of ensuring that production rates can keep pace with record-breaking demand, the folks at Boeing Defense & Space must be wishing for a similar set of problems.
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Opinion
OPINION: Why Airbus, Boeing need supply chain reaction
There are jitters on the Chinese stock market and worries about many emerging economies, but John Leahy has a view on the orders bubble: there simply isn’t one. At the Airbus annual press conference in Paris on 12 January, the airframer’s top salesman again dismissed suggestions that the industry is ...
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Opinion
OPINION: Why aviation won't reach environmental Utopia
Our special report this week highlights the fraught nature of the relationship between aviation and the planet: flying is not environmentally friendly, and there is no easy way around that. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion, then, that new thinking is needed.
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Opinion
OPINION: What accident statistics don't tell us
With 2015 having proven – at least conditionally – to be the safest year on record for airline passenger transport operations, the inquiry into the Tatarstan 737 crash at Kazan is a reminder that such statistics are, to some extent, still dependent on good fortune.
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Opinion
OPINION: Talons drawn for T-X trainer battle
If 2015 was the year of the bomber, the US Air Force’s requirement for a next-generation fighter trainer will be one of the hottest games in town in 2016.
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Opinion
OPINION: Can aerospace sustain record performance?
The world’s aircraft manufacturers were not without reasons to celebrate as 2015 came to a close. Their key customers in passenger-carrying airlines had shrugged off slower than expected economic output and – buoyed by shrewder management and plunging oil prices – expected to report record-breaking profits globally, in excess of ...