£100 million wasted as plan for jet fighters on carriers is dumped
The UK Ministry of Defence has announced that the government is scrapping plans to fly F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers and will buy jump jets instead.
The Daily Telegraph, 11 May 2012, p 10
Boeing to offer 'Advanced Technology' winglet for 737 MAX
Boeing has unveiled a new winglet design for the 737 MAX. The 'Advanced Technology' concept will deliver a 1.5 per cent fuel burn improvement, dependent on range, in addition to the 10-12 per cent already offered by the new engine variant. Boeing says that, while current wingtip technology provides a maximum four per cent fuel burn advantage at long ranges, the 'Advanced Technology' winglet will generate an improvement of up to 5.5% over similar routes. The new concept has been validated by ongoing 737 MAX wind tunnel testing./P>
Aviation Industry News, 3rd May 2012.
Commercial aircraft MRO market to be worth $48.8bn in 2012
The global commercial aircraft MRO market will reach a value of $48.8bn in 2012, as airline operators fulfil necessary safety obligations and seek to prolong the lifecycles of their own aircraft, according to a new report from London-based business information provider, Visiongain. Meanwhile, the market is forecast to record positive growth over the next decade, driven in large part due to the increasing demand in global air travel and the return of grounded aircraft to the skies, the 'Commercial Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Market 2012-2022' report said.
Aviation Industry News, 9th May 2012.
'Trent 1000' upgrade passes first test
Rolls-Royce (R-R) has successfully completed the first run of the upgraded 'Trent 1000', which will be the launch engine for the 787-9 aircraft, due to enter service with Air New Zealand in 2014. The 'Trent 1000 Package C' programme will also power 787-8 aircraft which enter service later in 2014. The engine began running on a testbed in Derby, UK, in April 2012 and is scheduled for extensive assessment over the next two months. Two 'Trent 1000 Package C' engines are being built for initial flight testing on a 747-200 flying testbed over a three-month period. Production standard 'Trent 1000 Package C' engines will be delivered to Boeing from 2013 to support its 787-9 flight test programme.
Aviation Industry News, 10th May 2012.
Goodrich to support BA's 787 nacelles
Goodrich is to provide nacelle maintenance services for British Airways (BA) under a Rolls-Royce 'Total Care' support programme for 787 aircraft. The contract will begin upon delivery of the airline's first 787 in 2013 and is the first such agreement for this aircraft type under Goodrich Aerostructures' 'Prime Solutions' offering.
Aviation Industry News, 10th May 2012.
Cessna introduces new $26m jet
Cessna has unveiled its newest and longest-range business jet - the Citation Longitude - at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE). Boasting a 4,000-nautical-mile range and a maximum speed of Mach .86, the $26m aircraft will be able to make non-stop flights from New York to Paris, London to Dubai or Beijing to Moscow. The Citation Longitude will be powered by two Silvercrest engines, with 11,000 pounds of thrust, made by Snecma, while the cockpit features Garmin G5000 avionics with touch-screen controls and all of the capabilities required to comply with emerging operating requirements for intercontinental aircraft, including FANS/CPDLC, ADSB and RNP.
Aviation Industry News, 14th May 2012.
Government in £100m U-turn over F35-B fighter planes
The government has changed its mind over the type of fighter planes it is ordering for the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the F35-C had hit development problems and it would be cheaper in the long term to order F35-B jump jets, as originally planned by Labour. The cost of the U-turn is likely to be about £100m, he told BBC News. Mr Hammond said delays to the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter programme, a multinational venture led by Lockheed Martin, meant they would have not been operational until 2023 - three years later than planned. As part of its SDSR defence spending review in 2010, the government decided to 'mothball' one of the two aircraft carriers, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth, ordered by Labour. Abandoning the plan to fit the 'catapults and traps' needed by the F35-C to one of the carriers while mothballing the other, opened up the possibility that both could eventually become operational, said Mr Hammond. The estimated cost of fitting the 'cats and traps' system to HMS Prince of Wales had risen from £950m to £2bn 'with no guarantee that it will not rise further'. The government has spent between £40m and £50m on design and assessment work and there would also be penalty costs associated with scrapping the F-35C deal.
BBC News online, 10th May 2012.
HBC files for Chapter 11
Hawker Beechcraft has filed for Chapter 11 protection in US Bankruptcy Court as part of a restructuring plan that the company says will eliminate $2.5bn in debt. Lenders also agreed to provide $400m in additional financing to allow HBC to continue operations and pay employees, suppliers and vendors.
Aviation Week and Space Technology, 7th May 2012, p.14.
Top technologies to watch
Part of a section on advanced manufacturing and materials, 10 technologies that show high promise are covered, including additive manufacturing, laser ultrasound, friction welding, automating composites, 50,000 ton press, composite isogrids, nano composites, robotic assembly, titanium machining and laser processing.
Aviation Week and Space Technology, 7th May 2012, p.48-52.
We have balanced defence books, says Hammond
Philip Hammond has announced a £160bn plan to buy missiles, jets and other kit for the Armed Forces over the next decade as he claimed to have balanced the defence budget for the first time in a generation. The announcement that the £38bn black hole had been closed was met with scepticism, but Mr Hammond said that the MoD was putting in place 'behaviour-changing incentives and structures that will keep it in balance'. The Forces will now have a £4bn contingency reserve for unexpected costs, rather than going back to the Treasury. Mr Hammond will ask the National Audit Office to produce its own report to confirm that the books are balanced. Under the new regime, only programmes that are fully funded for 10 years including acquisition cost and maintenance, will be approved. The green light has been given to 14 Chinook helicopters, an extension plan for the Apache and £7bn for missiles and torpedoes. The Army will get £1bn to upgrade the Warrior tracked vehicle.
The Times, 15th May 2012, p.3.
GKN Aerospace opens new U.K. composite wing facility
GKN Aerospace has opened a new facility in Bristol for the high-speed, high-precision manufacture and assembly of carbon fibre composite aircraft wing components that span nearly 30m long. The facility has more than 30,000m 2
of floor space across two buildings, one focused on manufacture, the second on assembly. It uses the latest robotic technologies needed to produce complex wing structures. Employment is expected to rise to 450 employees by 2016. Two major work packages are already underway at the site: manufacture of A350 XWB all-composite rear wing spars and assembly of wing trailing edge and main landing gear parts to the spars to create complete 27m-long aircraft wing trailing edges; and manufacture of the all-composite main wing spars for the A400M military transporter, also huge assemblies at just less than 20m long.
CompositesWorld.com Weekly, 1 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/d67ovto
GKN manufactures A350 XWB wing spars using Umeco tooling
GKN Aerospace has used a suite of large-scale tooling mandrels manufactured by Umeco, using Umeco prepregs, to produce the Airbus A350 XWB rear wing spars using advanced fibre placement technology. It had asked Umeco to design and manufacture low weight, low cost mandrels exhibiting high stiffness and excellent geometric accuracy. The mandrels that Umeco designed and manufactured consisted of machined foam cores over-laminated with Umeco's LTM 217 epoxy tooling resin system combined with woven carbon fibre and ultra-high modulus unidirectional carbon fibres.
Reinforced Plastics Weekly, issue 436, 2 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/6w424tp
Aerospace enjoyed best ever year in 2011 - PWC
Research by PwC shows that the aerospace and defence industry enjoyed its best ever financial year in 2011 with the top 100 firms boosting revenue by 5% to $677M, with operating profit up 2% to $60bn. However average operating margin slipped to less than 9%, with few companies achieving double digits. Civil-focused companies performed the best, and Airbus parent EADS led the revenue growth league, adding $7.7bn.
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.8.
ESA unveils mission to Jupiter's moons
The European Space Agency has made Jupiter's moons its next big science mission. The so-called JUICE - Jupiter Icy moons Explorer - mission will launch in 2022 to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and spend at least three years making detailed observations of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, all thought to hold internal oceans and be potential habitats for life. (Item contains no further information).
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.8.
P&WC to power Eurocopter's X4
Eurocopter has selected Pratt & Whitney Canada's PW210 turboshaft to power its in-development X4 helicopter. First flight of the medium twin - which will replace the long-serving EC155 Dauphin - is planned for 2015, with service entry two years later. (Item contains no further information).
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.8.
Cambridge to be new 'centre of excellence'
The Marshall Group is to spend $32M to turn its base at Cambridge airport into one of southeast England's prime hubs for business aviation. The company wants to more than double business jet movements to 7,000 a year, attract 'high yield' feeder airline services and develop empty land on the south side of the airport into a 'centre of aerospace excellence'. The group is interested only in aviation tenants that do not compete with its main Marshall Aerospace overhaul and repair activities, and is in talks with a flightcrew training provider and avionics repair specialist.
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.27.
Eclipse 550 gets production approval
US production certification has been awarded for the Eclipse 550 very light jet, paving the way for Eclipse Aviation to launch full-scale production. In 2009 EAI acquired the assets of the defunct start-up that designed and built the original Eclipse 500. The developer says that all EAI shareholders - including Sikorsky, which acquired a 42% stake in the company last year - are united in their commitment to restart production of the VLJ. It dismisses suggestions by Sikorsky parent company United Technologies that the stakeholder has no plans to continue making investments in the fledgling company.
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.29.
Safran
Safran's Pierre Hurpin has been appointed technical director at Nexcelle, the nacelle systems joint venture of GE's Middle River Aircraft Systems and the Safran Group's Aircelle. (Item contains no further information).
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.33.
EADS consolidates cyber security expertise
EADS' Cassidian defence division has created a dedicated business, Cassidian Cyber Security, to address cyber security markets in Europe and the Middle East, with an initial focus on Germany, the UK and France. The new unit, which brings together all the cyber security expertise within the EADS group, is aiming for 2017 sales of Euros 500M (Item contains no further information).
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.33.
Safran closes in on solid rockets unit
The company is finalising the merger of its SME energetic materials and Snecma Propulsion Solide solid rocket motors subsidiaries, and will name the new solid propulsion unit Herakles, with anticipated annual sales of Euros 700M. Separately, first quarter aerospace propulsion revenue, including Safran's 50% share of CFM, gained 11% to Euros 1.6bn. aircraft equipment revenue was up 21% to Euros 883M. (Item contains no further information).
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.33.
Goodrich soars on large airliners
A 27% increase in large commercial aircraft original equipment sales has helped Goodrich to improve its first quarter sales by 14% to $2.2bn, while pre-tax profit increased 7% to $280M. Goodrich's $16.5bn acquisition by Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky and Hamilton Sundstrand parent United Technologies is expected to close around mid-year. (Item contains little further information).
Flight International, 8-14 May 2012. p.33.
Stable 2012 for global aerospace and defence sector
Fitch Ratings' outlook for the global aerospace and defence sector in 2012, predicts stability, with commercial growth offsetting defence pressure. It expects the commercial aerospace sector to grow in 2012, but this outlook is tempered with caution based on several economic indicators. In contrast, global defence budgets are falling, cash deployment is a key risk, and thus pure-play defence names could see ratings come under pressure. The key risk to Fitch's outlook is a global economic downturn.
EngineerLive/Transport Engineer/Aviation, 2 May 2012. http://tinyurl.com/c662ald
Production composites manufacturing specialist secures C-130J contract
Quickstep Holdings has been selected as the supplier for the wing flaps on the C-130J Hercules military transport following an international commercial tender offer by Lockheed Martin. The first orders for the programme's non-recurring activities (such as planning, tooling, training and project management) are expected in the second quarter of this year. The first aircraft parts are scheduled for delivery in 2014.
High Performance Composites, May 2012. p.13.
Flying car prototype makes first flight
The Transition, a street-legal car/airplane hybrid, designed and developed by Terrafugia completed its first flight on March 23rd. The same vehicle has also successfully completed initial drive and conversion testing. The two-seater can be parked in a single-car garage, and flies on ordinary unleaded automotive fuel. The aircraft reached an altitude of 1,400 ft and flew for eight minutes. The flight demonstrated the plane's controllability and safe operational characteristics.
High Performance Composites, May 2012. p.34.
Composites in general aviation 2011-2020
Presents forecast for the general aviation industry's likely demand for composite goods and services for the period 2011-2020 and relates this to a previous forecast for the period 2008-2017. Says that, barring renewed economic turmoil, recent GA sales and production increases suggest 12% more aircraft in 2012 than in 2011. From 2011 through to 2020, aircraft OEMs and their suppliers are expected to produce more than 28M lb of GA composites. At the peak of its predicted growth in 2017, it is forecast that the GA composites market will be valued at more than $1bn.
High Performance Composites, May 2012. pp.54-61.
Integrated, optimised aircraft door
French manufacturer Latecoere has investigated aircraft doors, whose basic structure is dictated by safety requirements, to see if creative design and engineering could make them even lighter. The company initiated a project called COMDOR (composite door), which focused on matching the material, tooling and process with the application. The objective was to develop a door that features a unified unbounded, fastener-free structure that could be moulded via resin transfer moulding. Having achieved this, the next objective is to place the door on a functioning aircraft.
High Performance Composites, May 2012. pp.62-68.
