All news – Page 6779
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Lufthansa ponders A319CJ for long-haul luxury service
David Learmount/TOULOUSE Lufthansa is considering using the Airbus A319CJ corporate aircraft to carry high yield passengers on scheduled long-haul services. The CJ is the corporate jet version of the 124-seat A319 short/ medium-range twinjet. This has a customised cabin and increased fuel capacity through the addition of auxiliary tanks ...
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UK will seek phased US open skies deal
The UK government has admitted it will seek a phased open skies agreement on services between the UK and USA when formal negotiations on a new bilateral treaty resume in mid-June. Following two days of informal talks in the UK, which ended on 20 May, the two sides say that ...
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US probes launches
The US launcher industry may be grounded for up to six months as President Bill Clinton has ordered Defense Secretary George Cohen to investigate recent launch failures of Lockheed Martin Titan IV, Athena and Boeing Delta III boosters. Six failures between July 1998 and May this year have cost over ...
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BAe/Dasa hold cargo aircraft merger talks
Andrew Doyle/DRESDEN Airbus Industrie partners Aerospatiale, British Aerospace and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Dasa) are in talks to form a joint venture to take over sales and marketing of their A300 and A310 cargo conversion and maintenance businesses. The move could be the first step towards the establishment of a "European ...
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Dynamic future awaits Gulfstream after purchase
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC The long-anticipated sale of US business jet giant Gulfstream has been announced, but the buyer is a surprise: General Dynamics (GD) has agreed to acquire the manufacturer in a one-for-one stock swap which values the company at $5.3 billion. GD was attracted by Gulfstream's strong ...
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US DoD orders JDAM production ramp-up
Ramon Lopez/EGLIN AFB The US Department of Defense has ordered Boeing to accelerate production of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits for the US Air Force and navy because of a shortage created by its successful use in the air campaign over Yugoslavia, says Oscar Soler, JDAM programme manager. ...
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Space at premium as NATO builds air fleet
NATO plans to increase the number of aircraft taking part in Operation Allied Force to nearly 1,300 is driving the alliance to establish more bases in Hungary, while also shifting assets so that they are closer to the battlefield. NATO says that deployment of additional aircraft is a question of ...
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Kosovo notes
NATO drops 10 bombs on the Kosovo village of Korisa, possibly killing up to 100 ethnic Albanian refugees. US defence secretary William Cohen says there is a "very distinct possibility" that the refugees were being used as human shields to protect a Serbian police/army command post. Six days later ...
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Dynamic return
Watch out, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics is getting back into the aircraft business. The company that dumbfounded the industry, when it spectacularly and lucratively dismembered itself in the early 1990s, is confounding observers by reassembling itself. GD's agreement to acquire business jet manufacturer Gulfstream has surprised most and puzzled ...
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Alertness training
The problem of fatigue is being tackled by a US company that is teaching corporate pilots how to stay awake on long trips Paul Seidenman/SAN FRANCISCOA scientific consulting firm that specialises in developing strategies to combat crew fatigue has come up with training programmes specifically for corporate aircraft flightcrews who ...
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Remote Agent controls Deep Space 1 New Millennium craft
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA has pioneered the use of artificial intelligence as a primary means of controlling a spacecraft. The space agency's New Millennium programme flagship, Deep Space 1, has been placed under the full control of the craft's Remote Agent. The spacecraft, launched from Cape Canaveral on 24 October ...
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Russian delays 'cost $1.2 billion'
Contingency planning for Russia's participation in the International Space Station (ISS) will add $1.2 billion to the project's cost, says the US General Accounting Office (GAO). Delays in completing the Russian Service Module for the ISS have contributed to a two-year hold-up in the programme. In addition, NASA concedes ...
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US Q400 order on horizon as targets are bettered
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON Bombardier and US regional carrier Horizon Air are negotiating a deal for at least 20 Dash 8 Q400 turboprops. An order from Horizon would represent a critical breakthrough in the North American market for the Canadian manufacturer. Although not confirmed by either party, ...
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Aeroflot bucks trend as Russian airlines suffer declining market
Paul Duffy/MOSCOW Jens Flottau/MOSCOW Passenger traffic figures for Russia's many airlines reveal that most suffered a significant decline last year, with Aeroflot Russian International Airlines one of the few to have bucked the trend. The flag carrier reported an increase in emplanements and claims to have returned a profit, albeit ...
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V-22 delivery
Bell Boeing delivered the first production MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor transport to the US Marine Corps on 14 May. The first of 350 MV-22s for the USMC, 50 CV-22s for the US Air Force and 48 CV-22s for the US Navy, was handed over at Bell's Arlington, Texas, flight test centre. ...
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Dangerous grounds
Aircraft are more likely to suffer damage on the ground than when airborne David Learmount/LONDON A Boeing 747 noses up to a docking point, wingtips avoiding the 747s either side by what feels like about a metre. The parking brake is applied, the crew shuts down the engines and, as ...
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Tow-barless tests
At some airports in Europe and the USA, tow-barless tractors have replaced many of the conventional tugs used for moving aircraft. They are particularly efficient in towing aircraft between docking points and hangars or engineering areas, because they can do so at taxiing speed without needing a crew on board ...
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Foreign relations
Crew compatibility will be a major influence in the International Space Station Tim Furniss/LONDON US, Russian, Japanese, European and Canadian cosmonauts and astronauts will soon take part in a 240-day simulation of life aboard the International Space Station (ISS) at the Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems in Moscow. ...
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Warning revolution
The UK Royal Navy is set to make a quantum leap in its airborne early warning capability Tim Ripley/BOSCOMBE DOWNThe UK's Royal Navy is on course to field a revolutionary airborne early warning (AEW) helicopter early in the next century. It will allow the RN to fight in the so-called ...
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A charged affair
Sky-high landing and navigation charges are driving airlines from key Japanese airports Andrejz Jeziorski/SINGAPORE Japanese "capsule" hotels which offer their guests space not much bigger than a mortuary drawer are symbolic of the overcrowding and overpricing of Tokyo and other Japanese population centres. The lack of available space ...