All Systems & Interiors news – Page 893
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USA told: 'offer more' to beat bilateral block
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC LACK OF LEVERAGE ON the part of US negotiators has led to the current impasse in bilateral aviation talks with the UK, according to the US General Accounting Office (GAO). As the GAO issued its report, British Airways chairman Sir Colin Marshall, visiting Washington, was ...
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Air France Europe fights to regain business
FRENCH DOMESTIC and regional carrier Air France Europe (incorporating the former Air Inter) is fighting to regain traffic, which it has lost since French air services were opened to competition from domestic rivals. In what he says will be an "aggressive" campaign to prepare the airline for total ...
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FAA warns Wilcox on WAAS
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC WILCOX ELECTRIC IS in danger of losing its $475 million contract to develop and produce the global-positioning-system (GPS) wide-area augmentation system (WAAS) for the US Federal Aviation Administration. On 18 March, the aviation agency advised the US-based subsidiary of Thomson-CSF that the WAAS ...
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Biting into false alarms
Despite modern diagnostics, "no fault found" is frequently the mechanics' verdict after avionics fault alerts. Terence Hardeman/SINGAPORE FAULT INDICATIONS on avionics line-replaceable units (LRUs) are costing airlines millions of dollars, and engineering executives around the world have called for action by component manufacturers to combat ...
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Airbus partners scale up combined R&D for A3XX
Andrew Doyle/LONDON AIRBUS INDUSTRIE IS pushing for an unprecedented level of co-operation between its partners and suppliers during the research-and-development (R&D) phase of the proposed A3XX ultra-high-capacity airliner. The new approach, under the so-called "3E Plan", is seen as crucial to the consortium's efforts to keep the aircraft's ...
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MDC outlines five-year plan
Guy Norris/LOS ANGFELES McDONNELL DOUGLAS is studying the launch of three new products over the next 18 months, including a stretched MD-95 and two re-winged variants of the MD-11. Douglas Aircraft vice-president and general manager John Feren says that future milestones already include delivery of ...
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Cali 757 crash speeds American EGPWS trials
Bernie Fitzsimmons/LONDON AMERICAN AIRLINES plans to join British Airways and United Airlines in trials of AlliedSignal's enhanced ground-proximity warning system (EGPWS), which the manufacturer plans to start delivering by the third quarter of this year (Flight International, 21-27 February). American has already decided to test ...
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Airbus sets up a new division for A3XX
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES AIRBUS INDUSTRIE IS TO set up a new division to develop its proposed A3XX, with the aircraft now expected to go into service as early as 2002. The division will bring together personnel from the partner companies, and Airbus Industrie itself, under ...
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Inevitable end
The ultimate declaration of bankruptcy by Fokker will be greeted in various quarters with varying degrees of anger, regret and relief. The anger - from Fokker's employees - will be understandable. The regret - especially from Fokker's suppliers and customers - will be justifiable. The relief - from competitors - ...
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Bell Helicopter cracks Latin America market with 407
Bell Helicopter Textron has sold some 50 Model 407 light single-turbine helicopters in Latin America. Of more than 160 firm orders received for the new aircraft, 40 are from customers in Brazil, the company says - with at least ten of those coming from first-time customers. The US ...
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Alpi Eagles ready for domestic service
ITALIAN CORPORATE-aircraft operator Alpi Eagles is undergoing a major transformation into a domestic airline. Owned by some of the biggest industrialists in northern Italy, including Diesel, Marzotto, Sopaf, Stefanel, Zanussi and Zucchini, the company is planning to begin scheduled operations at the end of April. The Veneto region ...
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MD-11 overhaul
Swissair Technical Services is performing its first McDonnell Douglas MD-11 major over haul at its Zurich base. The work includes increasing the aircraft's maximum take-off weight to 286,000kg, aerodynamic modifications, installation of lightweight, composite, cabin/ cargo-hold floor panels and replacement of wing engine-pylon upper-spar caps. Source: Flight International
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Condor the favourite as launch customer for stretched 757
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELESKevin O'Toole/LONDON GERMAN CHARTER airline Condor is expected to sign up as the launch customer for Boeing's proposed 757-300X, the long-anticipated stretched version of the 200-seat twinjet. Boeing and Condor are in negotiations over the terms of the launch, which could come as early as ...
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United attacks 777 reliability
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES UNITED AIRLINES has unleashed a fierce attack on the reliability of its newly acquired Boeing 777s. A letter from a senior United executive to Boeing, dated 13 February, called the aircraft's reliability and performance a "major disappointment". Within 24h of ...
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Four decades of development
THE TILT-ROTOR is a remarkable aircraft. With the "prop-rotor" nacelles vertical, it can hover, fly sideways and backwards and turn on the spot - just like a tandem-rotor helicopter. With the nacelles horizontal, it has the speed, range and cruising altitude of a conventional twin turboprop. The ...
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THE GE 747 testbed
THE SHEER SIZE AND extra capacity of General Electric's Boeing 747 test-bed gives it an obvious advantage over its smaller predecessors. "It is five, or even ten times, as efficient as the 707," comments Phil Schultz, GE flight-test organisation (FTO) chief pilot. "We can run five or six objectives in ...
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EMB-145 'exceeds expectations'
EMBRAER'S EMB-145 regional jet is performing better than predicted, the Brazilian manufacturer says. One prototype and two pre-series aircraft are now in flight-test and a fourth EMB-145, is scheduled to have been flown, by 20 March. Engineering director Luis Affonso says that the performance is exceeding specification because ...
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Research pinpoints non-precision risks
David Learmount/AMSTERDAM AIRLINES CARRYING out non-precision approach and landing procedures face a five-fold increase in the risk of a controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) accident compared with precision approaches, according to research by the Netherlands' National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR). The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF), as part of its International ...
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How open skies?
GERMANY HAS become the latest and largest catch in the US drive to sign up Europe to open skies. With this new bilateral safely initialed, the USA has now signed up 11 European nations to open skies, representing 40% of the region's air market. The deal marks ...
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Combi Saab 2000 nears certification
SAAB AIRCRAFT is hoping to complete development and certification of a passenger/cargo combi version of its Saab 2000 turboprop by the end of 1996, in an effort to boost flagging sales. The Swedish manufacturer is proposing two different basic combi configurations. The aircraft can be configured typically for ...