All Systems & Interiors news – Page 912
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Hot Bird tanks
Propellant tanks are being installed in Eutelsat's Hot Bird 2 satellite at Matra Marconi Space (MMS), Stevenage UK. MMS is also building the Hot Birds 3 and 4 (Flight International, 26 July-1 August). The 20 Ku-band transponder Hot Birds will be co-located at 13°E in geostationary orbit to provide direct-to-home ...
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Sun Country pioneers the use of GPS
MINNEAPOLIS-BASED Sun Country Airlines is the first carrier to obtain operation approval to use the global-positioning system (GPS) for navigation in oceanic and remote airspace. The US Federal Aviation Administration granted approval after a demonstration flight on 25-26 July from Boston, Massachusetts, to Santa Maria, Portugal. The flight ...
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USAir changes tack on unions...
USAIR HAS ABANDONED efforts to win $2.5 billion in union concessions over the next five years, and plans instead to negotiate labour savings in contract talks. The decision to drop the talks with four unions follows disclosure of a $113 million second-quarter net profit. Union workers appear to ...
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Pilot changes
THE EUROPEAN airline-pilot market - much to the chagrin of the pilots - is still very much a buyer's market. There are some signs that it is freeing up, with some major airlines starting to recruit (or at least showing an interest). There is not, however, a widespread shortage of ...
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Wilcox wins WAAS deal
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration has awarded Wilcox Electric a $475 million incentive-fee contract to develop and produce the world's first wide-area augmentation system (WAAS), which makes the global-positioning system (GPS) usable for all phases of civil flight. Award of the contract ...
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Other Oshkosh '95 news
LoPresti Aircraft has taken three firm orders for its F22 sport aircraft, which comes in two versions and starts at $129,000. It has verbal commitments for a further four aircraft. The company is deciding where to locate a factory and intends to manufacture complete aircraft by late 1996. General ...
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Born-again fighter
Israel's low-cost upgrade, for the venerable MiG-21, has entered the flight test stage. Arie Egozi/TEL AVIV THE UPGRADE prepared by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) for the MiG-21 (Flight International, 15-21 March, P14) has been driven by the assumption that most potential customers want to enhance the aircraft's ...
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Mesa-backed airline to start UK service
NEW UK CARRIER Community Express Airlines is awaiting the delivery of the first of two Shorts 360-300s from Liberty Express in the USA, to inaugurate a domestic schedule. Community Express will initially link Birmingham with London Gatwick, most probably from early October. Expansion to connect Bristol, ...
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FANS datalink component becomes operational
A PROTOTYPE OF the new oceanic-sector workstation - the controller's link to the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) - is now in operational testing at the US Federal Aviation Administration's Oakland, California, air-route traffic-control centre. The workstation, called the telecommunications processor, represents the first phase of the ...
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DASA/Collins team succeeds with GPS-based landing tests
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH A TEAM FROM Collins Commercial Avionics of the USA and Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) has carried out successfully what is claimed by the companies to be the first fully automatic satellite navigation-based landing. The trials were part of the Boeing-led GPS Landing System ...
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All American airline dream
What is it about the airline industry that makes an entrepreneur's heart go of a flutter? Few people outside Houston ever grow up dreaming that they will one day start an oil company - though take note if your kid asks what the per-barrel price of East Texas crude will ...
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Technology tradeoffs
As the taxi pulls into the airport, the passenger's personal digital assistant (PDA) flashes the message that his flight is delayed for an hour, and asks him to confirm his inflight meal selection. He swipes his SmartCredit card through the taximeter, enters his personal authorisation code, adds a tip for ...
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Superjumbo or white elephant?
Mrs Akido is flying from Sapporo to Fukuoka to visit her mother. While the aircraft is taxiing to the runway, she goes through the safety procedure on her virtual reality screen. In the noise-proofed cabin she cannot hear the roar of the engines, nestling under the 80 metre wingspan, as ...
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Tomorrow's flight plan
They call it the autonomous aeroplane. An aircraft which can be navigated around the world independently of any ground navigation aid and which, rather less easily, can return to earth anywhere in any weather. Technically the concept is a practicable one. Whether it will be coming to an airport near ...
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A fourfold future
How will airline passengers acquire travel products in the future? Can the airline industry retain control of the distribution pipeline through which carriers sell their products and get information on their customers, or will the large travel agencies take over? By Jay Rein, Michael Gelhausen and Scot Hornick. Ten years ...
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A changing game plan
In coach class passengers are contentedly gazing at seatback video screens, absorbed in a broad range of quality in-flight entertainment. Live television and radio vie for passengers' attention with the latest movie releases of 2005. Adults while away the hours making purchases of questionable wisdom or slowly gambling away their ...
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2005: An airline odyssey
In ten years time, what will have become of the conventional wisdom of the airline industry? In looking ahead 10 years, this survey concentrates on how the electronic revolution will reshape the airline business. But first, Mead Jennings balances the projected technological advances against less quantifiable developments in labour ...
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Slots to grumble about
Virgin seems to have it all, well almost. Improving profitability, strong international codeshare partners and a highly successful brand name. But further expansion is hampered by the independent UK carrier's old bogey: slot restrictions at London/Heathrow. Sara Guild examines Virgin's dilemma.Washington, none; Philadelphia, none; Chicago, none; Boston, none; Bombay, none; ...
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A new breed?
The US airline industry has produced several waves of startup carriers at various points in its history. The latest such surge, centred on low-cost entrants, started in 1992 with the recession in full swing and is now slowing in the swell of an economic upturn. Mead Jennings examines the new ...
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Blanc brings Inter change
With sleight of hand and a change of name, Christian Blanc, now heading up both Air Inter and Air France, has dissipated the social unrest brewing around him. Air Inter's unions were against being merged into Air France Europe, wanting instead independence and the ability to develop freely. ...