All Systems & Interiors news – Page 758
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News
Regionals get new rival
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Former Fairchild Aerospace executive Earl Robinson has returned to the regional aircraft ring by unveiling an ambitious $660 million plan to develop a family of 55-110-seat jets to compete in an overcrowded market. Robinson is heading a start-up company called Alliance Aircraft and claims to ...
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Report into Britannia 757 crash poses questions
A fast, high sink-rate, nosewheel-first touchdown in a storm started a sequence which led a Britannia Airways Boeing 757 to swerve off a runway at Girona, Spain, and break up, says the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB). There were two serious injuries in the crash last September. After ...
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Internet funds speed Delta retirements
Proceeds from the sale of stock in Internet ticket-auction company priceline.com will enable Delta Air Lines to accelerate the retirement of its Boeing MD-11s and MD-90s. The $711 million raised by selling some of Delta's stake in priceline.com will also allow the airline to repurchase up to $500 million of ...
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Intelsat options
Europe's Intelsat is to exercise options with Space Systems/Loral for two additional Intelsat IX satellites - Intelsat 906 and 907 - to be deployed to the Atlantic Ocean region to meet growing demand for Internet services. Intelsat says that this will allow two existing satellites to be redeployed to new ...
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NASA aims for first X-34 tow tests and powered flights
NASA plans to begin ground tests of the X-34 reusable launch vehicle testbed on the dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, California, in mid-February, with flight tests planned for mid-year. The ground tests will involve towing the 17.7m (6ft)-long suborbital X-34 behind a truck for more than 3,000m across Rogers ...
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Airbus unveils details of A330 derivative
Julian Moxon/PARIS Airbus Industrie has revealed details of the A330-100 derivative it is offering airlines to replace the A310 and A300-600 medium-range airliners. Demand for a new aircraft in the 165-250-seat range is growing, and Airbus and Boeing are preparing solutions based around the A330-200 and 777 (Flight ...
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Bigger and better
Eurocopter says its new EC155B medium helicopter is more than just a larger version of its long-established Dauphin A casual observer might think that the EC155B is just a stretched development of the AS365 Dauphin. Not so, says Eurocopter, although the manufacturer did incorporate some features from its experimental AS365X ...
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Creatively buoyant
The USA, Russia and the rest of Europe have seen plenty of civil helicopter product developments in the past 12 months Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DCThe civil helicopter industry remained creatively buoyant last year, with the launch and certification of new US and European developments and a continuing proliferation of Russian designs. ...
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Mergers
Menzies Transport Services (MTS) has acquired the London Heathrow cargo-handling facility of Aer Lingus, with a 10-year contract to handle the airline's cargo there. Austrian Airlines, Olympic Airways and Air Algerie are other customers. MTS is the second largest cargo handler at Heathrow. Acquisitive Smiths Industries of the UK is ...
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UPS to fit freighter fleet with satellite navigation systems
United Parcel Service (UPS) is to equip its 229 freighters with next-generation satellite navigation systems using the global positioning system (GPS)-based wide-area augmentation system (WAAS). The equipment will be made by the US express parcels specialist's subsidiary UPS Aviation Technologies (UPSAT). Development of the GPS/WAAS combination is expected ...
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KLM uk's no-frills buzz gets off the ground
Buzz, the new low-cost subsidiary of KLM uk, began operations on 4 January with promises of "strong market growth" in the European low-cost sector over the next five years. Based at London Stansted, UK, the carrier competes with the existing UK-based low-cost airlines Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways subsidiary Go. ...
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Airports
The Netherlands Government has decided that the construction of an international airport on an offshore island to serve Amsterdam is not feasible. It will instead allow Schiphol Airport to be expanded. Aircraft movements will increase from 420,000 to 600,000 in 10 years, while a sixth runway will be constructed by ...
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Unhappy month
December 1999 was an unhappy month for airline safety in a year which has been better than most. In the last four weeks of 1999 there were eight fatal accidents involving airlines as diverse as small regional operators flying twin turboprops to majors flying widebodies. With Korean Air's Boeing ...
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SIA/Virgin work out fine print
Chris Jasper/LONDON Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Virgin Atlantic are hammering out the details of their recently agreed deal. Under it, the Asian giant takes a 49% stake in the UK holding company, which owns Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Sun and cargo operation Virgin Aviation Services. The £600 ...
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Mergers
The UK's Smiths Industries has agreed to buy the US aerospace arm of UK industrial group Invensys, formed last year from the merger of engineering groups BTR and Seibe. The $175 million deal strengthens Smiths' position in supplying integrated systems for civil and military aircraft, and includes environmental control systems ...
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USMC holds fire on joint rotorcraft
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC The US Marine Corps is reserving judgement on participating in the US Army-led Joint Transport Rotorcraft (JTR) programme until the joint staff's critical Overarching Rotorcraft Capabilities Assessment (ORCA) is completed. Meanwhile, the USMC is drawing up plans to extend the service life of its Sikorsky CH-53E helicopters. ...
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BA studies CityFlyer transfer in Gatwick route shake-up
Chris Jasper/LONDON Andrew Doyle/MUNICH British Airways is considering a radical restructuring of its London Gatwick-based operations that would see all routes of less than 800km (430nm) - or around 35% of services - transferred to its CityFlyer subsidiary. The move, among several under consideration, aims to exploit the lower ...
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Satcoms progress
Back in the 20th century, they said people would not want telephones on airliners; that they did not wish to be contactable while they dozed in comfort or ate a fine meal. How times have changed. In the 21st century, passengers slip on virtual reality glasses and join the crew ...
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A satnav world
The early years of the 21st century will see the start of advanced satellite navigation systems mapping the world. From the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) in North America, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) and later, Galileo, and the Multi-function Transport Satellite (MTSAT) system in the Asia-Pacific ...
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Flight of fantasy
Airline operations in the 21st century will be conducted in an integrated information environment, linking passengers, cabin and cockpit crew with the ground The airliner passenger cabin and the flightdeck are getting closer technologically. No longer are capabilities exclusively designed for the cockpit, with applications increasingly being found in ...