All Opinion articles – Page 30
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Opinion
OPINION: How 747 gamble paid off for Boeing
Boeing celebrates its centenary in 2016, and the 747 has been a big part of its life for half of the company’s existence. The risks that Boeing took with the original decision to build the 747, and the investment it committed to the production programme, set the benchmark by which ...
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Opinion
OPINION: Virgin America and the flaws in foreign-ownership laws
A sad irony lost in the commotion over Virgin America's announced sale to Alaska Air Group is the critical and unfortunate role played by government restrictions on foreign ownership of airlines.
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OpinionOPINION: Should Italian Typhoons be targeting more than exports?
With the four-nation Eurofighter consortium in a number of dogfights which it hopes will result in fresh export deals to extend production of the type into the next decade, the ability to demonstrate its new “swing-role” performance can surely only serve to strengthen its competitive hand.
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OpinionOPINION: What's driving Boeing job cuts?
Having never before experienced a “super-cycle” in the commercial aviation business, it’s not always clear what one should look like while we are inside it, particularly after a perplexing announcement, such as a mass staff reduction by Boeing’s commercial unit amidst an historic production ramp-up.
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Opinion
OPINION: Forecasters must be wary of the broken 'cycle' model
With the traditional '"cycle" model not working and policymakers disconnected, forecasting is an inexact science, argues CTAIRA analyst Chris Tarry
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OpinionOPINION: High-altitude stakes soar for U-2 successor
Since the Space Shuttle’s final mission in 2011, Americans have had to explain to their children that the only way to space now is via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, blasting off from Kazakhstan. This storyline is only being corrected with the development of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Dragon ...
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OpinionOPINION: Airport security even harder in a heads-down world
Identifying a suspect before they commit an atrocity is worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack because a needle, at least, looks different. The situation might be more accurately compared with trying to find a particular needle in a needlestack.
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Opinion
OPINION: The battle to break into the airliner establishment
This year will bring some fascinating developments for the “tin lovers” as two all-new mainline jets, one backed by the might of China and the other by Russia, enter the fray.
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Opinion
OPINION: Goodbye Finmeccanica, hello Leonardo
Arrivederci Finmeccanica. Buongiorno Leonardo. Not long after the Italian group announced it was consolidating its businesses around a single corporate identity, it has revealed that new identity – a surprising choice, inspired by the country’s greatest genius.
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Opinion
OPINION: Aviation must address a Catch-22 for mentally ill pilots
In the novel that coined the term, Catch-22 described a paradox in which a doctor could not stop a mentally-unstable combat pilot from flying because a grounding request by the pilot would prove that his mind was entirely sound.
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OpinionOPINION: New technology can be one big headache
Technological leaps applied to the commercial aircraft industry over the last decade have had a profound effect on operating efficiency, but they are costly, as Boeing is no-doubt discovering
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OpinionOPINION: For B-21 bomber project, now comes the hard part
After painful experience with the B-2 and F-35, the US Air Force faces a battle to sell the American public another multi-billion dollar aircraft programme
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Opinion
OPINION: Rotorcraft sector must go back to basics
"There doesn’t seem to be a strategy to expand the industry. We’ve been suckling too long on the oil and gas teat.” However provocative, that stray comment from one of the organising team at the HAI Heli-Expo show neatly captures the state of the rotorcraft sector.
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Opinion
OPINION: Why airframers opposed Honeywell's UTC merger move
Industry consolidation has many useful purposes. Combining two organisations enlarges the economic and intellectual pool of resources, allowing the merged company to accept more risk to compete and innovate. It reduces overlapping back-office functions, making the entire industry more efficient and focused on the most essential tasks: developing, making and ...
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Opinion
ISTAT: Leahy changes opinion on demand for new A350 stretch
Airbus chief operating officer for customers John Leahy now thinks a market exists for a 45-seat stretch of the A350-1000 after speaking to multiple airlines around the world.
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OpinionOPINION: Lessor CIT's take on the widebody technology transition
In this CIT Aerospace analysis of the evolution in twin-aisle technology, the lessor's vice-president of aircraft evaluation and strategy Steve Mason and assistant vice-president James Morrison argue that small and intermediate widebodies are the right-sized jets to expand international networks
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OpinionOPINION: Can Airbus deliver this year with A400M transport?
Early last year, Airbus Group chief executive Tom Enders took the highly unusual and humbling step of publicly apologising for the development and production delays that were hindering the company’s delivery performance on the A400M, and promised to improve the situation.
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OpinionOPINION: E2 roll-out highlights Embraer transition
Embraer’s public roll-out of the E190-E2 on 25 February offered both a snapshot of the company’s remarkable last two decades, and a hint of what’s to come.
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Opinion
OPINION: Why territorial concerns dominated Singapore show
The sun-dappled waters next to the site of last week’s Singapore air show pulled more than a few longing glances from sweaty delegates, but it was a patch of ocean just a few hours by air to the northeast that was preoccupying military delegations at the show.
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OpinionOPINION: Is Air Canada commitment game-changer for CSeries?
Over the eight-year saga of Bombardier’s star-cross’d CSeries programme, few moments seemed more monumental than Air Canada’s new commitment to buy up to 75 CS300s, announced on 17 February.