All Systems & interiors articles – Page 757
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Australian challengers faced with airport constraints
Severe airport capacity constraints are a major obstacle to plans by Virgin Australia, Impulse Airlines and Spirit Airlines to take on Australia's established carriers. Their problems date back to 1988, when Australia still operated its tightly-regulated Two Airline Policy. At that time Canberra granted Ansett and Australian Airlines (later ...
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VulcanAir awaits delivery of first Zoche Aero diesel
VulcanAir was expected to take delivery of the first Zoche Aero diesel engine by the end of January for its VA300 utility aircraft. The VA300 is an upgraded Partenavia AP68TP-600 Viator, due for certification in 2002. The Viator twin-turboprop will initially be a testbed for the Zoche engine, with ...
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US Airways A330s get their P@ssports
Airbus Industrie has started to install Sony Trans Com's P@ssport interactive in-flight entertainment (IFE) system on the first of US Airways' A330-300s. Installation of the fully interactive IFE system on the A330 - the first aircraft to feature P@ssport throughout the cabin - follows the approval of the system's software ...
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Preparing for safety
The 1990s was a decade of preparing for better airline safety rather than delivering David Learmount/LONDON The number of airline accidents worldwide increased by 28% in the 1990s compared with the 1980s, and fatalities rose by 12.5%. A total of 11,950 people died in 480 accidents during the ...
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Motorglider maker partners Platforms
Brazilian motorglider manufacturer Aeromot has signed an agreement with US company Platforms International to establish an airborne wireless communications system. Under its strategic partnership with Platforms' Brazilian subsidiary, Belo Horizonte-based Aeromot Group will become prime contractor for the company's aviation operations in Brazil. Platforms' Airborne Relay Communications (ARC) ...
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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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Reasons to be fearful
The downward trend of fatality numbers continues, but worries remain over differences in regional safety standards David Learmount/LONDON All is not well with airline safety. Despite fewer fatalities in 1999, accident numbers equalled those in 1998, and some significant international airlines - most notably a few key carriers in the ...
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Car parts supplier takes corporate 328JET
Fairchild Aerospace has delivered a corporately configured 328JET to US automotive parts supplier Johnson Controls. The $11.9 million aircraft, will be deployed by Johnson Controls as a corporate shuttle when it enters service this quarter. The delivery marks the third sale of a corporate 328JET. The first aircraft was delivered ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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. ...