All Systems & interiors articles – Page 845
-
News
Zurich leads battle to penalise polluters with landing-fee rise
AndrzejJeziorski/MUNICH Zurich Airport has become the world's first major airport to introduce an emissions charge, amounting to as much as 40% of normal landing fees, for operators of aircraft which fail to meet the highest environmental standards. The charge, introduced from 1 September, is balanced by ...
-
News
Low fares or bust?
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON Air South's recent bankruptcy has struck a chill note for US start-up airlines. Although the carrier may have been a relatively small player, its demise is dangerously close to home for a low-cost airline sector in which nobody is looking secure. The financial performance ...
-
News
Dasa tests flight management
AndrzejJeziorski/MUNICH Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa)is beginning a six-month flight-test campaign for a new flight-management system (FMS), the NFS-5000, developed by its Ulm, Germany-based subsidiary Navigation and Flight Guidance Systems (NFS). The system creates flight plans for pilots, who simply have to enter their point of departure and ...
-
News
PZL-Mielec reveals 30-seater Skytruck stretch
Polish aircraft manufacturer PZL-Mielec has unveiled two new stretched variants of its 18-seat M-28 Skytruck development of the Antonov An-28 twin-turboprop. The M28-03 and M28-04 are being marketed as the Skytruck Plus. The fuselage has been stretched by 1.84m, and the cabin ceiling raised by 0.25m, allowing passengers ...
-
News
STAe thinks again on AE31X
Paul Lewis/BEIJING Singapore Technologies Aerospace (STAe) is having second thoughts about participating in the planned joint Sino-European AE31X aircraft programme because of financial and workshare uncertainties. According to industry sources, STAe has in recent weeks voiced reservations to partners Airbus Industries Asia (AIA) and Aviation Industries ...
-
News
BA aims to fly Qantas 747-400s in stopover periods
British Airways is seeking clearance from the UK Civil Aviation Authority to allow its pilots and cabin crews to operate Qantas Boeing 747-400s on routes from London Heathrow Airport for an unlimited period. An application to the CAA from BA says that the approval is "-initially to facilitate ...
-
News
Boeing may install new cockpit on 767-400ER
Boeing is considering the introduction of a new cockpit on the recently launched 767-400ER, in a move which could result in existing versions of the 767, the 757 and, eventually, the 747-400, being updated. Air Transport Intelligence, the new Reed Aerospace on-line news service, says that a decision ...
-
News
P&W effort to improve PW4000 reliability starts to pay dividend
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Pratt & Whitney says that an upgrade effort to counter reliability problems on more than 1,600 PW4000 engines is showing results, with a "dramatic reduction" to in-flight shutdown rates. The upgrade effort, known as the Number 1 reliability programme, involves around 100 service ...
-
News
Condor studies long-range 757
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES German charter airline Condor Flugdienst is studying a longer-range version of the Boeing 757 as well as the recently launched 767-400 as part of a long- term strategy to introduce extended range and higher payload aircraft into its fleet. Condor, which was the ...
-
News
AlliedSignal reveals China manufacturing plans
AlliedSignal Aerospace is aiming to finalise the first of three planned manufacturing joint ventures with Chinese industry by October, strengthening its bid to participate in the Sino-European Airbus/Avic/Singapore Technologies AE31X programme. The first joint venture involves a partnership with China Aero Technology Import & Export (CATIC) to produce ...
-
News
Keeping promises
Emma Kelly/London The in-flight-entertainment (IFE) industry has undergone a radical change this year, with the leading hardware providers finally conceding that they are guilty of over-promising and under-delivering to their airline customers. After years of trying to meet airline requests for ever-more ambitious IFE applications, the makers have ...
-
News
Into the limelight
Despite the loss of the first prototype, Beriev's Be-103 shows great promise Paul Duffy/TAGANROG Of the ten major ex-Soviet design bureaux, perhaps the least known to the outside world is Beriev. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, Beriev is based in Taganrog, a ...
-
News
SASCommuter confirms selection of 15 Dash-8 400s
SASCOMMUTER confirms that it plans to sign a $350 million deal for 15 Bombardier de Havilland Dash 8-400 turboprops, plus 18 options, representing the largest single order to date for the Canadian manufacturer's new high-speed 70-seat aircraft. The Dash 8-400 selection will fill a gap between the mainline ...
-
News
Raytheon marks Bonanza's 50th anniversary
Raytheon Aircraft has completed a customised Beech Bonanza to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its piston single, which has been in continuous production since 1947 - with total sales nearing 17,400 aircraft. The Bonanza B36TC has a special interior and extensive options, including AlliedSignal Bendix/King KFC-150 autopilot, KLN-90B global-positioning system ...
-
News
Swissair and Lufthansa study 747 replacements
Airbus could land two more prestige customers for its A340-600 later this year, as Swissair and Lufthansa examine the aircraft to replace their Boeing 747 "Classic" ßeets. Swissair says that it expects to make a decision on the long-term future of its 747-300 ßeet by the year-end. The Ìve aircraft ...
-
News
Lufthansa to study low-cost airline option
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Lufthansa is considering establishing a new, low-cost airline to combat continuing losses on its domestic network. The new service could eventually have a fleet of some 50 aircraft and would offer ticket prices 20% below current Lufthansa levels. The German airline says that it ...
-
News
The right attitude
Tim Furniss/BRISTOL If a communications satellite's antennas are not pointing towards the Earth, or a space telescope's lenses are not aimed at the stars, they become not only useless, but an expensive waste of time and effort. Spacecraft only point accurately if their attitude and orbit control systems ...
-
News
More than collision avoidance
Harry Hopkins/LONDON An unplanned-for side-effect of the fitting of the traffic-alert and collision- avoidance system (TCAS) to airliners - compulsory already in the USA, and shortly to be so in Europe - is that pilots can have a much greater awareness of the positions of other aircraft around ...
-
News
Boeing fights to stay on schedule
Guy Norris/LOSANGELES Boeing is temporarily transferring "several hundred" assembly workers from the 767 line to the adjacent 747 line as part of an effort to stave off impending delivery delays, which may result in the late handover of at least one of each model this year. ...
-
News
Two captains could enhance safety
Sir - The crew of the Korean Air Boeing 747 which crashed 5km (2.5nm) short of the runway at Guam on 6 August was executing a non-precision approach at night and in poor visibility. The instrument-landing-system glidepath was known to be inoperative, and there were no visual-approach-slope indicators. ...