Systems & interiors – Page 893

  • News

    Bell Helicopter cracks Latin America market with 407

    1996-03-20T00:00:00Z

    Bell Helicopter Textron has sold some 50 Model 407 light single-turbine helicopters in Latin America. Of more than 160 firm orders received for the new aircraft, 40 are from customers in Brazil, the company says - with at least ten of those coming from first-time customers. The US ...

  • News

    Alpi Eagles ready for domestic service

    1996-03-13T00:00:00Z

    ITALIAN CORPORATE-aircraft operator Alpi Eagles is undergoing a major transformation into a domestic airline. Owned by some of the biggest industrialists in northern Italy, including Diesel, Marzotto, Sopaf, Stefanel, Zanussi and Zucchini, the company is planning to begin scheduled operations at the end of April. The Veneto region ...

  • News

    MD-11 overhaul

    1996-03-13T00:00:00Z

    Swissair Technical Services is performing its first McDonnell Douglas MD-11 major over haul at its Zurich base. The work includes increasing the aircraft's maximum take-off weight to 286,000kg, aerodynamic modifications, installation of lightweight, composite, cabin/ cargo-hold floor panels and replacement of wing engine-pylon upper-spar caps. Source: Flight International

  • News

    Condor the favourite as launch customer for stretched 757

    1996-03-13T00:00:00Z

    Guy Norris/LOS ANGELESKevin O'Toole/LONDON GERMAN CHARTER airline Condor is expected to sign up as the launch customer for Boeing's proposed 757-300X, the long-anticipated stretched version of the 200-seat twinjet. Boeing and Condor are in negotiations over the terms of the launch, which could come as early as ...

  • News

    United attacks 777 reliability

    1996-03-13T00:00:00Z

    Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES UNITED AIRLINES has unleashed a fierce attack on the reliability of its newly acquired Boeing 777s. A letter from a senior United executive to Boeing, dated 13 February, called the aircraft's reliability and performance a "major disappointment". Within 24h of ...

  • News

    Four decades of development

    1996-03-13T00:00:00Z

    THE TILT-ROTOR is a remarkable aircraft. With the "prop-rotor" nacelles vertical, it can hover, fly sideways and backwards and turn on the spot - just like a tandem-rotor helicopter. With the nacelles horizontal, it has the speed, range and cruising altitude of a conventional twin turboprop. The ...

  • News

    THE GE 747 testbed

    1996-03-06T00:00:00Z

    THE SHEER SIZE AND extra capacity of General Electric's Boeing 747 test-bed gives it an obvious advantage over its smaller predecessors. "It is five, or even ten times, as efficient as the 707," comments Phil Schultz, GE flight-test organisation (FTO) chief pilot. "We can run five or six objectives in ...

  • News

    EMB-145 'exceeds expectations'

    1996-03-06T00:00:00Z

    EMBRAER'S EMB-145 regional jet is performing better than predicted, the Brazilian manufacturer says. One prototype and two pre-series aircraft are now in flight-test and a fourth EMB-145, is scheduled to have been flown, by 20 March. Engineering director Luis Affonso says that the performance is exceeding specification because ...

  • News

    Research pinpoints non-precision risks

    1996-03-06T00:00:00Z

    David Learmount/AMSTERDAM AIRLINES CARRYING out non-precision approach and landing procedures face a five-fold increase in the risk of a controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) accident compared with precision approaches, according to research by the Netherlands' National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR). The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF), as part of its International ...

  • News

    How open skies?

    1996-03-06T00:00:00Z

    GERMANY HAS become the latest and largest catch in the US drive to sign up Europe to open skies. With this new bilateral safely initialed, the USA has now signed up 11 European nations to open skies, representing 40% of the region's air market. The deal marks ...

  • News

    Combi Saab 2000 nears certification

    1996-03-06T00:00:00Z

    SAAB AIRCRAFT is hoping to complete development and certification of a passenger/cargo combi version of its Saab 2000 turboprop by the end of 1996, in an effort to boost flagging sales. The Swedish manufacturer is proposing two different basic combi configurations. The aircraft can be configured typically for ...

  • News

    Flying colours

    1996-03-06T00:00:00Z

    Errol Cossey, founder of Air Europe and Air 2000, has been appointed group chief executive and chairman, of Manchester UK based holiday company, Flying colours. Terry Soult, a former Air 2000 board member, becomes managing director. Geoffrey Dobson joins the company as finance director and Carolyn Quintaba becomes director of ...

  • News

    Jobs on offer

    1996-03-01T15:40:00Z

    For once job creation is on the agenda. British Airways is taking on 1,000 new employees to continue the build-up of the London/Gatwick hub, which includes the transfer of most of its African network from Heathrow. KLM will add 2,500 cabin crew over the next three years to cover its ...

  • News

    Korea expresses Asian jet doubts

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    The purported partnership between China and South Korea to design and build a 100-seat jet dubbed the Asian Express AE-100 may be close to dissolving, as Singapore Technologies allies with China and the potential western players await the choice of a technology partner. Moo-Sung Yu, president of Samsung Aerospace, confirms ...

  • News

    Airline speak: a beginner's guide

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    In this industry people rarely mean what they say. Here's what they really mean.As airline startups multiply and established carriers recruit new management teams, there is a steady influx of new blood into this industry. Newcomers listening to the old hands talking might make the cardinal error of assuming that ...

  • News

    EBA: the new Euro Virgin?

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    Virgin Atlantic is concerned that its carefully crafted brand image could suffer from the planned foray into low-frills, low-cost operations in Europe by chairman Richard Branson. Virgin Europe, headed by ex-Continental Express boss Jonathan Ornstein, declared an interest in mid-February in buying 80 per cent of Brussels-based EuroBelgian ...

  • News

    Strike threat looms in US

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    A surprise deal between United Airlines and its flight attendants contrasts sharply with pilot-management talks at Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. As of mid-February, those two carriers were locked in federally mediated negotiations as pilots turned up the heat with strike preparations. The most notable points that ...

  • News

    Agents for change

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    All the major computer reservations systems recently signed distribution agreements in China. Elaine White outlines the Chinese travel agent scene and looks at the potential for automating what will become the world's largest travel market.China's travel and tourism industry may be relatively new, but it is already one of the ...

  • News

    A weighty premium

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    No one seems sure how much the interbank premium, which has been imposed on Japanese banks, accounts for their pull-back from aircraft finance, but it seems to be a likely cause. David Knibb reports.Financiers disagree over how much of Japan's fading dominance in aircraft finance is due to its banking ...

  • News

    A personal approach

    1996-03-01T00:00:00Z

    Straight corporate branding could soon be banished to the past as experience in other sectors demonstrates that a personalised approach is far more effective. By David Fraser. There was a time when manufacturers, introducing industrialised technology, created products that were targeted simply at a wide and somewhat ubiquitous audience. Take ...