FLUG REVUE update: Week ending August 3, 1997

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UPDATE

Week ending August 3, 1997

+++ Airbus announces launch customers for A340-500 and -600 +++ Dasa to upgrade Greek F-4 Phantoms +++ ESA: Floods in Europe on the Internet +++ NH90 at Agusta for T700 refit +++ KLM sells Northwest stake +++ "New" Boeing gets up and running +++ ROTON for LEO-Satellites +++ Swissair faces new competitor +++ Discovery set for STS-85 mission +++ Longest Boeing 737 makes first flight +++ News in brief +++

Airbus announces launch customers for A340-500 and -600
Erstkunden für die neuen Airbus-Muster A340-500 und -600

On Friday August 1st, Airbus Industrie in a statement revealed Virgin Atlantic Airways and Air Canada are to become launch customers for its new A340-versions. Airbus says that Virgin has decided to acquire 16 A340-600, thereby becoming launch customer for the stretched A340 to be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines. Commercial launch of the -600 that will accomodate up to 375 passengers took place in June during the Le Bourget airshow. Virgin will be the first operator to take delivery of the new aircraft from 2002. Said Richard Branson, Virgin chairman, commented: "Boeing make excellent aircraft, but it is in the interest of both the aircraft industry and the consumer, for them to have a strong competitor. It is therefore healthy to see a European manufacturer and a British engine maker giving their American counterparts a serious run for their money. Airbus and Rolls Royce are building the very best there is."
Air Canada also wants to acquire the A340-600, as well as the long-range version -500 that in a standard three class layout will carry 313 passengers 8300 nm (15400 km). In a letter of intent, the airline has set a March 1998 decision date for five of the new airplanes and ten options for first delivery in 2002. Details of the possible order split were not disclosed. Air Canada also announced it had signed a letter of intent to acquire five A330-300s and three A340-300s with options for 20 more aircraft.

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Dasa to upgrade Greek F-4 Phantoms
Griechische F-4 werden von Dasa modernisiert

After years of negotiations, a Greek Cabinett committee has approved the selection of Daimler-Benz Aerospace to upgrade 39 Phantom fighters for the air force. The deal is worth around 320 million US-Dollars. It was clinched after a new round of bidding in which Boeing (Rockwell) was competing strongly and with full political support. It seems that price-wise there was little difference and that Greece wanted to give a signal to Europe in this case - it will buy many US arms anyway. The Greek F-4s will get new avionics similar to the German Luftwaffe Phantoms. Also, structural overhauls will be made to extend service life for another 6000 hours. Work will beginn soon, with the first two aircraft being completed at Manching and the rest at Hellenic Aerospace Industries at Tanagra near Athens.

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ESA: Floods in Europe on the Internet
Überschwemmungsdaten im Internet abrufbar

The "Earth Watching Team" at the European Space Agency's ESRIN centre in Italy has put some significant satellite images on the Internet concerning the recent floods in northern Europe. These are accessible at the following address:

http://pooh.esrin.esa.it:8888/ew/floods.htm or http://www.dfd.dlr.de/app/index.html.

Acquisitions over areas of Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria from July 12 onwards give an idea of the extent of the catastrophe that has hit a large part of northern Europe these last few weeks. Topographic maps of the areas, merged with the available satellite data, are also accessible.During emergencies of this kind, it is often difficult to obtain an overall view of the areas hit, especially since weather conditions are usually such as to preclude, for example, aerial observation. The authorities need a quick response in order to identify areas that need immediate assistance. ESA's ERS Earth Observation satellites carry a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument, which is able to collect data independently of weather and light conditions, but it is also possible to acquire data with optical satellites when cloud cover is reasonably light.
Readily processed data and information can be made available to authorities just a few hours after the satellite has flown over the disaster area. The Earth Watching project was started at the end of 1993 to monitor such emergencies, and is a collaborative effort between Eurimage (ESA's commercial distributor of remote sensing data) and ESRIN, the ESA centre in charge of exploiting Earth Observation data.

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NH90 at Agusta for T700 refit
Erster NH90 wird bei Agusta mit T700 ausgerüstet

On July 29, the first NH Industries NH90 prototype arrived at the Cascina Costa plant of Agusta, just north of Milan. The flight from Marignane took around two hours. Agusta will now replace the RTM322 engines with General Electric T700-T6Es. The italian company has design responsibility for this activity, which is foreseen by the Additional Work and National customisation contract signed on 6. october 1995 by NAHEMA and NH Industries. According to the contract, the "additional work" items, like the second engine, can be commonly utilised by all the participating nations (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands). This opens up a choice for German NH90s for example.

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KLM sells Northwest stake
KLM verkauft Northwest-Anteile

Dutch flag carrier KLM resolves its dispute with US partner Northwest Airlines by re-selling the 18,8 percent stake to the Minneapolis-based carrier. The financial transaction will be completed by the year 2000 and will leave KLM with a large profit. In 1989 the Dutch acquired the Northwest stake for 438 million hfl. Now it is estimated by analysts at two billion hfl. With that deal both carriers settle their control row. KLM in the past intended to raise the stake in Northwest while the US airline strongly opposed to such plans. Now the two agreed to establish a commercial and operational alliance without equity exchange spanning the next ten years with closer cooperation in marketing, freight and passenger services. They declared their common interest to bring in other carriers into their partnership and to entend it to a global one. Experts believe Alitalia is the first airline to join. KLM estimates that its current relationship with Northwest is good for an additional net profit of 150 million US dollar.

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"New" Boeing gets up and running
Nach der Fusion: Boeing nimmt die Arbeit auf

With the merger of The Boeing Company and McDonnell Douglas Corp. now completed, Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Phil Condit has announced the members of the board of directors of the newly merged company will be They include Philip M. Condit (Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, The Boeing Company), Paul E. Gray (Chairman of the Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), John F. McDonnell (Retired Chairman, McDonnell Douglas Corp.) and Harry C. Stonecipher (President and Chief Operating Officer, The Boeing Company). Retiring from the Boeing Board, effective Aug. 1, are Boeing Chairman Emeritus Frank Shrontz and Harold J. Haynes, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Chevron Corp.
Boeing Company will also unveil a new corporate identity program on Aug. 4. The program introduces a new symbol that will be used along with the current Boeing logotype in a corporate signature that will identify the company around the world. "The signature is designed to represent Boeing as a global enterprise, a leader in commercial, defense and space flight," said Larry Bishop, vice president for Communications and Investor Relations. The symbol was inspired by the McDonnell Douglas logo, which was introduced in 1967.

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ROTON for LEO-Satellites
ROTON zum Start von LEO-Satelliten

California based Rotary Rocket Company is developing an inexpensive, fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit space vehicle called ROTON for the low earth orbit telecommunication satellites market. The exceptionell low price of Roton ($1000 per pound payload) represents a tenth of today's regular launch cost. The company tries to achieve this objective by designed a especially low cost space craft usind revolutionary concepts.
ROTON will use an aerospike engine to launch vertically. The engine will use an internal rotor to pump propellants (kerosine and liquid oxygen) into the pressurized combustion chambers eliminating the need for complex turbo pumps. In its reentry phase ROTON will deploy a rotor that enables the spacecraft to land vertically, even to stop in the air before landing. The engine fuel will be used up so landing in completely undangeorus. Also the area needed for ROTON operation will very small. The space craft will be designed from the outset for aircraft style oeprations with only a 1 to 2 day turnaround time between flights.
The management of the Rotary Rocket Company is experienced in space projects. Well known author Tom Clancy is a member of the board of directors, the company says. Integration of the ROTON and building the composite airframe, propellant tanks, cargo bay fairing, rotor and thrust structure/heat shield will be done by Burt Rutan led Scaled Composites in Mojave, California.

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Swissair faces new competitor
Neue Konkurrenz für die Swissair

Swiss start-up carrier Swiss World Airways is planning to introduce services from Geneva to destinations in the US and Canada, thus competing with national carrier Swissair. The new airline wants to start flying to New York, Miami and Montreal with two Boeing 767 aircraft by November. Swiss World emerged from massive protests of politicians and business people caused by Swissairs' decision in 1996 to move most of its intercontinental services from Geneva to Zürich.

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Discovery set for STS-85 mission
Discovery startbereit für STS-85-Mission

The sixth shuttle flight of 1997, STS-85 is targeted for launch around August 7th at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The crew will perform a wide variety of tasks including the deployment and retrival of German experimantal plattform CRISTA-SPAS (Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmospheric Shuttle Pallet Satellite). CRISTA-SPAS will use three telescopes and four spectrometers to measure infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's middle atmosphere in support of NASA's mMission to Planet Earth.
Dornier Satellitensysteme of Daimler-Benz Aerospace is the prime contractor for the German Space Agency DARA and responsible for the mission operations. CRISTA-SPAS already flew on Mission STS-86 in 1994.

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Longest Boeing 737 makes first flight
Boeing 737-800 absolviert Erstflug

The longest Boeing 737 ever built made its first flight on July 31, with Boeing Capts. Mike Hewett and Jim McRoberts at the airplane's controls. At 9 a.m., the 737-800 took off from Renton Municipal Airport in Renton. After heading north over Lake Washington, the pilots flew the newest member of the 737 family north to the Straits of Juan de Fuca to conduct a series of flight tests between there and Tatoosh. Three hours and five minutes later, the airplane landed at Boeing Field in Seattle.
During the flight, Hewett and copilot McRoberts conducted a series of tests on the airplane's systems and structures. Using flight-test equipment on board the aircraft, information from the tests was recorded and the pilots transmitted verbal data back to Flight Test personnel working at the control room at Boeing Field. The same team of specialists later will analyze the data. From 17,000 feet, Hewett said," We've got a flawless flight." "It's a great airplane and the people that put it together can be very happy they did a good job," said McRoberts.The first 737-800 is the 2,906th 737 built and the 6,508th commercial airplane built by Boeing in Renton.

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NEWS IN BRIEF / KURZMELDUNGEN

For the first time in years, Dasa has contributed to the operating profit of the Daimler-Benz concern. According to the company, it recorded a plus of 74 million DM during the first six months of 1997, against a loss of 677 million during the same period last year. Turnover was boosted 26 per cent to 6,7 billion DM.
+++
On Thursday, July 31st, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 widebody freighter aircraft operated by Federal Express crashed at Newark (New Jersey) airport and burst into flames. The crew of five people managed to leave the wreckage by passing a broken cockpit window. They were facing some minor injuries. Investigators have started examining what had caused the crash.
+++
Raytheon Aircraft has recently delivered the 180th and final Beech T-1A Jayhawk tanker/transport trainer for the US Air Force. In the five and a half year of service, the Beechjet 400A variant has recorded a 90 per cent availability rate, the company claims. During 182000 flight hours, there were no Class A or Class B accidents. More than 680 students have graduated from the programme so far.
+++
Superbird-C, a Hughes 601 body stabilized satelllite, was successfully launched for Space Communications Corporation in Cape Canaveral with an Atlas IIAS. It will join two other telecommunication stellites of SCC that provides digital multi-channel broadcasting and business communications services throughou Japan and the Asia-Pacific Region including Hawaii.
+++
British Airways customers in Germany are now able to book their tickets online. In a first step, this is true for flight originiating in-country. Payment is via credit card, and the tickets will be delivered by normal mail for now.
+++
After a 17 month certification programme, the General Electric CF6-80E1A4 turbofan engine has received its FAA certification on July 31. The new CF6 variant is rated at 70000 lbs of thrust and is the launch engine for the Airbus A330-200 twinjet airliner, which will fly this month. It is based on the CF6-80E1A2, used on the A330-200. GE claims a zero in-flight shutdown rate and a despatch reliability of 99,98 per cent for this application.
+++
Following a site selection process in which 43 candidate locations were reviewed, business jet producer Galaxy Aerospace Corporation has selected the Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, Texas as the home for its new 143,000 square-foot, $12 million headquarters complex. Employment at the Galaxy Aerospace site will reach approximately 200 skilled technicians and white-collar professionals by the third quarter of 1998, once the new facilities are in full operation.
+++
The first IRIDIUM system satellite-to-ground mobile paging and radio communications links have been established, making them the first such transmissions to be conducted by a low-earth orbit, mobile satellite communications system, Motorola has announced on July 31. On July 3, an IRIDIUM satellite transmitted hundreds of messages to IRIDIUM prototype pagers during a South-to-North orbital pass over Motorola's Satellite Communications Group (SCG) Chandler facility. The first links between the satellite and IRIDIUM prototype phone handsets were made July 7. "These first communications links with IRIDIUM satellites represent major technical milestones toward commercial activation of the system in late 1998," said Mark Borota, vice president and general manager for SCG's Mobile Satellite Systems Division. SCG is the developer of the IRIDIUM system.
+++
German charter airline Condor has now 100 per cent control of tour operator Kreutzer (Munich) and Air Marin (Part of the Alpha Holding, which also runs 36 holiday shops in Germany).
+++
After a new round of bidding, Deutsche BA, Lufthansa Cargo and Eurowings have retained contracts for the carriage of letters for the German mail (Deutsche Post AG). Due to reorganisations, the number of aircraft is reduced from 26 to 24, which will fly on 41 routes every weekday night, carrying around 300 tons (12 million letters).
+++
Newly founded Britannia Airways GmbH will have its headquaters at Berlin-Schönefeld airport. It will start services with 200 employees and a Boeing 767 in November.
+++

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