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Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne X-51A WaveRider Team Vies for Collier Trophy

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is among seven nominees competing for one of the most prestigious awards in aerospace, the National Aeronautic Association’s (NAA) Robert J. Collier Trophy. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is being nominated as part of the team that powered the hypersonic X-51A WaveRider vehicle last May in the longest-ever supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) powered flight. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company.

The other X-51A team members are the U.S. Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and The Boeing Company. The Collier Trophy winner will be announced March 15 at NAA’s Spring Awards Luncheon.

The Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne scramjet engine is the world’s first air breathing hydrocarbon-fueled and -cooled propulsion system capable of powering vehicles at hypersonic speeds. The X-51A WaveRider demonstrated a number of critical “firsts” and achievements during its 3:30 minutes of flight, including scramjet ignition, stabilized combustion and thermal balance, and acceleration.

“This historic flight has quite literally changed the course of aviation history, to the point where we can now be confident that scramjet power will be practical for transporting humans and payloads across the globe and into space at 6,000 mph, while also giving the U.S. military an effective tool to respond rapidly to threats,” said Steve Bouley, Vice President, Launch Vehicle & Hypersonic Systems, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. “The X-51A team would be an appropriate recipient of the 100th presentation of the Collier Trophy, named for a renaissance man whose interest in aviation did so much to encourage breakthroughs such as that demonstrated by the X-51A WaveRider.”
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including the main engines for the space shuttle, Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines. For more information about Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, go to www.prattwhitneyrocketdyne.com. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is headquartered in Canoga Park, Calif., and has facilities in Huntsville, Ala.; Kennedy Space Center, Fla.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Stennis Space Center, Miss.

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    TAT Technologies Wholly Owned Subsidiary, Piedmont Aviation Component Services Has signed a Five Year APU maintenance Agreement with Austrian Airlines

    February 3, 2011 — TAT Technologies Ltd. a leading provider of services and products to the commercial and military aerospace and ground defense industries, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Piedmont Aviation Component Services (“Piedmont”), has signed a five year APU (Auxiliary Power Unit – a small gas turbine engine) maintenance Agreement with Austrian Airlines (“Austrian”) covering Austrian Boeing 767 fleet GTCP331-200 APU. The maintenance agreement for the GTCP-331-200 model is in addition to an existing contract between Austrian and Piedmont for the CRJ200 fleet GTCP36-150RJ APU.

    Mr. Burkard Wigger, Vice President Technical Operations at Austrian Airlines said: “With Piedmont Aviation Component Services, we have found a professional partner who is very committed to our inquiries and comes up with tailored solutions that fit our demands. Piedmont offers expert knowledge in APU maintenance and has already proved to deliver reliable and satisfying services in our cooperation.”
    TAT’s President and CEO, Dr. Shmuel Fledel, commented on the new agreement: “We are proud of the solid relationship between Austrian and Piedmont. For the last 4 years we have been successful with the current 36-150RJ APU contract and the addition of the 331-200 APU model demonstrates the high level of confidence and cooperation between the two companies. The new APU agreement reinforces TAT’s leading position in the APU maintenance industry.”

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    FAA Proposes Safety Systems for Certificated Airports

    The FAA has proposed requiring airports certificated under Part 139 to put in place safety management systems (SMS) for all airfield and ramp areas.

    There are currently 553 airports in the U.S. that hold Part 139 certificates. These certificate holders serve scheduled and unscheduled air carrier aircraft with more than 30 seats. These certificate holders also may serve scheduled air carrier operations with air carrier aircraft with more than nine but less than 31 seats.

    SMS is a formal approach to managing an organization’s safety through four key components — safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion.

    This proposal will help airports enhance safety by developing an organization-wide safety policy; implementing methods to mitigate airport hazards; and analyzing and mitigating risks before they change airport procedures or infrastructure. The proposed rule requires that SMS be used for airport movement and non-movement areas which includes runways, taxiways, ramps, aircraft parking aprons, and fuel farms. The FAA believes that SMS will provide an additional layer of safety at airports and help reduce airport incidents and accidents. Airports will have the flexibility to implement a SMS plan that considers their unique operating environment.
    While the proposed SMS requirement will not take the place of regular FAA Part 139 inspections, this proactive emphasis on hazard identification and mitigation will provide airports with robust tools to improve safety.
    Airports are identified by four classes, depending on the type of air carrier service at the airport. The proposal states that Class I airports would be required to develop a SMS implementation plan within six months and implement within 18 months after the final rule is published. The remaining Class II, III, and IV airports would be required to develop a SMS implementation plan within nine months and implement within 24 months after the final rule is published. The FAA will review and approve the SMS implementation plans.

    The NPRM is published in today’s Federal Register and open for a 90-day public comment period that ends on January 5, 2011. To view the NPRM, Economic Evaluation, and make comments go towww.regulations.gov using docket # FAA-2010-0997.

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    Lion Air Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary With Two New 737-900ERs

    SEATTLE, July 1 e-FirstCall/ — Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of Lion Air, Boeing (NYSE: BA) today delivered two Next-Generation 737-900ERs (extended range) to the Jakarta-based carrier. Lion Air, which operates an all-Boeing fleet, was the launch customer of the 737-900ER and is currently the largest operator of the airplane. With today’s deliveries, the Lion Air fleet consists of 36 737-900ERs and two 747-400s. In addition, Lion Air is a launch customer for the new 737 Boeing Sky Interior.
    Lion Air plans to carry 20 million passengers this year to destinations within Indonesia as well as to Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. The carrier is based at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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    Boeing Names 14 Companies 2009 Suppliers of the Year

    SEATTLE, April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) tonight honored 14 companies as winners of its 2009 Supplier of the Year award.

    The winners, chosen from among the company’s more than 12,000 active suppliers worldwide, are located in Germany, India, Japan and the United States. They were judged on quality, delivery performance, cost, environmental initiatives, customer service and technical expertise. Four are small businesses as defined by the U.S. government.
    The winners, and the categories, are:

    • AZX International Corp. (Huntington Beach, Calif.) – Aerospace support
    • Bridgestone Corp. (Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan) – Electro, hydraulic and mechanical standards
    • Cytec Engineered Materials Inc. (Greenville, Texas) – Common aerospace commodities
    • Deharde-Maschinenbau H. Hoffmann GmbH (Varel, Germany) – International
    • Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach, Fla.) – Academia
    • Frontier Electronics Systems Corp. (Stillwater, Okla.) – Avionics
    • GE Commercial Engine Operations (Evendale, Ohio) – Propulsion
    • GM Nameplate Inc. (Seattle) – Interiors
    • Hamilton Sundstrand, Electric Systems – 787 Team (Rockford, Ill.) – The Pathfinder Award, a new award recognizing outstanding efforts and significant strides in performance
    • Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (Bangalore, India) – The Alliance Award, a new award recognizing unique capabilities and services that are instrumental to a new Boeing product
    • OfficeMax Inc. (Naperville, Ill.) – Non-production
    • San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind (San Antonio) – Diversity
    • The Toolroom Inc. (Owensville, Mo.) – Outside manufacturing
    • Honeywell’s UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.) for technology

    “Boeing and our suppliers are more interconnected now than ever before – combining our talents and capabilities to create the most innovative products and services for our customers and the aerospace industry worldwide,” said Ray Conner, Boeing enterprise leader of Supplier Management and vice president and general manager of Supply Chain Management and Operations for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
    “Every supplier – small and large – is critical to our success, and it is important to recognize these suppliers for demonstrating industry-leading standards of quality, efficiency and performance.”

    Before being chosen a Supplier of the Year, each company was named as one of the 486 recipients of a Boeing Performance Excellence Award. For information on the 2009 awards, visit the Boeing Supplier Performance Awards Web site.

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    Boeing, Ethiopian Airlines, Seattle Anesthesia Outreach Partner for Relief Flight


    SEATTLE, Jan. 27, 2011 — For the second time in less than two months, Boeing ( Ethiopian Airlines and Seattle Anesthesia Outreach (SAO) have partnered to deliver medical equipment to Black Lion Hospital, Ethiopia’s largest hospital. The first consignment was delivered in December 2010.

    Approximately 2,700 pounds (1.2 metric tons) of medical supplies were loaded into the cargo hold of a new Boeing 777-200LR (longer range) delivered to Ethiopian Airlines on Jan. 26. Some of the supplies, such as electrical converters and other power items, supplement the anesthesia equipment transported in December.

    “Through collaborative efforts such as this, Boeing is able to help bring relief to people around the world. Black Lion Hospital provides free medical care to the poor and this equipment will improve capabilities there,” said Liz Warman, director of Boeing Global Corporate Citizenship for the Northwest region.

    The supplies will prove vital when a group of 28 Seattle doctors, nurses and technicians travel to Ethiopia next month as part of ongoing humanitarian support to that region.

    Since 1992, Boeing and airline partners as well as non-profit partners in the Humanitarian Delivery Flights (HDF) program have collaborated on many humanitarian missions.
    Ethiopian Airlines is committed to support worthy social activities, which are designed to help build sustainable livelihoods for individuals and the community.

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    Press Release-A400M, world’s most advanced airlifter, completes first flight

    11 December 2009The first Airbus Military A400M military airlifter has landed back in Seville, Spain today at 14:02 local time (13:02 UTC) after completing a successful maiden flight lasting 3h 47min following its take-off at 10:15 local time.

    Chief Test Pilot Military, Edward “Ed” Strongman, captained the flight supported by Experimental Test Pilot Ignacio “Nacho” Lombo. The engineering team on board included: Senior Flight Test Engineer Jean-Philippe Cottet who had responsibility for the powerplants; Senior Flight Test Engineer Eric Isorce with responsibility for the aircraft systems and performance; Senior Flight Test Engineer Didier Ronceray with responsibility for the handling qualities of the aircraft; and Test Flight Engineer Gerard Leskerpit.

    The crew confirmed that the aircraft, known as MSN 1 and its four Europrop International TP400D turboprop engines performed as expected.

    Ed Strongman said: “We have had a very successful first flight – the take-off performance was impressive, we explored a lot of the operational flight envelope, and it was a delight to operate in such a well-designed cockpit with its easy interface to all the normal and military systems. I’m sure our customer pilots are really going to like it – we certainly did.”

    Nacho Lombo added: “From the very beginning of the flight we were impressed by the ease of handling of the aircraft which was in line with what we experienced in the simulator. The aircraft, systems and engine performance were highly satisfactory. We sense the great potential of this magnificent machine. It has been an honour for all the crew to fly the A400M on its maiden flight, representing all the people involved in the programme.”

    Chief Executive Officer Airbus Military, Domingo Urena-Raso, said: “I would like to congratulate Ed Strongman, Nacho Lombo and all of the flight-test team for completing the first flight of the A400M with great success. I am also deeply grateful to everyone in the design, manufacturing and early operations of this programme for their enormously hard work and dedication that have made this aircraft a reality. And I want to thank all those people in our industrial partners and suppliers, as well as our customers, who have contributed so much to the definition and creation of an outstanding product.”

    Airbus CEO Tom Enders said: “I hope we can soon provide certainty that we are able to continue the A400M programme. This is expected by those at Airbus, our partners and suppliers worldwide who contributed so strongly to today’s success as well as by the air forces who wait for their plane.”

    For its first flight the aircraft took off at a weight of 127 tonnes, carrying 15 tonnes of test equipment including two tonnes of water ballast, compared with its maximum take-off weight of 141 tonnes. As planned, the six-man crew extensively explored the aircraft’s flight envelope in direct law, including a wide speed-range, and tested lowering and raising of the landing gear and high-lift devices at altitude. After checking the aircraft’s performance in the landing configuration the crew landed back at Seville.

    In the first half of 2010 MSN 1 will be joined by two sister aircraft, MSN 2 and MSN 3, followed by MSN 4 by the end of the year. A fifth aircraft will join the programme during 2011. This fleet will be used for some 3,700 hours of test-flying between now and first delivery to the French Air Force at the end of 2012. This will be followed by additional military development flying. The type will be certificated by both the civil and military authorities.

    A total of 184 aircraft have so far been ordered by Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom,

    Airbus Military

    Airbus Military is the only military and civil transport aircraft manufacturer to develop, produce, sell and support a comprehensive family of airlifters ranging from three to 37 tonnes of payload. Within Airbus, Airbus Military is responsible for the A400M programme, as well as for military tanker transport derivatives based on Airbus civil aircraft, with the integration of the state-of-the-art flight-refuelling boom (ARBS) which is unique in its class. With the C-295, CN-235 and C-212, Airbus Military is the global leader in the market segments for light and medium-sized military transport aircraft. Altogether Airbus Military has sold more than 1,000 aircraft with over 650 flying with more than 100 operators worldwide.

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