American Airlines has just announced the debut of the first retrofitted Boeing 757-200 for its maiden voyage on transatlantic routes to Latin American and Europe. The program is part of a $3 billion dollar investment that includes the standardization of its narrowbody fleet. Being carried out at American Airlines’ Tulsa maintenance base, the retrofit program will have 24 757s fitted with 16 new lie-flat B/E Parallel Diamond Business Class seats along with 160 Main Cabin (Economy) seats. The retrofit is supposed to give the aircraft a more modern look with newer technology and connectivity along with all the furnishings such as new trim/finishes, curtains, carpeting that all align with the American Airlines branding. Business Class passengers will be able to use individual tablets for entertainment throughout the flight and cabins will have overhead monitors. In a previous announcement American Airlines has stated that satellite wifi will be available in the near future so that customers will be able to download and stream content onto their own personal devices.
Fort Worth, Texas was the hot spot on July 26, 2016. The famous Lockheed Martin partnered up with the aerospace industry of Korea for the analysis of T-50 A, which is the aircraft located in South Korea. Originally these two Industries rose together to complete the T-50A aircraft. Back in the beginning of June, this year, Lockheed Martin finished launching the leading test of the original T-50A. Lockheed is an enormous worldwide company stationed in Maryland. Lockheed Martin has about 125,000 employees around the world working together to make Lockheed on of the leading aerospace and global security company. Excitingly, the T-50 A is now ready for take-off. There are slim to zero dangers with 100,000 hours of departure already. There are more than one T-50’s already flying coming to about one hundred in the air at necessary times. The great thing about the T-50 is that currently there are over than one thousand navigators qualified in navigating these aircrafts. The T-50A specializes in progressive pilot training. The US air force is on its way in receiving a top production line of aircrafts ready to be trained on.
Current situations in the Mediterranean region is causing a lot of tension in the Middle East and in Southeast Europe. Hellenic Navy, Lockheed Martin and HAI are taking preparatory steps towards their defense by upgrading the P-3 Orion. There was a celebration on July 25th of 2016 in the city of Athens regarding the P-3B patrol aircraft modernization, the first two aircrafts were shipped to the HAI’s facilities at Tanagra from Elefsis Air Base. The Lockheed Martin Aeronautics were granted approximately $149 million by the U.S. Navy and they have agreed on an undefinitized contract to allow the modernization of the Hellenic Navy P-3B Orion.
Andrew Schmertz, CEO of Hopscotch Air, Inc and blog commentator makes a comparison between two very distinct industries, Hollywood and the aviation market. Though their differences are clear, he finds there is common ground in their struggle.
On Wednesday June 29th 2016, Russian Helicopters updated their website with news of how Serbia gets its first 2 Mi-17V-5 helicopters from them and Rosoboronexport. Russian Helicopters is part of the State Corporation Rostec. These helicopters are considered medium sized. The helicopter’s end user was the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia. Kazan Helicopter Plant was the manufacturer for the rotorcraft. The helicopters were shipped under the contract from Rosoboronexport.
Mahindra Defense Systems and The Boeing Company have formally established a training center in Gurgaon, India, in order to provide training services for the Boeing C-17 Globemaster aircraft intended for the Indian Air Force. The Boeing C-17 Globemaster is commonly used to perform strategic and tactical airlift missions and is also used for transporting cargo and troops throughout the entire world. The aircraft is a very large military transport aircraft, with a length of 174 feet and weighing in at around 282 thousand pounds. Once this new training facility is fully operational, the training center will have the capabilities of performing multi-site as well as local simulations for more robust training with additional realism.
Russian company Irkut just unveiled its new 160- to 212-seat narrowbody named Irkut MC-21-300. Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev attended the unveiling and stated that “plans for first flight within a year”. Also at the event was Irkut vice president of marketing Kirill Budaev who mentioned the potential to replace some of the Western partners on the program in the future once Russian companies can develop up to Western standards.
Boeing, the multinational corporation giant has announced on July 15th that under a $127.3 million dollar contract, it will begin developing power, interior, and electronic specifications for the next generation of “Air Force One”. In a contract award bulletin, the Defense Department stated that the award was decided upon in order to reduce the risk of delays and cost overruns in anticipation of the USAF committing to a full-scale development and procurement of three 747-8s.
The Indo-Russian Brahmos missile has officially taken flight aboard an Indian Air Force Su-30MKI for the first time in history. This marked a major milestone for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) which carried out the 45 minute captive carry test flight on June 25th. The long-delayed test flight faced significant issues relating to the limited design data that was shared by Brahmos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd (BAPL) which is a joint venture between the Russian NPOM missile house and the Indian Defence Research and Development Organization.
Sikorsky’s success in multi-role Black Hawk utility aircraft lead to activating contractual agreements under the Turkish Utility Helicopter program (TUHP) to produce T70 utility helicopter. This agreement has been approved by the U.S. and Turkish governments, it permits the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) to manufacture and deliver 109 T70 helicopters over the period of 10 years. Six Turkish agencies such as the Land Forces, Air Forces and Special Forces are expecting the product by the year 2021.