Plane Talking has an interesting think piece about the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine that powers the Qantas Airbus A380. As readers know, a Trent 900 had an uncontained failure on QF32 that severely damaged the A380. Qantas still… Read More
Notice: All right, Everyone, given the persistent personal stuff in the Comments, we have closed Comments for this posting. Wikileaks struck again with cables revealing US diplomats and the President support Boeing is sales efforts. The cables… Read More
Will it ever end? This is the question about the interminable KC-X tanker competition. Unofficial word is now that the USAF is to announce its award in February, after slipping from January, December, November, October and August. US… Read More
US Sen. Carl Levin announced yesterday that he will hold a hearing by Feb. 1 into the snafu by the USAF over sending Boeing and EADS information about each other’s KC-X tanker submission. We think this is appropriate,… Read More
With Christmas around the corner, here are some year-end thoughts, absent any breaking news of some kind in the week ahead: 737 upgrade: Southwest Airlines continues to pressure Boeing to do something about a more fuel efficient airplane,… Read More
As regular readers know, a major piece of controversy over the prospect of awarding the KC-X contract to EADS North America is the assertion that this will outsource US defense procurement to a foreign company. We’ve noted in… Read More
Airbus has begun construction of the A350 fuselage. Airbus photo, rendering Airbus also announced refinements in the A350 program management to provide more accountability and coordination. This article describes it in Aviation Week, by Robert Wall.