Hawker Beechcraft was awarded a $8.5 million contract from the Air Force for six months of contractor logistics service.
The contract includes maintenance, logistics for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft and associated ground support equipment, according to the Department of Defense.
The work will be performed in Wichita and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30.
The contract was awarded by Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
Hal Shevers, founder of Sporty’s Pilot Shop, is the keynote speaker at today’s Wichita Aero Club luncheon.
He began in 1961 by selling small radios that picked up airport control towers in 1961 out of the trunk of his car.
Shevers, an engineering grad from Purdue, worked at Cincinnati Milling Co. when he decided to start flight instructing. He eventually created a three-day ground school course.
Fifty-one years later, Shevers is recognized as one of the industry’s most successful business executives, said event organizer and Wichita Aero Club executive director Dave Franson.
Shever is the founder and chairman of Sportsman’s Market and Sporty’s Academy, along with Sporty’s Pilot Shop, a mail order enterprise.
The luncheon begins at noon at the Doubletree Hotel by Hilton at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport.
For information, call 316-681-4491 or go to www.wichitaaeroclub.org.
Boeing and Airbus are hiking production of single-aisle commercial jets to unsustainable levels, a report by the Seattle Times said today.
The view is held by many airplane buyers at the International Society of Aircraft Traders’ annual conference held in Phoenix this week, the report said.
But Boeing’s senior vice president of marketing, Mike Bair, told the Seattle Times that the company is confident the market will absorb all the 737s Boeing can produce.
The world just went through the second worst economic downturn in the past century, yet “we motored right through it,” Bair told the Seattle Times. Whatever the next cycle brings, “we’re confident we’ll motor through it” again.
Only a big shock to the world economy could stall the momentum.
“If we go into a real recession, it could be a problem,” Bair said. But the diversity of global demand will sustain the production rates.
Still, Adam Pilarski, an industry analyst with consulting firm Avitas, told those gathered at the conference that the industry is in a bubble, the report said.
The announced production rates of 42 single-aisle jets per month each from Boeing and Airbus by 2014 would mean 5,000 more narrowbody jets built over the next 20 years than the companies’ forecasts say will be needed.
Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner has won the 2011 Robert J. Collier Trophy for excellence.
The National Aeronautic Association awards the trophy to the air or space vehicle that represents the greatest aeronautic achievement in the U.S. The value of the vehicle must have been demonstrated by use during the previous year, according to information from Boeing.
The 787 completed flight testing and was certified last year. The first delivery was to ANA of Japan.
“It’s not often in a career that we have the chance to make history – to do something big and bold that will change the world in untold ways and endure long after we are gone,” Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement. “The men and women of Boeing, working with our partners around the world, poured their hearts into designing, building and delivering the 787 Dreamliner. It was a long and sometimes difficult journey. We’re deeply honored to receive this award.”
The Collier Trophy was first awarded in 1911.
Past winners include Orville Wright; the U.S. Mail Service; Howard Hughes; Chuck Yeager; the crew of Apollo 11; Russ Meyer and Cessna Aircraft; Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne; and the International Space Station.
Built largely with lightweight composite materials, Boeing says the 787 is 20 percent more efficient.
Sixty customers have placed orders for 868 Dreamliners, making it the fastest-selling widebody airplane in commercial aviation history, Boeing said.
Cessna’s Citation M2, a new light business jet, made its first flight Friday, the company said.
The flight lasted more than an hour and included tests on the avionics system, autopilot, engine system, aircraft systems and instrument approaches.
The performance, handling characteristics and avionics were “exceptional, just as we anticipated,” Peter Fisher, Cessna’s engineering test pilot who flew the plane, said in a statement.
The $4.195 million M2 is a light jet that fills the gap between the company’s Citation Mustang and the Citation CJ family. It will have room for two crew and up to six passengers.
Certification is expected in the first half of 2013, followed by deliveries in the second half of the year.
Dianne White, vice president of corporate communications, and her husband, Tim White, vice president of sales for the Americas, have left Cessna Aircraft Co.
The company confirmed their departure, saying they left to pursue other options.
Tim White joined Cessna in 1998 as regional sales manager for Canada. Since then, he’s held positions of increasing responsibility, and most recently, was head of sales for North America, Central America and South America.
Dianne White joined Cessna in October. She came to Cessna after serving as editor of Twin & Turbine and CJ magazines.
Hawker Beechcraft plans to furlough employees who work on final assembly of Premier 1A and Hawker 4000 business jets inside Plant IV because of a shortage of composite material.
The furloughs will be held on a rolling basis over the next 30 to 60 days, said spokeswoman Nicole Alexander. The length of the furloughs will range from 30 to 45 days.
Employees working on the planes in Plant 3, where Viper machines wind the composite barrels, have already been on furlough because of the material shortages.
“We have to synchronize our production accordingly,” Alexander said.
Increases in production of commercial and military programs have placed higher demand on composite material suppliers, Alexander said.
Epic Aircraft in Bend, Ore., was bought by Russian firm Engineering LLC, a maintenance, repair and overhaul firm, according to a report by Aviation International News.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Epic Aircraft CEO Douglas King will remain with the company, the report said.
The acquisition will give the company enough funding to work on a certification of a six-plane turboprop, the report said. It will take about three years to certify the aircraft.
Epic makes the Epic LT turboprop single kitplane.
Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) bought the original assets of Epic Air in a bankruptcy in 2010.
It’s Saturday, so in a departure from heavy news of the week, here’s a treat for those who like to fly, wish they did or just appreciate the skill and artistry that goes into what this pilot is doing.
This video came to attention this week. The pilot, a crop duster, is doing low level flying to battle boll weevils in a Texas field.
He set it to music by Enya. Enjoy and happy Saturday.
Kansas.com/aviation