New Global Military Forum

Watch for EADS and Alenia Aerospazio to form the European Military Aircraft Company ­ and then change its name. Top executives agree that EMAC falls short on two counts: the company intends to be global, not just European, and its significant aerostructures business for Boeing, Airbus and Dassault Falcon Jets is anything but military. Executives are focusing first on putting the 50-50 venture together before debating what it should be called.

While Boeing and Airbus battle it out over who has the most orders, or deliveries (which some say is far more relevant), Boeing comes out with a new claim. So entrenched is it historically against newcomer Airbus that 75% of all the airplanes in the worldwide fleet are Boeings. And because many of them are bigger than the biggest Airbus, Boeing has 93% of all the seats flying today. That probably includes the bring-your-pig-to-market (hey, it happens on USAir as well!) local flights in Upper Zaire in vintage DC-3s, which were flying long before Airbus was born.

Airbus can thank Boeing for optimizing the GP7000 engine on the giant Airbus A380. "When we were designing the GP7000 for the A380 and Boeing 747X, Boeing insisted on more range and an optimized engine. We almost ended up with two engines," Lloyd Thompson, president of the GE-Pratt & Whitney Engine Alliance told Show News. "But customers who thought they might have both aircraft in their fleet wanted a common engine. So, like with Solomon's baby, we split the differences and came up with an improved engine."

Plans to bring the Eurocopter-Russian Mi-38 helicopter to market have been slowed by administrative hassles, a dispute surrounding ownership of the program, and lack of a commercial market, according to Eurocopter chairman Jean-Francois Bigay. The problem: Euromil is a Russian company, and Eurocopter is averse to pumping in investment without corresponding rights of ownership. "Before we speed up the process we have to see where we stand, and where we can sell that 13- to 14-ton machine," he told Show News.

Major objectives for the helicopter industry in the next 10-15 years will be to make the machines faster and more acceptable in urban surroundings, according to Eurocopter chairman Jean-Francois Bigay. Speed, he believes, will not matter nearly as much as acceptability. "Today, even if you had a tiltrotor for speed, you cannot fly from Charles de Gaulle airport to Paris because you cannot land in Paris," he said. "The advantage the helicopter has in most environments is not speed, but its vertical capabilities. These are what we must emphasize." And to use them, greater acceptability is needed through making helicopters ever quieter, he added.

The industry is moving so fast, maybe there should be more air shows to keep up with it! Not really, but it is interesting that Aerospatiale Matra launched its IPO just one day before the last Le Bourget, and expected to come to this year's show as a mature company. Instead it is here as EADS-and a mature one at that. Integration of Aerospatiale Matra, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Casa has been completed in the first year, according to senior officials, with the task made much simpler by their relationships on so many joint programs.

Some analysts say that buying EADS stock is really a play on Airbus, which this year will account for 70% of the company's total revenues, up from 60% a year before. Senior officials believe the ratio will stay around 65-70% as Airbus continues to grow but European defense spending remains limited and as EADS cannot freely join in the U.S. defense market. "We think that is an appropriate balance," one top official told Show News.

The numbers just keep growing! Significant milestones at Pratt & Whitney Canada last year included delivery of its 50,000th engine (a PT6A-67D for a Beech 1900D), to Raytheon Aircraft, and the 50,000th engine to be overhauled by its Service Center Network, for Executive Jet, Inc. At the 500-milestone level were deliveries of the PW200 turboshaft for light-twin engined helicopters, and the 500th PW500 for Cessna's Citation models. Engine production last year increased 5.5% to 1,924, of which no less than 85% were exported from Canada.

Told that Boeing Space Systems claims there is nothing old about its 40-year old Delta II rocket except the diameter, Pratt & Whitney Canada president and CEO Gilles Ouimet exclaimed: "That's just like our PT6 engine!" The turboprop model, introduced 40 years ago, has been continuously modernized and infused with new technology to the extent that it now produces five times the power of the original from exactly the same diameter, coming in at 2,500 shp on engine-out tests for the BA609 tiltrotor.

In just 10 years time the original Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 engine will classify as an antique when it turns 50 years old. And new T-6A Texan II trainers, among other PT6 powered models, will just be entering service with a life expectancy of 50 years or so. Which means the PT6 can quite reasonably be expected to span a full century of service That's a far cry from the early years of aviation, when the Royal Flying Corps was lucky if a Sopwith Camel lasted ten hours!

Hush kits for landing gears? That could be a possibility, according to Louis Le Portz, chairman of Messier-Dowty, the world's largest landing gear company. "Some 25% of the noise when an airliner is on approach to landing is aerodynamic noise from the landing gear," he said. "We are studying how to reduce it." Ideas include last-minute extension of the gear-or aerodynamic improvements that could even be sold as kits for retrofit.