Aviation Week & Space Technology - 30 March-12 April 2015

16 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 AviationWeek.com/awst

wing leading-edge sections, which
could pave the way for use of natural
laminar flow and active flow control
in future airliners. The aircraft is
the company’s third ecoDemonstra-
tor, and Boeing is planning a series
of follow-on technology testbeds
(pages 37 and 44).

Germanwings Flight 9525 was
“deliberately crashed” by the first
ofcer flying the Airbus A320 into the
ground, killing all 150 people onboard,
according to investigators. The March
24 flight was en route from Barcelona,
Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany. After
locking the captain out of the cockpit,
the copilot apparently initiated the
descent. The aircraft hit a mountain
in the French Alps (page 38).

As U.S. airlines and labor unions
step up their campaign against
alleged subsidies for the Big Three
Gulf carriers—Emirates, Etihad
Airways and Qatar Airways—key
players in European transport policy
are seeking to negotiate a new agree-
ment with Gulf states to regulate
state support. Gulf countries and
carriers are strongly resisting the
effort (page 22).

Bombardier has flown the fifth and
final test vehicle for the initial 110-
seat CS100 version of CSeries. FTV5,
the first with a cabin interior, joined
the program on March 18. Testing of
the CS100, and first 135-seat CS300,
has passed 1,200 hr., but new CEO
Alaine Bellemare is reviewing the
certification schedule.

SPACE

The first two all-electric satellites
have begun an eight-month jour-
ney to final orbit after launch atop a
SpaceX Falcon 9 on March 1. The twin
Boeing 702SP spacecraft for Eutelsat
and Asian Broadcast Satellite use
xenon-ion thrusters for both station-
keeping and orbit-raising and weigh
half that of the equivalent chemical-
propulsion satellites.

Sierra Nevada Corp. has entered
NASA’s second-round competition
for unmanned vehicles to deliver cargo
to the International Space Station
(ISS) with an autonomous version of

First Take

aircraft for which Amazon has

received FAA experimental certi-

fication is already obsolete and no

longer being flown, the online retail

giant says, lamenting the time it took

to gain approval for outdoor testing

in the U.S. Amazon has applied for

approval to fly a more advanced UAS

and hopes “this permission will be

granted quickly.”

Europe’s follow-on civil aeronautics

research program, Clean Sky 2,

faces the challenge of balancing near-

term large-scale integrated demon-

strations of mature technologies with

longer-term research into break-

through ideas for 2035 and beyond

its lifting-body Dream Chaser with (page 51).

folding wings and a pressurized/un-

pressurized “cargo trailer.” The vehicle

initially would be launched on an

Atlas V or Ariane 5.

SES of Luxembourg, the world’s

largest satellite fleet operator by

revenue, says the Jupiter space tug

proposed by Lockheed Martin to ferry

cargo to the ISS could serve a variety

of functions aimed at lowering the

cost of building, launching and oper-

ating geostationary satellites. This

includes refreshing payload technolo-

gies on orbit (page 30).

TECHNOLOGY

The European Aviation Safety

Agency is proposing a framework

for civil unmanned-aircraft opera-

tions with three categories based

on risk, the lowest of which would not

involve any oversight by aviation au-

thorities. The “Concept of Operations

for Drones” says UAVs “should be

regulated in a manner proportionate

to the risk of the specific operation”

(page 53).

Operators with exemptions from

FAA airworthiness requirements

to enable low-risk small unmanned

aircraft flights now have blanket au-

thorization to fly below 200 ft. altitude

under an interim policy to speed the

startup of commercial operations. The

FAA also has streamlined exemptions

for applications similar to already ap-

proved operations.

The package-delivery unmanned

21 YEARS AGO IN AW&ST

The Boeing 777 jet was rolled

out in high style on April 9, 1994.

To accommodate 100,000 invited

employees, customers and suppliers,

the company held a series of

15 continuous rollout ceremonies

from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Aviation Week

reported the 777 was being

introduced to a “tentative market.”

Today, Boeing has taken orders for

nearly 1,700 777s and will introduce

a radically updated version, the

777X, at the end of this decade.

Read our original coverage of the

777 rollout and other momentous events

at: AviationWeek.com/

SIERRA NEVADA CORP.

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