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NEWS

Boeing Leads Airbus In Race For United Order
Boeing has pulled ahead of Airbus in a race to win an aircraft order potentially worth more than USD$15 billion at list value with United, but intense negotiations lie ahead to close a deal that Airbus is unlikely to abandon without a fight, industry sources said.
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Gol, Delta In Stake Sale Talks - Report
Gol, Brazil's second-largest airline, is in talks to sell an additional 17 percent stake to US carrier Delta Air Lines to better cope with rising costs and declining market share, daily newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Tuesday.
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Emirates Says No Interest In Indian Carriers
Dubai airline Emirates on Tuesday dismissed talk of a possible stake purchase in India's troubled aviation sector.
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Embraer Signs USD$2.5 Bln ICBC Financing Deal
Embraer has signed a memorandum of understanding with China's ICBC Financial Leasing under which ICBC will provide up to USD$2.5 billion in financing for planes over five years in one of Embraer's most promising markets.
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Virgin America Aims For IPO in 12-24 months
Virgin America, the high service, low-cost airline branded by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, is mulling a public share offering in the next 12-24 months, a senior executive said on Tuesday.
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Airbus and Qantas overcame technical and logistical challenges in A380 repairs
Qantas Airways and Airbus engineers faced both technical and logistical challenges in restoring its first A380 back to virtually brand-new condition after the aircraft's uncontained engine failure in November 2010. The aircraft, which has the registration VH-OQA, suffered the mid-air failure after take-off from Singapore. Repairs were completed almost 18 months after the incident, and the aircraft returned to Sydney on 22 April.
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LightSquared buys time with Inmarsat frequency spectrum payment
Having previously missed a payment to the mobile satellite firm Inmarsat, troubled mobile satellite company LightSquared has now made a payment of $56.25 million in relation to its use of Inmarsat's frequency spectrum.
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UTC: Sikorsky to make no further investments in Eclipse
A top United Technologies Corp (UTC) executive says the company has no business interest in restarting production of the Eclipse very light jet. UTC subsidiary Sikorsky last year acquired a 42% stake valued at less than $25 million in Eclipse Aerospace, which in 2009 had acquired the assets of the defunct Albuquerque start-up that designed and built the Eclipse 500. Eclipse Aerospace is working on resuming production of the improved Eclipse 550, and has cited Sikorsky's investment as a major step towards reaching that goal.
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China Eastern, Cathay downgrade 1Q profit forecast
China Eastern Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways have downgraded their first-quarter profit forecasts citing the slowdown of market demand and high fuel prices. They also pointed to increasing global economic uncertainties and political turmoil in Middle East for the forecast downgrade.
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Qantas A380 repairs added less weight than expected to aircraft
Repairs to the Qantas Airways Airbus A380 that had an uncontained engine failure in November 2010 added only 94kg to the weight of the aircraft.
This was far less than originally anticipated, says Airbus, with the airframer and Australia's flag carrier agreeing at the start of the project that the "weight impact" of the repairs would not exceed 250kg.
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IATA urges expansion of Suvarnabhumi airport
IATA has said Thailand should expand Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (SVB).
“Thailand needs to urgently build new terminal and runway capacity at Suvarnabhumi to ensure it remains one of the region’s top hubs,” IATA said in a statement.
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Embraer, China’s ICBC Leasing ink financing deal
Embraer signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s ICBC Financial Leasing Co. to create financing opportunities for the sale of commercial and executive jets in China and other markets.
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Airbus and Qantas overcame technical and logistical challenges in A380 repairs
"The repair-rebuild was unique in terms of the quantity and the size, but not the philosophies. Overall the repair principles used throughout are based on standard practices as performed regularly by the experienced Airbus teams, with the main differences here being related to the larger scale," says Airbus.
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Virgin's Ridgway vows to fight on over IAG's takeover of bmi
Virgin Atlantic Airways is vowing to maintain its vocal opposition to International Airlines Group's takeover of BMI despite the formal completion of the controversial deal, which leaves IAG subsidiary British Airways with more than half the take-off and landing slots at congested London Heathrow airport.
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BAA agrees to sell Edinburgh Airport
In response to a ruling by the UK Competition Commission (CC), airport operator BAA has agreed to the sale of Edinburgh Airport (EDI) to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for £807.2 million ($1.3 billion). The sale is expected to close by the end of May.
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Embraer 1Q deliveries increase
Embraer delivered 21 aircraft in the 2012 first quarter, one more than last year. It reported 1,063 firm commercial jet orders and delivered 823 aircraft, with a firm order backlog of 240 aircraft and 689 options.
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Other News
Qantas is still eyeing Singapore as the base for its premium Asia carrier.

IATA reported that international premium traffic for February continued its positive trend, up by 6.3% compared to the year-ago month, and up from a 2.9% climb in January

Northrop Grumman has received a new $262.3 million contract to develop and build a new MQ-8C version of the Firescout unmanned rotorcraft.

Raytheon Australia has submitted its tender for Australia's Air 9000 Phase 7 Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS) competition, pitching the Bell 429 light twin helicopter as its training platform.

A top United Technologies Corp executive says the company has no business interest in restarting production of the Eclipse very light jet.

AVIATION QUOTE

The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.

— Harry Reasoner, 1971.

ON THIS DATE

---In 1922... Known as the Stout ST-1, the first all-metal airplane designed for the U.S. Navy makes its first flight piloted by Eddie Stinson.

---In 1918…Belgian World War I fighter ace Willy Coppens records his first kill.

---In 1922…The Stout ST-1, the first all-metal airplane built for the U.S. Navy, makes its first flight, piloted by aviation pioneer Eddie Stinson.

---In 1940... McGee Airways pioneers the transportation of fresh meat and milk to the Alaskan interior.

---In 1948…A North American F-86 Sabre becomes the first jet-powered aircraft to break the sound barrier.

---In 1966…Two YF-12 were flown to Eglin AFB in Florida for firing trials. On the same day Jim Eastham fired an unarmed AIM-47 against a QB-47 flying 60,000 feet below. The missile passed through the QB-47s horizontal stabilizer. The YF-12s scored an impressive 6 hits out of 7 attempts. The single miss was attributed to missile gyro defects. (Q)

---In 1968…Apollo 6's SIV-B staqe re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and the Apollo 6 command module is recovered.

---In 1972... The world straight-line distance record for a single-seat sailplane is set by German Hans Werner Grosse, who sails 907 miles (1,460 km) in a Sleicher AS-W12 sailplane.

---In 1982…Helicopters play a major role as British forces recapture South Georgia Island from Argentine forces.

---In 1983…NASA exploration spacecraft Pioneer 10 flies past the orbit of Pluto.

---In 1990… Hubble Space Telescope - USA & Europe Telescope launched. The Hubble Space Telescope has returned high-resolution images of Mars and the other outer planets of the Solar System. In July 1994, it photographed the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter.

DAILY VIDEO

EDITOR’S CHOICE

HUMOR

Covert Coordinator

The CIA needed to fill an opening for an overseas coordinator of covert operations. They wanted someone absolutely ruthless and loyal, willing and able to follow any order.

Finally, they whittled it down to 3 candidates. Each was brought to the Director's office one at a time. When the first one walked in, the Director said: 'John, I think you're one of the best candidates for this job. I just want you to do one thing to prove it to everyone. Take this pistol, go in the room next door, and shoot the person in there.'

John takes the gun, opens the door, shouts 'Are you CRAZY? That's my WIFE!' Tosses the gun to the Director, takes his wife and storms out.

Second agent, same instructions, pauses briefly when he opens the door, steels himself and goes in. Director listens to the silence beyond the door for a minute, then the agent comes back, with his wife, puts the gun on the desk and leaves, shaking his head.

Third agent enters the room, pulls the door shut behind him. Director hears a few shots fired, and gets up from his desk. Then there is a horrendous noise of screaming and thuds. He runs to the door, yanks it open just as the third agent comes back. 'Some idiot put blanks in the gun, but I managed to beater her to death with the chair.'

TRIVIA

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Queso wrote:1. Douglas A-26 Invader (I saw a picture of a young man, and another with young child with an old man, posing in front of one on Facebook earlier this morning.)

miamiair wrote:That is actually a B-26C...

miamiair wrote:
That is actually a B-26C...