August 21, 2017 - No. 066 In This Issue Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 Ten Receives Certification Heico buys SoCal-based AeroAntenna for $316.5 million OKC hopes to land airline maintenance center Dubai Aerospace completes AWAS acquisition, jets into top tier US FAA Begins Audit of Nigeria's Aviation Industry Falcon 9 rocket test-fired for California launch next week Flight simulation helps autistic children handle airport stress Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 Ten Receives Certification The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 TEN, which will power all variants of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, has been granted full flight certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This important milestone comes as the first set of passenger engines are delivered to the Boeing facilities in Seattle, ready for entry into service later this year. The Trent 1000 TEN (Thrust, Efficiency and New Technology) incorporates technologies from the Trent XWB and Advance engine programmes to deliver improved thrust and efficiency as well as contributing to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner having half the noise footprint of previous-generation aircraft. Earlier this year the Trent 1000 engine celebrated a hat trick of firsts when it powered the first flight of the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner, having powered the first flights of the 787-8 and the 787-9. More recently the Trent 1000 TEN powered an 18 hour test flight during which a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner test aircraft drew a giant outline of the plane across the United States. Dave Taylor, Rolls-Royce, Chief Engineer for Trent 1000, said: "This marks another critical step in our journey towards delivering additional capability and new technology for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. We would like to thank Boeing and EASA for their dedicated focus in helping us reach this goal and we look forward to the engine entering into service later this year." http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/12361170/rolls-royce-trent-1000-ten- receives-certification Back to Top Heico buys SoCal-based AeroAntenna for $316.5 million Aviation parts maker Heico Corp. has agreed to buy Chatsworth, Calif.-based AeroAntenna Technology Inc. for $316.5 million in what it says is its largest acquisition to date. Heico(NYSE: HEI.A, HEI), based in Hollywood, Fla., said it will pay $316.5 million in cash and a $20 million cash earnout payment if AeroAntenna meets its earnings targets. The purchase price also includes about $37 million to compensate the sellers for certain tax elections which will result in a net cash tax benefit to Heico worth at least that amount. Founded in 1991 by Yosef ("Joe") Klein, AeroAntenna employs about 140 people at its 30,000 square foot facility in Chatsworth. The company is a leader in the design and production of high performance active antenna systems for critical defense applications, precision guided munitions, commercial aircraft and other commercial uses. Antenna types it makes include GPS, aircraft navigation and satellite communications antennas. Heico said AeroAntenna would continue to operate in the same location with current management in place. "No material staff turnover is expected post-acquisition," the company said in a statement. Heico said AeroAntenna was a "great fit" for the company and strengthens its portfolio of products involved in the aviation, defense, space, medical, telecommunications and electronics industries. Heico operates through its Hollywood, Fla.-based Flight Support Group and its Miami- based Electronic Technologies Group. Its customers include a majority of the world's airlines and overhaul shops, as well as numerous defense and space contractors and military agencies worldwide, in addition to medical, telecommunications and electronics equipment manufacturers. https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2017/08/18/heico-buys-socal-based- aeroantenna-for-316-5.html Back to Top OKC hopes to land airline maintenance center An airline that provides regional flights out of Oklahoma City and other cities for Delta, United, Alaska and American Airlines potentially could open a new maintenance center here. On Tuesday, the Oklahoma City Economic Development Trust will consider a proposed $2 million economic incentive deal with SkyWest Airlines Inc. to bring the maintenance center to town. If approved, SkyWest would do the work in a 135,000-square-foot building on Will Rogers World Airport's east side as part of the airport's Lariat Landing project. Airline and city officials said the initial investment to build a maintenance center capable of handling eight of SkyWest's aircraft a day would be at least $20 million and perhaps as much as $30 million. A spokeswoman for SkyWest said the company initially would hire at least 100 mechanics and technicians to work at the center, which would open about a year from now. Ultimately, SkyWest would be obligated to create at least 375 jobs within five years and generate a payroll of about $23 million by the end of the center's third year of operation. "Oklahoma City is a great location for SkyWest, geographically," said SkyWest's Marissa Snow. "When you take that into account, and combine it with the incentives package put together by the trust, it's an attractive opportunity for our company as we continue to grow," Snow said. SkyWest owns and operates 410 aircraft serving 238 cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for United, Delta, American and Alaska Airlines. In 2016, it carried 31.2 million passengers on routes covering 17.5 billion miles. The company, based in St. George, Utah, has numerous other maintenance centers, including at Boise, Idaho; O'Hare Airport in Chicago; Detroit; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Fort Wayne and South Bend, Indiana. It also has maintenance centers at Fresno and Palm Springs, California; Milwaukee; Nashville, Tennessee; Tucson, Arizona; and Salt Lake City. The company employs 12,727. Snow said the Oklahoma City maintenance center would be among the largest owned by SkyWest when complete. Bill Dykes, SkyWest's vice president of maintenance, added the facility would be state of the art. http://newsok.com/article/5560779 Back to Top Dubai Aerospace completes AWAS acquisition, jets into top tier DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) has become one of the world's largest aircraft lessors after announcing on Sunday it had completed the acquisition of Dublin-based AWAS [AWASA.UL], the industry's tenth biggest firm. The deal triples the Dubai government-controlled aircraft leasing and maintenance company's portfolio of owned, managed and committed fleet to about 400 aircraft worth more than $14 billion. That makes DAE one of the world's top aircraft lessors behind the likes of General Electric (GE.N) and AerCap (AER.N). DAE will use the brand name 'DAE Capital' to conduct its aircraft leasing business, the company said in a statement announcing the deal had finalised. DAE said last month it had raised $2.3 billion to finance the acquisition from private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners [TERA.UL] and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). DAE announced the acquisition in April, and later said it expected the deal to close in the early part of the third quarter. "This acquisition of the best-in-class AWAS platform provides DAE with an enhanced market position," DAE Chief Executive Firoz Tarapore said in the statement. "This combined with our capital strength and our committed long-term ownership will allow us to provide a more comprehensive range of aviation fleet and financing solutions to our clients across the globe." The deal increases DAE's number of aircraft leasing customers to include 117 airlines in 57 countries. Tarapore told Reuters in June the company would consider a jet order of more than 20 aircraft once the deal closed, and that he was interested in Airbus (AIR.PA), Boeing (BA.N) and ATR (LDOF.MI) aircraft. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dubai-aerospace-awas-aviation-sr-idUSKCN1B006R Back to Top US FAA Begins Audit of Nigeria's Aviation Industry The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has commenced the assessment of Nigerian's aviation sector with a visit to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) yesterday. A four-member team from the FAA arrived Nigeria weekend to conduct the audit which would take place from August 21 to 25, 2017, according to the spokesman of NCAA, Sam Adurogboye. The members of the team are Louis A. Alvarez, Team leader, L.P.Vanstory, Operations Specialist, Benjamin Garrido, Airworthiness Specialist and Jeffrey Klang, Attorney. NCAA said the FAA officials would assess the state's aviation law, regulations and oversight capability in accordance with the eight critical elements as defined in ICAO document 9734. In addition, during the assessment, the team would need to visit the facilities of an Airline Operators Certificate (AOC) holder. They would also look at the operations and maintenance organisations. At the end of the assessment, there would be a debriefing session at the headquarters of the NCAA, the regulatory authority said. If certified, FAA would renew the Category One Safety Status, which it awarded to Nigeria in August 2010, when the country was able to meet its stringent safety standards. The Category 1 Safety Status enabled Nigerian airlines to fly to the US and for the country's registered commercial aircraft to fly to Nigeria and it was after the certification was obtained by Nigeria that United Airlines, Delta Air Lines started flying to Nigeria and Arik Air started flying to US destinations with Nigerian registered aircraft. FAA Category I Safety Status is important in the air transport sector because other international carriers and aviation institutions use it along with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) certification to take decisions on the safety status of every country on airline operation. With the certification, any airline in the world can fly to Nigeria if the country meets its commercial objective. https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2017/08/21/us-faa-begins-audit-of-nigerias- aviation-industry/ Back to Top Falcon 9 rocket test-fired for California launch next week A commercial Falcon 9 rocket in the final stages of launch preparations fired its nine Merlin main engines Saturday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, verifying its readiness for liftoff with a Taiwanese Earth-imaging payload Thursday. SpaceX engineers rolled out the two-stage rocket Friday to Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg, and the Falcon 9 launch team oversaw a computer-controlled countdown and fueling sequence ahead of Saturday's static fire test. Restraints kept the rocket firmly grounded on its hillside launch pad overlooking the Pacific Ocean as the Merlin 1D engines throttled up to 1.7 million pounds of thrust for several seconds. The hold-down firing is a customary part of all SpaceX launch campaigns, used by engineers to confirm the readiness of the launcher and ground systems, and as an exercise of the ground team. The next step in SpaceX's launch campaign at Vandenberg will be the removal of the rocket from the pad for attachment of the Formosat 5 spacecraft, a Taiwanese satellite designed to test out the country's domestic aerospace manufacturing capability and collect a range of black-and-white and color imagery of Earth. Developed and funded by Taiwan's National Space Organization, or NSPO, Formosat 5 weighs around 1,047 pounds (475 kilograms) with a full load of fuel, according to information posted on NSPO's website. After flying south from Vandenberg, the Falcon 9 rocket will send the Formosat 5 satellite into a 447-mile-high (720-kilometer) sun-synchronous orbit that passes near Earth's poles. Liftoff is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 24, at 11:50 a.m. PDT (2:50 p.m. EDT; 1850 GMT) at the opening of a 44-minute launch window. The launch will be the fifth time a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will blast off from Vandenberg, an Air Force-run base on California's Central Coast northwest of Los Angeles. It will be the 40th Falcon 9 launch overall, including flights departing from SpaceX launch pads in Florida. "We are proud to provide a safe and secure launch location for our mission partners," said Col. Gregory E. Wood, vice commander of the Air Force's 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg. "This mission is the practical demonstration of the professional spirit and teamwork found in the everyday operations of Team Vandenberg and SpaceX." SpaceX plans to return the Falcon 9's first stage to a drone ship positioned downrange in the Pacific Ocean for refurbishment and reuse. The booster launching Formosat 5 is fresh from the factory and making its first flight. Formosat 5 will only take up a fraction of the Falcon 9's lift capability, and officials from NSPO and SpaceX originally planned to launch the satellite on a Falcon 1e rocket. But SpaceX discontinued the small launcher, which was powered by a single Merlin booster engine, in favor of developing the Falcon 9 and larger rockets. The Taiwanese government, through the National Space Organization, originally paid SpaceX around $23 million in 2010 for the launch, less than half of the advertised price of a Falcon 9 launch today. Formosat 5 carries two instruments. One is an optical imaging payload capable of resolving features as small as 2 meters - about 6.6 feet - in black-and-white. The camera has half that resolution in color mode. An advanced ionospheric probe from the National Central University in Taiwan is also aboard Formosat 5. The ionospheric instrument is an "all-in-one plasma sensor to measure ionospheric plasma concentrations, velocities, and temperatures over a wide range of spatial scales," according to a fact sheet released by NSPO. "The transient and long-term variations of ionospheric plasma can be monitored as seismic precursors associated with earthquakes." Formosat 5 was to be accompanied by a package of approximately 90 small satellites fastened to a multi-payload Sherpa adapter developed by Spaceflight, a Seattle-based company that builds lightweight spacecraft and brokers launch services for CubeSats on rideshare rocket flights. But Spaceflight canceled that plan after the Formosat 5 launch faced years of delays in the aftermath of two Falcon 9 rocket failures that combined to ground SpaceX's fleet for nearly a year. Formosat 5's launch was shuffled later in SpaceX's manifest for unexplained reasons. Spaceflight has reserved a dedicated Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg next year with a Sherpa space tug expected to loft around 90 small satellites on the same rocket. Meanwhile, the Seattle launch broker arranged for most of the 90 satellites slated to launch with Formosat 5 to fly on other rockets, including an Indian PSLV mission and a Russian Soyuz flight earlier this year. Several others were rebooked on the next Sherpa adapter flying on a Falcon 9 next year. Next week's launch from California will mark the 12th Falcon 9 flight of the year, coming in the heels of an Aug. 14 mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida that deployed a space station-build supply ship in orbit https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/19/falcon-9-rocket-test-fired-for-california-launch- next-week/ Back to Top Flight simulation helps autistic children handle airport stress SALT LAKE CITY - Onboard a motionless Delta airliner, 25 Utah families shifted in their seats. Parents and children fiddled with the seat belt buckles, played with the folding tray tables and pulled at the window shades. It was the one flight that was never meant to leave the airport tarmac on Thursday afternoon. Instead of taking off, the families were part of a simulation for parents who have kids with autism. The simulation gave autistic kids and their families a chance to experience air travel without the stress of leaving on a trip, said James Vaughan, president and cofounder of Families for Autism and Asperger's Standing Together, which hosted the event. "Going through the process of ticketing and security, all of these things can be a little bit overwhelming for kids on the spectrum," he said. "We just provide them with an opportunity to share in that experience and get an idea of what the travel process is." Nearly 100 participants received tickets and passed through Transportation Security Administration security for the event at the Salt Lake City International Airport. Airport personnel brought out service dogs, treats and water for families waiting in the terminals before the plane arrived. Mindy Hunt, of Eagle Mountain, is planning a trip for her family to Disney World in Florida. But she worries about her 9-year-old autistic daughter, Brynley, who has never been on a plane before. Even waiting in the airport was difficult for her, Hunt said. "We're kind of worried about how she'll do," Hunt said. "I want her to get kind of familiar with it, and not get kicked off the plane when we do try it." Hunt also hopes the simulation will bring awareness to others about families traveling with autistic children. "Looking at Brynley, you can't tell anything is wrong with her. So when she does act out, people think she's just being a brat or not disciplined," Hunt said. Tiffany Van Gelder is also planning a trip with her four kids, all of whom have autism. At the event, she said the volume of the airport was often overwhelming for her kids, ages 6 to 12. "I'm just hoping that we walk away from it just being able to understand how an airplane works, and what we need to do," she said. "It's not that they can't do a lot of these things. They just need to figure out the best way to learn it, to experience it." This is the sixth year of hosting the flight simulation, Vaughan said. Families can register for the event online, but a few are turned down because the event has become so popular. "Autism is just one of those invisible disabilities that we don't quite completely understand as a society," he said. "So for parents who are trying to see if their kid would be able to experience something like this, it's really important for them to have this experience." Amber Jones, from Spanish Fork, believes her 9-year-old autistic son, Quinton, would be fine flying alone with her. It's keeping track of her other three kids that's the trouble. "This was better practice than I thought," she said. "He's a runner, so being able to practice with him and try to show him how to be safe as well as keep track of the other ones is huge." Jones said traveling in a car to St. George was the first step in getting her family ready for a longer trip. "We haven't traveled since (Quinton) was probably 1, because it's been so dangerous," she said. "So we're really grateful for these kinds of opportunities." Once the families boarded the plane, flight attendants ran through preparations for an actual flight: demonstrating how to buckle the seat belts, use the air masks and find the emergency exits. This is the third year Delta pilot Jim Hailey has participated in the simulation. He said he enjoys seeing the excitement on the kid's faces and the relief on faces of their parents. "They can experience the airport, and their parents can experience an airport environment just to see how well families are going to be on a real trip when real money and real tickets are on the line," he said. He said flying on the plane seldom upsets kids with autism. It's going through security, pushing through the crowds and waiting in the terminals that overwhelms them. "Once you're on the airplane with the droning of the engines and just flying along, we typically don't see as many problems on the actual airplane," Hailey said. https://www.ksl.com/?sid=45456549&nid=148 Curt Lewis