Free Republic

Lawmakers want company to stay away from terror regimeMembers of Congress have summoned the heads of airplane giant Boeing to a meeting to encourage the company to stop spearheading efforts to reenter the Iranian marketplace, a business pursuit that is jointly backed by the Obama administration, according to a letter sent Friday to Boeing leadership and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.Boeing, like its French rival AirBus, has been working to woo the Iranian government following last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement.Officials at Boeing—a top U.S. government contractor—opened discussions with Iran last month. The company is hoping to sell its aircraft...

The US Navy will wrap up developmental free flight testing of the datalink-equipped Boeing Harpoon Block II+ sea-skimming, anti-ship missile next week, ahead of fielding on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet sometime between June and August of 2017. The latest variant of the 45-year-old Harpoon weapon type expands on the satellite-aided navigation system introduced in Block II by adding a datalink radio ported across from the C-1 variant of Raytheon's AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) for in-flight retargeting against enemy surface vessels in cluttered coastal regions. The Harpoon missile successfully struck its first ship target during a test in December 1971,...

Boeing's 1933 247D Airliner is retiring to the Museum of Flight The 1933 Boeing 247D Airliner arrived at the Museum of Flight after its final flight, Tuesday, April 26, 2016. The plane is the oldest flyable Boeing, all-metal airliner. The plane will be on display in front of the museum throughout the summer, before it is placed in the new Aviation Pavilion.

<p>The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering fixes on General Electric engines used on some Boeing 787 Dreamliners after it found that an icing problem can cause the engines to shut down mid-flight.</p>

WASHINGTON • The U.S. government is poised to approve two long-delayed sales of Boeing Co. fighter jets to Qatar and Kuwait, and could announce the multibillion-dollar deals during President Barack Obama's visit to the Gulf this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The decision would mean more job security for thousands of workers at Boeing's sprawling plant in north St. Louis County, where the F-15 fighter and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets are made. Both deals have been stalled amid concerns raised by Israel that equipment sent to Gulf states could fall into the wrong hands and be used...

A problem that has prevented Boeing Co 's KC-46A tanker aircraft from transferring fuel to a C-17 transport plane may delay a Pentagon decision approving low-rate production of the new tanker in May, the U.S. Air Force said on Thursday. "We don't yet know the schedule impact to the planned May Milestone C decision, but the problem is well understood and we don't expect an extended delay," said Air Force spokesman Daryl Mayer. Mayer said the issue arose during testing of the refueling boom that is used to transfer fuel from the 767-based tanker aircraft to a C-17 transport plane,...

The slide landed at Self’s front door. “Someone else had called 911 and said that they had seen an object falling from an airplane,” Self told KPHO. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed to KPHO that an Atlas Air Boeing 767 was on final approach to Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix when the emergency escape slide deployed on the plane’s right wing. The plane was 2,800 feet up when the slide deployed and the crew – who were the only ones onboard – landed safely. “Did they hear something? Did the captain know something was going on?” Self wondered to KPHO....

The Boeing Co. is reportedly taking steps to eliminate 10 percent of its workforce in Washington state. The Seattle Times reports the aerospace giant has already taken steps to eliminate 4,000 jobs by June and is aiming for about a 10 percent overall cut — which would mean about 8,000 positions in Washington. …

The U.S. government has approved sale of up to nine P-8 maritime patrol and strike aircraft to the United Kingdom, a new export sale for the popular Boeing (NYSE: BA) military jet. The British deal will be worth up to $3.2 billion, according to Reuters. Boeing also exports the so-called "sub killers" to Australia and India. There's a market for the jets in countries with large coastlines. The approval, while not unexpected, is a boost to the Puget Sound region. Boeing assembles the 737-based aircraft at its Renton site on a production line separate from the commercial 737s. Boeing then...

India is keen to consider Boeing's offer to supply F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets to the Indian Air Force (IAF). Sources said that New Delhi will take a hard look at the proposal in April when a high-level delegation will engage the Indian officials on the construct of the offer. US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter will be in India on April 10 in a visit that is expected to take lift cooperation to a new level. Boeing has offered F/A-18 Super Hornets under the "Make in India" framework of the Indian government. Sources said the proposal is worth considering as...

United Airlines has confirmed plans to reconfigure several of its Boeing 777 airliners to accommodate 10 seats across each row instead of nine in its economy class on domestic routes. United will retrofit 19 of its 74 Boeing 777 widebodies with the additional seating, applying the change to nine of the aircraft already used for domestic routes, mostly to and from Hawaii. The 10 other Boeing 777s that will feature the 10-across seat configuration will be shifted from the airline's long-haul international flights, according to Today in the Sky.

All 62 people aboard a passenger jet flying from Dubai to southern Russia were killed when their plane crashed on its second attempt to land at Rostov-on-Don airport this morning, Russian officials said. Russia's emergencies ministry said the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Dubai-based budget carrier Flydubai, crashed. Most of those aboard were Russian. "The aircraft hit the ground and broke into pieces," the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement on its website. "According to preliminary data, there were 55 passengers aboard and seven crew members. They all died." The plane's wing hit the ground on its...

A passenger jet has crashed in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don with at least 55 people on board, officials say. The FlyDubai Boeing 738, coming from Dubai, overshot the runway as it attempted to land and burst into flames, according to reports.

The fate of the F-15 assembly line in St. Louis, and thousands of jobs tied to it, may hinge on the White House’s attitude toward a tiny oil-rich monarchy that sometimes riles its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf. The Emirate of Qatar wants to buy at least 36 of the air-superiority jets, and possibly 72, but the purchase has been held up for two years as the administration of President Barack Obama ponders whether to allow it. The issue is entangled in the shifting geopolitics and strained alliances of the Middle East, along with Israel’s concern that the sale...

Echo Voyager, Boeing’s latest unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV), can operate autonomously for months at a time thanks to a hybrid rechargeable power system and modular payload bay. The 51-foot-long vehicle is the latest innovation in Boeing’s UUV family, joining the 32-foot Echo Seeker and the 18-foot Echo Ranger. The size of the new Echo Voyager is in the middle of the German U-Boat lengths which were 40-60 feet long depending upon design. U-boats dominated the seas for several years due to the fact that thousands were produced. A militarized Echo Voyager could have a similar role if they were mass...

Photo credit: US Army via Military Times The Pentagon is realizing that fighting in the frigid north may be more of a possibility than ever as Russia prepares its forces for sustained arctic operations. Now a handful of the US Army’s attack helicopters are getting optimized for this scenario, receiving skis, a pilot survival pod and being tested to see how they adapt to the extreme environment. The Apache’s permanent presence in Alaska is still a relatively new development. It came about as the result of the Army’s aviation reorganization plan that saw the sudden (and some would say boneheaded)...

It is one of the oddest plane designs ever created - a tiny propeller-driven craft with twin tails and two pilots sitting almost on top of each other. However, Boeing and a South Africa's Paramount Group firm hope the wacky design, currently used to patrol borders, could be turned into a low cost fighter plane. The two firms plan to add missiles and a slew of sensors to the advanced, high-performance, reconnaissance, light aircraft, which has been named Mwari after an all-seeing mythological being in Southern African folklore. The advanced, high-performance, reconnaissance, light aircraft (AHRLAC) is a high-wing aircraft, with...

Paramount Group AHRLAC Plane This weird plane will soon get weapons. Probably normal weapons, maybe weird weapons too. South Africa’s AHRLAC is a weird bird. With a narrow, high body, and stadium seating for the pilot and sensor operator, it looks like a rough draft for an F-4 phantom. A pusher prop and slightly forward-swept wings seem like an aviation mistake from the First World War. Built as a bushwacking scout, able to operate from rough fields without runways, AHRLAC is an odd drone alternative, a peopled plane built to do a drone’s job. Now, thanks to a deal Paramount...

A Norwegian fighter pilot has published a soft rebuttal to a damaging critique leaked last summer about the Lockheed Martin F-35A’s dogfighting prowess, contradicting many of the critical points made in the scathing review written by a Lockheed test pilot. Royal Norwegian Air Force Maj Morten “Dolby” Hanche, a US Navy test pilot school graduate with 2,200 flight hours in Lockheed F-16s, has flown several mock dogfights from Luke AFB in Arizona since becoming the nation’s first F-35 pilot last November. These have yet to advance to performing "dissimilar" training against other aircraft types. In a blog post on Norway’s...

As the Museum of Flight prepares the final flight of the first ever built Boeing 727 from its Restoration Center down to the actual museum this week, we look back at the history of the Boeing 727 program. This specific aircraft, N7001U, has spent the past 25 years at the Museum of Flight Restoration Center up at Paine Field in Everett. This prototype 727 was the first of 1,832 made when production ended in 1984 with a final delivery to FedEx. Until the 737 broke its record in the early 1990s, the 727 held the sales record for the most...