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LA HABANA, CUBA — There are social media reports that a Boeing 737 crashed shortly after takeoff from Jose Marti International Airport in Cuba. Authorities have not confirmed the reports of a crash. This is a breaking news story, return for updates.

Bloomberg Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-15/wto-says-boeing-hurt-in-airbus-case-paving-way-for-eu-sanctions

Boeing executives, including president and CEO Dennis Muilenburg, welcomed on Friday the first of potentially hundreds of well-used Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets that will return to the company’s north St. Louis County campus for upgrades designed to extend the life of the Navy’s workhorse aircraft. The fighter jet, with just under 6,000 flight hours under its belt, is one of four Block II Super Hornets that will be delivered to Boeing this year to undergo an 18-month Service Life Modification (SLM) program meant to extend the flight hours of the aircraft carrier-based fighter to 9,000 hours. Moving forward, funded by...

When Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX were looking to make their Falcon 9 rocket even more powerful, they came up with a creative idea — keep the propellant at super-cold temperatures to shrink its size, allowing them to pack more of it into the tanks. But the approach comes with a major risk, according to some safety experts. At those extreme temperatures, the propellant would need to be loaded just before takeoff — while astronauts are aboard. An accident, or a spark, during this maneuver, known as “load-and-go,” could set off an explosion. The proposal has raised alarms...

France’s economy minister Bruno Le Maire said Sunday that Air France employees must resume dialogue with bosses and restart efforts to improve the company’s competitiveness, otherwise the airline “will disappear”. “I appeal to the sense of responsibility of everyone involved: flight crew, ground staff, the pilots asking for unjustified pay increases,” he said on French TV news channel BFMTV. “Take responsibility — Air France’s survival is at stake.” Le Maire added that “the state is not there to pay off the company’s debts”. …

Boeing and NASA are working together in order to build the Space Launch System (SLS). The rocket is believed to be capable of transporting humans and cargo into deep space. According to reports, the rocket is estimated to be the most powerful rocket system ever built. Boeing also set up a promotional website for the rocket in which it calls out Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, calling the Falcon Heavy too small for deep space exploration. “The Falcon Heavy launch turned heads in February, but SpaceX’s rocket is a smaller type of rocket that can’t meet NASA’s deep-space needs,” the statement...

George Washington University President Thomas LeBlanc says he will not consider implementing a divestment resolution passed by the student government in a secret vote. The resolution, which was voted on anonymously, passed Monday evening by a vote of 18 to 6, with six student senators abstaining. Monday’s meeting was the Student Association’s second attempt to hold a vote on the resolution. The previous vote was cancelled due to a lack of security, whereupon supporters of the BDS bill responded by taking over the student government offices and demanding the vote be rescheduled for the following week. The resolution accuses Israel...

Jim Roche, then-Secretary of the Air Force, made an announcement on October 26, 2001, that all aviation enthusiasts had been waiting for: a winner had been picked to design and build the Joint Strike Fighter. The American people were assured the new jet would enter service in 2008 and be a high-performance replacement for the military’s aging airframes while only costing between $40 million and $50 million. The F-35 has now entered an unprecedented seventeenth year of continuing redesign, test deficiencies, fixes, schedule slippages, and cost overruns. And it’s still not at the finish line. Numerous missteps along the way—from...

The satellite communications industry was shocked to see a $600 million addition for WGS-11 and WGS-12.WASHINGTON — In a surprise last-minute add-on, House appropriators included $600 million in the Air Force budget for two high-capacity communications satellites made by Boeing that the Pentagon did not request. The omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018 funds two Wideband Global SATCOM satellites, WGS-11 and WGS-12. The Air Force did not request funding for these spacecraft nor were these satellites included in any previous marks of the congressional defense committees, or in the fiscal year 2019 budget request. This was a very large...

Saab's Swordfish anti-submarine patrol aircraft / Saab Saab is in for a difficult competition in Korea. By the lie of the land, the Swedish company may not get a chance to bid for Korea's $1.7 billion purchase deal for anti-submarine aircraft. Even if it is allowed, it is widely seen as a spoiler for Korean buyers to use to get a better deal from an American defense contractor. Just for that purpose ― lower cost, greater technology transfer and bigger "offset" deals for the stalling next-generation fighter program ― it looks tempting to give Saab what it wants and pit...

Incredible footage has revealed the moment that the world's biggest jet engine took to the skies for the first time, ahead of its planned maiden commercial flight in 2020. The huge GE9X powerplant, which is as wide and tall as the fuselage of a Boeing 737, is being built for the latest version of the firm's long-haul 777, the 777X 'megaplane'. General Electric has now begun flight trials of the prototype, after delays caused by technical problems stopped tests originally planned for late last year.

The Department of Transportation's Inspector General says the “FAA’s oversight of industry actions to remove unapproved parts (from the nation’s aviation system) is ineffective,” and the agency “cannot be assured that unapproved parts … no longer pose a threat to safety” for the traveling public. That OIG report has prompted ranking member of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Peter DeFazio, (D-Oregon), to vow to crack down on unapproved airplane parts that he says pose a safety risk to the flying public. The inspector general’s report echoes a series of stories by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit that...

A group of five U.S. private rocket companies met with Brazilian officials in December. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Vector are interested in launching from the equatorial Alcantara launch complex. The coastal launch site would offer cost savings by its ability to reach orbits often preferred for satellites. A group representing five U.S. private rocket companies visited Brazil in December to meet with the nation's space agency and analyze the possibility of launching from the equatorial Alcantara launch complex. The U.S. Department of Commerce was informed about the trip, which was organized by members of the private space industry. The group...

Starting in late 2017, Boeing executives discussed plans to conceal employee bonuses or cancel them altogether in order to keep President Trump from getting credit, following the passage of the Republican tax-reform bill. On a series of conference calls led by Boeing’s Senior Vice President of Communications Phil Musser, Musser proposed and lobbied for canceling bonuses out of fear that the company may contribute to President Trump’s rising approval rating. Before Musser worked as a high level Boeing’s communications staffer in Washington, his employment history included public and media relations work for Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential Campaign and The Freedom...

I tried to post an article from a source not allowed at FR, but search for other sources to this story. UPS is purchasing 14 Boeing 747's to add to its fleet. A big deal.

Air Force One is primed to receive an upgrade that will include new refrigerators expected to cost American taxpayers nearly $24 million. The US Air Force awarded Boeing a $23.6 million contract in December to replace two of the five "cold chiller units" aboard the aircraft used by President Donald Trump.

A MASSIVE new search for the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 using underwater drones has begun today.The aircraft vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. The southeast Asian nation has now agreed to pay US firm Ocean Infinity up to $70 million if it finds the plane within 90 days. Its search vessel, the Seabed Constructor, today reached the remote spot in the Indian Ocean where Australian scientists believe the plane went down. Eight drone-like underwater vehicles will now scour the ocean floor for wreckage in an area...

Swedish airplane manufacturer Saab could cancel its contract to supply Gripen jet fighters to the Brazilian Air Force if it believes that an eventual tie-up between American company Boeing and Brazilian company Embraer could put technological secrets of its aircraft at risk. Folha has learned that this is the message that Saab is going to deliver on Tuesday (the 23rd) in a meeting scheduled with Defense Minister Raul Jungmann. The Swedish delegation will be headed up by the company's President, Hakan Buskhe. In 2013 the Swedish aircraft won a long running international competition against the French Dassault Rafale and the...

The new aircraft will be a direct competitor to Lockheed martin's upcoming SR-72. ... Speaking to Aviation Week Aerospace Daily, Boeing's hypersonics chief described how Boeing was planning a two-step development process for the new war plane. The first stage would involve flight tests of an "F16-sized, single-engine" precursor vehicle that acts as a "proof of concept". The second stage is the creation of a "twin-engine, full-scale operational vehicle" that has roughly similar dimensions to the 107-foot-long SR-71. ... The speed of sound – or Mach 1 – is around 1235km/h. So hitting Mach 5 would mean the Son of Blackbird would have to...

Boeing showed off a scaled concept model of its hypersonic strike and reconnaissance aircraft design. This week Boeing revealed the first design details of a demonstrator aircraft that would go faster than Mach 5. Boeing hopes to build the hypersonic concept around a combined-cycle engine that incorporates elements of a turbine and a dual ramjet/scramjet. The unveiling came at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech forum in Orlando, Florida, as reported by Aviation Week Aerospace Daily. Boeing's model design is similar to one Lockheed Martin is working on. The aerospace industry right now is racing to produce a...