News

Boeing Buys Aviall

The Boeing Company announced on May 1, 2006, that it will purchase Aviall, Inc. The all cash merger will take place for $48 per share, which translates to about $1.7 billion.

Aviall, one of the largest independent providers of new aviation parts and services in the aerospace industry, is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is set up for global parts distribution and supply chain service for the aerospace, defense, and marine sectors. Aviall's 2005 revenue was $1.3 billion, and is projecting more than 25 percent growth this year.

Aviall will report to Boeing Commercial Aviation Services and operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. Commercial Aviation Services offers a program where selected suppliers maintain an airline's inventory of maintenance supplies, including spare parts, and provide items only as needed.

That program allows airlines to reduce costs. Boeing said it also plans to use Aviall's parts ordering and supply chain management capabilities for its Integrated Defense Systems' support business. "Aviall will quickly become an integral part of our Commercial Aviation Services business and accelerate our Integrated Materials Management program," said Alan Mulally, Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and CEO. "[Aviall] is a perfect fit for our strategy of providing supply chain management solutions that help our airline and military customer's operate more efficiently and productively," Mulally said.

Inventory Locator Service, currently owned by Aviall, will remain a wholly owned, separately operated unit reporting to Aviall.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter 2006. Boeing expects to fund the transaction with existing cash.

Midcoast Grabs Olympic Gold, Again

The PAMA Aviation Maintenance Olympics competition was held in March in conjunction with PAMA's 35th Annual Maintenance Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada. For the third year in a row, Midcoast Aviation took the gold medals and winner's trophy home to St. Louis, Missouri. Fielding the same team that won gold last year, Brian Bauwens, Bill Field, Tim Kennon, and coach Vinnie Venditto, Midcoast eased into the winner's circle once again (see photo).

Silver medals went to Bombardier Aircraft Services whose team included Mark Dumas, Michael Zina, Robert Huntley, and coaches Anthony Masciotra, and John Carleton.

Third place bronze medals were won by the Southwest Airlines team. Team members were Scott McNabb, Mark Woodhall, Kyle Acuna, and coaches Dennis Pelletier, and Tom Zollars.

TechnAthlete of the Year was won by Bill Field, of Midcoast; Troubleshooter of the Year was Kyle Acuna of Southwest Airlines; Data Researcher of the Year was Robert Huntley, Bombardier; Safety Wire was won by Bill Fields, Midcoast Aviation.

Happy Anniversary TPE331

At the end of 2005, Honeywell celebrated the 40th anniversary of the certification of the legendary TPE331 turboprop engine. Honeywell marked the milestone with a party that included many of the engine's customers, along with both active and retired TPE331 team members.

Since the TPE331 entered service in 1965, more than 13,000 engines have been delivered to over 40 regional airline, utility, business aviation, and agricultural aircraft applications. The TPE331 has been used both as an OEM engine and as an aftermarket retrofit engine on the Beechcraft King Air B100, Piper Cheyenne 400, Turbo Commander, Cessna Conquest II, Dornier 228, Jetstream 31/32, Metroliner II/IIA, Casa 212, and others.

"Certainly it has been a very productive program and one we are very proud of," stated Rob Wilson, president of Business and General Aviation, Honeywell Aerospace. "We shipped the most engines to Aero Commander, they have the largest production shipments of the TPE331."

After 40 years and some 130,000,000 flight hours under its belt, some might think that it would be time for the venerable TPE331 to retire. But even in today's "all jet" world, the TPE331 is still going strong.

"We are still shipping engines for the Predator B (UAV), and dash-12s to CASA for the 212. It's not a lot. Onesies and twosies," explained Larry Kobold, A.K.A. "Mr. 331," and engineering manager for the TPE331. "[We are] doing a lot of conversions for Aero Commander and [Mitsubishi] MU-2; taking dash-5s and dash-6s and converting [them] to dash -10s."

"With fuel prices continuing to rise, OEMS are asking questions about turboprop engines," Wilson said. "Durability starts to be a real selling point versus more advanced (i.e., jet) technology. Does it pay in terms of cost? The outlook is bright." "There is a lot of interest in this power class,"said Kobold -- by Dale Smith

Lufthansa Launches Spares and Consumables Service

On April 26 August Henningsen, chairman of the executive board, and other top Luthana Technik officials announced the launch of Total Material Operations (TMO), expanding the rotables/extendibles (consumable) support to all materials, thereby replacing all the materials management function within an airline. As part of TMO, Lufthansa will establish central component and supplies depots at main bases of its customers and subsequently at all the airline's stations. Henninsen said, "We now cover the range, from repair to exchange."

North America is the prime target for TMO, but Lufthansa Technik did not announce a launch customer. As Henninsen said, "We're talking to brand new customers, with whom we've not had a relationship before." The goal is to ensure that dispatch reliability is what it's supposed to be. For the aircraft operator, the new program reduces risk and the total cost of ownership.