Page 6 - Aviation News (February 2020)

CIVIL NEWS First Air Canada A220

On December 20, Air Canada took delivery of its fi rst Airbus A220-300, C-GROV, from the Mirabel A220 programme facilities near Montreal.
The initial aircraft from an order of 45 was to enter service in January, making Air Canada the fi rst airline to operate the A220-300 in North
America. The A220 will be confi gured with a dual-class cabin seating 137 passengers – 12 in business class and 125 in economy class. Airbus

Delay to Heathrow’s Third Runway

Heathrow Airport announced in December that the plan to build passengers. The CAA’s report concluded that a “modest delay” to the
the controversial third runway would be delayed by at least a year third runway’s completion would be preferable to the higher early
after the Civil Aviation Authority refused permission for the airport construction costs that would be incurred attempting to meet the
to quadruple its spending on the project before it receives planning original 2026 opening.
consent. The airport claimed that it needed to spend £2.4bn (up On January 7, the airport announced that it would submit its fi nal
from £650m) on early construction and £500m on planning costs. planning application for the construction of the third runway late
The refusal would delay completion of the third runway until some this year, following an eight-week public consultation to be held
time between “early 2028 and late 2029”. The regulator argued that between April and June. Heathrow said it would announce dates and
while it was important that a new runway is built as soon as possible, locations for consultation events in the coming weeks. Responses
such an increase in costs in the short term would likely be borne by from the consultation will feed into the fi nal planning application.

Rolls-Royce Unveils Electric Plane

the record books with a target speed of
300mph+ (483km/h+) in late spring 2020.
The project involves a host of partners,
including electric motor and controller
manufacturer YASA and the aviation start-up
Electrofl ight. Half of the project’s funding
is provided by the Aerospace Technology
Institute (ATI) in partnership with the
Department for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy and Innovate UK.
ACCEL will have the most power-dense
battery pack ever assembled for an aircraft,
providing enough energy to fuel 250 homes
or fl y 200 miles (321km) – the equivalent
of London to Paris – on a single charge.
The ACCEL demonstrator will fl y at more than 300mph (483km/h) on electric power. Rolls-Royce
Its 6,000 cells are packaged to minimise
Rolls-Royce introduced its prototype Electrifi cation of Flight – work will now weight and maximise thermal protection. An
electric aircraft at Gloucestershire Airport begin on integrating the ground-breaking advanced cooling system ensures optimum
on December 19. Under the initiative electrical propulsion system to enable the performance by directly cooling cells during
called ACCEL – short for Accelerating the zero-emissions aircraft to make a run for the high-power record runs.
Super Hercules Certified

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) later this year. Letters of Intent for examples of which were produced
has awarded type certifi cation to the ten examples each have also been between 1964-1992. Improvements to
Lockheed Martin LM-100J, a civilianised signed for by ASL Aviation Group and the original o ering include modern
variant of the US manufacturer’s C-130J Brazilian defence and logistics agency avionics and Rolls-Royce AE 2100
Super Hercules. Lockheed Martin will Bravo Industries. The LM-100J is the turboprops as well as being 14%
deliver two examples to Pallas Aviation, modernised version of the Lockheed more fuel e cient and having a 20%
which is the type’s launch customer, Martin L-100 freighter, more than 100 improvement in payload/range capability.

6 AVIATION NEWS FEBRUARY 2020

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