Week in review (7/18 to 7/24)

The Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K. ends Sunday, and reports show the value of orders will fall short of the record set in the previous Farnborough in 2008. But the value of orders will be ahead of last year's Paris air show.

According to Bloomberg, Airbus and Boeing won 237 jetliner orders worth $28 billion, more than three times the number announced in Paris a year ago. Airbus won 130 contracts with a list price of $13 billion, compared to Boeing's 103 orders worth $10 billion. But pledges kick up the dollar figure. Airbus received $15 billion of pledges compared to $4 billion at Boeing.

Event organizers said the 2010 show had 1,450 exhibiting companies compared to 1,393 in 2008. There were 70 delegations from 44 countries in attendance. The number of visitors during trade days and this weekend is expected to be on a par with 2008 – some 285,000.

- The Seattle Times had a story during the week pointing out that Washington state's trade booth at Farnborough was "small and decidedly unimpressive," and Alabama's nearby exhibit had better graphics, but wasn't much bigger. The newspaper was interested, of course, because of the competition between Boeing and EADS to build Air Force tankers. Boeing wants to build them in Washington state, and EADS hopes to assemble them in Mobile, Ala.

But the story also said the reception put on by Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi at Kensington Palace on the eve of the show attracted about 400 people, including representatives from Airbus, EADS, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, as well as a lot of suppliers. STORY


Space
You have to really pay close attention if you want to figure out where NASA is heading. And right now, that means following the activities in Congress.

The House Committee on Science and Technology wants to devote $750 million to developing a commercial space industry, well under the $6 billion requested by the Obama administration and the $1.3 billion a Senate panel approved the previous week.

The House authorization bill would also instruct NASA to continue developing its own rocket, which the administration wants to kill.


Bases
A decision should be made soon on which Baldwin County, Ala., airstrips will be expanded to handle new Navy training aircraft. Jay Cope, spokesman for Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Fla., said at a Baldwin County Commission meeting that studies are continuing on which two Baldwin outlying fields will get between 500 and 1,500 additional feet of runway.

Whiting, which trains military pilots, has eight outlying fields in the region. The Navy is switching from T-34 Turbo Mentors to T-6B Texan aircraft, which need longer runways to operate.


Contracts
Bates Engineers/Contractors Inc., Bainbridge, Ga., was awarded a $5 million contract to construct a new 1,400 square meter addition to an existing simulator facility at Hulbert Field, Fla. Corps of Engineers-Mobile Regional Contracting Center, Mobile, Ala., is the contracting activity. … Tybrin Corp., Fort Walton Beach, Fla., was awarded an $11.4 million contract modification which will add 70 man-years of software engineering support for guided weapons systems evaluations, simulations and other services supporting research and development for the principals and customers of the Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. AAC/PKET, Eglin AFB, is the contracting activity. … Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded an $819.6 million modification to a previously awarded advance acquisition contract for special tools/test equipment required in support of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter air system low-rate initial production Lot IV production. Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is home of the Joint Strike Fighter training center.