Engineering News | Defence | Aerospace

https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

Follow @EngNewsZA

Advertise on this page? Click Here to Learn More

Defence & Aerospace

Trade union wins salary case against defence group Denel in court

By: Rebecca Campbell 4th August 2020 Financially-embattled State-owned defence industrial group Denel has been ordered to pay its workers their salaries, the UASA trade union reported on Tuesday. This was the outcome of a virtual hearing by the Labour Court. “Presiding Judge Andre van Niekerk in his findings noted that Denel had... →

Airbus offers market unequalled range of airliners

By: Rebecca Campbell 31st July 2020 Europe-based global aerospace group Airbus reports that its smallest airliner family, the A220, is proving a most useful asset, particularly at this time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Airbus acquired the A220 programme from Canadian group Bombardier, which had designated it the C-Series. “We have... →

SpaceX and Nasa inaugurate new era in crewed spaceflight

By: Rebecca Campbell 31st July 2020 On May 30 history was made when, for the first time ever, astronauts were carried into orbit in a spacecraft that had been designed and built, and was owned and operated, by a private-sector company, in fulfilment of a commercial transport contract. Technically, it was a demonstration flight to... →

SANEDI, defence dept partner on delivery of energy efficient water treatment works in Hoedspruit

By: Schalk Burger 27th July 2020 The South African National Energy and Development Institute (SANEDI) and the Department of Defence (DoD) on July 27 announced a partnership to develop an energy efficient water treatment works at the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) Air Force Base, in Hoedspruit, in the Maruleng... →

Airbus acts to finally settle trade dispute with the US

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 Europe-based global major aerospace group Airbus reported on Friday that it had taken the final step in ending a long-running trade dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) between the European Union and the US. The dispute had been running for 16 years. The issue was repayable launch... →

More legal woes loom for Denel as another union takes it to court

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 The trade union UASA announced on Friday that it was going to take financially-embattled State-owned defence industrial group Denel to the Labour Court over the non-payment of employee salaries. This followed “months” of talks with Denel “failing to find a solution to the issue” said the union in... →

Public Enterprises welcomes, justifies SAA rescue plan approval, appoints interim CEO

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) welcomed the outcome of the creditors’ vote on the proposed business rescue plan for State-owned South African Airways (SAA). The financially beleaguered national flag carrier has been under business rescue. In the vote on July 14, 86% of the creditors... →

Mixed feelings on approval of SAA business rescue plan

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th July 2020 There has been mixed reaction from unions representing employees of South African Airways (SAA) to the approval of the business rescue plan for the financially embattled State-owned national flag carrier. The plan was approved by 86% of the airline’s creditors in a vote on July 14. The approval... →

Airbus confident that its unequalled range of airliners is ideal for the post-Covid-19 market

By: Rebecca Campbell 23rd July 2020 Europe-based global aerospace group Airbus reports that its smallest airliner family, the A220, is proving a most useful asset, particularly in this time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Airbus acquired the A220 programme from Canadian group Bombardier, which had designated it the C-Series. “We have... →

Photo by Airbus
From front to rear: an Airbus A220-300, A319neo, A330neo, A350-1000, Beluga specialised freighter (used by Airbus itself) and an A380.

Brazilian aerospace group reports drop in aircraft deliveries during the second quarter

By: Rebecca Campbell 22nd July 2020 Brazilian aerospace group Embraer has reported that it delivered fewer aircraft during the second quarter of this year than during the equivalent periods in previous years. Deliveries during this year’s second quarter totalled 13 executive jets and four commercial airliners. The executive jets... →

Trade union to resume action against Denel in the Labour Court

By: Rebecca Campbell 22nd July 2020 The Solidarity trade union announced on Wednesday that it would restart its legal action against State-owned defence industrial group Denel regarding the payment of salaries to the group’s employees. The union had previously charged that some Denel workers had only received 20% of their pay in... →

UK launches major green aviation research and development programmes

By: Rebecca Campbell 21st July 2020 The British government and aerospace industry are to jointly invest £400-million in researching and developing technologies that will reduce the environmental impact of aviation. The initiative, announced on Monday on the first day of a virtual Farnborough International Airshow, will see the... →

Industry team supporting UK advanced fighter technology programme gets new members

By: Rebecca Campbell 21st July 2020 UK-based global major aerospace and defence group BAE Systems announced on Monday that seven additional British-based companies had joined Britain’s Team Tempest future air combat advanced technologies development programme. Team Tempest was a joint initiative between the British Ministry of... →

Photo by UK Ministry of Defence
An artist’s impression of what a fighter developed using Team tempest technologies might look like.

Denel Group CEO suddenly resigns

By: Rebecca Campbell 20th July 2020 State-owned defence industrial group Denel announced on Monday that its Group CEO, Danie du Toit, had resigned. Although the group is the country’s largest defence company, it is severe financial difficulties. Denel stated that Du Toit would leave the organisation on August 15. It gave no reason... →

Drones used to combat spread of water-sapping alien trees in semi-arid Karoo

By: Donna Slater 17th July 2020 Drones are being used by the agricultural community in the Western Cape, and more specifically the semi-arid Karoo region, where water resources are under strain, to fight invasive and water-hungry alien plant species. Southern Cape Landowners Initiative’s (SCLI’s) Cobus Meiring explains that,... →

Kammanassie farmer Morné Jonker with the drone sprayer used to fight alien vegetation

PPP steps in to salvage insolvent internet satellite communications firm

By: Rebecca Campbell 17th July 2020 UK-domiciled but US-based global internet satellite communications company OneWeb, which became insolvent because of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been bought by an international public private partnership (PPP). OneWeb’s aim was to establish a constellation of, at first, 650... →

Airline association calls on African governments to abandon quarantining

By: Rebecca Campbell 17th July 2020 The global representative body of the airline industry, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), has called on African and Middle Eastern (AME) governments to abandon quarantine measures for arriving air passengers. These policies were doing grave damage to those countries’ aviation... →

Discovery of metals on the Moon aids development of lunar formation theories

By: Rebecca Campbell 17th July 2020 Scientists using data from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa’s) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft have discovered evidence that the Moon might, underneath its surface, be richer in metals (such as iron and titanium) than had previously been believed. Nasa is... →

Drones Council launched to expedite advancement of regulatory environment

By: Donna Slater 15th July 2020 The Drone Council South Africa (DCSA) was launched on July 15 with its first webinar to update global stakeholders in the private and public sectors on progress being made in the drones industry, both internationally and in South Africa. The DCSA was formed in part to address South Africa’s... →

Major British aerospace manufacturer unveils ‘Factory 4.0’

By: Rebecca Campbell 14th July 2020 UK-based global major aerospace and defence group BAE Systems on Monday unveiled its new intelligent factory at its complex in Warton in Lancashire, England. This factory has been developed to support the UK’s Tempest next (sixth) generation combat aircraft technologies programme. The group... →

Photo by BAE Systems
BAE Systems/Fairfield Control Systems new intelligent workstations

Indian Air Force receives last batch of Boeing military helicopters ordered in 2015

By: Rebecca Campbell 13th July 2020 US global major aerospace and defence group Boeing has concluded deliveries of helicopters to the Indian Air Force (IAF), ordered under a September 2015 contract. The order was for 22 AH-64E Apache attack and 15 CH-47F(I) Chinook heavy transport helicopters. The last batch of the helicopters... →

All Nasa’s new heavy space rocket components are now qualified for flight

By: Rebecca Campbell 10th July 2020 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) – the US space agency – has announced that the structural testing campaign for its new Space Launch System (SLS) was completed on June 24. The SLS is Nasa’s new heavy rocket, which will launch into space its upcoming Artemis crewed Moon... →

Structural testing completed for first flight of America’s Orion spacecraft

By: Rebecca Campbell 10th July 2020 The US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has announced that structural testing of its Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission had been successfully concluded. The Orion was designed to carry astronauts deeper into space than any previous human spacecraft.... →

Numsa, Sacca welcome adjournment of SAA business rescue vote

By: Rebecca Campbell 10th July 2020 In a joint statement on June 26 the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) expressed their relief that 69% of the creditors of South African Airways (SAA) voted to adjourn (to July 14) the vote on the proposed business rescue... →

Drones being used to help governments fight the Covid-19 pandemic

By: Donna Slater 10th July 2020 With the onset of Covid-19, technology has come to the fore, as people have been forced to work from home or increasingly remotely to ensure physical distancing, thereby increasing reliance on remote, and even autonomous, methods of conducting duties, with keen interest in the potential use of... →

Parliamentary Defence Committee warns that budget cuts are endangering key projects

By: Rebecca Campbell 9th July 2020 Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans has warned that cost savings forced on the country’s defence acquisition and research and development agency Armscor could endanger key projects. The agency’s budget has been cut by R120-million. The committee praised Armscor for... →

Airbus wins new generation satellite order form Australian telecoms group

By: Rebecca Campbell 6th July 2020 Airbus Defence and Space has been awarded an end-to-end turnkey contract for a telecommunications satellite by Australia’s leading satellite operator and number two telecommunications company, Optus. This is Airbus’ first contract from an Australian operator and is the fourth order for Airbus’... →

Greater drone deployability in Africa requires regulatory allowances, supply chain integration

By: Donna Slater 3rd July 2020 Drones are being successfully deployed to support medical and humanitarian projects across Africa, but for a greater, more sustainable impact, they will need to be fully integrated into supply chains within an enabling regulatory environment, according to panellists who spoke during a webinar on... →

Trade unions slam Denel management over unpaid salaries, head to court

By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd July 2020 The Solidarity trade union has blasted the South African government and the management of State-owned defence industrial group Denel over their mishandling of the affairs of the company, causing it to be in so bad a condition as to be unable to pay its employees their full salaries. In May, some... →

Proposed business rescue plan would see severe cut in SAA’s fleet

By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd July 2020 In their business rescue plan for State-owned national flag carrier South African Airways (SAA), published on June 16, business rescue practitioners (BRPs) Siviwe Dongwana and Leslie Matuson proposed a massive downsizing of the airline’s fleet, followed by a slow expansion after it resumed... →

African govts urged to apply ICAO guidance to restart air travel

By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd July 2020 Three international air transport sector organisations have urged African governments to harmonise the safe restart of their air services by swiftly implementing the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO’s) global guidelines for the restoration of safe air transport, entitled Takeoff:... →

South Africa’s defence electronics sector sees significant acquisition deal

By: Rebecca Campbell 1st July 2020 Local defence company Hensoldt South Africa (Hensoldt SA) has agreed to buy the Defence and Security and Air Traffic Management (ATM) business units of another South African company, Tellumat. The agreement was signed in a virtual ceremony on June 26. It will come into force once all the... →

Airbus announces widespread job cuts to deal with effects of Covid-19 crisis

By: Rebecca Campbell 1st July 2020 Europe-based global major aerospace group Airbus announced at the end of June that it was going to have to cut 15 000 jobs over the next 12 months – from now until the northern summer of 2021 – and resize the operations of its commercial aircraft business. These steps were being taken to meet the... →

Photo by Airbus
Members of all Airbus’ current airliner families in flight – from front to rear: an A220-300, an A319neo, an A330neo, an A350-1000, a Beluga transport (developed for Airbus’ own use) and an A380

US regulator approves next step in re-certifying Boeing 737 MAX

By: Rebecca Campbell 29th June 2020 The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has told Boeing that it can start test flights of its troubled 737 MAX single-aisle airliner with FAA pilots aboard, American media have reported. These test flights would be an important step towards re-certifying the aircraft to carry passengers. The... →

US space agency awards major commercial lunar lander contract

By: Rebecca Campbell 26th June 2020 The US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), has awarded a $199.5-million contract to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, based space robotics company Astrobotic Technology, to land Nasa’s Viper lunar rover at the Moon’s south pole in late 2023. The Viper will be carried... →

Faced with aviation crisis, Aerosud restructures, diversifies and will launch new product

By: Rebecca Campbell 26th June 2020 South African private-sector aerostructures company Aerosud remains optimistic about its future, despite suffering significant short-term hits from both the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX airliner early last year and the current Covid-19 pandemic. Aerosud is a supplier of airframe components to... →

Trade union attacks State and Denel management over unpaid salaries and goes to court

By: Rebecca Campbell 24th June 2020 The Solidarity trade union has blasted the South African government and the management of State-owned defence industrial group Denel over their mishandling of the affairs of the company, causing it to be in so bad a condition as to be unable to pay its employees their full salaries. In May, some... →

Topics In These Articles

Aviation Energy PROJECT Service System Technology Building Flow Projects Safety Tourism transport Components Defence Design Environment Industrial Innovation Manufacturing Systems Testing Africa Electrical Engineering Power Exploration Gas Solar Surface Underground ... more

RSS Feed

About

Engineering News is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa
Polity

Newsletters

Sign up for our FREE daily email newsletter

Receive daily sector news alerts

More

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Engineering News is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options

Subscribe