Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

BAE Systems Regional Aircraft plans to extend its contract engineering work this year, raising the proportion of such revenues coming from third parties outside the BAE group to 92 percent. “The proportion has grown from 35 percent in 2010,” according to managing director Alan Fraser. “We have reshaped our engineering business and geared it for growth. [Our] skills, expertise and aircraft-design capability are [generating] a steady flow of new business.”


For example, the company is managing the manufacture of, and related operations literature for, three items of Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) flight-test equipment following two previous contracts from the Japanese manufacturer. It also holds contracts for several engineering work packages, including auxiliary power units, fuel systems, nacelle, powerplant, and pylon for the MRJ, scheduled to fly later this year.


It has previously provided development, engineering and integration services under an initial contract that included design of a flight-test trailing-cone system, a weight-and-balance control system to simulate flight and loading conditions and an electrical-load bank system to represent the MRJ’s power systems.


Other work requiring BAE Regional Aircraft’s design, planning, project management, supply chain and technical-support skills has included a major Avro RJ85 repair recently completed for South African regional carrier SA Airlink after the aircraft experienced an in-flight landing-gear incident last November. The nosewheel remained retracted, resulting in extensive lower fuselage skin and undercarriage-door damage upon landing.


Following initial assessment and a subsequent comprehensive damage report by BAE’s repair design office, the company sent an engineering party to South Africa to perform the work. Other major repairs carried out by such teams have included that following tail-strike damage to a Swiss RJ100 at London City Airport. The division designs more than 2,000 repair procedures each year to support its in-service regional aircraft fleet.


In a new support initiative expected to benefit its Jetstream turboprop customers, BAE Regional Aircraft and Propulsion International of Hermosa Beach, Calif., have agreed to collaborate on marketing and selling a Honeywell TPE331 engine rate-per-flying-hour support program. The Jetstream 31, 32 and 41 are powered by TPE331-10, -12 and -14 engines, respectively, and BAE Regional is the first company to join the program.


Under the agreement, fleet operators can use Propulsion International’s “low-cost” engine maintenance plan and financing. Propulsion International offers operators “no-cost” enrollments at hot-section inspection or overhaul/continuous airworthiness maintenance events, “low-cost buy-ins” spread over time and lease-engine options. Monthly payments depend on hours flown, and Honeywell Aerospace authorized service centers perform the maintenance.

BAE Systems Looks to Third Parties to Boost Engineering Business

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