Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Scientists at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) are developing a new cockpit display system that incorporates all the information from traditional instruments into one immediately comprehensible image - with the goal of making planes easier and safer to fly. The OZ system, which has been in development since the mid-90s, is designed to allow pilots to directly perceive a picture of the vehicle status that simultaneously conveys location, orientation, external objects, systems status, and how all these factors interact.
After completing its record-setting flight across the Pacific, the Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is being readied for its next challenge: weeks of advanced flight testing and joint American-Australian military demonstrations. Its schedule will include participation in the annual Tandem Thrust exercise, which is intended to train U.S. and Australian staffs in crisis action planning and contingency response operations.
A nascent digital design technology is allowing aerospace engineers to perform "inside-out" design, making aerospace vehicles fit their occupants rather than the other way around. Digital human modeling is the use of a representation of a human in association with 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) data for simulating all the actions required to operate, assemble, or maintain a vehicle or product.
