AVIATION WEEK MRO MILITARY April 17-18, 2013 Atlanta, GA Reducing Costs Through A Better Understanding Of Partnerships And Better Forecasting, Sustainment, And Product Support Strategies MRO Military is strategically designed to provide you with the information you need in order to: -- Control lifecycle costs -- Improve your forecasting methods and inventory management techniques
The Defense Department needs to better monitor contracts for the transportation of supplies, mail, and passengers in Afghanistan via helicopters, according to a recent report by the Pentagon Inspector General (IG). Some $3.5 billion worth of transactions could be at risk, the IG says.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force has appointed a helicopter pilot as chief of the air staff for the first time in its 95-year history. Air Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford will head the RAF starting in July 2012, taking over from Sir Stephen Dalton. Dalton had led the air arm since July 2009, taking it through one of its most challenging periods, including the Strategic Defense and Security Review and the conflict in Libya as well as ongoing operations in Afghanistan.
HUTCHISON HONORED: The Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation has selected Kay Bailey Hutchison, who influenced U.S. space policy as a member of the U.S. Senate from Texas for two decades, as the 2013 recipient of the National Space Trophy. Hutchison, who retired in January, led efforts to designate U.S. elements of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory, opening access to non-NASA researchers.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Jan. 28 - 30 — 24th Annual SO/LIC Symposium & Exhibition, "Persistent Engagement in the New Strategic Environment," Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information go to http://exhibits.ndia.org/ndia/public/MainHall.aspx?eventid=684 Feb. 6 - 7 — FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference, National Housing Center, Washington, DC. For more information go to www.ast.faa.gov
PARIS — European Space Agency Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain says the agency will have a lot on its plate in the year ahead, with plans to loft 12 spacecraft atop eight rockets on a launch manifest that includes four fully operational Galileo navigation satellites and the European Union’s first Sentinel Earth-monitoring mission. “We’ve got a lot to launch and it is going to be difficult to get everything up,” Dordain said Jan. 24 at a press conference detailing ESA’s €4.28 billion ($5.7 billion) spending plan for 2013.
ARLINGTON, Va. — As the production line looks to ramp down for the LPD-17 San Antonio-class amphibious dock ship, Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding unit is eyeing other possible variants for the ship that could perform such missions as ballistic missile defense (BMD), hospital work or sub tending.
LONDON — Airbus Military has marked the last delivery of Spain’s most successful indigenous aircraft— the C212. The company handed over the last C212-400 light transport to the Vietnam marine police on Dec. 28, marking the end of production of the type in Spain. The C212 was developed by CASA—now Airbus Military—during the 1960s and the type made its first flight in March 1971. Since then, 477 C212s have been built for more than 90 operators. Approximately 290 are still in service today.
HOUSTON — Perhaps as much as NASA’s higher-profile commercial crew and cargo initiatives, smaller projects like UTC Aerospace Systems’ Sabatier Reactor System (SRS) aboard the International Space Station are helping to open new business vistas in space for the private sector.
HBC REORG: Hawker Beechcraft is hoping to receive U.S. Bankruptcy Court confirmation of a reorganization plan to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week after receiving approval from key creditors. The company announced Jan. 25 that the key creditors have overwhelmingly approved the proposed joint plan for reorganization, and that the confirmation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31. The company, which filed for Chapter 11 on May 3, hopes to exit bankruptcy protection in the second half of February.
PARIS — The launch of Europe’s Swarm Earth explorer mission atop a Russian Rokot is on hold as Moscow looks into the cause of a January launch mishap involving the vehicle’s Briz KM upper stage.
NEW DELHI — India will test fly its Nirbhay subsonic cruise missile in February, a top defense scientist says. “Nirbhay is at a final state of integration and we hope to flight-test its capabilities, including stealth and accuracy, next month” says V.K. Saraswat, head of state-run Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). Nirbhay will be launched from Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha, in eastern India.
PARIS — German aerospace center DLR is moving ahead with its Sharp Edged Flight Experiment (Shefex) hypersonic demonstrator, a project that aims to validate a subscale version of an operational reentry vehicle that could fly at speeds of Mach 20-24. DLR Chairman Johann-Dietrich Woerner says the agency was prepared to sign a contract Jan. 24 with EADS-Astrium Space Transportation GmbH of Bremen, Germany, to begin work on the €20 million ($26 million) project under an agreement that could culminate in a flight test by 2016.
PARIS — Eurocopter is calling the main gearbox issue afflicting the North Sea fleet of EC225 helicopters the most serious technical problem that the company has encountered, but maintains that fixing it is a top priority. CEO Lutz Bertling described the problem as “more severe than any technical issue than we have had in the past,” during comments at the company’s annual press conference in Paris Jan. 24. “We are conducting test flights to find those sets of parameters that caused the issue, but it is not easy,” he said.
HOT-FIRE: Orbital Sciences Corp. engineers are preparing for a static first-stage test of the company’s Antares liquid-fuel rocket next month, with only one wet dress rehearsal to go before the on-pad test at Wallops Flight Facility, Va. A month to six weeks after that test, the company plans to launch an Antares with an instrumented test version of its Cygnus cargo carrier. And if that test flight goes well, first flight of an Antares/Cygnus stack to a grapple-and-berth linkup with the International Space Station in May or June, depending on ISS scheduling.
John Shannon, the NASA human spaceflight manager who restored space shuttle operations after the disastrous Columbia crash, has joined Boeing as its International Space Station program manager. As the shuttle program wound down and the historic orbiters were prepared for museum display, Shannon oversaw secretive exploration-architecture studies in the headquarters Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) mission directorate. Some considered him a logical choice to eventually succeed William Gerstenmaier as the associate administrator for HEO.
The U.S. Navy can keep a competitive edge between contractors—even in programs ruled by duopolies—with the right kind of negotiations, says Secretary Ray Mabus. During a Jan. 17 keynote address at the 2013 Surface Navy Association National Symposium, Mabus outlined how the Navy was able to whittle away at pricing on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer restart, even though both of those efforts are dominated by two contractor teams.
PARIS — Eurocopter has begun design work on a new helicopter that will incorporate the high-speed technology used in its X3 demonstrator. CEO Lutz Bertling told journalists at the company’s annual press conference in Paris Jan. 24 that the first designs are now on the drawing board, but he would not offer a timeline for when or in what form the hybrid rotorcraft would appear. “This concept is not about high speed, but high productivity and it delivers additional productivity to the operator,” he said.
As the Pentagon prepares for across-the-board cuts to government spending, the competition for scarcer dollars is already beginning. A union representing 270,000 Pentagon civilians worries that the Pentagon could wind up converting civilian jobs to contract ones as the civilian workforce shrinks but the workload remains. Last year, the Pentagon issued guidance against that practice, known as direct conversions, and the head of the American Federation of Government Employees has asked the Pentagon to repeat the message.
