October 9, 2012 Amsterdam, The Netherlands Repair in New Generation Aircraft: Challenges and Opportunities Lightweight composites will soon rival metals as the primary material for airframes. Are you prepared? Aviation Week’s Aircraft Composite Repair Management Forum will highlight the latest developments, challenges, and best practices in aircraft composite repair and maintenance technology.
Anticipating regulations clearing the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in U.S. airspace, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) is hoping to set a baseline of standards with the release of an “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations Industry Code of Conduct.” FAA is under congressional mandate to create a plan that would integrate UAS into national airspace by Sept. 30, 2015. The deadline is one of a series regarding UAS that FAA must meet for the gradual integration of the systems.
As FAA continues to sort out rules for operating UAVs within the U.S., members of Congress are already moving to block the use of weaponized UAVs here. Spurred by reports about local police departments seeking weaponized UAVs, lawmakers of both parties are responding to concerns from their constituents to prevent the possibility that a U.S. citizen could be gunned down from the air.
Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce sees ISR data from unmanned aircraft as a significant driver of demand for the company’s upcoming Global Xpress Ka-band satellite service.
Boeing is restructuring the A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter program after experiencing “technical challenges,” including a voluntary grounding in place since a crash on April 17. Following the crash, the U.S. Army canceled plans to deploy three A160s to Afghanistan carrying the BAE Systems Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (Argus-IS).
GUARD CHIEF: President Barack Obama has nominated U.S. Army National Guard Lt. Gen. Frank Grass to be the next chief of the National Guard Bureau. If approved by the Senate, Grass will be the first Guard chief to serve a full term as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Grass currently serves as the deputy commander of Northern Command. He is nominated to succeed Gen. Craig McKinley of the Air Guard, who is retiring.
While many defense analysts have been downplaying the interest of the Pentagon and U.S. Navy in Arctic operations — saying the Coast Guard appears to be becoming the dominant U.S. player in the region — the chief of naval operations (CNO) says the service has been focusing on those waters for some time. “We’re working with the Canadians and with the Norwegian navy,” U.S. CNO Jonathan Greenert says. “We’ve been doing a series of exercises in the Arctic. So the concept of operations we’ve been developing for a number of years. Five, six years now.”
The Space Propulsion Group carried out a successful 11-sec. test firing of a developmental, 22-in. flight-class hybrid solid rocket motor fueled by paraffin and liquid oxygen
In observance of the U.S. Independence Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue dated July 4. The next issue will be dated July 5.
PARIS — European Space Agency (ESA) officials can rest assured that France has no intention of nixing its contribution to the Earth Observation Envelope Program (EOEP) when representatives of member-governments meet in November to determine budgets for the agency’s biggest projects.
The U.S. Air Force has completed the first flight of an aircraft using alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) biofuel. The Fairchild A-10 completed the test flight from Eglin AFB, Fla., on June 28 “without any issues,” according to the service. The Air Force has approved fleet-wide certification of ATJ fuel, following previous efforts involving synthetic paraffinic kerosene (SPK) fuel produced from coal and natural gas and hydrotreated renewable jet (HRJ) fuel derived from vegetable oils and animal fats.
On the site it had planned to assemble A330-based tankers for the U.S. Air Force, Airbus hopes to make its A320 family more competitive in the world’s biggest replacement market for single-aisle transports.
The threat of a biological catastrophe remains a concern for the U.S., and industry is not properly “incentivized” to tackle the problem, says the former vice chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Like cyber attacks, “bio is a 21st century threat and has an attribute of anonymity that other things like nuclear weapons did not have in the 20th century,” retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright recently told a small group of reporters.
As the U.S. Navy tries to get its fleet shipshape following years of neglect, the service has found a way to train its sailors to do a better job by learning the ropes on their own vessels and equipment. “Rear Adm. Dave Thomas, commander, Naval Surface Force, Atlantic (CNSL) and his team have established several waterfront initiatives over the past two years to deliver maintenance training directly to our sailors on the deckplates,” Adm. J.C. Harvey Jr., commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, says in a recent blog.
A student team from the University of Texas’ Austin campus succeeded in spoofing the GPS on an unmanned air vehicle at a range of 1 km and causing it to change position during a demonstration at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico.
Japan’s “Shizuku” Global Change Observation Mission-W1 spacecraft has maneuvered to the lead of the international Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, series of six Earth observation spacecraft, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced July 2. The maneuvers, which placed GCOM-W1’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 at the point of the NASA-managed, polar-orbiting A-Train, were carried out by JAXA on June 29.
