U.K. PURCHASE: Curtiss-Wright Corp. has paid $20 million for the assets of Douglas Equipment Ltd., of Cheltenham, U.K., supplier of ground support vehicles for defense and commercial aviation. Douglas manufactures aircraft tractors and runway friction measuring devices. The products fit with handling systems produced by Curtiss-Wright’s Flow Control division based in Falls Church, Va., says Martin Benante, chairman and CEO.
LONDON — More than a year after A400M customers and industry broadly agreed on new contractual terms for the European transport aircraft program, both sides have finalized the actual wording of the deal. The intervening time has seen the order book from the seven core A400M buying countries shrink to 170 units from 180, with the U.K. and Germany reducing their purchase plans. Malaysia is looking to buy four aircraft.
It is not unusual for political leaders to visit the big air shows to promote their regions. But not many will do it by bragging that their aerospace industry has attracted industrial development for cars. The last time Gov. Chris Gregoire visited the Paris air show, in 2005, Washington state’s biggest manufacturing employer was riding high with the beginning of the sales explosion for the 787. She was hunting for aerospace suppliers in support of Boeing’s new jet.
Front-line International Space Station (ISS) managers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) are inserting a week-long partial simulation of a deep-space exploration mission into regular station planning for next summer, using the orbiting laboratory as an analog for a long-distance spaceship.
One lesson emerging from the drawn-out KC-135 tanker replacement duel is for the Pentagon to be a sharper customer by setting spending limits and prioritizing requirements. During the KC-X competition between Boeing and EADS, the Pentagon said it would not pay more than 1% more than the lowest price for any extra features. According to Shay Assad, director of procurement and acquisition policy at the Pentagon, this disciplined approach worked. “We knew what our requirement was,” Assad said in an exclusive interview with Aviation Week.
SAN FRANCISCO – The NASA-German Space Agency DLR’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) has started its second set of astronomy flights with a study of chemical reactions in and the flow of energy from interstellar clouds.
The government leaned closer to a shutdown on April 7 as the White House threatened to veto a House bill that would have funded defense through the end of the fiscal year and the rest of the government for one more week. In a Statement of Administration Policy, the Obama administration said it wanted to continue pursuing negotiations on spending that were making progress — at least as of late April 6.
As the Pentagon and Boeing begin to finally talk about the new KC-46A contract, one question is: where did the winglets go? Until this week, Boeing widely distributed artist concepts of its NewGen Tanker, based on the 767, with prominent winglets, sparking discussion among onlookers about why they were needed and how much integration would cost.
The Pentagon is quite confident Boeing can execute the notional plan for its long-fought, $4.4 billion KC-46A tanker development contract, but the company is working to iron out a detailed schedule of work by the end of the summer. Risk in Boeing’s winning KC-X proposal “wasn’t low. It is probably closer to the moderate side, but it is manageable,” says Shay Assad, director of procurement and acquisition policy at the Pentagon, in an exclusive interview with Aviation Week.
Affordability as a Requirement Complimentary Webinar: Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 1:00 p.m. EDT Going forward, programs will be designed for affordability, not desire. Unaffordable technical requirements will be discarded at program inception. This webinar will familiarize attendees with DoD’s new processes, and focus on affordability as a requirement for doing business www.aviationweek.com/events
HOUSTON — Russia’s Soyuz TMA-21/26S successfully docked with the International Space Station late April 6, delivering cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko and NASA astronaut Ron Garan. The automated linkup with the orbiting science laboratory’s Russian segment Poisk module at 7:09 p.m. EDT, or April 7 at 3:09 a.m. at Mission Control Moscow, returned the station to a full crew complement of six astronauts and cosmonauts.
While Senate and House leaders are still at loggerheads over how to fund the government, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellite system is just one of a number of potential casualties.
After an early program stall, the CH-53K Super Stallion helicopter program is back on course, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. “The CH-53K program has made progress addressing the difficulties it faced early in system development,” GAO says in its report, released this week. Program officials “held a successful critical design review in July 2010 and (have) adopted mitigation strategies to address future program risk.” (See chart p. 6.)
LOS ANGELES — The embattled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is facing the threat of $3 billion or more in higher costs related to taxes and tariffs on components and subassemblies traveling around its international supply network.
The U.S. Navy is approaching its 60-month construction goal for its Virginia-class submarines, despite a recent redesign of the bow to accommodate larger and more versatile weapon tubes, according to Capt. Michael Jabaley, Virginia-class program manager.
NASA is considering a commercial proposal for long-term tests of advanced environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) hardware on the International Space Station (ISS), backing up the original station equipment with potentially more reliable life-support gear designed for human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit.
PIONEER PASSES: Dr. Baruch “Barry” Blumberg, a Nobel laureate in medicine who served as the first director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, died April 5 of an apparent heart attack. He was 85 years old. Blumberg shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine with D. Carlton Gajdusek for their work on infectious viral diseases. He was best known for identifying the Hepatitis B virus. In his early life his focus was mathematics. After achieving distinction in medicine, his focus later in life broadened to questions of how to move humanity from its home planet to other worlds.
PROTON PAIR: Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Melco) will use Proton vehicles to launch Turksat 4A and Turksat 4B under a contract with International Launch Services (ILS). Both spacecraft will be based on Melco’s DS2000 satellite bus. Turksat 4A, to be launched in 2013, will be sent to the main Turksat AS orbital slot at 42 deg. E. Long. Turksat 4B, set for a 2014 launch, will be sent to 50 deg. E. Long. Each satellite will weigh about 3,800 kg.
NEW DELHI — Air Works India has landed the contract to maintain the Indian air force’s VVIP squadron of three Boeing Business Jets. Operated by the Indian air force’s communications squadron, the aircraft carry the president, vice president, prime minister and other top-level officials. The maintenance contract for the Indian version of Air Force One will be a big boost for the company, which launched independent MRO services in the civil aviation sector in 2008.
GENOA, Italy — As expected, the Italian government decided to change Finmeccanica’s top management, with AgustaWestland chief Giuseppe Orsi to take the reins as CEO, and previous CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini to remain as chairman. Guarguaglini took the helm at Finmeccanica in 2002 and has created a central management structure that gave him direct involvement in both managing the company and crafting broader strategies.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The International Space Station’s original Node 1 module, which became a structural test article after manufacturing errors, may end up in orbit after all. Boeing is conducting a study for NASA on using the module as a docking hub for visiting vehicles and experimental spacecraft, such as a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable habitat.
Northrop Grumman has thrown yet another wrench into the U.S. Army’s attempt to get its new intelligence aircraft procurement program back on track, with the March 28 filing of a second protest. The company was among three losing bidders to originally protest Boeing’s November 2010 win of the $323 million Enhanced Medium-Altitude Surveillance and Reconnaissance System (Emarss). L-3 Communications and Lockheed Martin/Sierra Nevada also protested.
