Aviation Week Events Airlines, MRO, Aircraft & Engine Lessors – The Tricky Triangle September 14-15, 2011 Dublin, Ireland This must-attend event was designed to provide airlines with critical knowledge on maintenance obligations prior to leasing an aircraft. Attend and learn what you need to know in order to avoid costly penalties or expensive last minute maintenance prior to lease return! Learn more and register today at www.aviationweek.com/events
Any possibility of rapidly streamlining U.S. cyberoperations, establishing clear command and control of the discipline, or securing the freedom to use offensive cyberweapons is small. The underlying problems include a Byzantine network of defense and civilian organizations with conflicting cyber-responsibilities, a shortage of trained specialists and—most crippling of all—no identifiable funding streams. (See charts pp. 7-9.)
GENOA, Italy — Finmeccanica plans a host of new cost-cutting measures to increase its competitiveness, as the Italian aerospace and defense company looks forward to a tough second half of 2011. “Finmeccanica grew a lot in recent years, now it is time for a strong consolidation,” says CEO Giuseppe Orsi. The new measures will be in addition to ones already being carried out, which have not brought the expected results.
EXPORT CONTROL: A White House official asserts the Obama administration has enough constitutional authority to enact about 80% of its export licensing reform agenda, but the administration is preparing a bill of its own as competing legislation already has emerged in the House. “We have draft legislation that is nearly ready to go,” says Michael Froman, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.
SAN FRANCISCO — Boeing Military Aircraft’s second-quarter revenue was $3.6 billion on an operating margin of 10.6%, which the company said reflects “strong performance.” The second-quarter report, released July 27, also brought some refinement to the range of operating margins the company expects from its two main production units, Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) and Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS). BCA’s margins have been revised to 8-8.5% — they were previously 7.5-8.5% — while BDS’s margins are now 9%, instead of 8.5-9%.
LONDON — After a difficult period during which program development problems were hampering Thales’s financial results, the aerospace and defense company is reporting progress across a range of activities. One key milestone in this regard is an agreement between Airbus Military and Thales on how to handle contractual disagreements associated with the A400M flight management system, says Thales CEO Luc Vigneron. The terms of the deal – completed this month – are confidential, Thales says, but it notes that the outcome “is positive.”
Boeing’s chief financial officer says the recently won U.S. Air Force KC-46A aerial refueling tanker program is expected to be “profitable over time” despite the company’s bid strategy of knowingly risking profitability in the development phase. “We had always bid this contract thinking that on the [engineering and manufacturing development] phase it would be very low profitability or even break-even,” said CFO James Bell during a second-quarter earnings telecon July 27. “Nothing has changed from that philosophy.”
The Australian defense minister and top military officer are in Washington for talks with U.S. officials, but it is not aircraft or Afghanistan that seems foremost on their minds; it’s submarines. Their message to Washington: Australia is a proven, “value-added” ally, and our new conventional submarines should complement your nuclear-powered undersea fleet. Also, we would like your help building them.
AIRSHIP ANOMALY: Lockheed Martin’s unmanned, solar-powered, high-altitude/long-endurance airship demonstrator (HALE-D) made an emergency landing less than 3 hr. into its first flight from Akron, Ohio, on July 27. “The aircraft ascended as planned up to 32,000 ft. along the prepared flight profile. However, an anomaly prevented our ability to ascend to the target 60,000 ft.,” the company says. “A decision was made to end the flight and make a controlled descent into a nonpopulated area in southwestern Pennsylvania.” Designed to stay aloft for two weeks, the U.S.
The major takeaway from the first phase of the analysis of alternatives (AOA) being done for the U.S. Army’s scout helicopter replacement program is that the service needs a “man in the loop” for reconnaissance, targeting and related missions, says Col. Bill Morris, Army aviation director. “A mix of manned and unmanned systems is optimum, particularly in places like Afghanistan,” Morris said July 27 during a Pentagon briefing with reporters.
LONDON — Six weeks after a TP400D turboprop gearbox failure, the A400M military airlifter program is still grappling with the setback, which is starting to erode the schedule margin that had been gradually built up. Europrop International (EPI) — the joint venture of Rolls-Royce, Snecma, MTU and ITP — has not yet identified the root case of an inflight pinion failure. The component is made by Avio.
Missiles and missile defense are proving to be pretty lucrative for Lockheed Martin. “We continue to see strong interest in Patriot around the globe,” CEO Robert Stevens told Wall Street investment analysts during the company’s July 26 second-quarter earnings call.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has chosen Vanderbilt University to set up the vehicleforge.mil website to enable software-style “open source” development of military systems, beginning with a ground combat vehicle.
NEW DELHI — India is likely to announce the winner of its $11 billion competition to furnish its air force with 126 combat jets in the next five to six weeks. “The next step is to call vendors and open up the commercial bids. Of the two manufacturers left in the fray for the Medium-Multirole Combat Aircraft [MMRCA], we will [determine the lowest bidder] in the next five to six weeks,” Indian Air Force (IAF) chief P.V. Naik said July 26. As per India’s defense procurement procedures, the lowest bidder wins the deal.
Six would-be spaceborne astronomers have completed three days of training at the Nastar Center near Philadelphia, setting the stage for research-funded suborbital human spaceflight once vehicle-development is completed. Eight astronaut-trainees from the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) and three South Carolina colleges took part in the training, which was intended to familiarize operators of the proposed Atsa suborbital telescope with spaceflight conditions.
The U.S. should stay on its current course to build its next aircraft carrier and avoid any delivery delays, says Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the vice chief of naval operations (CNO), who is slated to take the service’s top job this fall.
ITALIAN CUTS: Despite significant budget cuts to Italy’s defense sector, Frost & Sullivan Consultant Aman Pannu says the Italian air platforms market still holds some business potential. “Opportunities within the Italian defense market are driven by new platforms and C4ISTAR procurements, although only in the medium- to long-term,” Pannu says in a July 26 statement. Italian defense officials are planning to cut some major programs such as the Eurofighter, which has been reduced by 25 units, to save up to €5 billion ($7.3 billion), Frost & Sullivan said.
ATK will supply its commercial Orion solid-rocket motor to Orbital Sciences Corp. for use in the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) target rocket program. The $48 million major subcontractor award follows Orbital’s IRBM win in March, and covers delivery of eight Orion 50S XLT and 50 XLT vehicles by the first quarter of 2013, with options for 14 additional vehicles over the following two years. The Orion will provide first and second stage propulsion for the target rocket.
MORE ZUMWALTS: The U.S. Navy and General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works have reached an agreement for the second and third DDG-1000s that will be assembled in Bath, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer includes a host of new shipbuilding technologies, including a composite deckhouse, upgraded radar suite and hybrid propulsion drive. Slated for a seven-ship fleet, the Zumwalt was recently truncated to a three-ship buy, and there had been some question lately about whether the Navy would contract for the third ship.
A second attempt to boost a hypersonic glider across the Pacific Ocean at Mach 20 will be made as early as Aug. 10 after a review board approved changes made following the loss of the first Lockheed Martin HTV-2 test vehicle on April 22, 2010. The first HTV-2 was lost 9 min. into the flight from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., when its autonomous flight-termination system activated after vehicle roll exceeded predetermined limits (Aerospace DAILY, April 28, 2010).
While $400 billion in cuts would stretch U.S. military readiness to the breaking point, greater reductions could cause the different services to re-evaluate the way they do business, top service officers tell Congress. Top brass for the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps said July 26 that deeper cuts would bring about “fundamental” and “structural” changes to how they view their missions — or even what those missions might be — during a House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee hearing on readiness.
The chief of U.S. Strategic Command says he does not yet know if the goal of intercepting ballistic missiles early in flight — prior to apogee — is viable with existing technology and funding. But U.S. Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler says he remains “comfortable” with the Missile Defense Agency’s plans for ballistic missile defense (BMD), which rely heavily on the early intercept concept.
Developers of future human-rated launch vehicles will have a commercial flight computer to plug in if a new development internally funded by Ball Aerospace & Technologies works out. The Boulder, Colo.-based spacecraft and space-components house based the design of its prototype launch vehicle flight computers on hardware already in use by NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center simulation laboratories for developing software and test systems for human-rated launch vehicles, according to Ball.
