NASA plans to test a pair of helium system regulators for space shuttle Discovery late this week, following an anomaly that occurred over the weekend during preparation for next month’s launch of STS-131.
OPTICAL MAINTENANCE: Lockheed Martin will support the U.S. Army’s Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor (TADS/PNVS) and Modernized TADS/PNVS systems on the AH-64 Apache helicopter under a new, three-year, $36.8 million contract. The M-TADS/PNVS work will be performed at Lockheed Martin’s Arizona Support Center in the town of Gilbert. Fielding activities will include sending a team of Orlando-based product support technicians to Army Apache locations worldwide to install and test newly modified M-TADS/PNVS systems on the aircraft.
COMPACT 3D: Directed Energy Systems, a subsidiary of Boeing’s Spectrolab business unit, is producing a 3D camera that is one-third the size and uses one-tenth the power of comparable systems for military and commercial applications. A company-funded research effort, the camera has been tested on a Boeing AH-6 Little Bird helicopter and trailers. Cube-shaped, it includes advanced sensors from the federally funded Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Boeing says the camera is suitable for mapping, tracking targets and seeing through foliage.
ROTOR TRAINER: The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force is set to receive 30 Enstrom 480B training helicopters by 2014, with the first aircraft to be provided this year for evaluation tests. Michigan-based Enstrom Helicopter also is in final negotiations on a contract to supply 16 of the single-turbine 480Bs to the Royal Thai Army for rotary-wing training.
LETHAL FOCUS: The U.S. Air Force has upped its buy of Focused Lethality Munitions (FLMs) to 250 from 150. The FLM is a variant of the Small Diameter Bomb, designed with a composite casing and dense explosive fill for low collateral damage. It is a 250-pound-class weapon made by Boeing.
COMING DOWN: Expect a first vertical landing by the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter this week. The first short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35, aircraft BF-1, has been flown at speeds down to 40 knots with the lift system engaged, and landed at 60 knots, but weather at the test center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., scuttled plans for the first hover flight to take place by this past weekend. A successful hover will clear the way for the first vertical landing of the STOVL flight-test program.
HORNET GROUNDED: Earlier than predicted cracking in 104 F/A-18A-D Hornet airframes has prompted the U.S. Navy to ground the aircraft. The cracks were found in the aft wing shear attach fittings during inspections as part of the F/A-18A-D Service Life Assessment Program, according to Navy Lt. Nate Christensen, a service spokesman. Of the 104 aircraft, 27 are in maintenance and 77 are in flight status. Of those 77, five are currently deployed to the U.S.
There was a brief show of bipartisan unity earlier this year on Capitol Hill, but it was hardly uplifting. Democrats and Republicans joined forces in the Senate to shoot down a bill that would have created a task force to draw up options for reducing the federal budget deficit.
Commercial satellite imagery provider GeoEye has selected Lockheed Martin to build its next-generation GeoEye-2 Earth imaging satellite in support of the company’s bid for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) EnhancedView program.
The Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCTM) program the U.S. Army has cobbled together from the remains of its Future Combat Systems (FCS) effort is an opportunity for a fresh start if all the elements are managed properly, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
LAOTIAN LAUNCH: China Great Wall Industry Corp. has contracted to supply and launch a telecommunications satellite for Laos. Laosat-1 will be built by the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and launched by an LM-3B from Xichang. The launch date was not given. It was the fifth in-orbit delivery award for China Great Wall.
SPEED PUSH: Sikorsky is targeting June to break the 250-knot speed barrier with its X2 Technology coaxial-rotor high-speed helicopter demonstrator. Flight tests were delayed in December when metal flaking caused by a manufacturing defect was discovered in the main transmission during ground test, requiring replacement of the gearbox. On return to flight, Sikorsky’s target is 150 knots — conventional helicopter speeds — followed by the push to 250 knots and beyond.
LIGHT MAINTENANCE: The U.S. Navy’s Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) fleet at Patuxent River Naval Air Station will be maintained by Helicopter Support Incorporated (HSI), a Sikorsky Aerospace Services company. A modified version of the existing Army Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) program will be provided to the Navy’s five EADS-built UH-72A helicopters. The CLS program for the Army provides total lifecycle support at a dollar per flight hour and is being subcontracted to HSI by EADS North America.
WEEKEND CYBERWARRIORS: Top U.S. Air Force generals in charge of space and cyber-operations tell senators that the country will have to consider how to attract and retain highly skilled cyber-warriors, and probably in unusual ways. Gen. C. Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command, tells the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee that the service is pushing National Guard and reserve service in front of active-duty personnel who are considering leaving.
MISSING TARGETS: A third of the British Army’s WAH-64 Apache pilots are breaking the ministry’s so-called harmony guidelines as a result of the demands of operational deployment. The Apache is being relied on heavily in combat operations in Afghanistan. The Joint Helicopter Command’s guidelines are “for crews to serve four periods at home for every one in theater,” says Bill Rammell, the minister for the armed forces. Rammell adds: “Apache pilot harmony is improving constantly as more pilots are trained and become available for deployment.”
ROBO-HAWK: Sikorsky plans to demonstrate automated formation flight in June as part of its roadmap to an optionally piloted Black Hawk helicopter. The test will involve two Black Hawks, the second autonomously flying in formation with the first helicopter. In December, the company plans to demonstrate an unmanned cargo mission, with a Black Hawk picking up an external load and flying a circuit unpiloted, Sikorsky president Jeff Pino told investors March 12.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) March 15 - 18 — Satellite 2010, Gaylord National Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland. For more information go to www.satellite2008.com March 16 - 18 — Aviation Industry Expo, “Ground Support, FBO/Aviation Services and Aircraft Maintenance, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nev. For more information go to www.aviationindustryexpo.com/index.po
ENGINE TROUBLE: The debate continues regarding the fate of the F136 alternate engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, with the Pentagon trying to kill it over annual congressional objections. Pentagon officials insist they were never bound by agreements with the eight international Joint Strike Fighter partner nations to develop the propulsion system. In a 2006 memorandum of understanding with the partners, the Pentagon committed to producing both engines.
Fiber-optics carry most of the world’s overseas communications, so the U.S. and other key countries want to monitor this mass of information for clues about terrorism and crime.
TEL AVIV — Regional battles and asymmetric warfare are pushing naval conflicts to the littorals, where a range of tactics that rely as much on numbers for success as firepower are evolving to threaten capital ships. Key to these tactics are small boats, which have a history of successful deployment in swarming hit-and-run attacks against materially superior adversaries. Swarming tactics require light boats that rapidly coalesce to attack an enemy from multiple directions, then swiftly disperse before being countered by heavy fire.
GREENBELT, Md. — The $2.5 billion in NASA’s Fiscal 2011 budget request to terminate the Constellation Program is probably “oversubscribed,” and will not cover all of the expenses expected to grow from shutting down the shuttle-follow-on effort.
ACCEPTED: The U.K. Defense Ministry last week formally accepted the BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4, clearing the way for training to begin. Clearance had been expected in December. The Royal Air Force is to receive MRA4s, which eventually will replace Nimrod MR2s that will be withdrawn from service at the end of this month. The first MRA4 production aircraft, PA04, is at BAE’s Warton site, while PA05 was flown for the first time from the Woodford manufacturing site on March 8.
