Engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., have tested a 12-foot wingspan model of a blended wing body aircraft in Langley's 30 foot by 60 foot wind tunnel. The blended wing body largely resembles a flying wing, featuring a wide airfoil-shaped body for maximum lift and minimum drag. Technicians "flew" the model on a tether, kept aloft by the tunnel's wind stream. The flying wing is the biggest model ever free flight tested in the tunnel, NASA said.
The Senate on Nov. 10 confirmed Donald Winter to be secretary of the Navy, succeeding Gordon England, who is now the acting deputy defense secretary. Winter's confirmation indicates movement to confirm England for the No. 2 Defense Department slot, as Winter could not be confirmed until England formally left the Navy position.
AGREEMENTS: As soon as Nov. 15, the Senate could complete its work on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill. Senators will try to work through a final batch of amendments starting Nov. 14. Meanwhile, House and Senate appropriators and their staff are expected to meet during the week to negotiate a conference agreement on the accompanying spending bill. House lawmakers have been told to expect a vote on ratifying the deal - the Senate would be expected to do the same concurrently. A continuing resolution funding the federal government runs out Nov.
LITTORAL POWER: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is having an industry day for the Sustained Littoral Presence program on Nov. 30 in Arlington, Va. SLP is aimed at developing microbial fuel cell systems capable of drawing power directly from elements in the water, as well as unmanned marine systems that could take advantage of such technology.
Nov. 14 - 16 -- Aviation Week Group presents A&D Programs & Productivity, Arizona Biltmore Hotel, Phoenix, Ariz. For more information go to http://www.aviationweek.com/conferences. Nov. 14 - 16 -- UKIP Media & Events Aerospace Design Expo, Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, Calif. For more information call +44 (13) 0674-1200 or go to www.aerospacedesign-expo.com.
AIR SHOW: Australia's air force will host a "Defense Force Air Show" at Air Base Pearce in Western Australia on Nov. 19-20, Australia's defense ministry says. Australia air force aircraft in the show will include Boeing's F/A-18 Hornet; General Dynamics' F-111; BAE System's Hawk 127; Lockheed Martin's C-130J Hercules and AP-3C Orion; Boeing's 707; Pilatus' PC-9/A; and Sikorsky's S76 helicopter. The Australian navy's S-70B-2 Seahawk, built by Sikorsky, will also be on display. International aircraft at the show will include Rockwell Collins' B-1B Lancer of the U.S.
The Australian navy's AUD 6 billion (USD $4.3 billion) Air Warfare Destroyer shipbuilding program will be headquartered in Adelaide in South Australia, the country's defense department said Nov. 10. The new AUD 30 million AWD Systems Center will manage the project's budgets, design schedule and work distribution, creating up to 200 new jobs, Defense Minister Robert Hill said in a statement. The center may also furnish integrated logistics support, test and evaluation, training and crew preparation.
A less favorable product mix, higher factory overhead and a first article rejection were blamed for decreases in revenue and net income for CPI Aerostructures in both the third quarter and first nine months of 2005. The Edgewood, N.Y., company, which produces structural aircraft parts for the U.S. Air Force and other service branches, said last week that third quarter revenue fell 18 percent to $6.4 million, compared to $7.8 million the year before. Net income declined from $1.3 million to $548,498.
The U.S. Missile Agency's new sea-based radar is scheduled to make a stop in Hawaii during its first long trip, which will begin in Texas and end in Alaska, an MDA spokeswoman said Nov. 11. The Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) is due to reach Hawaii's Naval Station Pearl Harbor by this winter and undergo inspections, maintenance and minor modifications there, according to the spokeswoman, Pam Rogers.
Rival systems for protecting commercial airliners from shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles are gearing up for evaluations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in the coming weeks. The Eglin tests will complete Phase II of DHS' effort to counter the threat of Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) to commercial airliners, which began in January 2004. The systems use lasers to blind incoming missiles.
MATH MOVES: Raytheon has introduced MathMovesU, a program aimed at getting middle-school students interested in mathematics. The company plans to spend $1 million over the next year on grant and scholarship money for students, teachers and schools to promote the program, which taps celebrities like skateboarder Tony Hawk and soccer star Mia Hamm to tout math. It's also important for the aerospace industry's bottom line, the company says.
FUTURE FIREPOWER: One U.S. Navy Carrier Air Wing (CAW) alone should be able to strike 1,080 aimpoints in a single day by 2010, says Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments researcher Robert Work. That firepower would be an almost sevenfold increase from 1989, as well as almost twice that of today's CAW. Work says future challenges highlighted through the pending Quadrennial Defense Review - a rising China and anti-terrorism and anti-proliferation scenarios - put a premium on naval aviation's stealth, range and persistence.
The Senate has agreed to an amendment to its fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill that would force the Air Force to keep buying at least six new Boeing C-17 cargo jets annually despite a draft Defense Department study that concluded there is no need for the additional aircraft.
AEROSTAT RADAR: The Senate is suggesting the Defense Department install maritime radar on the tethered aerostat system in Lajas, Puerto Rico, to expand the DOD's ability to detect suspicious vessels in the eastern Caribbean. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) added the sense-of-the-Senate provision to the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill.
SECOND SPACEWALK: The Expedition 12 crew members aboard the International Space Station are preparing for the second spacewalk of their mission Dec. 7, when they will move a cargo crane adapter, collect science experiments from the hull of the Zvezda Service Module and hand-launch an expired Russian spacesuit into space that is outfitted with amateur radio equipment in an experiment called "Radioskaf." On Nov.
STSS PAYLOAD: Raytheon Co., the sensor contractor for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's missile-watching Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS), is expected to deliver the first payload by early December, MDA officials say. "We will be breaking thermal vacuum testing very shortly and will need to repair a couple of the payload components that had failed during the test prior to delivery" to STSS prime contractor Northrop Grumman Space Technology, an MDA official tells The DAILY.
The U.S. Army is investigating why the latest test of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile system apparently failed to achieve an intercept. During the Nov. 11 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., two PAC-3 missiles were fired about 8 a.m. Mountain time against a legacy Patriot missile modified to represent a short-range ballistic missile target. But preliminary data show that an intercept did not occur, the Army said.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) will announce Nov. 14 that she has succeeded in securing $147.5 million for the troubled Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) miniature submarine program this fiscal year, according to an announcement from her office and Northrop Grumman Corp. If so, Mikulski, a member of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, might have convinced other negotiators currently working out the fiscal 2006 defense spending bill to scrap their previous reservations over the program.
SDB CONTEST: Northrop Grumman has decided not to compete to be the prime contractor for the second increment of the U.S. Air Force's Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) program, company spokeswoman Debbi McCallam says. A Boeing-Lockheed Martin team and Raytheon have announced they will submit bids for SDB II, which is designed to give the small, precision-guided bomb the ability to destroy moving targets (DAILY, Sept. 29, Oct. 3). The release of the final request for proposals had been slated for about Nov. 4 but has been delayed until about Nov. 21.
MEDIOCRE MARGINS: Ratings company Standard & Poor's says space revenue rose about 4.5 percent in the first half of 2005, "mostly due to the absence of large space-related restructuring charges taken by Boeing in the latest six-month period." The company used Boeing's and Lockheed Martin's space operations as a proxy for the defense area, and says "similar mediocre margins are expected for the next several years."
Defense services contractors are warily watching a court case involving Blackwater Security Consulting LLC and employees who were killed in Iraq. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., is considering whether the families of four workers killed in a high-profile attack in March 2004 can sue the company in North Carolina state court, as a federal district judge has ruled.
The U.S. military air portfolio is imbalanced with far too many strike fighters and needs to be reworked for greater long-range bombing and persistent surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities under the pending Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), several high-profile commentators said Nov. 10.
