LE BOURGET, France - A key U.S. official plans to seek more coordination between the United States and its European allies to avoid duplicating work on unmanned aerial vehicles and other weapon systems.
International Space Station astronaut John Phillips delivered the first live congressional testimony from space June 14, fielding questions from House lawmakers about how current station activities support future space exploration. "We are the experiment," Phillips said. "We're learning how to fly in space." For future missions to the moon and Mars, "what I've learned, I believe, is that we need to build equipment with as much attention to low maintenance and as much attention to reliability as possible," he said.
Paul J. Cerjan is stepping down as chairman and will continue as vice chairman. Cerjan is vice president of Haliburton. Harry J. Pearce will succeed Cerjan. Pearce is a former chairman of Hughes Electronics Corp.
George J. Yohrling will retire as president of Curtiss-Wright Controls, the motion control segment of Curtiss-Wright, in March 2006. David Adams will replace Yohrling. Adams has served as Curtiss-Wright's senior vice president of electronic systems and also as vice president, integrated sensing and director of business development in the motion control segment.
COUNTER-MANPADS: Legislation to require anti-missile defense systems on Airbus A380 aircraft was introduced June 15 by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee's aviation subcommittee. Mica's legislation (H.R. 2905) directs the FAA to require systems for countering shoulder-fired missiles on the A380 within two years of the equipment being certified by the agency.
The launch of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite GOES-N aboard a Boeing Delta IV has been postponed from June 23 to June 24 to give technicians time to replace a hydraulic pump on the rocket. NASA is managing the launch of GOES-N for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Although Boeing felt comfortable with the pump's performance during a recent "wet" launch rehearsal, NASA requested the unit be replaced as a precaution because of a small deviation in pump speed compared with previous Delta IV missions, Boeing said.
Honeywell Aerospace's reorganization, announced June 1, is about making it easier for customers all over the globe to interact with the company, but cutting bureaucracy also likely will translate into staff reductions and related cost savings.
Northrop Grumman Corp. said it has been successful in trying out its "Hawkeye" port and coastal surveillance system in U.S. demonstrations, and is installing a variant overseas to support a Defense Threat Reduction Agency program. The U.S. Coast Guard installed the Northrop Grumman equipment and software aboard its vessels and those of other law-enforcement agencies to coordinate maritime security during the Organization of American States General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., earlier this month.
Brandon R. "Randy" Belote III has been appointed vice president of corporate and international communications. John F. Daegele has been named vice president and program manager of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications system. David M. DiCarlo has been appointed vice president of programs. Clayton K.S. Kau has been named vice president of engineering.
TESTING: Initial flight trials were started in early June by EADS Defense Electronics of its latest AN/AAR-60(V)2 version of the missile-launch detection system (MILDS-F) in a Danish air force F-16 from Aalborg Air Base. MILDS is an advanced sensor system that detects and tracks UV emissions of approaching missiles, particularly shoulder-launched heat-seeking SAMs.
The worldwide military surface communications market of the next decade will be dominated by General Dynamics, Rockwell Collins and Thales, according to a new study. The three companies together will represent more than 47% of a $12.8 billion market projected between now and 2015, said the study, by Forecast International, a market research company based in Newtown, Conn.
LE BOURGET, France - Pakistan hopes to conclude a deal quickly to acquire a mix of new and used Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons, a U.S. defense official said June 15. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, director of the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), said he recently discussed the matter with Pakistani officials, who hope to take advantage of a new U.S. willingness to ease longtime restrictions on defense trade with Pakistan.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has awarded General Electric Co. a $50 million contract to provide CT7-8E engines for use during the system development and demonstration phase of the U.S. Navy's VXX presidential helicopter replacement program. The work under the contract, announced June 15, will begin immediately and continue through 2008. The engines will be assembled at GE's facility in Lynn, Mass. The CT7-8E is a derivative of GE's T700/CT7 family of turboprop and turboshaft engines.
The U.S. Coast Guard's HH-65 Dolphin helicopters were the focus of renewed attention June 15 when a House subcommittee met to learn more about pressures related to the Guard's law-enforcement duties, including whether it is affecting the aging helicopters. Luis Fortuno, the resident commissioner for Puerto Rico and a nonvoting member of the House of Representatives, said that during a recent visit to Coast Guard operations in the Mona Passage, he was expecting to fly in one of the Dolphins. Instead, he was flown aboard an airplane.
The space shuttle Discovery rolled back out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on June 15, where it will await launch during a window lasting from July 13 to 31. The shuttle began rolling out from the Vehicle Assembly Building at 1:58 a.m. and arrived at the pad at 12:17 p.m.
LE BOURGET, France - Charles Edelstenne, Dassault Aviation's chairman and CEO, is celebrating qualified success as his firm rebounds with strong sales evenly split between its Falcon Jet and military product lines from the down times of the late 1990s and earlier this decade.
Language in a congressional report has spurred at least one company to pursue the idea of using ground-based high power microwave technology to defend commercial airliners from shoulder-fired missiles.
LE BOURGET, France - Many European aerospace companies, including Safran, which owns Snecma, and Rolls-Royce are keenly awaiting the outcome of a World Trade Organization subsidies dispute between Boeing and Airbus. "It definitely could affect us," Safran executive board chairman Jean-Paul Bechat told Aviation Week's ShowNews.
