Embraer and Elbit Systems have finalized the terms for their joint venture called Harpia Sistemas to develop unmanned aircraft for the Brazilian market, with Embraer taking a 25% minority share in AEL—Elbit's Brazilian subsidiary, which will be the principal agent for the Israeli defense company in the joint venture. Embraer will control 51% of the joint venture, with AEL Elbit holding the rest. The plan to work together was first announced in April.
The long-standing rivalry between Russia's two new combat helicopters—the Mil Mi-28 and Kamov Ka-52—for dominance of the domestic market continues. Russian Helicopters, the holding company overseeing both manufacturers, says it has signed a contract with the defense ministry for delivery of “more than 140” Ka-52s for the air force. The deal is estimated to be worth 120 billion rubles (about $4.1 billion). Deliveries will continue through 2020.
A third Sikorsky S-76D has joined the flight-test program and will be used for avionics and electrical systems testing leading to certification in the first quarter of 2012. The first two prototypes have logged more than 500 flight hr. The upgraded S-76 provides a 14% increase in takeoff power and 8% greater fuel efficiency, says Sikorsky.
The Sept. 7 crash of a Yakovlev Yak-42 taking off from the Yaroslavl airport in Russia has once more ignited high-level calls there to phase out old aircraft and reduce the number of operators in the country to improve safety. The crash killed 43 people; two survived. The cockpit voice and flight data recorders have been recovered. Russian authorities also began inspecting all Yak-42s in commercial service.
Brazil's Trip Linhas Aereas will add 18 ATR 72-600s to its fleet with options for 22 more of the turboprops. The deal is being split with Trip buying half and leasing another nine. The first -600 is to be delivered next month. ATR says the deal makes Trip the largest operator of the company's aircraft, with 51 aircraft.
Orbital Sciences Corp. has a license from the FAA to launch a Taurus II rocket from Wallops Island, Va., carrying a Cygnus cargo carrier on its first mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The flight, tentatively scheduled for February, will mark Orbital's demonstration-flight milestone under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services seed-money effort.
Stewart D. Nozette, a planetary scientist who used radar to find signatures of water at the Moon's poles, pleaded guilty to espionage Sept. 7 and accepted a 13-year prison sentence. Nozette, who helped develop the Clementine lunar orbiter as a testbed for missile defense technology, was arrested Oct. 19, 2009, after selling classified information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy.
A Gulfstream V owned by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by the Boulder, Colo.-based National Atmospheric Research Center has completed a three-year, pole-to-pole project to gather data to generate the first detailed map of the global distribution of greenhouse gases. Over five missions, the atmosphere was sampled at various latitudes during different seasons at 500-45,000 ft. to help target gas sources.
Dublin Aerospace hopes to sign a couple of multimillion-euro contracts soon that will help it triple its turnover this year over last, says Frank Burke, head of sales. The two-year-old company just signed an auxiliary power unit (APU) overhaul contract with Danish carrier Jet Time valued “in the low-million” euro range, he says.
Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Aerospace's component and engine financing solutions company, Sanad Aero Solutions, is placing $50 million of new component inventory at the parent firm's SR Technics and Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities. Sanad says the extra inventory in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates will support customers such as Etihad Airways, Onur Air and Maximus Air Cargo.
Propulsion engineers at ATK are checking the results of the latest test of a five-segment solid-fuel rocket motor that could one day help boost NASA's planned heavy-lift Space Launch System off the pad, but early indications are that the Sept. 8 test was a success. Burning for just over 2 min., the 1 million lb. of propellant generated 3.6 million lb. thrust, says Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager for space launch systems at ATK.
An article in the issue of Aug. 15 (p. 34) should have stated Orbital Sciences Corp. plans an orbital test flight of its Taurus II launch vehicle in December.
Pratt & Whitney President David Hess says “the lack of a clearly defined future path for human space exploration” has prompted the company to look for a buyer for its Rocketdyne division. Possible suitors include Alliant Techsystems or GenCorp, the owner of Aerojet.
Betty Skelton, a three-time U.S. aerobatics champion, died Aug. 31 at home in Florida. She was 85. Skelton made her first solo flight at the age of 12. She twice set the world's light-plane altitude records, reaching 29,050 ft. in a Piper Cub in 1951, shortly before her retirement from competitive flying. Skelton was also the first woman to drive an Indianapolis race car, and broke numerous records for speed and acceleration at racetracks.
Electric cars using lithium ion batteries tend toward the cute or exotic and—so far—seem best suited for short trips. Hammonds Industries has taken the lithium battery idea into a heavy-weight class for manufacturing with surprising on-the-job staying power.
Newby O. Brantly was a Texas-born engineer and inventor whose broad interests benefited broadly, leading him to design a knitting machine, backhoe loader and athletic brassiere, among other things. A fascination with emerging helicopter technology resulted in his creation of the B-2 in 1953.
At the same time that N.O. Brantly was creating his little helicopter, David Thurston, a Grumman engineer, was developing a single-engine amphibian, which he dubbed the Skimmer. The prototype flew in 1948, but another eight years passed before type-certification and production began.
While Western European carriers such as Lufthansa and Air France-KLM have been complaining about the alleged subsidies enjoyed by their rivals in the Middle East, their competitors in Eastern Europe receive massive government financial support. Most of these ex-flag carriers are state-owned anyway and would not be flying anywhere if private shareholders had to carry the huge losses incurred in the past 20 years.
NASA will need to manage the size of its shrinking astronaut corps carefully in the post-shuttle era to cope with the demands of long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS). A panel of the National Research Council (NRC) also warned that unanticipated attrition in the ranks and yet-to-be-defined human roles in the development of commercial space transportation services and of spacecraft for deep-space exploration mean the space agency needs to keep training astronauts.
Canada's Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (Dextre), a two-armed robotic handyman, is ready for business on the ISS after completing its first repair job Aug. 30. The big Canadian-built robot changed out a remote power control module, a type of circuit breaker, in two back-to-back nightly sessions managed from NASA's Mission Control in Houston. Total time for the task was 29 hr.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is trying to forge a coalition opposed to deeper defense cuts than agreed to by Congress in its first stab at major deficit reduction. He was already the senior Republican on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction and has deep experience in nuclear, missile defense and strategic issues. But he may have scored additional loyalty points by insisting that after the first $350 billion in cuts to the defense budget, there be no more whacks.
Senate appropriators are recommending fiscal 2012 baseline defense spending at about $513 billion, the same as this fiscal year and more than $25 billion below what the Obama administration is requesting for fiscal 2012, which starts Oct. 1. The Senate Appropriations Committee allocation, which was expected, contrasts with a House defense spending bill that trimmed only $9 billion from the request.
The NASA cost estimate that Booz Allen Hamilton found “optimistic” for the Space Launch System (SLS) was $18 billion for a first flight of the congressionally mandated heavy-lift booster in 2017. That includes about $10 billion for the big rocket itself, $6 billion for the Orion-based multi-purpose crew vehicle and $2 billion for infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center. Those previously undisclosed figures, which Booz Allen found adequate for near-term planning but based on unrealistic assumptions further out (AW&ST Aug. 29, p.
The Transportation Department's consumer protection force may be on track for a record-setting year in the number of fines levied against airlines and other air travel sellers, at least for this century. Through August, the office has crafted 44 consent orders for operating without regulatory authority and violating rules on fare advertising, code-share disclosure, disabled traveler services and charter carrier requirements. That compares to 24 for the same time period in 2010 and substantially exceeds any full-year total from 2000-09.
Since FAA spending authority is set to expire once again this week, unions are ratcheting up the pressure on House Republicans to pass a full-blown FAA reauthorization bill. The Air Line Pilots Association and the Association of Flight Attendants rolled their carry-on bags to Reagan Washington National Airport to emphasize that safety and jobs are on the line if Congress fails to come to an agreement by Sept. 16, when the current, 21st short-term extension expires.
