The Pentagon’s March 24 stop-work order on the General Electric-Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine for the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter elicited immediate howls of protest from GE and F136 boosters on Capitol Hill. And if the tenor of their protests is any measure, Congress could see the biggest showdown over a defense earmark since F-22 supporters forced through a multiyear production award several years ago. “It’s not over yet,” GE representative Rick Kennedy tells Aviation Week.
Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center applied almost 1 million lb. of force to crush a 20-ft.-tall aluminum lithium cylinder in a test-to-failure designed to update engineering data generated in the Apollo era. A follow-on to tests with smaller articles, the large-scale trial aims to generate shell-buckling knockdown factors that can be used to build the new heavy-lift launch vehicle Congress wants, with lighter structures based on modern materials and manufacturing processes that are still strong enough to withstand launch loads.
NG Aircraft, the company behind the Fokker 70/100NG, is betting that the airframe’s original design is still relevant and that new Rolls-Royce engines and other systems will be sufficient to make the NG aircraft a competitive and highly fuel-efficient product.
First flight of the passenger 747-8 puts the last model of Boeing’s big airplane development programs into the air and signals a leveling off into a smoother, albeit very busy, flight-test program for the remainder of the year.
European aerospace and defense (A&D) leaders see an urgent need for a “last supper”—not unlike the 1993 Pentagon meeting that set off a wave of industrial consolidation—if the sector is to retain its autonomy.
Hardly a month seems to go by without a new move by the Chinese aerospace industry to acquire critical know-how from Western competitors. The maneuvers have been increasing in number and perhaps in effectiveness—from encouraging, and later requiring, Western companies selling in China to work with Chinese partners, to Beijing’s state enterprises simply buying foreign companies that had key technology.
Aviation in Latin America and the Caribbean, for decades a weak link in the global network, in the past five years has gained strength as the region benefitted from a shift in the world economic order, the development of its own upwardly mobile middle class and a growing acceptance of air travel as a viable and valued form of transport.
PowerJet, a joint venture of Snecma and NPO Saturn, is developing the first higher-thrust version of the SaM146 engine as it ramps up production to support initial deliveries of Sukhoi’s Superjet 100 regional airliner. Developed to cover the upper end of the 13,500-17,500-lb. thrust range required for all planned variations of the SSJ100, the uprated engine will produce an additional 5% takeoff thrust over the baseline version due to enter service in April.
International Launch Services is filing a complaint with the European Commission over continued European Space Agency aid to its competitor, Arianespace, and is even considering World Trade Organization options. ILA President Frank McKenna argues the European Guaranteed Access to Space program has pumped more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion) into Arianespace since 2003.
Key officials in the U.S., Germany and Italy, the three nations developing the Medium Extended Air Defense System (Meads), have agreed to truncate the program’s flight-test plan in light of the Obama administration’s decision to walk away from the effort without buying any units. The three countries now plan to conduct only two flight trials of the new air- and missile-defense system; one against an air-breathing target and another to shoot down a tactical ballistic missile.
The caption with the photo on page 46 of the March 21 issue contained computer-induced garble. The caption should have read: Boeing’s Richard Stephens received the Workforce Laureate from Aviation Week Special Projects Editor Carole Rickard Hedden.
USN Rear Adm. (ret.) Edward Masso has been named a senior fellow of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies , Arlington, Va. He is president of Flagship Connection, a defense-sector consulting firm. His naval career included nine commands in both the active and reserve components. His flag tenure was served as vice commander of Naval Surfaces Command.
Brazil’s long-time love affair with helicopters is likely to deepen as it welcomes tens of thousands of visitors to the Federation Internationale de Football Association’s World Cup and summer Olympics in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
It is, as Delta Air Lines describes it, a relatively simple equation. Fuel costs have risen dramatically, and if fare increases in a market cannot raise revenue enough to keep pace, the number of seats must be cut. That is how Delta, under a newly revised plan that could be a harbinger for the industry, is calculating where to reduce capacity or trim back its planned growth for the second half of 2011, and that is why the transatlantic market is its biggest focus.
Snecma is poised to begin tests of the next Vinci upper-stage development engine, which will bridge the gap from feasibility to final design, moving it closer to planned use in the European Space Agency’s Ariane 5ME (Midlife Evolution) program.
TAM Airlines CEO Libano Barroso talked with Aviation Week’s Darren Shannon about the current state of Brazilian and Latin American aviation, the bright future he expects for both, and potential growth for the region’s carriers. While unable to discuss TAM’s proposed merger with Chile’s LAN because of the legal status of the deal, which is still under regulatory review, Barroso does address Brazil’s infrastructure concerns and how alliances have broadened TAM’s reach without a capital-intensive expansion.
Design of the KC-390 tanker/transport has evolved significantly since Embraer in 2007 revealed its concept for a military airlifter derived from the E-190 regional jet. Deep involvement of the Brazilian air force in defining the design has resulted in a more capable—and ambitious—aircraft.
NASA-backer Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) expects Congress to soon pass fresh fiscal 2011 appropriations, but she worries that spending hawks in the House will try to upset the “balance” between human spaceflight and space science in NASA’s allocations. The issue is whether to fund the compromise Congress and President Barack Obama authorized last year in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act or cut funding below the extended 2010 levels that are financing the government through April 8.
General aviation may be coming off recession lows, but private aircraft are still a politically dicey issue. Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) is pledging to give up the part of a private airplane she and her husband own after the former state auditor was reported to owe more than $300,000 in property taxes. Missouri Republicans filed an ethics complaint about McCaskill’s use of the airplane to attend a Democratic fundraiser without reimbursing taxpayers.
It will be quite a homecoming. President Barack Obama, who once equated business jets with corporate excess, now sees them as important exports and last week sent Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (below) to make amends in Wichita, home to Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier Learjet.
The increase in loss-of-control accidents is partly related to the confusing way we teach stalls. Instructors now talk about stalling as a boundary layer effect, which offers no insight into recovery. We used to teach that a stall was excess angle of attack, which also describes the recovery procedure: reduce the angle of attack. A pilot who understands stalls this way is unlikely to descend to the ground with the yoke fully aft.
I agree with reader Karl Kettler’s assessment that U.S. taxpayers are being cheated by the outcome of the tanker competition (AW&ST March 7/14, p. 8). I believe Boeing’s priority is, and will remain, putting an end to its 787-8 nightmare; only when this is resolved will Boeing devote its best people to their latest present from the Pentagon.
General Electric says microcracks discovered on a first-stage high-pressure turbine blade in a ground test GEnx-1B do not present an obstacle to achieving ETOPS certification by the end of April and will not affect entry into service of the 787. The cracks, which GE says appear to be an anomaly, were discovered in January during a scheduled borescope inspection of a GEnx-1B undergoing cyclic endurance testing as part of ETOPS certification.The engine was repaired and returned to testing.
The U.S. Air Force is rescheduling the launch attempt of the second X-51A hypersonic test vehicle after unspecified issues forced controllers to abort a planned drop test from an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52H on March 24. The aircraft took off from Edwards AFB, Calif., carrying the under-wing-mounted X-51A shortly before 9 a.m. PDT and flew as planned to the designated launch area over the U.S. Navy Point Mugu Sea Range. However, officials say that on reaching the range “. . .
Air traffic controller staffing will receive renewed attention this week as the House is expected to begin debate on an FAA reauthorization bill. The version already passed by the Senate includes language by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) to mandate a national study on controller staffing levels. A similar study was called for by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood after a March 22 incident at Washington Reagan National Airport when the lone controller disappeared for a time during his midnight-6 a.m.
