Aviation Week & Space Technology

Eutelsat has awarded Arianespace a contract to orbit a satellite in 2012 using its Ariane 5 heavy-lift booster. Arianespace says the launch is one of 12 orders received in 2010, and will apply to a spacecraft Eutelsat plans to launch between now and mid-2013.

An Airbus Military KC-30A tanker in testing for the Royal Australian Air Force was damaged during a refueling exercise with the Portuguese air force. The tanker was participating in F-16 refuelings; more than a dozen had taken place when the refueling boom detached from the tanker during a contact with an F-16, which also suffered damage. Both aircraft safely returned to base. So far, Airbus Military does not expect any impact on the first delivery of the tanker to its lead customer, the RAAF.

The U.S. Navy’s plans to electrify its ships were boosted in 2010 with a successful land-based test of the electromagnetic launch system that will replace steam catapults on its future aircraft carriers. Electric catapults reduce manpower and maintenance, and testing must stay on track through 2011 if the first Ford-class carrier is to enter service with them in 2015.

Given that the number of narrowbody aircraft nearly triples that of widebodies, it is not surprising that Boeing 737 and Airbus A320-family aircraft will generate more maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work from airframes to engines this year than other types. Consider C checks—the regular, 3-5-day airframe structural maintenance events that must be scheduled every 18-24 months. This year marks the beginning of a generally steeper period of growth than the MRO industry has experienced in the past three years (see chart).

Powerplants for the next generation of narrowbody airliners will take to the air this year, with the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G geared turbofan flying on a Boeing 747 testbed while CFM International finalizes the design of its Leap-X advanced turbofan.

Revelations by WikiLeaks have managed to land at least one top space executive in hot water. Last week, the supervisory board of OHB System sacked CEO Berry Smutny over revelations published Jan. 13 in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, based on a secret 2009 diplomatic note from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin obtained from WikiLeaks.

U.S. research into configurations and technologies for future theater airlifters will wind up in 2011 without a clear path ahead to developing an eventual replacement for the widely used C-130. A six-year effort by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to mature technologies for a high-speed short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) transport will end this year with the completion of wind tunnel and flight-simulation studies.

Cyberoperations and electronic warfare are two of the three areas that can expect to survive in the next decade’s environment of shrinking defense budgets. The third will be the technologies needed to find targets for those computer, network and electronic attacks.

Manufacturers of military fixed-wing trainers are forecast to produce slightly more than 1,600 aircraft worth almost $19 billion during the next decade. A number of programs are underway or are being launched to replace fleets built in the 1970s and 1980s—or in the case of the U.S. Air Force’s T-38s the 1960s—but the market for trainers will be much smaller than it was back then.

A generational change is underway in fighter cockpits. Just as electro-mechanical gauges gave way to cathode-ray tubes, today’s limited-area, limited-function displays will be superseded by cockpit-spanning touch-screens. While the enabler is the commercial availability of large touch-sensitive liquid-crystal displays, the driver is the growth in information coming into the cockpit, and the need to elevate the pilot to battle manager rather than system operator.

Bell Helicopter has launched the Magellan program to develop a new product as part of an effort to revitalize its commercial rotorcraft business. Bell has talked of following the all-new Model 429 light turbine twin with a new medium twin to supersede the Model 412, and potentially compete with the AgustaWestland AW139 and Eurocopter EC175.

Where is the next combat aircraft? Domestic and export orders will keep U.S. and European production lines running through the middle of the decade. But development work is diminishing and design teams dissipating, and the gap between new programs stretches out.

Years of slack demand and intense competition have taken their toll on the expendable launch vehicle (ELV) market, leaving just two major players in the commercial launch sector: Russia’s International Launch Services (ILS) and Europe’s Arianespace. The outlook for these two companies has lately improved, with higher launch rates translating into bigger profit margins. At the same time, major commercial satellite operators such as SES Global and Intelsat have initiated large spacecraft programs that will require the services of Arianespace and ILS, among others.

The U.S. Army plans to deploy three Boeing YMQ-18A (A160T Hummingbird) long-endurance unmanned helicopters to Afghanistan as a quick-reaction capability (QRC). A U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency A160T will have the BAE Systems Argus-IS gigapixel wide-area surveillance sensor and a signals-intelligence package and be deployed this year. Two aircraft provided by U.S. Special Operations Command will follow in Fiscal 2012. The QRC will help define requirements for an Army vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aircraft program to start this year.

Compared with the decades-long evolution of military jet engines to ever-higher performance, the certification of front-line fleets to fly on alternative fuels is taking place in hyper speed—and faster than the fuels can be produced commercially. The U.S. Air Force expects by early this year to have all its aircraft certified to fly on a 50:50 blend of conventional JP-8 and synthetic jet fuel produced from coal or natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process.

Boeing’s latest delay in its 787 schedule involves pushing back first delivery to no earlier than July. The action leaves a string of questions about how the program’s protracted maturation is affecting the company’s long-term goals for dominating mid-sized international services.

The U.S. Air Force is assessing revised proposals from bidders to upgrade navigation and air traffic management equipment for the KC-10 refueler after last year’s selection of Boeing was botched. The service stopped work on Boeing’s $216-million development contract in October, saying there was a “need for corrective action associated with the original source selection.” Boeing, GE Aviation/L-3 and Rockwell Collins have submitted revised bids. USAF plans to select a winner by June.

Boeing says flight-testing of the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will continue expanding toward coverage of the full envelope, following the completion of full-scale static testing of the 737-based airframe on Jan. 7. The series of tests, which began in May 2009, put static vehicle S1 through 154 different conditions in which it sustained loads equal to or greater than those expected during operational flights. Boeing says no primary structure failures occurred during the tests, 74 of which subjected the airframe to 150% of the highest expected flight loads.

Boeing Co.’s share price rose 2% on Jan. 18, helping to push the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its highest close since mid-2008. But there was little reason to celebrate. That day, the company revealed that first delivery of its new 787 jet would slip another six months, to the third quarter of 2011, as the program recovers from an inflight electrical fire last November. If you’re counting, this is the seventh delay—some observers claim the eighth—for the 787, an aircraft originally scheduled to enter service in May 2008 (see p. 24).

Airbus faces at least a few more months of turbulence on A380 deliveries as it works to resolve supplier problems impeding a higher output.

Boeing has recorded its first orders in 2011: two 777s for American Airlines.

Despite the recent global economic crisis, the worldwide missile market will generate production worth an estimated $107 billion over the next 10 years. This market consists of air defense, air-to-air, anti-armor, anti-radar, anti-ship and strike systems. Advances in technology are allowing a single weapon to perform multiple roles, blurring divisions between market segments. This is especially noticeable in the anti-ship and strike missile markets, but it is also happening in other segments.