Considering the immense deficit-reduction work that lies ahead to help restore U.S. economic strength—which underwrites the nation’s military power—the aerospace industry ought to have breathed a sigh of relief when Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently unveiled the Pentagon’s Fiscal 2012 budget. Even with $78 billion stripped from future spending and another $100 million reallocated internally, government suppliers for the most part still dodged the proverbial bullet.
Meantime, NASA and the space industry’s interests suffered two setbacks in Congress last week when Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) announced her 2012 retirement plans just days after an unrelated assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Both are considered reliable defenders of the U.S. space program, which is struggling to implement the nebulous NASA authorization act passed last year (see p. 18). Hutchison’s departure from the Capitol has long been expected—she tried unsuccessfully last year to be the Texas Republican candidate for governor.
Feb. 1-2—MRO Middle East Conference & Exhibition. Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Feb. 16-17—A&D Technology & Requirements Conference. Washington. March 8—Laureates Awards. Washington. April 12-13—MRO Military Conference & Exhibition. Miami. April 12-13—MRO Latin America Conference & Exhibition. Miami. April 12-14—MRO Americas Conference & Exhibition. Miami. May 10-12—NextGen Ahead. Washington. May 24-25—A&D Cybersecurity Forum. Washington.
China’s newest combat aircraft prototype, the J-20, will require an intense development program if it is going to catch up with fast-moving anti-stealth advances.
The Indian navy is establishing an unmanned-aircraft unit to address critical surveillance gaps over the Arabian Sea that were exposed during the November 2008 terror attack in Mumbai. Designated INAS 343, the squadron’s assets—Israel Aerospace Industries Herons and Searcher Mk. IIs—will be carved out from the fleet operated by India’s first UAV squadron, INAS 342. The latter currently operates eight Searchers and six Herons.
Aviation Week’s selection of Jeffery Smisek as 2010 Person of the Year has left me wondering if your choice was premature. I will not disparage Smisek’s reputation in the industry. It is well-known and he is well-respected, but all the man did was sign on the dotted line to merge two major airlines. Other than painting a few jets in the new livery, Smisek hasn’t solved any labor issues (the 70-seat regional jet court decision comes to mind) or done much else and it seems that this is still a merger in its infancy.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) plans an attempt to free NASA from a requirement that it fund the moribund Constellation program of exploration spacecraft, which was killed in the new NASA authorization act Nelson helped draft. Under language drafted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), NASA must fund Constellation until a new appropriations bill passes Congress. NASA’s inspector general finds the agency will spend as much as $575 million by Sept. 30 on Constellation projects it otherwise would have scrapped.
Beijing Capital Airlines, a business aviation and air tour operator, plans to field more than 270 aircraft by 2015 as it exploits the explosive growth of the local market. Within that fleet, 141 will be business airplanes, says Ma Guohua, president of HNA Tourism, to which Capital is affiliated. The carrier has 24 business aircraft now, in a fleet of 50 aircraft of all types. One Boeing Business Jet is already on Capital’s books, and three are on order.
Gulfstream Aerospace appears to have made history by becoming the first civil aircraft manufacturer to fly a production fly-by-wire aircraft—a G650—using only a digitally controlled, electrically powered flight control system. The G650 only has two hydraulic systems, either of which can power the flight controls. The third flight control actuator system is fully electric, using electric backup hydrostatic actuators to move the ailerons, rudder, elevators and outboard wing multifunction spoilers.
Human factors, including psychological pressure on the pilot to take unjustified risks in poor weather, were cited by the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee in its final report on the Polish air force Tupolev Tu-154M crash on April 10, 2010, which killed all 96 on board, including Poland’s president and much of the military high command. No evidence of aircraft, engine or system failures before the collision was revealed, the report says.
French defense minister Alain Juppe has rejected industry entreaties to spend up to €100 million ($133 million) on ballistic missile defense technologies, according to industry officials. Contractors had hoped that Juppe would reverse the anti-BMD policy of his predecessor, Herve Morin, following a NATO agreement in late 2010 approving a plan for territorial missile defense.
India will gain its first component repair shop in a joint venture between Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance (AFI KLM E&M) and Mumbai-based Max Aerospace and Aviation Ltd.’s Max MRO Services. Construction is to start early this year and finish in the first quarter of 2013, says AFI KLM E&M President Franck Terner. Terms were not disclosed, but the company, as yet unnamed, is expected to start operations with a 10,000-sq.-meter (108,000-sq.-ft.) facility.
John Crichton, president and CEO of Nav Canada, has been chosen to be a member of Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame . He was instrumental in the establishment and privatization of Nav Canada in the 1990s and was head of the Air Transport Association from 1994-97, when he played a major role in the prelminaries to the 1995 U.S.-Canada open skies agreement.
Julian Beames (see photo) has been named regional manager at Communications Software (Airline Systems) Ltd. His career history in the aerospace and defense industries includes roles at British Aerospace, BAE Systems, Airbus and Qinetiq.
Matthew Hall has been tapped to join London City Airport as chief commercial officer, effective March 1. He is currently vice president of airline and supplier business development for Travelport and before that was managing director, sales and marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for American Airlines.
A ground-launched, two-stage Mach 4 scramjet that can intercept incoming targets traveling at supersonic speed could be developed with existing technology, says a team from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), South Korea’s space agency.
Cameron Kenyon has been named executive vice president of operations at Calgary, Alberta-based WestJet . He was president and chief operating officer of Lynx Aviation in Denver.
Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems have reached an agreement on 787 shipset pricing that Spirit Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Phil Anderson called “fair and equitable.” Terms were not disclosed but J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Nadol, 3rd, estimates it involves a payment of “hundreds of millions” of dollars from Boeing to Spirit. Last year, Boeing settled with Finmeccanica for the strain imposed by the 787 program running three years late in deliveries. Boeing is negotiating with Fuji, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi.
Back home, technical problems with Lockheed Martin’s F-35B aircraft that prompted Gates to put the program on a two-year probation “will soon be resolved,” asserts the commandant of the Marine Corps. “None of the currently known issues are considered to be showstoppers,” Gen. James Amos says. The commandant, an aviator himself, pledges to personally track the progress of the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) F-35B.
Raytheon Co. saw its share price decline 8% in 2010, but then gained all of it back in the first seven days of 2011. Investors may have soured on defense stocks as budget pressure mounts in the U.S. and Europe, but some are having second thoughts about whether the sell-off has gone too far. A case in point is the market’s reaction to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s latest round of budget cuts, which were less severe than Wall Street had anticipated.
The replies given by Vice Adm. David J. Dorsett in “Intel About China Flawed” (AW&ST Jan. 10, p. 26) with respect to intelligence in general and the Chinese in particular are astounding. He says: “In terms of the [J-20] stealth photos, it’s not clear to me when it’s going to become operational. Do we need to refine our assessment better? I think so.” Well, it certainly was not clear to him what was being built, and refining assessment capabilities is an understatement. He then downplays the impact of such aircraft capabilities as well as the anti-ship missile.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates left China last week with assurances that both the political and military leadership there are determined to advance bilateral relations with the U.S.—but Pentagon officials also came away with newfound doubt over relations among Chinese politicians and military leaders. Gates’s agenda included discussing specific contentious issues, including nuclear missile defense, space and cyber operations, and containing threats from North Korea. But the visit was punctuated by the flight test of an apparent Chinese J-20 prototype (see p.
Robert Dumais, USAF Brig. Gen. (ret.) Jack Gibbs (deceased) and USAF Col. (ret.) Richard Randazzo (deceased) have been selected by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for the Pioneer Class of 2010. Dumais pioneered the intelligence utility of a new capability for an imaging satellite system. Gibbs helped pioneer the application of innovative engineering techniques to U-2 operations, and Randazzo pioneered the introduction and application of new operational techniques for NRO imaging systems, increasing coverage of high-priority targets.
The European Commission and Italy have agreed on the size of disbursements arising out of a dispute regarding the improper use by the Italian government of state development aid for two AgustaWestland aircraft, the A139/AW139 helicopter and the BA609 tiltrotor, in a ruling that could have broad repercussions for Europe’s aerospace industry.
Taipei Songshan Airport expects to open a privately run business aviation facility this year to accommodate traffic growth of private aircraft at the centrally located downtown facility. A customs, immigration and quarantine area for business aviation is also planned for this year.
