As the New Year begins, I offer an apology of sorts to former President George W. Bush. During his tenure, Bush was criticized in this column for the “fiscal recklessness” of putting the Afghanistan and Iraq wars on a credit card. Considering that it took nearly nine years for the cumulative costs of those two conflicts to reach $1 trillion, it is breathtaking how quickly President Barack Obama and Republican leaders in Congress struck a “compromise” that will add another trillion dollars to the national debt. Tax cuts? Extend them for all and throw in some new ones.
I was saddened by the predictable decision by the French court that Continental Airlines was the sole criminal cause of the Concorde crash in July 2000. The court decided that a metal strip that fell from a Continental DC-10 and became foreign object debris (FOD) started the whole chain that led to the accident. The court further decided that no French person or organization contributed in any way to a criminally negligent act.
European Union emissions allowance (EUA) prices drifted further in December to end the year on a weak note as buy-side support dried up. EUAs for delivery in December 2011 took up the front-year position on the forward price curve after December 2010 over-the-counter contracts went to expiry on Dec. 1.
The photo of a Mojave Desert scene, on the lower half of page 52 of the Dec. 20/27, 2010, issue, should have been credited to Dr. Charles Dusenbury of Monterey, Calif.
In “Designs for Success” (AW&ST Nov. 1/8, 2010, p. 72) former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says that system engineering should “minimize unintended consequences. We rarely ask ‘What is this going to do that I don’t want it to do?’” He believes the community’s ability to predict how well the design will meet the objective is “poor and, at best, pathetic.” While I agree with most of his suggestions, it surprised me that he says that nobody has posed these kinds of questions before.
India has proved once again that it cannot move too fast in acquiring a major weapon system. Even as the evaluation of its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender comes closer to its final stages, evidence is mounting that downselect winners will not learn of their acceptance until the fourth quarter instead of the first.
With the New Start treaty with Russia overwhelmingly ratified by the Senate, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy repealed, and streamlined defense authorization language ready for presidential signature, the end of 2010 saw significant defense-related achievements for the Obama administration on Capitol Hill. But the victories are overshadowed by a slew of unfinished business, and 2011 is shaping up to be an even harder year for getting just the basics accomplished.
Jan. 17-19—Civil Air Navigation Services Organization’s Middle East Conference. Park Rotana Hotel, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. See www.canso.org Jan. 20-23—U.S. Sport Aviation Expo. Sebring (Fla.) Regional Airport. See www.sport-aviation-expo.com Jan. 24-26—International Quality and Productivity Center’s “Airport Security Asia 2011.” Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel. Call +65 (67) 229-388. See www.airportsecurityasia.com/Event
The U.S. Import-Export Bank has approved a $666-million loan package for the design and construction of Inmarsat’s Global Xpress Ka-band satellite system. The three-spacecraft system was ordered from Boeing last summer.
While Alfred “Fred” Kahn’s life focused on teaching economics and his love of Gilbert and Sullivan, his brief, but explosive, involvement with aviation as the champion for ending government control of route allocation and pricing will continue to reverberate across the industry.
This image of the planet Mercury is a day-long time exposure designed to reveal its comet-like tail of gas streaming away from the Sun. NASA’s Stereo-A solar probe captured the image, which shows a feature much brighter than would be expected from the sodium gas tail that can be seen from Earth. The U.S. space agency’s Messenger probe is set to reach Mercury on March 18, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit the innermost planet.
Perhaps the strongest measure of Ashton Carter’s influence in changing how the Pentagon buys weapons is the desire of so many industry titans to wait out his term as procurement czar and get back to business as usual.
Airbus Military has added a fourth A400M Grizzly to its flight test program. Despite a slow start, Airbus Military is running slightly ahead of the flight test schedule, with more than 1,000 hr. and 300 flights.
The European Commission and European Space Agency have opened a center in Fucino, Italy, that will be responsible for mission control of the Galileo satellite navigation system. A center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, is responsible for satellite control.
Meredith Siegfried (see photos) has been promoted to president of Nordam . She was chief operating officer of the company’s Repair Group. She was vice president of the Global Engineering and Quality, Repair Group. Basil Barimo is now vice president/general manager of the Repair Division and Global Technical Operations. Steve Pack is responsible for all of Nordam’s manufacturing operations as chief operating officer of the Manufacturing Group.
Michael T. Strianese, L-3 chairman, president and CEO, has been received the John W. Dixon Award from the Association of the U.S. Army . Strianese received the award for his company’s ongoing contributions to the U.S. armed forces and the defense industry.
Gregory D. Blaney has been named director of NASA ’s Independent Verification and Validation program, which provides software verification and validation services, as well as software safety assurance for the agency’s most critical missions. Blaney has been acting director since December 2009 and will continue to lead the facility’s day-to-day operations.
When David Neeleman was much younger, someone influential in his life must have taught him to think big and learn from his setbacks, because the combination have served this 51-year-old aviation entrepreneur well.
Intelsat is hopeful it can recover use of a wayward communications satellite that had wreaked havoc with operators around the world until it was finally shut down just prior to Christmas. Dubbed Zombie Sat,Galaxy 15 went out of control on April 5, sending operators scrambling to protect their spacecraft from interference. During the next six months, the spacecraft flew by a dozen satellites, in some cases coming to within a tenth of the distance normally maintained between geostationary satcoms (AW&ST May 24, 2010, p. 23).
The Russian government is struggling to compensate for a Proton launch failure that dashed hopes of having a full 24-unit Glonass navigation satellite constellation in service by the end of 2010.
Aviastar-SP completed the first flight of the Tupolev Tu-204SM on Dec. 29. The SM is aimed at giving the Tu-204, in production since 1989, another lease on life. It features a slightly lighter airframe, more modern avionics, a two-pilot cockpit, a new auxiliary power unit and improved Perm PS-90A2 engines designed by Russian Aviadvigatel with Pratt & Whitney. Next year, Aviastar-SP plans to produce another prototype of the SM, with an aim to complete type certification tests by 2012. However, the future of the upgrade remains unclear.
French armaments agency DGA has qualified the MM40 Block 3 Exocet antiship missile, which is intended for France’s Horizon and Fremm frigates, for active service. The first four of an initial batch of 45 Block 3s, which will double the range of the Exocet and give it a land-strike capability, were delivered in mid-December; the remainder are due by mid-2013.
