While the Boeing 787’s composite structure has drawn considerable interest, the first truly all-composite FAR 25 jet—that is, a transport-category aircraft with composite fuselage, wings and empennage—is Bombardier’s Learjet 85 (below). It is being manufactured at the company’s Queretaro, Mexico, complex and will be completed and delivered out of the Learjet plant in Wichita, Kan.
Scaled Composites hopes to achieve one additional glide test of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) by year-end and says that even if bad weather prevents the attempt, the program is already ahead of schedule following a trouble-free initial unpowered flight on Oct. 10.
Cybersecurity is a big problem for all sorts of industries these days. Indeed, I have seen more genuine and widespread alarm about cybersecurity attacks and threats among corporate executives during the past year than in any of the previous 20 years I’ve worked in this industry. In the past 12 months, the level of alarm has intensified considerably—in some cases to remarkable levels—compared with only 2-3 years ago.
Thank you for publishing Jonathan Penn’s recent Viewpoint “NASA’s Plan Is Not Sustainable,” (AW&ST Dec. 6, p. 74). The pull quote that accompanied it: “Manned missions beyond the Moon are not practical with today’s chemical rocket propulsion. NASA should return to prominence its role as developer of new technologies” sums up the problem.
I thoroughly enjoyed the articles on the space shuttle and the ending of an era in manned space travel (AW&ST Dec. 6, p. 66). The storied battles over budget versus technological innovation may best be summarized by the picture of astronaut “Hoot” Gibson. Perched right behind his head there appears to be a roll of very low-tech duct tape!
A quick compromise last week to try to help passage of defense authorization for the remainder of Fiscal 2011 could be a bellwether of defense legislation in the next Congress. Lawmakers stripped numerous contentious provisions from an earlier version of the defense authorization—including language on the F136 alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter and on the KC-X tanker program. “Because of the unique circumstances in which the bill is being considered and the . . .
The Italian air force wants to bolster its force projection ability and has launched two initiatives to implement lessons from prior operational experience: an effort to bolster the infrastructure at the Pisa air force base to create an air transport hub by 2014, collocated with the C-130J and C-27J fleets; and a €365-million ($482-million) spending initiative to set up teams that can deploy early into a conflict zone and smooth the way for follow-on forces.
Automakers in Europe and perhaps elsewhere may soon be using fasteners developed for the International Space Station and NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission to save weight. The European Space Agency’s technology broker, MST Aerospace, has pushed bolts containing an internal strain-measurement sensor into the auto industry, where they may have applications in drive trains and axles.
Driven partly by a surge in new engine programs including the PW800 and geared turbofan, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) will invest more than $1 billion in research and development (R&D) on next-generation engine technology over the next five years. Spending includes a $300-million repayable contribution from the Canadian government under the Strategic Aerospace and Defense Initiative program. P&WC is recruiting more than 200 engineers to support new development programs, bringing its engineering workforce to more than 1,500 in Canada.
The British defense ministry should include in its budget an unallocated amount of funding that could be used to cover unexpected bills and thereby limit disruptions throughout the spending plan, Parliament’s public accounts committee recommends in its latest lament about the poor fiscal discipline of the department. The panel also expressed concern that the £36-billion ($56.2-billion), 10-year over-commitment in the defense budget has not been fully addressed.
Paul Murray (see photo), non-executive director and Audit Committee chair at Royal Mail Holdings, has been selected as an independent non-executive director of the Qinetiq board. He also holds directorships at Knowledge Peers and Tangent Communications. Honors And Elections
A Russian state commission investigating a Dec. 5 Proton M Block DM launch failure has cleared the Proton M vehicle as the cause of the incident, which destroyed three Glonass navigation satellites. The interim report says the three lowest Proton M launcher stages, supplied by Proton prime contractor Khrunichev, performed nominally, and the functioning of launch vehicle systems and assemblies raised “no issues.” The findings suggest the problem may lie with the Block DM, control systems or other systems linking the launch vehicle to the upper stage.
Alitalia in the coming weeks expects to take the final steps to implementing its recovery strategy, including fleet composition adjustments and additional layoffs.
Is the French Justice Department running the show? Is flight safety in the hands of lawyers? Is criminalization the right way to go? These questions, though far from new, are being re-emphasized in light of the Concorde trial. More than 10 years after Air France Flight 4590 crashed near Paris Charles De-Gaulle Airport, a French court exonerated two retired Aerospatiale executives and a former French civil aviation authorities (DGAC) official but found a Continental Airlines mechanic guilty.
Competition for the job of sending crews to the International Space Station for hire will pick up in 2011 with the addition of a new vehicle proposal from Orbital Sciences Corp. in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) effort. If selected in the $200-million second round of CCDev, the Dulles, Va.-based company will begin work in earnest on a four-seat composite “blended lifting body” launched at least initially on an Atlas V and returning to a runway landing.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft was due to dock with the International Space Station Dec. 17 after a Dec. 15 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Soyuz TMA-20 crew will spend five months on the station in an expedition that is planned to feature a flurry of multinational cargo mission activities intended to prepare the orbiting lab for the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet.
Neil Siegel (see photo), VP and chief engineer for Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Information Systems Sector, has been chosen to receive the 2011 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal for his engineering work that led to the development of the digital battlefield, which uses information technology and wireless networking to improve the effectiveness of combined-arms and combat forces.
BARBARA BAKER BURROWS is director of photography for LIFE, whose books in the last year included The Royals, John Lennon, 100 People Who Changed The World, America: A Visual History and Wonders of Life. Burrows has been associated with the magazine for more than 40 years, during which she has assigned and coordinated the photography of major events from LIFE’s coverage of the Apollo program to John Glenn’s return to space, Democratic and Republican National Conventions and the Olympics.
Maggie Luciano-Williams has been named senior VP-human resources at the International Lease Finance Corp. She has been chief human resources officer for digital marketing agency iCrossing and has held human resource management positions at America West Airlines.
