The Pentagon says Foreign Military Sales (FMS) for the past fiscal year reached $25.2 billion, with another $6.4 billion in other security cooperation deals. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notes that its combined deals have now topped $30 billion for the third straight year. Israel heads the list of customers with $4 billion in deals, followed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia at $2.6 billon.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ronald L. Watts (Englewood, Fla.)
“Intelligence Choices: Boeing, Northrop Battle Over New USAF Ground Surveillance Designs” (AW&ST Sept. 13, p. 44) illustrates how the media create a perception that a proposal like a Boeing 737-based airborne ground surveillance system is even plausible.
The first complete J-2X upper-stage rocket engine is being assembled by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), and will be ready for testing early next year—just as the Ares I crew launch vehicle that it paced runs out of money.
USAF Lt. Gen. Philip M. Breedlove has been nominated for promotion to general with assignment as vice chief of staff. He has been deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. Breedlove will be succeeded by Lt. Gen. Herbert J. Carlisle, who has been commander of the 13th Air Force, Pacific Air Forces, Hickam AFB, Hawaii. Carlisle will be followed by Maj. Gen. Stanley T. Kresge, who has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general. He has been commander of the U.S.
Philip Galbraith has joined Airclaims Singapore from the London office. Before that, he worked for British Airways. Gina Pellegrino has been named an aviation surveyor within the company’s Miami office. She worked at Southwest Airlines and Pratt & Whitney. Jean-Philippe Rogier joined Airclaims from Sat-Heli, a maintenance, repair and overhaul operation at Bourges, France, where he was technical manager and airworthiness review manager.
Alex Berry has been named director of Chapman Freeborn Airchartering ’s executive jet division. In a career spanning more than 13 years, Berry has worked in executive positions for NetJets Europe, Marquis Jet and Bombardier Skyjet International, where he helped develop the jet card program. He also was executive vice president at VistaJet.
An unusual partnership is working to combine two normally opposing characteristics increasingly sought in unmanned aircraft: long endurance and runway independence. Unmanned industry leader AAI has sufficient confidence in tiny Carter Aviation Technologies’ slowed rotor/compound (SR/C) concept (see photos) that it is modifying two prototypes of its next-generation Shadow UAV to flight-test the design.
China’s largest aerospace company, Avic, has far to go in the reform effort launched two years ago, as long-established plants and institutes only gradually cede power to a new set of subsidiaries that are crucial to the group’s development. What should eventually emerge is a clean corporate structure in which the Avic head office in Beijing guides group strategy, allocates resources and sets financial targets; the new subsidiaries integrate the group’s product lines; and the plants and institutes concentrate on operations.
After years of wrangling with military space management issues, the U.S. Air Force is no longer seeking approval to oversee milestone decision authority for the Pentagon’s multibillion-dollar satellite program portfolio. This is a major shift from only a few years ago, when service officials hoped to regain authority over these programs.
Norwegian Air Shuttle is moving ahead with plans to expand its low-fare carrier operation to long-haul service, aiming to have the operation running no later than 2012 when it plans to field Boeing 787s. The airline says it has secured the lease of two 787s from International Lease Finance Corp., with the aircraft due to arrive in the fall of 2012. An airline official notes that the European route network is now strong enough to support expansion into long-haul operations. Flights to the U.S. and Asia would originate at Oslo and Stockholm.
Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center are preparing for a 50-sec. hot-fire test of the Aerojet AJ26-62 engine slated to power the Taurus II commercial cargo vehicle, following a 10-sec. start-and-stop test Nov. 10. The modified Russian engine verified startup and shutdown sequences, as well as operations at the E-1 test stand at Stennis. The stand was modified for the Taurus II engine-acceptance tests under an effort to seed development of private vehicles that can deliver cargo to the International Space Station. After data from the 10-sec.
When it comes to future military export markets, the rise of China remains one of the big variables. Even though the nation ranks as the second biggest military spender globally, it is not among the top 10 exporters or importers of military equipment. The latter situation stems partly from an arms embargo imposed by the West after the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising.
Reader Thomas Rees perpetuates a common fallacy with his recent statement that it is impossible to predict global weather results decades in advance when “results are currently unpredictable week to week” (AW&ST Nov. 1/8, p. 12). It is akin to saying that since the next spin of a roulette wheel is unpredictable, the long-term financial performance of the casino is also unpredictable. Short-term random variation is independent of long-term trends.
U.S. Air Force officials are looking beyond the Japanese-made liquid apogee engine (LAE) for the culprit for the failure of the first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite to reach orbit, says Undersecretary Erin Conaton. The IHI model BT-4 LAE failed twice to fire during an orbit-raising attempt shortly after the satellite launched Aug. 14. Possible contributors could include a problem with the fuel source or LAE fuel supply lines.
Mary Pat Hartnett (see photo) has been promoted to assistant vice president-programs at SRCTec (Syracuse Research Corp.) from director-electronic warfare programs. Gary Stevens has been promoted to assistant vice president from director of manufacturing.
U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman officials are still planning to conduct the first flight of the Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator Dec. 12 at Edwards AFB, Calif. The low-observable, tailless aircraft was slated for first flight during the summer, but it was slipped to allow additional time for working through challenges with the interface between the air vehicle and aircraft carrier.
Founded: 1946 Ownership: Lee Terry/Terry Family Employees: 98 Revenues: $12 million Business: Seal, gasket and clamp block specialist working in various silicones and natural and petroleum-based rubbers, primarily for Boeing.
Dr. Daniel G. Hankins, Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, has been selected president of the Association of Air Medical Services for a second one-year term. He is co-medical director of Mayo Clinic Medical Transport and Emergency Communications.
The new Franco-British defense accord is expected to trigger a series of initiatives that could remake Europe’s military industrial landscape. However, skeptics suggest the expansive commitments may trigger unsettling ripples in neighboring countries and have little staying power once national budgets recover.
Boeing was going through a particularly rough patch in 1971 when it had just 89 orders and Congress pulled the plug on the Supersonic Transport. Employment plunged by 38,000 workers and unemployment hit 14% in Seattle’s Puget Sound area.
In “Refining Procedures” (AW&ST Oct. 18, p. 47), clearly the aircraft in question was lost due to water ingress into the angle-of-attack (AOA) sensors during the rinsing process. The AOA sensors should have been blanked prior to the rinse and an entry made in the Aircraft Technical Log (ATL) that the aircraft had been “prepared for wash.” Following the rinse, the ATL should have been annotated that blanks had been removed. I am amazed that the French accident investigation office, BEA, has not addressed the improper preparation of the aircraft.
Japan soon is expected to issue a long-awaited request for proposals for its F-X fighter competition, despite a media report that the country has settled on the Lockheed Martin F-35 as a future combat aircraft. The Mainichi newspaper says the ministry plans to request “procurement costs” for the F-35 in its Fiscal 2012 budget request But the report, attributed to sources in the ministry and defense forces, left open the possibility of Japan buying other aircraft as immediate replacements for F-4 Phantoms, the requirement that is supposed to be filled by the F-X program.
China is set to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest market for commercial air travel, but the market’s huge size also means Western aircraft-makers face a challenge from Chinese state-owned manufacturers wanting a large piece of the action.
Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are working to bring the Cassini Saturn probe back on line after it went into a safe mode Nov. 2. While they expect to recover the spacecraft, they missed a chance to collect science data during a Titan flyby Nov. 11. The spacecraft safes itself whenever it needs attention from controllers, and has 53 more Titan flybys before its extended mission ends in 2017.
