FAA Administrator Randy Babbit should quit dragging his feet on the pilot time and duty issue (“The Price of Safety,” AW&ST Sept. 20/27, p. 28). Congress mandated action. At the very least, just changing the time the clock starts for Parts 121 and 135 pilots’ rest time (from block in at the gate to arriving at the hotel) should have been enacted. The FAA needs to change this now. Let Congress deal with complaints from the airlines.
Michael J. Paul has been named executive director of Stamford, Conn.-based Passur Aerospace Inc. ’s Technology Advisory Board. He was president of Predictive Business Systems and had been chief information officer and vice president-materials planning at Sikorsky Aircraft .
With a successful operational evaluation in hand, the U.S. Marine Corps is planning to request approval for full-rate production of the new AH-1Z attack helicopter after a years-long shortfall. The Defense Acquisition Board is set to review the program in early November, says Col. Harry Hewson, who manages the Huey and Cobra upgrade programs for the Naval Air Systems Command.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has an idea for those who keep pushing an alternate to the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine for the Joint Strike Fighter—get General Electric and Rolls-Royce to cut the price.
In “Emerging Conundrum” (AW&ST Sept. 6, p. 46), Rockwell Collins CEO Clay Jones says he is not concerned about Chinese competitors, because his company can stay ahead of them.
Industry consultants at Washington-area Input predict that defense procurements will dominate major U.S. federal contracts next year, a reversal of fortune from 2010. Analysts there said Oct. 6 that more than 80% of the roughly $142 billion in total contract value already identified for 2011 will be associated with defense agencies. But competition among vendors still will be harder because of fewer new opportunities.
Take an industry that has been hit with tens of thousands of layoffs, weak orders, steep production cuts and a cutoff in credit for its customers. Sprinkle in a debt crisis in Europe and top it off with a sputtering U.S. economy. What do you get? A recipe for another dismal year.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote those words in 1926, but he could have been describing the business jet market of 2010.
Several articles in your magazine regarding hypersonic vehicles continue a trend that confuses me. In one case, “Dissecting Scramjet” (AW&ST Aug. 2, p. 35), the author ends with “ . . . the X-51A reached a maximum speed of Mach 4.88 . . . making the flight 11 times longer than any
Engineers at NASA will base the agency’s next launch vehicle on existing technology, and on a potential 50% funding boost for advanced-technology work to develop hardware for “evolving” its ability to send humans and scientific probes deeper into space. President Barack Obama signed a compromise three-year, $58.4-billion NASA reauthorization bill into law on Oct. 11. Under the two-step legislative process, Congress must now appropriate the funding to carry out the programs authorized in the measure.
The European Space Agency is working with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and national governments to reduce interference that threatens to reduce the usefulness of data from its Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. Launched in November 2009 and commissioned in May (AW&ST May 31, p.
Australia’s regional aviation industry has a stark message for the country’s new leadership: Infrastructure spending is desperately needed, and some proposed policies will cause fresh financial headaches for carriers.
Sukhoi says it will deliver the first Su-35 multirole fighters to the Russian air force by year-end. Last year, the Russian military ordered 48 fighters with the deliveries to be completed by 2015. Sukhoi says the first production Su-35S is already in final assembly, with preparations underway for flight testing.
Former astronaut Sally Ride, a member of the Norman Augustine panel that declared NASA’s old Constellation program of back-to-the-Moon vehicles “unsustainable,” finds the agency’s new compromise authorization act is “a good bill” that addresses many of the issues the panel raised (see p. 31). The new law requires NASA to incorporate workers, contracts and technology from the $9-billion Constellation effort “wherever practicable.” For Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who pushed the compromise, the $11.5 billion authorized for a new heavy-lift launch vehicle should be sufficient.
NASA has awarded Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne a $60.3-million contract to extend support for the space shuttle main engine (SSME) through March 31, 2011. The contract will cover the last two remaining shuttle flights on the manifest: STS-133, to launch Nov. 1; and STS-134, scheduled for Feb. 27. The contract does not cover SSME support for STS-135, the currently unfunded shuttle mission Congress authorized to launch in June 2011.
Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine will power the initial purchase of Israeli air force F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, the company said Oct. 14, noting that “the F135 is the only engine currently powering the F-35 aircraft and is in production today.” Pratt is trying to fight off a team of General Electric and Rolls-Royce that is pitching the F136 for U.S. Joint Strike Fighters, even though White House and Pentagon leadership do not want it. Lawmakers, many of whom support continuing the F136, are expected to confront the issue when they reconvene after the Nov.
Don’t trust Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s fiery CEO, when he claims the days of two-digit traffic growth belong to the past. He is, again, envisioning a 300-aircraft order that would nearly double the low-cost carrier’s fleet. However, the problem with O’Leary remains what it has been for the past 15 years: You never know when to take him seriously; it’s hard to differentiate between his true intentions and provocation. Frequently, O’Leary is looking for free publicity, proposing extravagant initiatives to further cut costs or generate additional revenues.
