Israel’s defense planners face headaches generated by their neighbors’ increasingly large stockpile of well-calibrated missiles and rockets. The new weapons also offer unexpected trajectories, and refined reentry vehicles expand the areas in eastern Iran where launch sites can be hidden.
News from the cyberfront has been universally bleak for several years, but now there is hope for progress “in the next several months,” as the Defense Department rolls out its plans for organizing the cybersphere, says Robert Butler, deputy assistant defense secretary for cyberpolicy. “We have a strategy moving forward and a series of operating concepts under consideration that will come together inside a planning and programming discussion,” Butler says.
The U.K. is continuing to rely on Hermes 450 unmanned aircraft operations in Afghanistan on a fee-for-service basis. Manufacturer Elbit Systems says UAS Tactical Systems—a joint venture with Thales U.K. for the unmanned aircraft operational work—has secured a $70-million deal to continue the operation for another 18 months. A further contract will depend on U.K. redeployment plans in Afghanistan. The government currently says it plans to depart by 2015.
Despite its current economic woes, Cessna Aircraft is spending on R&D and used the recent NBAA Convention to showcase its upgraded Citation Ten (above), the first of what CEO Jack Pelton promises will be a steady parade of new or improved models.
LAN Airlines plans to enter the highly competitive Colombian market through the purchases of the country’s second-largest operator, Aires, and domestic startup AerOasis. The Aires deal will cost LAN $32.5 million for a 99% stake in the company, while financial details of the AerOasis acquisition are not being disclosed. Aires will give LAN an automatic 22% share of Colombia’s domestic market, along with 27 local and three international destinations.
Once a driver of innovation, the aerospace and defense industry finds itself responding to global economic and social changes that are transforming both the market conditions and the business environment in which it operates.
Boeing last week initiated its third supplier shipment hold of the year to allow Alenia Aeronautica to complete horizontal stabilizer work in Italy. A company official says it involves “a slight re-phasing of some 787 shipment dates.” That action is described as “unique partner to partner” but is expected to last about two weeks. “It’s a smaller adjustment than the prior re-sequencings,” the official says. Last June, Boeing revealed that it was experiencing workmanship issues on its final assembly line in Everett, Wash., on horizontal stabilizers shipped from Alenia.
The French government is close to awarding a contract for integration of the MBDA Meteor ramjet-powered air-to-air missile on the Dassault Rafale strike fighter. France would be the second country to pay to integrate the weapon onto its combat aircraft, following Sweden, which recently decided to do so on the Saab JAS 39 Gripen. Rafale and Gripen are vying with others to secure export deals to bolster their order books. Eurofighter officials also are trying to convince their core customer countries to award integration contracts between the Typhoon and Meteor.
Pratt & Whitney is poised to complete final service-release tests of the F135 Joint Strike Fighter Stovl (short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing) propulsion system, while the competing General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 team says plans for first flight remain on track despite last month’s fan incident.
Tokyo aims to become a more attractive gateway for international travelers with the reopening of Haneda Airport to international services. The airport last week officially inaugurated its new international terminal with an initial annual capacity of 7 million passengers. To facilitate up to 30,000 more aircraft movements in the first year, the new D runway also became operational on Oct. 21, albeit several months later than planned.
NASA will pay United Launch Alliance $187 million to launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) orbiter to the red planet in November 2013. Under the new contract, ULA will use an Atlas V 401 to send the atmospheric probe to Mars, including payload processing, ground support at the launch site, and tracking, data and telemetry services.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden took two press secretaries with him to China last week (see p. 34), but he ducked the press while he was there with a little help from his hosts. Bolden got the visit to China’s human spaceflight launch center at Jiuquan that was denied his predecessor, Michael Griffin, and he toured some of the space facilities around Beijing. Bolden met with Chinese space officials, but apparently proposed no cooperative initiatives. He left it to his deputy—Lori Garver—to talk about the trip.
Michael A. Taverna (Toulouse), Brendan Gallagher (Toulouse)
A single touch-screen display across the breadth of the cockpit? Alerts to warn pilots they are dozing off, or that they’re looking at the wrong solution to a sudden problem? A single-pilot flight crew? None of those scenarios are as far-fetched as they might have seemed just a few years ago.
Engineers and a former astronaut have started human-in-the-loop testing of the environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) for Bigelow Aerospace’s Sundancer inflatable orbital module, using a 90-cu.-meter (3,178-cu.-ft.) chamber at the Orbitech facility in Madison, Wis. Initial 8-hr. tests will evaluate thermal and humidity control, ventilation, carbon dioxide and trace contaminant removal, and atmospheric monitoring.
Nov. 1-2—Shephard Group’s Air Power Middle East 2010. Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Doha, Qatar. Call +44 (175) 372-7019 or see www.shephard.co.uk Nov. 1-2—University of Westminster Aviation Seminar. “Market Research for Air Transport: Practical Techniques and Strategies.” Also, Nov. 3-5—“Demand Analysis and Capacity Management: The Air Transport Issues.” London. See www.westminster.ac.uk/aviation
At a meeting on space exploration organized in Brussels last week by the European Union, the international space community--including NASA, Roskosmos, Japan’s JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency--agreed to hold regular forums to plan and coordinate exploration activities using the International Space Station (ISS) as the starting point for collaboration. The European Space Agency has agreed to extend use of the ISS to all EU countries, to share its costs among more users.
Capt. Konstantin “K.” Volodzko (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
The “Price of Safety” (AW&ST Sept. 20/27, p. 28) just scratched the surface as to the ill-effects of the new notice of proposed rule-making (NPRM). When FAA Administrator J. Randolph Babbitt was flying the line at Eastern Airlines, two-man flight deck crews could leave the cockpit, stretch their legs and clear their minds, interacting with passengers and cabin crew before returning to their stations. Thanks to 9/11, that world is gone. Pilots are virtual prisoners locked behind bulletproof doors.
India’s Rustom-H medium-altitude long endurance unmanned aircraft is expected to birth a hunter-killer variant to provide the country with its first indigenously developed armed combat unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
Darren Shannon (Dublin ), Andrew Compart (Washington)
A revival in international yields and a commitment to shareholder value produced some of the best third-quarter results on record for U.S. legacy carriers, but behind the grandiose statements there lurks the specter of another fuel-price hike that could destroy this newfound momentum.
Boeing has shipped LightSquared SkyTerra 1 to Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a Nov. 14 launch on an International Launch Services Proton. One of its 702HP series, SkyTerra 1 will combine four gateway ground stations and ground-based beam-forming equipment to create two space-based networks for LightSquared, the former SkyTerra. Once in orbit, the satellite’s 22-meter (80-ft.) L-band reflector antenna will be the largest commercial one launched.
The U.S. Army is close to deploying the first medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicle system it has developed from the ground up, as a program of record. At the same time, Army researchers are pushing forward with a number of new UAV programs for an unprecedented diversity of missions.
The U.K.’s decision to drastically alter its fast-jet fleet plans introduces new uncertainties into the global fighter market. In a two-pronged move, London is trimming its buy of Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and changing course on the model.
George Larson, senior editor of Aviation Week’s Business & Commercial Aviation magazine, has won the 2010 David Ewald Platinum Wing Award for lifetime achievement and excellence in journalism. The award was presented by the National Business Aviation Association at its annual meeting in Atlanta (see p. 35). Larson, who also is the author of books on flying, worked at Flying magazine and founded and edited Air & Space magazine for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
Washington sympathizes with London’s making difficult choices in its national security restructuring (see p. 20), but officials are initially defensive about suggestions the U.K. might not remain a strong ally.
