Two weeks after Russia announced its plan to produce Israeli UAVs, Azerbaijan also is inaugurating a production line for Israel’s Aeronautics Defense Systems’ Aerostar and Orbiter UAVs. says Yaver Jamalov, Azerbaijani defense minister. The country’s defense industry will hold 51% of the joint venture. The contract with Aeronautics has an estimated value of more than $200 million. Azerbaijan has signaled interest in arming the UAVs with bombs and rockets. The country’s air force already operates several dozen Aerostar tactical UAVs and Orbiter mini-UAVs.
If you are an aerospace engineering student pursuing a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree, you are encouraged to enter an essay contest being run by Usaire, an association of U.S. and European aerospace, defense and high-tech companies.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington), Mark Carreau (Galveston, Texas)
NASA will soon submit a revision of its dead-on-arrival Fiscal 2011 budget request, but the prognosis for the new figures does not seem much better than for the old.
Sikorsky’s X2 Technology high-speed helicopter demonstrator has reached 181 kt. in flight tests, faster than most conventional helicopters, clearing the way for the final push to 250 kt. The speed was achieved after the helicopter was “cleaned up“ to reduce drag, by making the landing gear retractable and fitting the rotor-hub fairings. Sikorsky has now completed three of the four phases of the company-funded X2 Technology demonstration program. The final phase is intended to demonstrate that the rigid coaxial-rotor helicopter can cruise comfortably at 250 kt.
Safran Chairman/CEO Jean-Paul Herteman says his company will look elsewhere for partners to shore up onboard computer and other defense electronics businesses that it had considered merging with units of Thales. Talks with Thales broke off earlier this month. Herteman says he doesn’t know if they can restart, despite threats by French defense officials—who favor such a link—that they may withhold R&D money to force a marriage, and comments by Thales chief Luc Vigneron that he might consider a sweetened deal (AW&ST May 17, p. 11).
Lockheed Martin will head the team supplying the Finnish air force with an airborne surveillance system, as well as associated ground systems, under an approximately $100-million, four-year contract. Team members include Patria Oy, Rockwell Collins, DRS Technologies, Applied Signal Technology, AdamWorks and L-3 Communications. They will work with Finnish industry members to modify an EADS CASA C-295 turboprop aircraft with advanced surveillance systems and provide the ground stations and communications terminals to support the airborne system.
Mike King (see photos) has been promoted to director of business development from manager of FlightSafety International ’s Learning Centers in Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn. He has been succeeded by Angela Gremard, who has been promoted from assistant manager of the St. Louis center.
The U.S. regional airline industry, beset by the harsh economic climate and serious questions about safety in the past couple of years, is at a crossroads. Some have chosen to redefine contracts with their mainline partners that allow them to fly larger aircraft under the network airline’s brand name, while others are focusing on feeding any carrier anywhere it is profitable to operate 30-seat turboprops, finding lucrative niches for the more efficient, albeit slower, aircraft. And manufacturers say regionals fill a needed role in the 60-99-seat market.
Taxi tests of the AeroVironment Global Observer hydrogen-powered high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft have been conducted at Edwards AFB, Calif. Next up is a final flight readiness review and initial low-altitude battery-powered flights.
Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air, which has thus far handled most of its heavy maintenance work internally, is considering outsourcing more of this work to FAA-certified, U.S.-based contractors—a move that has concerned union members. According to Jen Boyer, Horizon spokesperson, the carrier is weighing all options and has not yet made a decision. Horizon operates 40 Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 aircraft (with eight more on order) and 18 CRJ700s, and it outsources part of its Q400 airframe maintenance to AAR Corp., according to Aviation Week’s MRO Prospector database.
The U.K. Defense Ministry is reviewing the future of a long-range strike unmanned air project, and has, at the least, delayed awarding a demonstrator program to one of three bidders vying for the work. The ministry had been aiming to select a demonstrator design for its Novel Air Concept program in the first quarter of 2010. The original goal was to have a “flying demonstrator within three years” and an “experimental operational capability by 2015.” This date is now being reconsidered as part of the broader review of the program.
Managers of the James Webb Space Telescope are relying on innovation in a dozen key materials and assemblies—and the magic of red-shifted light—to bring scientists closer to the Big Bang than they have ever been.
Amy Butler (Langley AFB, Va., and Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio)
At least one cherished project for the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command appears to be progressing, although at the expense of some next-generation programs. Gen. William Fraser, who assumed leadership of the command in September 2009, is beginning to publicly lay out his vision, and a new bomber is prominent.
A Ball Aerospace engineer prepares the glass illumination ground support optics (background) and beryllium flight spare Secondary Mirror Assembly (foreground) for cryogenic optical and hexapod motion testing at -400F for the James Webb Space Telescope. Prime contractor Northrop Grumman, key suppliers such as Ball and an international team of instrument builders are developing new technologies for the JWST’s 6.5-meter infrared telescope, which will be the world’s largest orbiting observatory (see p. 59).
The Bell Boeing CV-22 and its associated defensive systems have the same major defensive shortcomings as the Boeing CH-47 Chinook: noise, size and massive twin infrared signatures (AW&ST April 26, p. 38). You may not see the target right away but if you can hear it, you can point your weapon system in that direction and eventually it will show up in your field of view. And with modern man-portable air defense systems such as the Russian-built SA-16 and -18, the job is that much easier.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has dismissed a protest over a U.S. Navy Commercial Broadband Satellite Program (CBSP) contract. The contract, awarded in January to a team comprising Intelsat, SES, Astrium/Paradigm and Loral Space & Communications/Hisdesat joint venture XTAR, was contested by a rival consortium made up of CapRock, Artel and Segovia. The five-year deal could be worth up to $543 million (AW&ST April 12, p. 52).
