Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of the Murray River Basin in Australia—collected March 20 and 21 using the Italian Cosmos-Skymed satellite—show the progress of flooding in the area around Goodooga City, New South Wales. Black areas denote the presence of water. Blue areas indicate no changes between the two images (where there is rocky terrain or bare soil) and yellow indicates objects such as trees or vegetation.
NASA’s first science flight using a former U.S. Air Force Northrop Grumman Global Hawk UAV was completed over the Pacific on April 7. The flight was the first of five scheduled for this month’s Global Hawk Pacific mission to study atmospheric science over the Pacific and Arctic oceans. During the 14-hr. flight, the UAV flew approximately 4,500 nm. along a flight path that took it to just south of Alaska’s Kodiak Island and reached an altitude of 60,900 ft.
April 20-22—MRO Americas/MRO Military Conference & Exhibition. Phoenix. April 28-30—Phoenix Sky Harbor International Aviation Symposium. May 10-13—Special Operations Forces Exhibition and Conference. Amman, Jordan May 19-21—NextGen Conference & Exhibition. Washington. June 8-13—ILA-Berlin Air Show. July 19-25—Farnborough 2010. Sept. 27-Oct. 1—International Astronautical Congress. Prague. Sept. 28-30—MRO Europe. London.
Laurence E. Simmons has been appointed to the board of directors of Continental Airlines . He is president of SCF Partners and a former member of the board of ExpressJet Holdings Inc.
Pratt & Whitney is starting initial service-release tests of the short-takeoff/vertical-landing (Stovl) F135 version as it closes on the final phases of engine development for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The start of Stovl proving runs at the company’s West Palm Beach, Fla., test site comes as Pratt begins a steady ramp-up of engine production for Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth assembly line. Three production conventional-takeoff-and-landing and carrier version (CTOL/CV) F135s have been delivered this year; the first unit was handed over in January.
Ten years ago, who would have believed that a company founded by a young Internet entrepreneur would be launching satellites into space (Elon Musk’s SpaceX)? Or that a flamboyant record company mogul would be selling tickets to eager space tourists (Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson). Next up: Las Vegas real estate developer Robert Bigelow’s proposal to build, orbit and lease space on inflatable space stations.
Marillyn A. Hewson has been named executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Electronic Systems , Bethesda, Md. She was president of the Systems Integration unit, Owego, N.Y. She succeeds Christopher E. Kubasik, who is now corporate president/chief operating officer. John T. Lucas has become senior vice president-human resources, succeeding Kenneth J. Disken, who has retired. William L. Graham has been appointed deputy to Information Systems and Global Services executive vice president Linda Gooden.
Hard hit when Cessna closed a manufacturing plant in 2009 and moved production to Kansas, the city of Bend, Ore., is hoping a portion of its other aircraft maker—bankrupt Epic Aircraft—will restart work there soon. In an agreement worked out April 7 at the urging of a bankruptcy court judge, the company’s assets will go to a group of Epic customers, whose high-performance kit planes were under construction when the manufacturer closed its doors.
NASA will pay $55.8 million a seat for six rides to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz vehicles in 2013-14, a surprisingly small increase given the monopoly on human space transportation Soyuz will enjoy after the space shuttle fleet retires at the end of this year. Negotiators for NASA’s space station program office and Russian space agency Roscosmos agreed on a price 9% above the $51 million NASA will pay for each Soyuz seat through 2012. Lawmakers and others have worried that the “gap” in U.S.
Boeing’s selection of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings to fly the four-airplane large cargo freighter (LCF) fleet, which hauls wing and fuselage sections of the 787, has prompted a “bad faith” and breach of contract lawsuit by Evergreen International Airlines, an Atlas Air competitor (AW&ST March 15, p. 13). Evergreen had two roles in the LCF program: It tripled the volume of four 747-400s in an extensive modification program to be able to haul 787 wing and fuselage assemblies, and it provided logistics and wet-lease crews to operate the aircraft.
Elizabeth D. Iversen (see photos) has been named sector vice president/general manager of the Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Navigation Systems Div. of the Northrop Grumman Corp. She has been vice president-mission assurance for the Baltimore-based Electronic Systems Sector and is swapping positions with James M. Myers.
Signature Flight Support’s FBO at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is launching an information and direct assistance campaign to draw more business aircraft to the facility. The airport, which is close to downtown Washington and the Pentagon, was closed to general aviation traffic following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
William R. (Bob) Laidlaw, whose half-century-plus aerospace career included roles as combat pilot, researcher, past president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, engineering executive and founder of two companies, died April 2 from bladder cancer. He was 83 and lived in Nevada City, Calif. Laidlaw received Aviation Week’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 Laureates ceremonies.
Rotorcraft were the root of some surprises in the Pentagon’s latest slew of selected acquisition reports, covering periods through December 2009. For instance, federal money for Army Apache Block III helicopters arrived so late in the budget process that it forced the program into a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy cost-reporting statute, triggering a mandatory review of alternatives. The unit cost for the program increased by 25.5-31.2%, depending on the metric, but Army officials tell us they strongly support the program.
A data analysis confirms that the Boeing 787’s composite wing can withstand a load 1.5 times greater than the most extreme forces the airplane is expected to experience in commercial service. The March 28 test was conducted on the ZY997 static test article at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., factory and involved simultaneous downward pressure on the fuselage while the wings were bent upward.
USAF Maj. Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general with assignment as vice commander of Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. She has been the command’s director of intelligence and requirements. Wolfenbarger will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Dwyer L. Dennis, who was special assistant to the commander. Maj. Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski has been appointed commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB. She was deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office.
Long confined mainly to the realm of technology and navigation payloads, hosted payload arrangements could soon become a commonplace solution to multiple requirements, U.S. government and industry officials say. The idea of government payloads piggybacking on commercial spacecraft has been around for a while. The concept has been used to deploy payloads for the U.S. Wide Area Augmentation System and Europe’s Egnos GPS augmentation network, for instance, and to demonstrate new Internet protocol router and infrared surveillance technologies for the Pentagon.
Philippe Duhamel (see photo) has been appointed CEO for French operations for ThalesRaytheonSystems . He succeeds Herve Multon, who is now vice president/deputy to the senior vice president-strategy for Thales. Duhamel was managing director of the ground radar unit for Thales Air Systems.
There may not be a Spanish word for chutzpah, but the behavior is recognizable in any language. MexicoNow, a business magazine, is sponsoring an April 22 conference on that country’s growing aerospace industry, which it says now includes more than 300 companies. But the conference is being held in Wichita, Kan., where 14,000 aviation manufacturing workers are off the payrolls as a result of the recession and the daunting fall-off in aircraft sales.
Malaysian budget airline AirAsia has received the official nod to take a 30% stake in VietJet, a private Vietnamese airline due to begin operating in May. The development marks a milestone for AirAsia, which has joint-venture carriers in Thailand and Indonesia, but is a disappointment for Vietnam Airlines, which already faces local competition from Qantas’s Jetstar Pacific affiliate.
Sustained Afghanistan operations are highlighting European military equipment shortfalls, such as the strain the Netherlands is reporting on its helicopter fleet. The German parliament’s military ombudsman, Reinhold Robbe, documented numerous equipment shortages among German forces as well, including in critical night-vision equipment and armored vehicles. The German government has moved in the past two weeks to alleviate some problems by placing orders for more than 80 armored vehicles due for delivery this year.
Shanghai-based Spring Airlines has given Singapore Technologies Aerospace a $105-million contract for component maintenance. This will expand the support the Singaporean company provides to the carrier’s fleet to as many as 78 Airbus A320s from 15.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes reports delivering 108 aircraft in the first quarter of 2010, down 13 from the same period in 2009. Last year, the company was still delivering 747-400s, which accounts for four airplanes. But output in each of its main programs—the 737 and 777—was off this year. From January to March 2010, Boeing delivered 86 737s (91 in 2009) and 19 777s (23 in 2009). It also delivered three 767s in each year. Assuming about 460 deliveries this year, the first-quarter pace is slightly behind.
The total number of U.S. civil aviation accidents and fatalities in 2009 decreased compared to 2008, according to the NTSB preliminary statistics for 2009 released last week. The safety board recorded a total of 1,551 accidents and 534 fatalities in 2009 compared to 1,658 accidents and 566 deaths in 2008. Only one fatal accident involving a scheduled Part 121 operator occurred last year: the Feb. 12, 2009, crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y. that killed 50 people.
NASA’s plan for divvying up the work under its Fiscal 2011 budget request appears to have been drafted with at least an eye to the politics of getting it through Congress, and perhaps even to the congressional elections this fall. Alabama—home of Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, one of the most vocal opponents of the Obama administration space policy—does pretty well, as do potential battleground states Florida and Ohio (see p. 35). Administrator Charles Bolden says consultation with Congress on work-package details will come later.
