New published findings from the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter suggest there are more than 600 million metric tons of water ice preserved in the permanent darkness at the bottom of an array of small craters at the Moon’s north pole. Data from the U.S.-supplied Mini-SAR instrument on the Indian orbiter, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, add to the growing body of evidence that the long-theorized ice exists at both lunar poles.
The world still awaits the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, once expected Feb. 1, but a few things are already known: It will entail cuts to the nuclear arsenal, and it could redefine how such weapons would be used. But the details of those policies are what matter and those also are what apparently are holding up the review, now expected by April. Numerous think-tanks suggest a heated debate is still going on over whether there should be a new nuclear policy declaration. Options include everything from declaring the U.S.
Within the next 10 months, Boeing plans to conduct first flights of two company-developed unmanned air system demonstrators—a sleek, stealthy flying wing and a lumbering, high-altitude, hydrogen-powered vehicle intended to fly at least four days nonstop.
Defense giant Northrop Grumman has flown the first in a new series of Bat unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) . The 12-ft.-wingspan UAV is outfitted with a Hirth engine and a low-acoustic five-blade propeller. The Bat product line, acquired from Swift Engineering in April 2009, has undergone a fairly aggressive demonstration schedule in that time. In tests earlier this winter, both 10- and 12-ft. versions were launched from an AAI Corp. UAS Shadow and autonomously operated from a single ground control station before recovery in a net (right).
Republic Airways’ $3-billion order of 40 CSeries jets, with options for 40 more, is a major win for Canadian aircraft builder Bombardier Inc. The 110-145-seat jet, launched in mid-2008 with no firm orders and numerous skeptics, now has 90 orders from three customers: Republic, Lufthansa and Dublin-based Lease Corp. International. Republic, which owns Frontier Airlines and Midwest Airlines and operates regional air service for major carriers under contract, is the first CSeries customer from North America.
Rolls-Royce has selected Hamilton Sundstrand as exclusive supplier of a new full-authority digital engine control system (Fadec) for gas turbines under 2,000 shp., for all civil and military rotary- and fixed-wing applications. The first application is a dual-channel Fadec under development for the U.S. Army’s Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed scout, which is powered by Rolls’ M250-C30R/3 (military designation T703-700) turboshaft .
The Government Accountability Office is urging the Transportation Dept. to give funding priority to airport projects that have developed plans for regional systems. A GAO report on regional airports issued last week suggests coordinating the plans with FAA and airport management decisions. The GAO says the advisory nature of planning documents hinders their implementation, and took note of competition among local airports that can result in differences in how a regional should address congestion problems.
Lufthansa will follow a different strategy than most other airlines when it takes delivery of its first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental next year. O ther long-haul carriers—Lufthansa’s main European rivals Air France and British Airways, along with Qantas—have recently decided to replace their aging 747-400 fleets with a few Airbus A380s and a larger number of smaller long-range jets, such as the Boeing 777-300ER or Airbus A350-1000.
Bombardier Aerospace’s aircraft dismantling operations have been accredited by the Aircraft Fleet Recycling Assn. (AFRA). The endorsement covers teardowns of CRJ100/200 regional jets at the manufacturer’s service centers in Bridgeport, W.Va., and Tucson, Ariz. AFRA promotes best practices for salvaging and recycling components during disassembly .
J. Scott Hunter (see photos) has been promoted to director of maintenance training sales from director of maintenance training sales for regional airlines and Jeffery McPhie to director from manager of customer support, both for New York-based FlightSafety International . Hunter succeeds Doug Bowen, who has become director of maintenance training services. McPhie follows Debbie Jones, who is now manager of FSI’s Hawker Beechcraft Learning Center, Wichita, Kan.
The U.S. Air Force is shifting the orbit of three of its GPS satellites to improve worldwide coverage and assist soldiers in areas such as Afghanistan, where rugged terrain can block signals and reduce accuracy. Previously organized around of 24 slots in six orbital planes in medium Earth orbit, the constellation is being adjusted to provide positions for 27 satellites. The shift is including only spacecraft that are already in orbit and should not affect either satellite lifetimes or planned replenishment schedules.
Qinetiq North America and Brewer Science and Applied Systems Intelligence are working toward developing an autonomous, self-deploying sensor that will serve as a roving, early-warning detector of biological warfare activity. The primary work on the project, which is being funded the U.S. Army Research Office, will be conducted at the Jordan Valley Innovation Center at Missouri State University in Springfield, as well as at Qinetiq’s Waltham, Mass., Technologies Solutions Group.
The extent of the gap between the U.K.’s recent military helicopter acquisition aspirations and available funding was made clear in the government‘s response last week to a parliamentary report on helicopter capability. The budget profile for the now-shelved Future Medium Helicopter project and its Puma and Sea King Mk. 4 fleet life-extension programs would have resulted in a “substantial gap in lift helicopter numbers from 2012 until at least 2017,” according to the government.
Christoph Franz and Stefan Lauer have been appointed to the board of directors of Swiss International Air Lines . Franz was CEO before being named to the executive board of parent Lufthansa. Lauer was head of Swiss’s corporate human resources and now has that role for all Lufthansa group airlines. They have succeeded Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chairman of the Lufthansa executive board; and Klaus Schlede, a member of the Lufthansa supervisory board.
Mark B. Tischler, who is senior scientist and flight control group leader for the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has been named to receive the 2009 Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Senior Professional on May 6. The award is granted for a sustained record of professional, technical and/or scientific achievement on a national or international level.
Florida-based Quasar Aerospace Industries has formed a joint venture with Australia’s Tigerfish Aviation to develop and certificate a retractable float system designed for retrofit to a wide range of aircraft. Quasar says a Dornier 228NG has been selected as the proof-of-concept aircraft, and four companies have received requests for proposals to perform the engineering and certification work, which it estimates will cost around $5 million. .
David Owen has become U.K.-based vice president-European sales and business development for Vermont Composites Inc. He was a regional sales manager for Hexcel.
Greg Churchill has been appointed executive vice president-international and service solutions for Rockwell Collins , Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was executive vice president/chief operating officer for Government Systems. Churchill has been succeeded by Kelly Ortberg, who was executive vice president/chief operating officer for Commercial Systems. And following Ortberg is Kent Statler, who was executive vice president for Rockwell Collins Services.
American Airlines parent AMR Corp. says it is in advanced talks with China Eastern Airlines to join the Oneworld alliance. The Dallas-based carrier is pushing an alliance strategy, Chief Financial Officer Tom Horton told a New York travel conference.
Poland will buy five more Mil Mi-17 helicopters under a $106-million contract with Metalexport to support its operations in Afghanistan. The helos are due for delivery this summer
January’s results brought more evidence from the Assn. of Asia-Pacific Airlines that airlines are climbing out of recession. The 14.9 million international passengers that the 17 AAPA members carried was up 8.1% over the previous year, while revenues climbed 7%. A 0.7% reduction in capacity also helped with load factors, which rose 5.6 percentage points to 78.6%. January also brought growth in airfreight, which jumped 33.1% in freight tonne kilometers over 2008 levels. Load factors rose 12.6 percentage points to 66.4%.
The F-35 manufacturer hopes to “buy back” up to 90 stealthy fighters that were lost in the recent program restructuring, but a likely cost-overrun declaration this month will be a major hurdle for the company to surmount.
Your editorial “A Cloudy Vision” (AW&ST Feb. 8, p. 50) confirms that the U.S. space program is out of control and has no central management authority. NASA, which was established to be that central management/control authority has never established itself as a managerial authority. Instead of managing our space program, NASA has become a participant ; thus, our space program has become the most misdirected and wastefully expensive federal project I have experienced in almost 40 years of reading AW&ST.
The Indian navy has inducted the first four of 16 Mikoyan MiG-29K multi-role naval fighters and is establishing shore-based training while it pushes Russia to speed up arrival of the aircraft carrier they were bought for. The fighters were purchased in 2004 as part of a $1.5-billion deal that included the Kiev-class Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. Their Feb. 19 induction ceremony marked the first new aircraft in the navy’s inventory in two decades.
Andres (Sandy) Sandoval has been appointed vice president-flight operations and Marc Gross vice president-system operations, planning and control for JetBlue Airways . Sandoval was the airline’s chief pilot at New York John F. Kennedy International Airport. Gross was director of system operations control and central load control for Northwest Airlines.
