Gas Turbine Efficiency of Orlando, Fla., says a $1.6-million contract it has received to manufacture EcoPower engine wash systems for Pratt & Whitney shows demand is increasing for the fuel-saving service. Pratt recently signed a five-year contract with Nayak Aircraft Services GmbH., an independent aircraft maintenance operator in Europe, that will extend use of GTE’s engine-wash technology to more than 60 airlines there. Pratt says EcoPower can cut gas turbine engine fuel burn by as much as 1.2% by remobving grime.
Twenty A320s that the Chinese government ordered from Airbus two years ago will be allocated to Air China. The government buys aircraft centrally through the China Aviation Supplies Import and Export Group Corp. It said in November 2007 that it would buy 110 A320-family aircraft and 50 A330s, and Airbus formally booked the order in 2008, awaiting notification of the users. The allocation to Air China has been widely but wrongly reported as an order.
Mar. 1-3—Speednews’ 24th Annual Commercial Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference. Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Beverly Hills, Calif. See www.speednews.com Mar. 1-4—International Civil Aviation Organization’s Next Generation of Aviation Professionals Symposium. ICAO Headquarters, Montreal. See www.icao.int/ngap/ Mar. 1-5—Applied Technology Institutes’ Space Systems’ Conference on Subsystems Design. Also, Mar. 8-12—Space-Based Radar. Both at Holiday Inn, Laurel, Md. Call +1 (410) 956-8805 or see www.aticourses.com
The Russian air force’s combat training center at Lipetsk has taken delivery of its first production-standard Yak-130 Mitten advanced jet trainer aircraft. A first batch of 12 aircraft is being built by the Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod for the air force, with four already completed. Sokol intends to deliver all aircraft of the initial order this year.
Russia’s fifth-generation fighter prototype, the Sukhoi T-50, is continuing flight trials. Two more were conducted from Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Feb. 12-13. Prior to the second flight, the first T-50 prototype was painted in an air force white-grey-blue camouflage scheme similar to that of the second Su-35 prototype. The aircraft has also been given side-number (Bort) 51.
William A. Osborn has been appointed to the board of directors of the General Dynamics Corp. , Falls Chuch, Va. He is chairman of the Northern Trust Corp.
U.S. space policy, or rather lack of such a policy, is increasingly becoming more and more incomprehensible. First, there was the move to box the U.S. into a corner where , for at least a half decade or so, it will be dependant upon Moscow to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The Russians will do the job, but on their conditions . The vulnerability of America will be total.
International Launch Services will conduct its first dual-launch mission with the SES-3 and KazSat-2 spacecraft. SES-3 is the third in a batch of four spacecraft being procured by SES from Orbital Sciences Corp., while KazSat-2 is a Ku-band satellite being built by Khrunichev for Kazakhstan. The awards are the first this year for ILS, which performed its premier launch of 2010, for Intelsat 16, on Feb. 12. The 3-metric-ton SES-3 and the 1.3-ton KazSat-2 will be orbited together in 2011 using a Yakhta SC bus.
U.S. Army Col. (ret.) Robert M. Furney (Pacific Grove, Calif. )
As for the new USAF tanker competition and threat that EADS will drop out of the contest unless the specifications are changed , let them drop out! Didn’t EADS turn down offers by Pratt & Whitney and other American companies to provide the turboprop engine for the Airbus Military A400M? Instead, EADS wanted to develop its own engine from scratch , one of the main reasons the aircraft is three years late. EADS and France are looking out for their own interests and industrial base, and the heck with playing with America on an even footing.
The U.S. Navy has launched the gradual process to once again buy a presidential helicopter. A prior effort failed because of poor requirements definition. The request for information projects a buy of 23-28 rotorcraft, with an initial operational capability still vaguely defined as 2017-23. The helicopter should accommodate at least 10 passengers, but preferably 14 , have a range of 150-275 nm. and a speed of 140 kt.
South Korea’s technologically ambitious defense ministry aims to test a scaled demonstrator for a stealthy combat drone by 2013, extending the country’s expertise in unmanned aircraft and hedging against cancellation of the KF-X fighter program. With this project, South Korea will be within 10 years of Britain and Germany in flying substantial development hardware for unmanned combat aircraft. South Korea may be ahead of Japan, which has announced no such development effort.
Premium traffic is starting to rebound and cargo business is showing signs of life, but many European airlines still face bleak prospects for much of 2010 as profits remain elusive and balance sheets weak. Warning signs that the crisis is far from over abound. Finnair says it will remain in the red this year, SAS is asking for relief from debt repayment, and British Airways has seen its corporate credit rating downgraded.
James (Mitch) Stevison (see photo) has become director of the targets and countermeasures program for Lockheed Martin Space Systems , Huntsville, Ala. He was vice president-operations for the Miltec Systems Div. of Ducommun Co., also in Huntsville. Honors and Elections
A bitter conflict with its mainline pilots is threatening Lufthansa’s crucial restructuring efforts, which aim to make its intra-European operation more competitive versus low-cost carriers and return the unit profitability.
The Airborne Laser’s (ABL) successful intercept this month of a boosting ballistic missile was a milestone for high-energy lasers and the aerospace community as a whole. But the program is unlikely to retain the glow of triumph until analysts pinpoint the cause of a “beam misalignment” and set about exploring whether the unwieldy system can ever be deployed operationally.
The two latest variants of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle for the U.S. Army and Customs and Border Protection Service will move closer to initial deployment following the completion of key tests in California this month.
Meanwhile, General Atomics Chairman and CEO Neal Blue tells us he is confident the Defense Dept. will ultimately place orders for the unmanned Predator C Avenger. Like the turboprop-driven Predator A and Predator B/Reaper vehicles, the stealthy, jet-powered “C” was developed on company funds and with no orders. But Pentagon officials are moving to assert more control over requirements for the next generation of unmanned aircraft. This raises the question as to whether General Atomics can pull off a triple play with its “build it and they will come” strategy.
The Environmental Protection Agency says publication of a draft rulemaking aimed at initiating the removal of all leaded aviation gasoline (avgas) is imminent, perhaps as early as October. In addition, the agency has stated it is targeting the phase-out of leaded avgas by 2017, according to the Experimental Aircraft Assn. Currently, there is no replacement for avgas, which fuels a majority of piston-powered general aviation aircraft in the U.S.
President Barack Obama’s 2011 NASA budget proposal puts the U.S. leadership in space at risk (AW&ST Feb. 8, p. 20). It will have just the opposite results of President John F. Kennedy’s space initiatives. Under those initiatives, America developed technologies and capabilities that benefit every human in the U.S. every day, such as weather, navigation and communication satellites. The lunar exploration program with astronauts and robots was not the sole reason for these capabilities, but was the spark plug.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems has completed baseline integration system testing (BIST) for the second geosynchronous (GEO-2) satellite in the U.S. Air Force’s Space Based Infrared Systems constellation at the company’s Sunnyvale, Calif., plant.
The Polish defense ministry has selected the Aeronautics Defense System Aerostar unmanned aircraft to meet an urgent operational need to support deployed forces. The Aerostar beat out two other Israeli rivals, with Elbit’s Hermes 450 and Israel Aerospace Industries’ Searcher III coming up short. The defense ministry expects the first Aerostars to be handed over in about seven months. The government used a bidding process to whittle down the system cost to 89 million zlotys ($30.4 million) from 144 million zlotys, the defense ministry states.
Ronald D. Sugar, retired chairman/CEO of the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., has received the National Defense Industrial Assn. ’s 2009 James Forrestal Industry Leadership Award. It honors Sugar’s “corporate leadership, commitment to supporting a robust defense industrial base and advocacy for a responsive government-industry national security team.”
Alitalia continues to cut its operations at Milan Malpensa Airport while stepping up activities at Rome and other cities. Changes will be evident in the spring timetable, with cessation of flights from Malpensa to Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Algiers, Sao Paulo and Sofia, and reduction by half of weekly services to Kiev. Most of these operations will be moved to Rome. If long-range services are curtailed, Malpensa will see more medium-range and domestic frequencies, including seasonal flights to Ibiza and Palma de Majorca, Spain.
Complaints from Pentagon officials—from Defense Secretary Robert Gates down through the ranks—are mounting about the quality of products from the aerospace industry.
