Finmeccanica will furlough 1,500 workers due to a production slowdown. The slowdown mainly affects the company’s aeronautical activity, but defense electronics and space businesses also have been impacted. Worst hit is Alenia Aeronautica, which will furlough 1,050 people.
Israel Aerospace Industries has unveiled design changes to its Birdeye flying wing unmanned aircraft. The Birdeye 650 supersedes the 450 , by adding batteries to extend mission endurance of the electric-powered unmanned aircraft to 180 min.; the earlier model could fly for only 1 hr. The wingspan has been retained at more than 3 meters (10 ft.), as has payload capability at 1.2 kg. (2.6 lb.) , but the vehicle weight has doubled to 11 kg. owing to the increased number of batteries. Mission radius of the Birdeye 650 is 20 km. (12.5 mi.).
The U.K.’s military faces fundamental upheaval, while London needs to forge better partnerships with its key allies—Washington and likely Paris—to eke the best out of defense expenditures.
Europe and the U.S. will proceed with development of the Jason-3 ocean altimetry satellite, following approval of a Eumetsat plan to increase its contribution for this transatlantic mission. The Eumetsat council had accepted the move in December, but the decision was dependent on approval of funding by its member states. More than 80% of Eumetsat members—19 nations, including the five biggest—agreed to support the Eumetsat contribution, which amounts to €63.6 million .
China’s Avicopter appears to be pushing forward with its plan to drop the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 engine from the Z-15, the Chinese version of the EC175 built in cooperation with Eurocopter. Turbomeca has long been considered the front-runner to power the Z-15 long-term, and Eurocopter President Lutz Bertling says partner Avicopter has now decided to use a yet-to-be-built turboshaft from the French helicopter engine maker. A Pratt official says the company has not been formally notified of the change.capability at 1.2 kg.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) plans to award Inmarsat a contract to develop a space-based terminal to provide persistent broadband data communications between satellites in low Earth orbit and the ground. Inmarsat will modify the airborne terminal for its Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service and integrate the resulting space-based terminal with Darpa’s System F6 fractionated-satellite demonstration cluster, whjich is scheduled for launch in 2012. Equipping low-Earth-orbit satellites to communicate with the ground via the 492 kbit./sec.
Managers and engineers at NASA are scrambling to put some meat on the bones of the dramatic policy shift proposed by President Barack Obama in his Fiscal 2011 budget request, working with limited guidance to cancel the Constellation Program of human space-exploration vehicles and begin finding a private route to space. The closely held policy change left even the most senior agency managers at a loss for words as reporters questioned them about details .
Cessna Aircraft rolled out the 300th Citation Mustang last week at its assembly facility in Independence, Kan.; the first was delivered in 2007. The $3-million aircraft is to be delivered later this year to a retail customer in Australia.
The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, a sweeping study of missions with recommendations on the types of forces required, outlines a new mission for the Defense Dept.: “ Enhance domestic capabilities to counter improvised explosive devices [IEDs].” This raises a number of questions about how to employ anti-IED technologies in U.S. cities without interfering with civil devices, like mobile phones, and whether the military should play a direct role. And, it appears the Pentagon is not eager to draw attention to the thorny subject.
Singapore’s biennial air show last week reflected cautious times. If visitors needed reminding of the global recession , there were numerous references to some basic facts, such as the International Air Transport Assn.’s expectation that airlines will lose a total of $5.6 billion this year. Still, from manufacturers to maintenance shops, there is a consensus that a turnaround should be underway by mid-year. As long as the price of oil goes no higher than $80 per barrel, the belief is that airlines will be able to handle the situation.
Airbus has secured an agreement with Hong Kong Airlines for an eventual order of six A330-200s. Airbus says that once the airline converts the memorandum of understanding to a firm order, it will bring the carrier’s total A330 order count to 23 .
The market for light jet business aviation in Europe could undergo significant changes this year as operators cope with overall strained economic realities, including strong competition for a still-weak demand. Last year was expected to be a break-out one for air taxi operations in Europe; instead, it was fraught with diminished expectations, and there is little indication 2010 will be much better .
Airbus says it hopes to secure 10 additional A380 orders this year, up from four in 2009. However, the airframer’s chief operating officer for customers, John Leahy, suggests larger orders will not be placed until the market rebounds more fully and airlines are in a stronger financial position. The A380 demand this year is expected to be mainly in Asia.
Piaggio Aero will deliver the first of six converted P.180 multirole aircraft to the Italian air force in late July. The aircraft are needed to maintain air traffic control/navigation and radar RF measurement functions previously handled by the G-222RM, which has been withdrawn from service, and the MB-339, which has been assigned to other duties. Air force planners are also studying the use of P.180s for aerophotogrammetry missions, which are currently c onducted by three Piaggio P.166DL-3s acquired in 1985.
Even as its limited number of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers continue to realize their capabilities, the U.S. Air Force allows select allies to use the aircraft. A long-standing exchange program under which USAF personnel trade places with those from the Royal Air Force was extended to the B-2 in 2004.
As mechanized forces bog down in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan, low-tech solutions to problems become more attractive. One of these is the use of small, simple aircraft to replace jets for the close air support (CAS), armed reconnaissance and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions that dominate air operations.
U.S.-China relations are on the rocks over Taiwan, Google and other issues, but human-spaceflight officials in Beijing are still eager to open a dialogue with NASA over possible cooperation. Worried that there has been no official follow-up from the U.S. side after Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao agreed to a Beijing visit by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the Chinese ambassador to Israel approached Bolden at a reception there earlier this month to see what was up. “I said, ‘Are you sure that the invitation still stands,’” Bolden says.
In the article “Pushing the Limits,” USAF Col. (ret.) Paul Comtois says, “Most (airline) pilots have never pulled more than 2g. . . . When they find themselves in an airplane upset at 4-4.5g, they have no point of reference” (AW&ST Nov. 30, 2009, p. 55).
France has completed the fourth test firing of the new M51 nuclear missile, intended to replace the aging M45 on its submarines. The firing, on Jan. 27 from the submarine Le Terrible, was the second undersea test for the missile, which is due to enter service this year . The missile, fired from the Bay of Audierne in Brittany, was tracked throughout its trajectory by sensors in Quimper, the missile test range in Biscarosse in southwestern France, and the Monge tracking vessel. As in previous firings, it carried a dummy warhead .
In his letter “Patently Incorrect,” Steve Richardson challenges retired Lockheed Martin Skunk Works President Sherm Mullin’s use of the F-35 propulsion system as an example of how innovation really occurs (AW&ST Jan.18, p. 8; Nov. 9, 2009, p. 10). The aircraft patented by Alexander Lippisch (No. 2,918,232), which Richardson argues used the same propulsion concept as the F-35, was actually a kind of helicopter in which fan thrust was to have been vectored either down for hover or aft for cruise.
NASA is getting an early start on its “game-changing” shift to commercial transportation for its astronauts with $50 million in stimulus-package spending that will support two commercial crew launch vehicles and some key technologies to keep them alive on the way to orbit and once they get there. Winning contractors in the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program will use the stimulus money to advance the vehicles and other hardware NASA hopes will be available as early as 2016 to ferry crew to the International Space Station.
Singapore’s Stratech Systems and Israel’s Aeronautics Defense Systems have formed a joint venture to pursue the Asian market for unmanned systems. Stratech will provide manufacturing facilities and support, with Aeronautics Defense System providing the vehicles. One of the projects that could be marketed through the joint venture is the unmanned DA-42 that Aeronautics Defense Systems is developing in cooperation with Austria’s Diamond Aircraft.
A labor union body—the Transportation Trades Dept. (TTD)—kicks off a letter-writing campaign to senators, asking them to keep a controversial provision in the House-passed FAA reauthorization bill (H.R.915) to “bring an end to non-certified stations performing critical maintenance work on aircraft, mandate that foreign repair stations be inspected at least twice a year by FAA inspectors and require workers at these facilities to be held to the same drug and alcohol testing standards as workers at U.S.
GE Aviation has begun producing blade dampers and seals for CF6 and CF34 engines at its 250,000-sq.-ft. Singapore service center. The production is the first of new high- and low-pressure engine parts and uses a 50,000-sq.-ft. expansion completed late last year. The expansion also will accommodate introduction of GE’s GEnx engine for the Boeing 787 and 747-8.
