After generations of talk but little success, integration and commonality of digital sensors among operational forces of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force are showing surprisingly vibrant signs of life. A competition was kicked off late last year to design, build and demonstrate prototypes of the Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System (Jatas) to protect Navy and Marine Corps helicopters and tiltrotor aircraft from both dumb and smart weapons. The two remaining competitors are Lockheed Martin and the team of Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and BAE Systems.
The desire for the U.S. Navy Next- Generation Jammer (NGJ) to perform many missions may rekindle interest in a sensitive, tactical computer network attack program that was developed by the Air Force and tested in Iraq. Contractors are looking at offering a Suter-like technology—designed initially for the electronic attack of integrated air defenses—as an add-on application to NGJ.
Jim Veler has been named president/CEO of Abrisa Inc. , Santa Paula, Calif. He was vice president/general manager of Agilent Technologies’ Wireless Manufacturing Organization, Santa Rosa, Calif. Jim Hooker and Kevin Liddane have been appointed Eastern U.S. and Western U.S. sales managers, respectively.
The U.S. Army’s modernization program will not include a Class IV unmanned aerial vehicle, according to the service’s official notice of cancellation to Congress Jan. 11. The Class IV UAV, which was to be a Northrop Grumman Fire Scout, “is no longer required,” say Army documents. “The current force Shadow [UAV] can meet future Army requirements with product improvements.” The Class IV UAV was a remnant of the defunct Future Combat Systems, retooled as Brigade Combat Team Modernization.
NASA is hunkering down for the coming Fiscal 2011 budget release, which is expected to contain the agency’s marching orders for future human spaceflight. Jeff Hanley, head of the Constellation program that is developing the next generation of human exploration vehicles, had accepted an invitation to speak on the subject at a Space Transportation Assn. breakfast in Washington Jan. 15. But NASA’s management scuttled Hanley’s appearance.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is dispatching its Gulfstream IV research aircraft to the Pacific with an aim to improving winter storm forecasting for North America. The twin-engine turbofan jet will be stationed at Yokota (Japan) AB through February and then reposition to Honolulu in March.
Many of the tools for airborne electronic warfare and attack are aging and lack flexibility. At the same time, new off-the-shelf technologies used by irregular and conventional foes—ranging from low-power command-and-control communications to advanced, long-range anti-aircraft missiles—are increasingly sophisticated, making it more expensive and time-consuming to find, analyze and counter them.
Engineers at Johnson Space Center will run four days of testing this week with three different versions of NASA’s planned new spacesuit as they begin making the suit compatible with the Orion crew exploration vehicle that is also under development there. Astronauts and engineers will don the prototype Constellation suits to compare their utility for a number of tasks in a mockup of the latest configuration of the Orion crew cabin. Scheduled for testing are a prototype built by David Clark Co. Inc. for Oceaneering, the prime contractor for the new spacesuit.
Honeywell subsidiary UOP received $25-million from the Energy Dept. to construct a prototype unit in Hawaii for the manufacture of green transportation fuels. Des Plaines, Ill.-based UOP will erect the demonstration plant at the Tesoro Corp. refinery in Kapolei. A rapid thermal processing technology, developed by Ensyn Corp., will be used to heat biomass at ambient pressure to reap high yields of liquid pyrolysis oil.
It is largely thanks to the ramp-up of Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 very light and light jets that Embraer delivered 244 aircraft last year, two more than anticipated. Although a record, the aircraft maker suffered a big drop in commercial aircraft deliveries to 122 units from 162, with its year-end backlog down to $16.6 billion from $20.9 billion at the end of 2008; 265 commercial airliners remain in the backlog.
China says it has successfully tested an anti-missile system for mid-course intercepts. The trial achieved the predicted results, the government says, stressing that the test was defensive in nature and not directed at any country. It produced no lingering space debris, says the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Details of the system were not disclosed.
Space shuttle and International Space Station managers will try to keep Feb. 7 as the target launch date for the shuttle Endeavour on the STS-130 mission to the ISS, despite a problem with ammonia jumper hoses for the Tranquility pressurized node the mission will deliver to the station. The launch date was cast in doubt when a hose designed to link the node’s cooling system with the station system failed during a pressure test.
Not all is gloom in the world of aviation services. ASA Group, which provides security, ground handling and concierge services for VIP business flights at Hong Kong International Airport, says it has had to add additional staff since mid-December to keep up with flights from North America, the Middle East, Europe and the rest of Asia.
In his letter “Transports Need TCAS” (AW&ST Nov. 23, 2009, p. 10), Scott Cooper asserts that the Oct. 29 mid-air collision between a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130H and U.S. Marine Corps AH-1 could have been averted by the installation of a Traffic-alert Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) on the HC-130H. I was the avionics officer for the HC-130H home unit at USCG Air Station Sacramento, Calif., from 1997-2000, so know all USCG HC-130Hs have been TCAS-equipped for many years.
Some 200 NASA and contractor employees are undergoing drug tests after a bag containing a small amount of cocaine was found inside the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, a restricted area where the space shuttle Discovery is being readied for a mission to the International Space Station in March. Agency officials termed the find “a rare and isolated incident,” and said it should have no impact on shuttle safety.
British think-tank Royal United Services Institute suggests the U.K. military faces real-term budget cuts of 10-15% over the next six years. “Capability Cost Trends,” the institute’s latest paper on the pending defense review, argues that London faces the cut in defense spending, coupled with annual cost growth of 1-2%. The author, Prof. Malcolm Chalmers, argues this could result in an overall drop of 20% in personnel to 2016, along with further reductions in platform numbers.
Airbus is confident it has now found a way to manage the long-planned production ramp-up of its flagship A380 program. The A380’s production schedule is lagging considerably behind original plans. According to the initial schedule, Airbus should be producing 45 A380s this year, but the latest plans call for only around 20 aircraft. Last year, more than 30 aircraft were initially planned, but at the beginning of the year Airbus predicted it would be able to handle just 18. In fact, it delivered 10.
The article “Boeing’s Orders at 40-Year Low” (Jan. 11, p. 36) included an incorrect year for when Boeing’s posted its most recent low point in orders. The correct year was 1994, when the company netted 125 net.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposes to restore curbs on energy speculation it lifted in 2001. The CFTC would use the authority of the Commodity Exchange Act to set limits on oil and other energy futures. Importantly for the airline industry, however, the proposed rule would carve out exemptions for large energy consumers to hedge oil by excluding “bona fide hedging transactions.” The CFTC’s proposed rule is seen as a reaction to the oil-price spike of 2008, when crude oil prices reached $147 per barrel.
AeroTech Research Inc. this month plans to start developing a real-time wake vortex encounter reporting system for commercial airliners. The company declined to disclose the value of the two-year contract awarded by NASA Phase II Small Business Innovative Research program and announced last week. The In-situ Wake Vortex Encounter Detection and Reporting System would use sensor and data link capability installed on most airlines to detect wake vortices and report the information to air traffic controllers and other aircraft.
Perm-based Aviadvigatel has completed certification of the PS-90A2 engine, the latest major upgrade of the basic PS-90A turbofan used on Tupolev Tu-204/214 and Ilyushin Il-96 airliners. Developed with Pratt & Whitney, the “A2” version features a new high-pressure turbine with single-crystal blades and enhanced engine control system. It also draws on several minor upgrades to the design and manufacturing processes. As a result, the PS-90A2 is expected to halve maintenance time and should yield 35-37% lower life-cycle costs. The powerplant, with its 35,240 lb.
Composite structural suppliers for Airbus have turned to waterjet manufacturer Flow International of Kent, Wash., for new machines to support multiple projects. Flow announced $11 million in new orders last week for machines to be delivered over the next 12-18 months, the majority for Airbus suppliers. Flow’s machines are used to cut composites for the Boeing 787.
Mike Delaney has been named vice president-Airplane Performance and Product Architecture within Boeing Commercial Airplanes , as part of a restructuring of the division and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), Delaney was vice president/chief project engineer for the 787 program. Keith Leverkuhn will remain vice president/general manager of Propulsion Systems. Jim Ogonowski has become vice president-Airplane Structures and Mike Sinnett vice president-Airplane Systems.
Boeing’s Long Beach, Calif., C-17 manufacturing line is still going strong, and there are no indications of a reduction in the annual production rate, says Dennis Muilenburg, president of Boeing Defense, Space and Security. Despite lackluster support from the primary customer, the U.S. Air Force, Muilenburg predicts more foreign and domestic orders for the C-17 Globemaster. Last year, the company explored halving the 12-15 annual production rate, but found price would be affected too much.
