New U.S. Transportation Dept. “passenger protection” rules, effective in four months, mandate that U.S. carriers allow passengers to deplane from aircraft stuck on the tarmac after 3 hr. for a domestic flight, with exceptions only for safety and security, or if air traffic control decides doing so would “significantly disrupt airport operations.” Airlines could face fines as high as $27,500 per passenger for violations. The time limit is considered a major victory for passenger rights advocates, who pushed for one for years, but a major defeat for U.S.
Russia hopes to complete the conceptual design of its next-generation, stealthy long-range bomber within the next two years as the country bolsters efforts to revitalize its air-combat capabilities. The Russian air force aims to introduce a successor to the Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack, Tu-95 Bear and Tu-22M3 Backfire in about 2025-30, says strategic aviation commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev. The new bomber program is known as PAK-DA (Prespektivniy aviatitzionniy kompleks dalney aviatzii, or future aviation complex for long-range aviation).
Brussels Airlines hopes it can establish its home base as Star Alliance’s hub in Western Europe and become the alliance’s primary airline serving Africa.
Thailand’s forced return of Hmong refugees to Laos is being criticized on Capitol Hill, with one leading lawmaker threatening to curb long-running U.S.-Thai military relations. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign operations, warns that mistreatment of the Hmong “could badly damage the Thai military’s reputation and put our military collaboration at risk.” Many Lao Hmong fought alongside the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, and some have been resettled in the U.S. since then.
Dear Reader: As we begin 2010—following one of the aerospace and defense industry’s most challenging years in recent times—Aviation Week & Space Technology has been developing a road map for its future.
Vietnam plans to buy eight Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighters and six Project 636 submarines from Russia, according to the country’s prime minister. Interfax news agency said a further 12 of the Sukhois might be ordered.
The review of combat air forces is just one of several changes Congress is making to the Obama administration’s Fiscal 2010 spending plan. The defense appropriations bill includes earmarks for $465 million in unrequested funds to continue the Joint Strike Fighter’s F-136 General Electric/Rolls-Royce alternative engine program and $2.5 billion for 10 more Boeing C-17s. Early this year, The White House called such programs wasteful, as it did numerous other defense programs, but President Barack Obama is still expected to sign the $636.3-billion bill.
The U.S. Air Transport Assn. (ATA) and three of its biggest member airlines are trying to carve an exclusion for international aviation out of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme for 2010. As the United Nations held climate-change talks in Copenhagen, the ATA, Continental, United and American filed a lawsuit in London Dec. 16 against the U.K.’s secretary of state for energy and climate change. The airlines argue that the trading scheme violates international law and the U.S.-EU open-skies agreement.
U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials say a flight computer anomaly in an air-launched target is at the root of a recently aborted flight test of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system. The intercept attempt was to take place in mid-December, and began with deployment of the Coleman Aerospace air-launched target from a C-17. But the target’s rocket motor failed to ignite, and the weapon plummeted into the ocean.
Europe’s aerospace sector is poised to benefit from generous funding for new aeronautics and space projects under a bond issue unveiled last week by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The issue, set for next year, calls for spending €35 billion ($50 billion) on high-tech projects to stimulate the sputtering economy. The size of the issue—and indeed the wisdom of such a move—had been criticized, but Sarkozy argued it is necessary to help ensure a sustained economic recovery.
Space situational awareness (SSA) is fast emerging as one of the few military space arenas where governments believe they can create real cross-border cooperative ties. Like other areas in the defense realm, milspace is widely viewed as too strategically important to be shared with other nations. Even within Europe, which has pushed the limits of sovereignty, collaboration has proven frustratingly difficult (AW&ST Dec. 7, p. 44).
Iran has launched another missile described as faster and longer-range than others in the country’s military inventory. Officials there say it is able to evade air defenses through stealth or maneuvering. “[U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates] has seen the intelligence on this latest launch, which, by our count, was on [Dec.] 15th, says Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. It appears to have been another test shot of the Sejil-2 whose capabilities are getting mixed reviews.
Brent Clark of Farmington, Utah, entered the annual Aviation Week photo contest with this image of the Wright R-2600-2 radial engine propeller on a Grumman TBM Avenger at Hill AFB, Utah. The photo was taken with a Nikon D700 on June 6, 2009. A special section of prize-winning and honorable mention entries begins on p. 38.
British airline Flyglobespan ceased operations Dec. 17, stranding around 4,500 passengers. The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority is likely to bring back at least 1,100, according to the BBC. The airline served holiday destinations
New concerns over fuel prices and yields are exposing the fragile nature of the airline industry’s recovery, highlighting that even though demand is returning, it will not be enough by itself to propel airlines back to profitability.
Eurofighter Typhoon Service Release Package 14 will expand the launch envelope for the Paveway IV on the aircraft. The basic integration was part of an earlier upgrade and not part of SRP14 (Dec. 14, p. 35).
The country has replenished its Glonass satellite navigation system with three new spacecraft launched on board a Proton M with a DM upper stage on Dec. 14. The launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan brings the constellation to 19 working satellites, with two down for maintenance and another waiting to be deorbited. Next year Roscosmos plans to orbit nine more Glonass satellites, giving the system full worldwide coverage by the end of 2010.
The Aerospace Industries Assn.’s (AIA) latest annual forecast illustrates how huge order backlogs have shielded large segments of aerospace and defense (A&D) from the global economic downturn. But if you are looking for uplifting news, move on to p. 14 to read about the first flight of the Boeing 787. For this late-cycle industry, the next two years may make 2009 seem like the good old days.
France and Italy will build a high-speed dual-use telecom satellite to help their military and government agencies fill a growing call for high-volume communications.
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Surveyor Explorer (WISE) mission is underway after a pre-dawn launch on a Delta II from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Dec. 14. Mission controllers will eject the cover on the cryostat that keeps the spacecraft’s hydrogen coolant cold by year-end to begin a two-week checkout of the science instrument, which will take light from the spacecraft’s 40-cm. mirror to produce an image of the infrared sky every 11 sec.
