The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has accepted GOES-14 into service following its June 27 launch. The Boeing-built spacecraft was called GOES-O before acceptance. The third in the Boeing series, GOES‑P was shipped Dec. 16 to Cape Canaveral for launch early next year.
New clues are emerging about a follow-on to the now-discarded Next-Generation Bomber. Among them is the revelation that it will be as much about intelligence-gathering as bombing and that many of its weapons will produce effects other than explosions.
Photographer, author and archivist DANA BELL has retired after a 30-year career with the U.S. government. Starting as a photo researcher with the Air Force in 1976, he moved to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington in 1982. Bell has written 24 books on aviation history, and is now a full-time author. This year marked his 13th as a photo contest judge.
China launched its seventh Yaogan remote-sensing satellite on Dec. 9, a year after putting the fourth of the series into orbit. The spacecraft will be mainly used for scientific experiments, land resources surveys, crop yield estimates, and disaster prevention and reduction. The launcher was a Long March 2D.
The Royal Air Force must plan and manage a substantial in-service delay, aircraft cuts and capability gaps as the government moves to squeeze £1.5 billion ($2.5 billion) out of near-term defense costs. The RAF will also have to oversee transfer of a helicopter type to the Royal Navy. London unveiled a spending and savings package Dec. 15 that includes the purchase of 24 more Boeing Chinooks, another C-17 airlifter and additional MQ-9 Reapers, as well as armored vehicles and personnel equipment, totaling some £900 million.
For the third year, Aviation Week & Space Technology asked its readers to recommend their favorite images from the photo contest entries, at AviationWeek.com. They chose from the same 300-plus finalist entries that our judges reviewed. On these pages, you can see the most-recommended images from each of the contest’s four categories that were not prize winners or honorable mentions. To see all the finalists, go to AviationWeek.com/gallery.
French accident investigation bureau BEA wants certification criteria for pitot tubes to be changed following in-depth studies into their behavior in high-altitude flight. In its latest interim report, BEA writes that current tests “aimed at the validation of this equipment do not appear to be well-adapted to flights at high altitude.” Studies were launched as part of the investigation of the June 1 crash of Air France Flight 447. A series of Acars messages was sent automatically indicating erroneous speed data received from the pitot probes.
The Air Force will not be allowed to spend money to retire any aircraft until it provides Congress with an independent review of its plans to restructure combat air forces. That directive is in the final Fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, the result of a House and Senate compromise, which was unveiled before their holiday break and approved by the House. Along with it, appropriators issued a statement explaining that they expected the independent review of the combat air force structure by Apr.
Boeing has broken the 100 mark in net orders in a very down year by picking up two 737 sales from Air Austral, another two from Panama’s Copa Airlines, an unnamed 777 Boeing Business Jet/VIP customer and a 737 for the U.S. Navy. But as typical for the year, Boeing also lost one 777 order, which it is not identifying. As of Dec. 16, it had booked 215 gross orders and lost 112 to changes, for a net of 103.
A new model intended to enhance Eurocopter’s competitiveness in the medium-twin segment and provide China’s Avicopter with a beachhead in the international market is one step closer to fruition following its first flight last week.
When histories of the Boeing 787 and Airbus A400M military transport are written, they are apt to include some valuable lessons that could help program managers improve their chances of bringing large, complex aircraft development projects in on time and on budget.
The $2-billion question in development of a new bomber is whether a major black-world demonstration program is already underway, with Northrop Grumman as the contractor.
Expect a shootout early in 2010 as Obama rolls out his plans for human spaceflight. He is said to have confirmed his commitment to human spaceflight in a Dec. 16 meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and discussed the options presented by Norm Augustine’s review panel. To deal with the budget “challenges” they face, top NASA managers already are working on merging the agency’s spaceflight and exploration units as the shuttle era ends.
XCOR Aerospace will seek export licenses for its planned Lynx Mark II suborbital spaceplane so it can sell suborbital flight services to a non-profit South Korean education and research organization. The Mojave, Calif.-based XCOR has retained counsel and consultants to help it win U.S. government approval to station a Lynx at the Yecheon Astro Space Center. The South Korean center has raised about $30 million to acquire Lynx services for space tourism and educational, scientific and environmental-monitoring flights, XCOR says.
Alitalia says it is discussing a commercial alliance with Russian carrier Aeroflot, which had considered taking a stake in the Italian airline. The talks, which follow a preliminary agreement in early December, concern potential new routes, additional frequencies and code-sharing flights, and possibly the carriers’ respective frequent-flier programs.
The British High Court has ruled that a planned strike by British Airways cabin crew woud be illegal, in the latest twist to the fractious dispute between airline staff and management. Cabin crewmembers had been planning to begin a 12-day strike Dec. 22, but the court ruled the strike vote was not carried out correctly..
The Chinese maintenance industry will advance not only in size but also in its technology and management in the coming decade, top executives predict. The major challenge will remain finding skilled labor. With the industry growing so fast and competing for technicians against rapidly expanding airlines, local training is likely to be only a partial solution to the labor demand.
As the Pentagon weighs its options for adding money and time to complete flight tests for the F-35 program, Congress is feeling left out. One source familiar with the program says Congress is miffed that Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter has discussed the Joint Strike Fighter’s quandary in the press. The Senate Armed Services Committee held a closed hearing on the matter Dec. 16. In a statement following the hearing, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) said they are “deeply concerned” about the cost growth and expected delays.
Thales is counting on deep cuts in overhead costs and tighter control of bidding and program management to help it recover from its worst performance in a decade.
Aerospace Industries Assn. President and CEO Marion Blakey hopes U.S. lawmakers will take note of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposed $50-billion high-tech stimulus when they consider job-creation proposals. Sarkozy’s plan would earmark $9.3 billion for industrial initiatives, benefitting new aeronautics and space projects in Europe (see p. 31). “This makes a great deal of sense,” Blakey tells Aviation Week. “It is certainly the direction we hope the Congress will go when they come back and look at the jobs issue after the new year.” The U.S.
Boeing will aggressively ramp up the 787 flight-test program by flying the second airframe as early as Dec. 22, just days after the successful first flight of the prototype aircraft ZA001.
The British government plans to give the go-ahead for the acquisition of three RC-135V/W Rivet Joint aircraft in early January, pending finance department approval. The aircraft will replace the electronic intelligence capability now provided by the Royal Air Force’s two remaining Nimrod R1s.
Israel’s Elbit Systems flew its Hermes 900 medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aircraft for the first time on Dec. 9. The 15-min. flight demonstrated an autonomous takeoff and landing, with the aircraft carrying a dummy electro-optical/infrared sensor.
Robert Brevelle has been appointed vice president-intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems for DRS Defense Solutions , Bethesda, Md. He was head of strategic development for the Electronic Warfare and Intelligence Solutions Div. of Rockwell Collins.
The U.K. government needs to reassess its plans for the country’s air transport infrastructure to address a growing mismatch between demand, capacity and environmental targets. That is the underlying message of two new reports issued last week, one by Parliament and the second by an advisory body to the government.
