China, France and Russia are increasingly aggressive in courting customers for their military products, but it is the U.S. that is raking in the big dollars—and increasingly so.
NASA has assumed ownership of Node 3, one of the last elements intended for the International Space Station, in preparation for launch to the orbital facility early next year. Node 3, to be known as Tranquility, is to be orbited together with its windowed cupola on the STS-130 shuttle mission in February. Like the already orbiting Node 2, the two new elements were built by Thales Alenia Space for the European Space Agency. Thales Alenia also will provide checkout and launch-preparation support to NASA through its Altec affiliate. The cupola will provide a 360-deg.
Graham Warwick (Washington), Douglas Barrie (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Like development of the platforms themselves, the evolution of radars for unmanned aircraft is advancing at an accelerated pace, driven in the near term by the pressing operational need to detect roadside bombs and track insurgents in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection expects to unveil a maritime-oriented Predator B unmanned aircraft in December, Tom Cassidy, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems’ aircraft systems group, told Aviation Week’s A&D Programs conference in Phoenix earlier this month. CBP’s Air and Marine group operates five Predator Bs. One additional unmanned aircraft has been at General Atomics for modification and upgrading for deployment as a maritime variant.
The fallout from the Haddon-Cave report into the loss of a Royal Air Force Nimrod continues. Technology company Qinetiq has picked former high court judge Robert Nelson to lead a formal investigation into the report’s conclusions and recommendations and has suspended its two employees named in the report with full pay during the inquiry. The suspensions are believed to be a procedural process.
The World Trade Organization’s dispute resolution process on large commercial aircraft subsidies to Boeing and Airbus appears to be further developing in Washington’s favor. The WTO already issued an interim ruling on the U.S. case, in which European governments are accused of violating trade rules to provide support to Airbus. European officials are frustrated that a ruling in the so-called U.S. offensive case could come before a verdict on their counterclaim—that Washington provides illegal support to Boeing. The WTO upheld important parts of the U.S.
Airbus has awarded a $10-million A350 manufacturing contract to engine nacelle leading edge, or lipskin, specialist McStarlite. The Harbor City, Calif.-based company is due to ship the first set of lipskins to Airbus’s Nantes facility in France by year-end, marking the delivery of one of the earliest development units for the new twinjet. Airbus says spending across U.S. airspace has doubled in the last five years and reached $10 billion in 2008.
A dozen astronauts and cosmonauts from the space shuttle Atlantis and International Space Station are well along in the latest mission to prepare the station for operations without shuttle support.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency hopes next year to begin full-scale development of the Advanced Solid Rocket, its proposed launcher for medium-size scientific payloads. A first flight of the three-stage ASR, to be built by IHI Aerospace, should follow in 2012 or 2013, sustaining the solid-propellant expertise that Japan has built up since launching pencil-size rockets in the mid-1950s.
Chinese fighter builder Avic Defense, consciously imitating Dassault, aims to build a large business jet as part of its strategy of exploiting military technology for its civilian operations. Avic Defense will also build up an aircraft maintenance business catering to airline customers, says President Wang Yawei, while offering new insights into the reorganization of the Chinese aircraft sector.
Eutelsat has struck a strategic agreement with Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) that will allow customers of both operators to add bandwidth in Asia, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, where certain capacity, particularly Ku-band, is scarce. ABS started business with a single satellite, ABS-1. It recently acquired Koreasat-2, now known as ABS-1a, and Mubalay Satellite Corp’s Agila-2, renamed ABS-5. But the company remains capacity-constrained while awaiting the launch of ABS-2, which will not be lofted until the first half of 2012.
Kevin J. Gould, who has been chief executive of Piper Aircraft , Vero Beach, Fla., also will be president as of Dec. 1. He will succeed John D. Becker, who has resigned. Jeff Barger has been promoted to vice president-manufacturing operations from senior director of Piper manufacturing, Dennis D. Olcott to vice president-engineering from senior director of Piper engineering and Derek Zimmerman to vice president-supply chain and aftermarket development from senior director of supply chain. Mary Messuti has been appointed senior director for Asia.
David H. Langstaff has been appointed a non-executive director of London-based Qinetiq . He is a director of SRA International Inc. and was president/CEO of the Veridian Corp. Mary Craft has been named senior vice president-national systems in the Mission Solutions Group of Qinetiq North America, Fairfax, Va. She was vice president-intelligence engineering for General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems.
Air France-KLM slowed financial drain in the second quarter, but not enough to avoid a first-half operating loss of €543 million. The airline group says revenue was down 20%. What’s more, the two carriers’ financial performance continues to be hurt by a bad bet made on fuel hedges, which impacted first-half results by €430 million.
Peg Billson (see photo) has become president of BBA Aviation Legacy Support , Chatsworth, Calif., also overseeing Ontic and the International Governor Service. She was chief operating officer of the Eclipse Aviation Corp.
A congested legislative schedule makes it increasingly unlikely that Congress will pass an FAA reauthorization bill by year-end, meaning yet another short-term extension is on the horizon. The FAA is currently operating under a three-month extension that expires Dec. 31, leaving little time for a full reauthorization bill to be completed. Blame the Senate. The House has already passed its version of reauthorization. The bill has been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee. The holdup has been the Finance Committee, which has authority over tax and fee increases.
Lufthansa is launching what could be its last in-house attempt to turn a profit on its short-haul business and may face uncomfortable strategic questions if it fails to achieve quick results.
NASA’s DC-8 airborne laboratory is wrapping up the first of a series of Antarctic ice-survey missions aimed at better predicting how changes will affect sea levels around the world.
In a unanimous voice vote, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Nov. 19 approved the nominations of Erroll Southers as head of the Transportation Security Administration and Daniel Gordon as Office of Management and Budget administrator for federal procurement policy. Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-D-Conn.) noted that Southers, who has worked in government and academia, has 30 years’ experience in public safety, homeland security and intelligence.
An article in the Nov. 16 issue (p. 45) incorrectly described the number of launches Sea Launch is tentatively planning after it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Current planning calls for four Sea Launch missions and two Land Launch flights a year.
Sukhoi is adjusting the schedule for delivery of the Superjet 100 regional jet, with first customer handovers to Aeroflot and Armavia now not expected until well into 2010. Aircraft certification is no longer slated for this year. Culprits include delays in building and certifying the PowerJet SaM146 engine. Armavia officials indicate they expect to get the Superjet 100 in April.
A U.S. flight crew has flown the Qinetiq Zephyr high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for the first time, during recent trials at the U.S. Army’s Yuma proving ground in Arizona. The renewed flight test program includes payload option evaluation as well as developing concepts of operation for the solar-powered UAV. The trials are the first elements of an enabling contract led by the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center’s Aircraft Div.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A.Taverna (Dubai)
Uncertainly over the future of the U.K.’s Mantis medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) demonstrator—despite the recent success of the rapid prototyping program—reflects wider doubts over London’s UAV and unmanned combat air vehicle strategy.
While I cannot blame the Europeans, and Pierre Sparaco in particular, for trying to get a piece of the $45 billion that the U.S. needs to spend on a replacement tanker, the Europeans are the ones endangering the lives of U.S. military personnel with their insistence on “competitiveness” on one of the largest procurements in history (AW&ST Oct. 19, p. 66). The new tanker program will eventually hit $100 billion, and the Europeans will be happy to get half of it.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London)
China has the resources and technology—some of it obtained quasi-legally and illegally—to build a fifth-generation fighter, say U.S. Air Force and intelligence officials. But Beijing’s aerospace industry may be missing key skills needed for it to match the performance of advanced, Western-built combat aircraft.
