Swedish Space Corp. (SSC) and French space agency CNES have agreed to jointly acquire and own two new 13-meter (43-ft.) full-motion antennas to track satellite operations. The antennas, part of the PrioraNet worldwide network of ground stations operated by SSC, will be placed at two sites fully or partly owned or operated by SSC—Esrange in northern Sweden and Inuvik in Canada. The agreement will give CNES access to parts of PriorNet and provide SSC with extra capacity to sell to other users.
Two CAE 5000 series full-flight simulators have received FAA/EASA certification for the Embraer Phenom 100 and 300 aircraft. The first Phenom 100 will be installed in Dallas and the second in the UK.
Boeing will shift Senior Vice President Mike Cave from his role as head of business development and strategy to president of Boeing Capital Corp. as of Jan. 1. He will succeed Walt Skowronski, who is retiring. BCC arranges, structures and provides financing for Boeing commercial airplane, defense and satellite products. Cave, long seen as a possible future CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, will immediately become Skowronski’s deputy for the transition period. Cave will be succeeded by Shep Hill, who will also continue as president of Boeing International.
USAF Col. (ret.) Rick Searfoss Former Astronaut/Shuttle Commander (Tehachapi, Calif.)
In response to Jeremiah Farmer’s letter (AW&ST Sept. 28, p. 8), having been both a pilot astronaut and fighter pilot, I take issue with the tone, content and premise of his apples-to-oranges comparison between NASA and military funding.
Air Vanuatu, the national flag carrier of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, plans to put its new ATR 72-500 into service on regional routes that are seeing increased traffic growth. The -500, delivered this month, is powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW127Ms, has 120-min. ETOPS (extended operations) capability and is configured to seat 68. The airline, founded in December 1987, now operates an ATR 42-300 on short-haul routes and a Boeing 737-800 to cities in Australia and New Zealand.
Decisions on bankruptcy proceedings involving two U.S. commercial satellite operators could determine the course of action Solaris Mobile will pursue to meet European Commission requirements for establishing S-band mobile satellite service in Europe. Solaris Mobile, a joint venture of Eutelsat and SES Astra, was selected in May, along with Inmarsat, to supply the service. Initially, this was to be done using an S-band payload on Eutelsat’s W2A spacecraft, but this payload suffered an antenna anomaly following its Apr. 3 launch.
Pilots caught in the time warp of the age-65 rule are considering what their next move might be now that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has turned down their appeal of a lower-court dismissal of their class-action suit. Attorney Anthony P.X. Bothwell of San Francisco was seeking relief for Southwest Airlines pilot Michael L. Oksner and 225 others who were shut out of continued flight status by a 2007 law that extended the mandatory retirement age to 65 for commercial airline pilots.
Fixes built into new U.S. Air Force Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (Jassm) rolling off Lockheed Martin’s production line proved successful in a recent round of flight trials, but retrofitting these changes onto existing weapons remains a challenge, according to a top officer overseeing Jassm.
Custom connecting devices manufacturer Sabritec has released a catalogue featuring high-performance quadrax, twinax and fiber-optic interconnects. New products include the dura speed quadrax/twinax, micro-D twinax, as well as quick disconnect connectors. Sabritec’s full line of standard products for Mil-Dtl-38999, Arinc 404/600, Mil-Dtl-83527, rugged D-Sub, backplane and panel mount connectors are also included.
Oct. 25-27—2009 Airline Dispatcher Federation’s Symposium: “Human Factors and Technology Within the Dispatch Environment.” Lake Buena Vista Embassy Suites, Orlando, Fla. Call +1 (800) 676-2268 or see www.dispatcher.org Oct. 25-29—28th Annual Digital Avionics Systems Conference. Florida Hotel and Conference Center, Orlando. See http://dasconline.org
Rodger Doxsey, head of the Hubble Mission Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute, died Oct. 13 in Baltimore of cancer. The New York native was 62.
A campaign by business, civic and labor leaders is underway to convince President Barack Obama to visit Wichita, the “Air Capital of the World,” to see the disproportionate toll the global economic slump has taken on the business jet industry—and thousands of middle-class jobs. As the epicenter of the industry, the Kansas city of 364,000 has seen demand for its chief product plummet after corporate profits tumbled and credit for aircraft buyers evaporated.
As a career Navy A-7 pilot, the thought of flying without an angle-of-attack indicator seems barbaric. Why would today’s pilots forgo the use of the most accurate indicator of aircraft performance? Use of AOA virtually ameliorates the need to cross-reference weight and altitude charts, providing simple, dependable instrumentation. Commercial and civil aviation should be ashamed for not installing AOA indicators and teaching their use as the primary means to measure optimal flight performance.
The U.K. will deploy the first Royal Air Force Merlin medium-lift helicopters to Afghanistan within the next week or two, as London plans a further increase of forces in theater. In a statement to Parliament last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that along with the Merlin deployment, there would be additional troops—subject to conditions—and an increase in the number of flying hours for unmanned air vehicles. There will be a 30% increase in hours for the Hermes 450, with an 80% increase for the Predator B Reaper from 2010.
Vapormatt’s water-assisted stripping process is being adopted by some airlines to streamline the degreasing and cleaning or even the complete de-painting of aircraft wheels during regular maintenance operations, according to the company. The process, based on the wet-blasting principle, is a solvent- and dust-free procedure that uses an operator-safe cleaning solution of a proprietary mix of water, detergent and “soft” plastic media projected at the wheel through a special blast nozzle.
Star Alliance has told Air India to accelerate its IT integration process and complete all formalities required for membership. Air India, initially scheduled to join Star in March, is now looking at a second-quarter 2010 entry date. The delay has been caused by a re-tendering for systems integration of the Air India and the former Indian Airlines and lack of decision on adopting a common flight code, which is required for Star membership.
Airliner, fighter or business jet —almost every modern aircraft owes part of its aerodynamic design to one man: Richard T. Whitcomb, who died Oct. 15 in Newport News, Va. He was 89. As a NASA engineer, Whitcomb developed three of the most important post-war innovations in aeronautics: transonic area rule, supercritical airfoil and winglets. Whitcomb, shown above working with a wind-tunnel model of NASA’s TF-8 fitted with his supercritical wing, devoted his career to reducing drag.
Global cooperation in human spaceflight will focus on the International Space Station for the foreseeable future, regardless of the course President Barack Obama sets for NASA’s exploration program in the weeks ahead. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says everything is still on the table as the independent human-spaceflight review committee prepares to deliver its final report to the White House. That report on options for future space-exploration policy was originally due at the end of August and expected last week, but was delayed again for final editing.
Three years after Lufthansa pulled the plug on the Connexion by Boeing high-speed onboard broadband service, the carrier has brought out a new service in partnership with Panasonic Avionics. FlyNet will allow passengers to send or receive e-mails or text messages and surf the web with their laptops and handheld mobile devices, but not make phone calls or watch live TV—although both will be technically feasible. FlyNet is to be introduced on Lufthansa long-haul flights in the second half of next year.
When NASA Ames Research Center and Northrop Grumman thought about smashing into a lunar crater with a man-made meteor to search for water, they needed a cheap and easily adaptable spacecraft bus to make the mission possible.
The Boeing A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter completed 20 test flights from Aug. 31-Oct. 8 for its Foliage Penetration Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Tracking and Engagement Radar (Forester). Conducted at Ft. Stewart, Ga., the trails validated the radar-carrying A160T’s flight characteristics with more than 50 hr. of flying time. The program is being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army to bring enhanced coverage of moving vehicles and dismounted troops under forest canopies. The 53 flight hours at Ft.
Both General Electric and Rolls-Royce are to continue into Phase 2 of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (Advent) program, but only Rolls’s Liberty Works has been funded to complete development and testing of a demonstrator engine, which is planned to run in 2012.
European Space Agency leaders appear to be closing in on a solution for a Mars lander initiative that would reconcile technological and science goals with available budgets.
Intelsat will issue a senior note offering to refinance debt and provide capital for other corporate activities. The notes will become due in 2019. A portion of the net proceeds from the issue, the value of which was not disclosed, will go to purchase certain oustanding 11.5/12.5% senior payment-in-kind notes that were due in 2017. Intelsat is heavily leveraged and pursuing an ambitious fleet modernization program.
