Test engineers will accelerate the first “eCore” for CFM International’s next-generation Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion (LEAP56) engine development effort this week, following its initial run at General Electric’s site in Evendale, Ohio, June 12.
Your editorial “VH-71: Spending To Save” (AW&ST June 8, p. 58) correctly identifies for the first time in my experience the cause of ballooning program costs: requirements creep. Requirements creep is at the heart of Western civilization, which includes continuous and unrelenting advancement in technology. Rather than receive criticism, requirements creep should be heralded as the savior and not the devil. We want advancements! We want improvements in performance! We want faster, better, cheaper! Requirements creep gives us all of these.
Safran’s Snecma Div. is planning to test a new high-pressure core design for the Rafale M88 engine that could meet demand for export customers in hot countries, notably the United Arab Emirates, for a higher-power version of the engine. The test, planned for September, will focus on a package of M88 improvements, known as the Pack CGP-9T, intended to reduce M88 ownership costs. The test article will include a new high-pressure core designed to raise thrust to 9 from 7.5 metric tons.
The U.S. Air Force’s $9.7-billion Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program is in the midst of a tug of war over Pentagon priorities. As the procurement czar reviews a new, delayed testing schedule and criticizes management of the program, commanders in the field are clamoring for early fielding of some untested capabilities.
Single-aisle jets accounted for 73% of the orders taken by Boeing last year and 61% by Airbus. So it is hardly surprising that aerospace suppliers of all sizes are anxious about whether the two aircraft builders will really be able to maintain their optimistic narrow-body production plans. For their part, Boeing and Airbus worry that sub-tier suppliers will begin to pull back in anticipation of reductions that may never materialize, setting the stage for component shortages and delayed deliveries in years to come.
Pacifist organization Switzerland Without an Army has secured sufficient signatures to force a nationwide vote on its proposal for a 10-year moratorium on the purchase of new fighters. The country is evaluating the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen as partial replacements for its F-5E Tiger fleet. The vote is expected in 2011.
Pyongyang could be aiming at Hawaii or Guam or Okinawa—or not. A Tokyo Defense Ministry study says North Korea’s next Taepodong 2 test—or perhaps that of a slightly enlarged upgrade—may be launched as early as next month. U.S. intelligence officials say predictions are strictly conjecture. “It could be pointing anywhere, although we’re pretty sure the North Koreans won’t point them toward China or Russia,” says a military analyst.
Presidential science adviser John Holdren says Obama wants to receive “all of the reasonable options” for future human spaceflight activities from the expert panel that started reviewing them last week (see p. 40). “This is a president who gets it,” Holdren tells the panel headed by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, restating the president’s “commitment to continued U.S. leadership in space, to go back to the Moon and destinations beyond low Earth orbit.” That gives panelists an enormous amount of clout in setting space policy, says Sen.
The Pentagon is terminating its contract with Lockheed Martin to develop a Self Awareness Space Situational Awareness payload for satellites that would provide threat-warning data, says Rick Ambrose, who leads the company’s surveillance and navigation business. Lockheed Martin in October was awarded a competitive contract as was Assurance Technologies, which will continue developing its design.
The European Space Agency has awarded a €20-million follow-on contract to Snecma, Astrium and Avio for a high-thrust, first-stage technology demonstrator to be tested under its Future Launcher Preparatory Program. The award covers testing of subsystems to prove the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the demonstrator design, which employs cryogenic propulsion. The €33-million project is expected to define a reference design by mid-2010 and test-fire a mid-scale demonstrator in 2014.
Aviation Capital Group (ACG) is creating an aircraft leasing company in Egypt with Civil Aviation Finance (CIAF) Holding. Civil Aviation Finance and Operating Leases will primarily focus on narrowbodies, but may eventually consider widebodies, says Medhat Hassanein, CIAF chairman and CEO. The joint venture should begin operating this year and grow to 50 aircraft within five years, he says.
As a forcibly “separated” Boeing 777 captain with more than 31 years at my carrier, I was aggravated by the inaccurate attack on those that stood up to the Age 60 Rule in Bill Hansen’s letter (AW&ST June 8, p. 8).
French armaments agency DGA has issued Thales a contract to bring 60 air force Fennec helicopters up to ICAO standards so they can fly in civil airspace. The €34-million ($47-million) five-year award covers the upgrade of communications, navigation and identification hardware. It will begin with a one-year development phase that will be validated with a series of inflight qualification tests.
EADS North America expects to keep the two Turbomecca Arriel 1E2 engines used on its Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) for its Armed Scout Helicopter proposal for the U.S. Army. But to meet the rigorous high-and-hot requirement, largely for Afghanistan, the company plans a slight software upgrade to add almost 10% power. CEO Lutz Bertling says the company expects to conduct an endurance test to verify the engine’s performance.
Donley also said he is worried that some of the Fiscal 2010 budget cuts could adversely affect some elements of the U.S. military industrial base. He cited the protected satellite communications area, which was dampened by the proposed termination of the Transformational Satellite program. Donley also said the bomber industrial base is at risk, especially after the Pentagon opted to sideline work on a next-generation system. He says he’s looking at how much money would be needed to bridge work by competing teams at Northrop Grumman and Boeing/Lockheed Martin.
A longtime goal of EADS NV CEO Louis Gallois has been to lessen the company’s reliance on Airbus by expanding its defense business. While he has made progress—more than one-third of the European aerospace giant’s earnings before interest and taxes came from outside Airbus last year—Gallois wants EADS to be more like chief rival Boeing Co., which is able to rely on its military unit for more than 50% of revenues when the commercial aircraft industry hits hard times.
Japanese startup Fuji Dream Airlines last week confirmed its buy of an Embraer 175, according to the manufacturer. In November 2007, the Mt. Fuji Shizuoka Airport-based carrier placed a firm order for two Embraer 170s that included purchase rights for another aircraft—in this case, the 175. The 170 can seat 70-80 passengers and the 175, 78-88. The carrier’s two Embraer 170s have already been delivered and are scheduled to enter revenue service in July. The 175, which will be configured in an 84-seat, single-class layout, is scheduled for delivery in 2010.
As a crewmember on SP-2H, P-3A and P-3C aircraft, I strongly echo Capt. Mark E. Wisniewski’s positive comments about the P-3 flight engineer (FE) community (AW&ST May 11, p. 11). The concept of balancing crew experience by using junior plane commanders with senior FEs and vice versa is one reason that the patrol community enjoyed the incredible safety record amassed over decades of operations in all types of weather. It remains to be seen if the P-8A will be as successful.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) says it is time for Congress to reassert oversight of the Pentagon. And the House Armed Services Committee did just that last week, voting to use $369 million from a military environmental cleanup fund to keep the F-22 Raptor line going beyond Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s end goal of 187 stealth fighters. Abercrombie believes it’s “highly likely that there’s going to be an [additional] F-22 buy” although “the exact number, and where the money’s coming from, is a work in progress.” For one thing, the funds Rep.
United Launch Alliance sent this Atlas V carrying NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and its piggyback Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) to the Moon June 18, dodging thunderstorms to get off the pad at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., at 5:32 p.m. EDT on the final launch window of the day.
Even as airlines are calling on manufacturers to get started on the next-generation of narrow-body jetliners, the first of those projects is already more than a year into development. With propulsion, structural and systems technologies at least a generation ahead of those in the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 family, the aircraft should offer a leap in efficiency.
Safran is taking advantage of a new European funding scheme aimed at financing projects with environmental benefits, to bolster its engine research and development. The European Investment Bank has granted Safran a €300-million ($414-million) loan for more fuel-efficient engines. Safran says the money will support development of a successor for the CFM International CFM56 it builds in a joint venture with General Electric.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) says it is time for Congress to reassert oversight of the Pentagon. And the House Armed Services Committee did just that last week, voting to use $369 million from a military environmental cleanup fund to keep the F-22 Raptor line going beyond Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s end goal of 187 stealth fighters. Abercrombie believes it’s “highly likely that there’s going to be an [additional] F-22 buy” although “the exact number, and where the money’s coming from, is a work in progress.” For one thing, the funds Rep.
Robert Wall (Le Bourget), Graham Warwick (Le Bourget), Michael A. Taverna (Le Bourget)
Western helicopter makers are bracing for a turbulent decade that could significantly reshape the rotorcraft marketplace. Beyond the near-term decline in commercial business stemming from the global economic downturn, rotorcraft manufacturers also face a dearth of mid-term development programs and a long list of new competitors likely to emerge around 2020.
Amy Butler (Washington), Bettina H. Chavanne (Washington), Graham Warwick (Washington)
While the U.S. Navy is preparing for a ship-based deployment of its new Fire Scout this fall, the manufacturer plans to propose the unmanned rotorcraft as a cargo resupply system for the Marine Corps.
