Australia will powerfully strengthen and reorient its defense forces in the face of a rising China that it expects to wield an increasingly long reach. Assessing risks in the changing Asian balance of power out to 2030, a defense white paper sets out plans for land-attack missiles as a strategic strike force based on a fleet of larger and more numerous warships.
NetJets Europe is one of the biggest buyers of business aircraft in Europe, offering customers a fractional ownership program and flying-hour cards. William Kelly, CEO of NetJets Europe, talks with Aviation Week & Space Technology International Editor Robert Wall about the global economic crisis and its impact on his business. AW&ST: How have NetJets Europe’s operations been affected by the economic downturn?
Eumetsat has inaugurated the first ground facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to serve its Eumetcast data transmission network. Funded by the European Union, the facility will be part of a network intended to enhance the use of environmental satellite data by sub-Saharan African nations.
June 15-21—Paris air show. Sept. 23-24—MRO Europe. Hamburg, Germany. Nov. 2-4—A&D Programs. Phoenix. Dec. 2-3—A&D Finance. New York. Dec. 8-10—MRO Asia. Hong Kong. June 4—Business Aviation Security. Rosslyn, Va. June 16—Demonstrating the Value of Corporate Aviation. New York. July 15-16—Revenue Management for Airlines. Chicago.
BAE Systems is aiming to fly the Mantis medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle before the end of this month, says Kevin Taylor, managing director of the company’s Military Air Solutions business unit. The Mantis technology demonstrator is being jointly funded by the Defense Ministry and industry. The air vehicle is now at the Woomera range in Australia.
FAA Certification Of Mistral Engine’s 300-hp., three-rotor, normally-aspirated G-300 is expected early next year, with approval of a two-rotor 200-hp. model later in 2010. Turbocharged 360- and 230-hp. variants are also planned. The Swiss startup says the liquid-cooled electronically controlled engines will run on fuels ranging from automobile gasoline and avgas to blended avgas/mogas and blends with up to 15% ethanol content. The series’ Wankel design has 90% fewer moving parts than a standard piston engine, affording a maintenance cost advantage over other types.
While the “old” Alitalia is nearing the sale of additional assets, the new, improved Alitalia is facing some hurdles. The Italian civil aviation authority is demanding that the airline explain the reasons for its continuing delays and operational problems only four months after emerging as a restructured company. For example, the “new” carrier has only partially integrated the information and reservation system previously operated by the “old” Alitalia.
President Barack Obama’s Fiscal 2010 defense budget request may yet be remembered as the turning point in a 50-year, bipartisan effort to assert control over the U.S. military industrial complex. That is the clear intention of Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, who earlier signaled his decision to stop buying ever-more eye-watering technologies and platforms for conflicts that may materialize only in the minds of ethereal defense thinkers.
Key lawmakers are backing Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his opposition to a proposal to split the massive U.S. Air Force refueling tanker contract between Boeing and an EADS/Northrop Grumman team. House Appropriations defense subcommittee chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) has suggested his panel could add a split- buy measure to the Pentagon’s Fiscal 2010 budget. But Sens.
Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. has picked Space Systems/Loral to build AsiaSat 5C, a new satellite that will serve as a backup for AsiaSat 5, currently under construction at SS/L for launch in the third quarter. The move will ensure service continuity for customers using AsiaSat 2, which AsiaSat 5 is intended to replace, in the event of a launch failure.
The U.S. long-term plan for human spaceflight will have an asterisk next to it until at least the end of the summer while a panel headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine reviews it at the request of the White House.
Airbus Military has concluded boom flutter testing on an A330-200 Multi- Role Tanker Transport, aimed at verifying boom and aircraft behavior during boom ruddervator-induced vibrations. The trials tested the boom at several heights, configurations and conditions, including boom fully deployed, at speeds up to Mach 0.92. The tests followed recent tanker/receiver flight control law demonstrations (AW&ST May 4, p. 16).
What am I missing here? So we’re going to the Moon, again. OK; we did it in less than a decade last time. That was with next to no computers. Those that they did have were very rudimentary, limited to only 72kb. Rockets, engines, a capsule, a lunar module and everything else needed to get the job done were designed with slide rules. Now high-power computers, computer-aided-design (CAD) and fluid dynamics are just some of the tools available. Oh yes, we also have the data and information of exactly how to do it. So what exactly seems to be the problem?
The latest unmanned Russian supply vehicle for the International Space Station, ISS Progress 33, launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:37 p.m. EDT, reaching its preliminary orbit and deploying its solar arrays and antennas 9 min. later. The spacecraft is due to dock at the station’s Pirs compartment at 3:23 p.m. May 12, at which point the Expedition 19 crew will begin unloading its 2.5 tons of food, fuel and supplies. ISS Progress 32 undocked from the station May 6 at 11:18 a.m. filled with trash and other discarded items.
Boeing, which has announced the industry’s biggest job cuts, so far, in the global financial crisis, reduced its employment count by nearly 4,000 positions in the first four months of 2009. That amounts to about 40% of the 10,000-plus jobs the company has said it will cut this year across all its business sectors.
Thales has agreed to pay Alcatel-Lucent an additional €130 million ($172 million) for Alcatel’s 67% share in Thales Alenia Space, which Thales acquired in 2007 together with a 33% share in Telespazio under a deal with Finmeccanica known as the Space Alliance. The acquisition was paid for with 25 million Thales shares—which Alcatel is poised to sell to Dassault Aviation—along with €710 million in cash and an earn-out provision for Thales Alenia to be evaluated in 2009 (AW&ST Apr. 23, 2007, p. 68).
The U.S. Marine Corps is exploring enhanced armament options to put on the MV-22 Osprey when the tiltrotor heads to Afghanistan later this year. One effort underway is to upgrade the V-22 to be able to handle a 0.50-caliber ramp-mounted weapon. Flight clearances are underway. Also, development testing is complete to fit the BAE Systems interim defense system small-caliber gun to the tiltrotor. Operational tests of the weapon are due this month, with plans to wrap those activities up around August.
Ruag Aerospace has been selected to deliver five Ku-band receivers for GSAT-8 (Insat 4G), a multipurpose Indian spacecraft intended to provide telecom and navigation services. The transponders will be supplied by Ruag’s Swedish unit (formerly Saab Space, acquired by Swiss-based Ruag last year), and were originally to be provided by the Space Applications Center of the Indian Space Research Organization, prime contractor for the Insat 4 advanced telecom program.
In “Small Space” (AW&ST Apr. 20, p. 33) the Constellation Habitability Design Center approached Altair vehicle configuration by inspecting Space Center Houston mockups of Apollo-era hardware to discover, “what worked, what didn’t work.” This type of thinking has sapped the aerospace industry of the robust workforce required as a vital component of our economy, technology base and national security. Why is Altair hardware not based on current state-of-the-art beyond-Earth-orbit systems? Because there are none.
When Pilatus Aircraft announced the large-cabin, PC-12 single-engine turboprop in 1989, there were predictions that sales of so unusual an aircraft would never top 100. On Apr. 30, the Swiss manufacturer delivered the 900th, a $4-million PC-12NG. The Stans factory will build 97 units this year, so the 1,000th delivery should occur in 2010.
In a joint effort to avoid layoffs resulting from reduced flight activity, NetJets management and representatives of the NetJets Assn. of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP), its pilots union, have agreed on a “furlough mitigation package” to help reduce the roster voluntarily. Terms of the options package range from reduced work days, to early retirement with two-thirds base pay for two years, or leaves of absence of up to 36 months with reduced pay, and both with full medical benefits while maintaining their seniority position.
The British Labor government and the opposing Conservative party are sparring over future defense expenditures. In addition, intra-party tensions are emerging along with differing priorities. Recent comments by David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, drew immediate response from Ian Godden, chief executive of the Society of British Aerospace Cos.: “Security threats do not go away just because the country is in recession. . . .
BOC Aviation, extending its campaign of sale-and-leaseback deals, has bought four Boeing 777s from Air France and leased them back to the airline. The agreement, for two 777-200LR freighters and two 777-300ER airliners, is the latest in a string of such financing contracts that the lessor, a subsidiary of the Bank of China, began signing in December.
Reader Mark E. J. Fay’s “Crash Prosecutions Have Merit” (AW&ST Apr. 27, p. 8) is uninformed. In more than 30 years in this business, I’ve yet to meet a flightcrew member who intentionally made an error. The concept of “criminality” implies intent. You can’t claim that prosecution should occur if there was never any intent to commit a crime.
Eurocopter is taking steps to improve workforce flexibility in order to more readily absorb fluctuations in market demand for new helicopters, say executives at the company, though they insist the new work rules do not imply an immediate decrease in production. Instead, the plan is part of a wide-ranging productivity initiative aimed at updating practices begun a decade ago when output was barely one-third of current levels.
