Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the slot auctions proposed as a way to manage congestion at the New York-area airports will be canceled, thus ending a contentious legacy of the Bush administration (AW&ST May 11, p. 32). “We’re still serious about tackling aviation congestion in the New York region,” says LaHood, promising to work with stakeholders in creating a new plan. Last year’s slot auction proposal caused a near revolt by airlines and airports.
Snecma says there is growing interest in developing an engine based on Silvercrest now that analysis of test results from core engine demonstrator bench-testing is complete. In fact, Snecma executives suggest Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney might have avoided some problems with their new bizjet engines if they had included a risk-reduction phase. This is admittedly expensive—the demo cost €100 million ($136 million). Active discussions for at least three airframe projects are ongoing, and the company can have an engine ready by 2013, the Snecma executives say.
Honeywell will test a variable-speed auxiliary power unit as part of a raft of emerging technologies aimed at reducing fuel burn, noise and exhaust emissions for both current and future generations of APUs.
Upgrades for the French Rafale strike fighter are now gaining steam as the military and industrial team looks to deliver a more capable aircraft around 2012. The development activities span the range of sensors and subsystems, although there are no major changes planned to the baseline F3 standard aircraft.
The business jet community is up in arms over what it regards as an unfair emissions trading scheme for the industry in Europe, and it is scurrying to make sure a similar setup planned for the U.S. is more to its liking.
The new Node 3 pressurized connecting module for the International Space Station was to be shipped to Kennedy Space Center May 17, following a ceremony at the Turin plant of prime contractor Thales Alenia Space. The node is being supplied by the European Space Agency under a barter agreement with NASA, and will be officially transferred to the U.S. agency in September. Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to deliver Node 3—named Tranquility—to the ISS on the STS-130 mission in February 2010, along with the European-built cupola that will connect to it.
Russian Space Agency Roscosmos plans to charge NASA $51 million a seat for rides to the International Space Station after the current contract expires in the spring of 2012. That would be an increase over the $47 million negotiated last year in the first contract extension (AW&ST Dec. 8, 2008, p. 22). Anatoly Perminov, the head of Roscosmos, told Russian reporters in Moscow the increase would be driven by inflation. A NASA official said negotiations are still ongoing for the contract, which will allow U.S.
Aerion Corp., which is still looking for a manufacturing partner to develop, certify and build its supersonic business jet design, is not getting an eager reception among the established makers of bizjets.
Traffic in its home market is down 70%, the country is on the brink of bankruptcy, and the worst is yet to come. Nevertheless, AirBaltic expects to deliver a profit this year after having completely overhauled its business focus.
Bill M. Williams has been named vice president-materials for Gulfstream Aerospace , Savannah, Ga. He was vice president-product support materials. Williams succeeds Jim McQueeney, who has retired. Robby Harless has been named vice president/general manager of Gulfstream’s Dallas facility. He was general manager of the Brunswick, Ga., completions center and has been succeeded by Ron Aldrich. Vince Ruscitti has become director of service center operations of both Gulfstream and General Dynamics Aviation Services facilities at Dallas.
Republic Airlines, operating as US Airways Express, flies the 400th E-Jet delivered by Embraer: a 175 that can seat 78-88 passengers. Regional airlines are shifting to larger aircraft such as Embraer’s E-Jet series to adapt to a changing market (see p. 46), and regional jets of 70 seats or more now constitute about 60% of the Republic Airways Holdings fleet. Embraer photo.
The U.K.’s London Stansted and Manchester airports have installed facial-recognition gates in which passport photographs are compared with scans of passengers’ faces. Any British or European citizen who carries an e-passport may use the gates. The facial recognition system is on trial at Stansted through October. It takes only seconds to scan a face against a passport photo, according to the U.K. Border Agency. Similar technology will be installed at 10 U.K.
Aerojet has shipped the first solid-fueled jettison motor for NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle to the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, N.M., for the Pad Abort-1 test that could come as early as August. The jettison motor is one of three used in the event of a launch abort at altitudes up to 300,000 ft. ATK makes the other two motors: one for the abort itself and a second to control the vehicle’s attitude. In an emergency, those two are to separate and maintain control of the Orion crew capsule from the Ares-I launcher.
The Royal Australian Navy is likely to move this year to replace its combat helicopter force, and must decide whether it wants commonality with the Australian Army or the U.S. Navy.
USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says early indications from the latest Mobility Capability Requirements Study underway at the Pentagon point to no need for additional C-17 airlifters. A recent turnaround in the C-5 reengining program is allowing officials to put more reliance in that fleet, and it is likely if more airlift is needed that the Pentagon will reengine the C-5A fleet or contract for more Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft before buying more C-17s, Schwartz says.
Placing blame mainly on the economy, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the New York region’s major airports, is reporting large first-quarter traffic declines. Compared to the same period in 2008, air cargo decreased 29.8% and passenger traffic, 11.6%, at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark-Liberty International Airports. Bridge and tunnel traffic dropped 5.4% and cargo volumes at the ports, 17.4%—the biggest quarterly decline in more than 15 years. Port Authority Chairman Anthony R.
A “lack of realism” continues to hinder British Defense Ministry procurement, according to the Parliamentary Accounts Committee. Its report on procurement in 2007-08, released in London on May 15, criticizes the ministry’s defense equipment purchasing management. The committee flags what it sees as a failure to learn from “previously identified” errors. It notes that “in the last year (2007-08), the 20 biggest projects suffered a further £205 million ($311.6 million) of cost increases, and 96 months of additional slippage.
Lockheed Martin Corp. engineers and scientists received 30 awards, and eight Raytheon Co. employees were honored during the 2009 Black Engineer of the Year Awards . Among the Lockheed Martin winners is Nikki Boone, senior electronics engineer at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in Fort Worth, who received the Black Engineer of the Year Community Service Award.
The EC has selected Inmarsat Ventures Ltd. and Solaris Mobile Ltd. to provide hybrid mobile satellite services (MSS) across the European Union. The selection completes a process that began last August and culminated in the shortlisting of four candidates in December. Two of the candidates, TerreStar and ICO Global Communications, were eliminated; both are already engaged in North American hybrid MSS projects, which use terrestrial repeaters to augment satellite coverage.
Eutelsat has selected Astrium to build a new satellite intended to boost capacity at its 7 deg. W. Long. neighborhood, which it operates in partnership with Egyptian operator Nilesat. The spacecraft, known as Atlantic Bird 7 and set to be launched in late 2011, will replace W4A at the position, which will be rebranded Nilebird. It will carry up to 60 Ku-band transponders providing direct-to-home broadcasting across the Middle East and North Africa plus consumer broadcasting and Internet Access to northwestern Africa. W4A, launched Feb.
The threat of cyberattacks on industry and the military will be the focus of a White House announcement expected this week concerning a recent 60-day cybersecurity assessment. The study is based on the report “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency” sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. One CSIS finding calls cybersecurity “among the most serious economic and national security challenges [the U.S.] faces in the 21st century.”
More than 85% of Austrian Airlines shareholders last week gave the green light for Lufthansa’s planned takeover. The offer by Lufthansa was contingent on a 75% approval rate. Both Lufthansa and Austrian will now await results of a European Commission analysis of the deal’s projected effects on competition as well as the commission’s approval. If Lufthansa regards any conditions imposed on it as unacceptable, it can back out of the takeover, which is now a matter of urgency as Austrian is burning cash at an astonishing rate.
Look closely and you might be able to discern the Pentagon’s plans for unmanned aerial vehicles in last week’s congressional testimony by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Fiscal 2010 defense budget.
The U.S. Air Force is proposing to proceed with development of two new variants of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile even while the system continues to struggle with reliability. During acceptance tests in February for Lot 5, four of 10 Jassm flights were failures, according to USAF officials. Three of the four performed nominally through impact; the fourth impacted outside the target area.
Boeing and General Electric hope to boost the export sales potential of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EF-18G Growler by offering a new, more powerful derivative of the F414 with 20% increased thrust as well as greater durability and reduced fuel burn.
