While U.S. policymakers fret over the latest North Korean missile launch and Iran’s role, Israel announced on Apr. 7 another successful test of its Arrow Weapons System, an anti-missile system designed to shield the country from a missile attack by Iran. The Arrow II interceptor, developed by Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries, struck a simulated Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile. Israel also is working on a higher-end interceptor to be able to attack longer-range Iranian ballistic missiles with higher closing velocities.
Orbital checkout is underway for the U.S. Air Force’s second Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) spacecraft. Built by Boeing at its factory in El Segundo, Calif., WGS-2 lifted off at 8:31 p.m. EDT Apr. 3 on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 421 rocket. A ground station in Dongara, Australia, received the military communication satellite’s first signals 44 min. later, and Boeing confirmed that the satellite is functioning normally. After a series of in-orbit maneuvers and tests, WGS-2 will be turned over to the Air Force.
FAA and China have signed a memorandum of understanding to share best environmental practices at airports in the U.S. and China. The deal to mitigate aviation’s impact on the global environment was made Apr. 7 at the U.S.-China Aviation Symposium, which also focused on ways to improve air safety and modernize air traffic control.
Having been soundly pummeled for months by legislators, commentators, the Man on the Street and the Man in the White House, business aviation has begun to land a few punches of its own. The National Air Transportation Assn. and National Aircraft Resale Assn. have scheduled mass member visits to Capitol Hill. And Cessna Aircraft and Hawker Beechcraft have begun advertising campaigns in general media that advocate business aircraft use as particularly appropriate for challenging economic times.
Singapore Technologies Aerospace and its local Chinese partner have broken ground on an engine shop at Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport that will join in the increasingly intense competition to overhaul CFM56 turbofans in the country. The new business, to be known as Statco, will initially support CFM56-5Bs and CFM56-7Bs for the Airbus A320 family and the current series of Boeing 737s, states ST Aero. Capacity will be 300 engines a year and the $78-million plant will have a test cell rated at 90,000 lb. thrust, enough for all but the largest 777 engines.
Five of the 21 members of the Star Alliance flying to London Heathrow will shift to Terminal 1 this summer as the group continues its drive to operate “under one roof” at Europe’s busiest hub. When completed, the move will mean Star’s members are nearly evenly divided between Terminals 1 and 3. Full consolidation out of Terminal 3 is not expected until 2013. Making the move to Terminal 1 from Terminal 2 are Austrian, Croatia Airlines, Lufthansa, Swiss and TAP.
A virtuous cycle of ample capacity, high profits and low rates has space insurers smiling, but debris risks and the arrival of new suppliers with spotty track records could spell trouble.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, known for her sound management even of such troubled programs as the Airborne Laser and Transformational Satellite, will be temporarily in charge of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which buys and operates classified satellites, effective Nov. 18. NRO Director Scott Large, in office since October 2007, notified Gates of his resignation Apr. 8.
The U.S. Navy is bringing into service the next generation of aircraft, payloads and networking capabilities (see p. 50). This illustration by Boeing artist Doug Yamada shows, from the top: a proposed EP-X design to replace the EP-3E; the Scan Eagle, which is being redesigned for air-launch to extend intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance footprints; P-8A Poseidon, which has been chosen to replace the P-3C patrol aircraft; and the Navy’s EA-18G Growler, which replaces the EA-6B that is passing into exclusive Marine Corps service.
Boeing has upped the ante for international defense contractors doing business in India with the opening of Boeing Research & Technology-India in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore). The center will coordinate the work of more than 1,500 technologists, including 100 dedicated to advanced research, and is only the third such facility that the Seattle manufacturer has opened outside the U.S. The others are in Europe and Australia.
The U.S. Navy’s selection of a European airframe for the VH-71 presidential helicopter four years ago was a symbolic watershed. One former Pentagon official said the pick of a Lockheed Martin Corp.-led team using a platform built by the AgustaWestland unit of Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA. was “the most crystalline illustration of how the transatlantic industrial base should work.”
Unmanned air vehicles are to become a larger part of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations with the launch of a competition to develop a small tactical unmanned aircraft system (Stuas) following an 18-month delay while the services hammered out differences in their requirements.
Belarus could become the first export customer for the Russian Almaz Antey S-400 (SA-21 Growler) surface-to-air missile system, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti. It cites a senior air force official as suggesting the S-400 will be supplied as part of a broader agreement to create an integrated air defense network covering the two countries.
In contrast to Singapore Airlines’ unpaid leave actions, the restructuring of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore is leading to a recruitment drive for 400 managers, executives and technical officers. As of July 1, CAAS, which owns Singapore Changi Airport, will be split into the NewCo, which will act as Changi’s administrator, and NewCAA, which assumes responsibility as the city-state’s regulator of aviation safety, airworthiness, air traffic services and various administrative responsibilities.
Commercial and military aviators are not the only folks interested in birds. Fishermen want to find birds, not avoid them. Finding flocks of feeding birds, typically smaller than Canada geese, is critical for over-the-horizon location of schools of surface-feeding tuna. The birds congregate over the same bait that attracts the tuna. Visit a commercial fishing electronics trade show and you will find manufacturers touting their radars’ abilities to identify birds from many miles. Perhaps some of those algorithms could be applied to aviation radars.
NASA has chosen the Avcoat ablator system, which was used to protect Apollo capsules during reentry, as the thermal protection system for the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Made of silica fibers with an epoxy-novalic resin filled in a fiberglass-phenolic honeycomb, Avcoat was used both on Apollo and on select regions of the space shuttle in its earliest flights. It was put back into production for NASA to reevaluate.
EADS Chairman/CEO Louis Gallois says a decision by the U.K. to withdraw from Europe’s A400M airlifter program would be “a serious blow” to the multinational initiative, but “not necessarily a show-stopper.” Nevertheless, Gallois insists no effort will be spared to try and keep Britain in the program, noting that the U.K.’s technological contribution to the A400M is significant and that its 25 orders would be hard to replace.
I’m in Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon mission crew mock-up on the ground in Seattle. My tutor is a long-time P-3C veteran. Already I can see it’s nothing like my days and nights in a P-3A. There are no ashtrays full of cigarette butts or half-empty paper cups of the world’s worst coffee.
Singapore Airlines, extending cost-cutting measures it has already applied to senior managers, is asking pilots to take 3-4 days of unpaid leave each month. The local pilots’ association says the carrier is asking captains to take three days off per month and asking first officers to take four. And as of May 1, all of Singapore’s lower-level managers will be reducing the number of work days per month. Other employees, mostly cabin crew, are voluntarily taking leave without pay.
Michael A. Taverna (Venice, Italy), Andy Nativi (Long Beach, Calif.)
To regain its sea legs, Sea Launch is counting on increased operational efficiencies, plus a dose of financial and industrial restructuring and more realistic pricing.
Synthetic vision, a technology formerly available exclusively on big-ticket turbine-powered aircraft, is quickly expanding into the piston-powered aircraft fitted with digital cockpits. Cessna Aircraft announced Apr. 2 that Garmin’s Synthetic Vision Technology had received FAA certification for all G-1000-equipped Model 172 Skyhawks, 182 Skylanes and 206 Stationairs. It expects certification of the system on its Model 350 Corvalis and 400 Corvalis TT.
NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and space tourist Charles Simonyi landed safely in their Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of southern Kazakhstan at 2:16 a.m. CDT on Apr. 8. The Expedition 18 crewmembers undocked their Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft from the International Space Station (ISS) at 10:55 p.m. Apr. 7.; the deorbit burn began at 1:24 a.m. Apr. 8. The landing site was shifted south because of poor conditions at the original target site, according to NASA.
Embraer says it is on track to win certification and begin deliveries of its Phenom 300 light jet in the second half of 2009. The Brazilian manufacturer has four aircraft in the flight-test program, and they have accumulated more than 300 flight hours; the full test scenario is expected to require 1,400 flight hours. To date the swept-wing aircraft have flown to 45,000 ft. and maximum cruise of Mach 0.78.
Missile defense backers are seizing on North Korea’s launch of another ballistic missile to stave off a Pentagon plan to massively overhaul the multibillion-dollar misdef program.
