Obituary: USAF Lt .Col. (ret.) David P. Cooley, a Lockheed Martin F-22 test pilot, died in the Mar. 25 crash of his aircraft during a test mission just north of Edwards AFB, Calif. He was 49. Cooley had been involved in both operational and developmental flight test since 1989, participating in the F-111, F-15, RU-38, F-117 and F-22 programs, training and mentoring future test pilots.
The first Hawker Beechcraft MC-12W has been delivered to the U.S. Air Force and will receive its payload at L-3 Integrated Systems. The so-called Project Liberty effort had been scheduled for delivery in March and deployment in April. The turboprop-based intelligence collection system was designed last year to swiftly provide support for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aircraft 1-7 will be built on the King Air 350 platform, with Aircraft 8-37 based on the 350ER.
Madhu Unnikrishnan (Washington), Robert Wall (Paris)
The movement to cap emissions of greenhouse gases may have had a head start in Europe, but the debate is now shifting to Washington, where two powerful lawmakers are aiming to fast-track legislation that could have a costly price tag for the airline industry.
Teledyne Continental Motors (TCM) is addressing a long-standing concern within the piston-powered aircraft community: the possible termination of leaded avgas production. The engine maker’s solution was simple: use unleaded gas. TCM made history on Mar. 25 when it flew a G36 Beechcraft Bonanza out of Mobile (Ala.) Downtown Airport, its home field, burning 94-octane unleaded avgas. It claimed this was the first test flight of a certificated aircraft using unleaded avfuel, as opposed to automobile gas. The aircraft has flown several times since, burning unleaded fuel.
Since its purchase by H3 Aerospace, Grob Aircraft is making strides to rebuild its trainer aircraft business. Its first transaction under the new corporate banner covers the sale of more than 20 G115 trainers to VT Aerospace. The contract value through the life of the program tops €10 million. VT Aerospace has a fleet of 97 Grob aircraft. Deliveries are scheduled to begin toward year-end.
Some aerospace contractors have dubbed Apr. 6 “Black Monday,” because of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s announcement that he plans to scale back or terminate dozens of Pentagon programs in order to reshape the U.S. military. Nevertheless, the outlook for Pentagon aviation may not be as dark as it seems: Programs are being killed and some jobs will be lost, but Congress won’t approve the plan without a fight.
An article on the satellite telecom sector mistakenly attributed a comment on the impact of falling automobile sales (AW&ST Mar. 23, p. 43). The opinion is shared collectively by several analysts. An article on maritime mobile satellite service in the same issue (p. 45) misstated the title of Arduino Pattachini. He is director of multimedia services at Eutelsat. The article also incorrectly described a new tactical networking system introduced recently by ViaSat. It will enable cell phones to dial directly to a military phone.
Ejection of the oval-shaped dust cover that protected Kepler’s telescope and photometer is allowing spacecraft’s mission control at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colo., to begin a couple of weeks of calibration exercises before scientists can start using the observatory to hunt for exoplanets.
USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Hamel, formerly of Air Force Space Command at Los Angeles AFB, has been named to receive the Goddard Astronautics Award as part of the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics ’ (AIAA) Aerospace Spotlight Awards. Other recipients will be: Reed Aeronautics Award, Anatol Roshko, retired professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena; Foundation Award for Excellence to The Challenger Center, Alexandria, Va., which will be accepted by June Scobee Rodgers, founding director/chair; Elmer A.
Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory and Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI), a software provider for analysis of space, defense and intelligence assets, have teamed to provide a new sensor modeling capability that will enable users to model ultraviolet, visible and infrared sensors for observing space objects from the ground, air and space platforms.
Astrium Services CEO Eric Beranger says his company is looking at various solutions, including Spain’s Ingenio, to ensure continuity of medium-resolution wide-swath imaging data currently provided by its Spot 5 satellite, which has exceeded its five-year design life. Contracted last fall to sister company Astrium Satellites, Ingenio (formerly called Seosat) will supply 2.5-meter (8.2-ft.) panchromatic and 10-meter multispectral land imagery for civil and government applications, similar to the specifications for Spot 5.
A clue may have emerged during last week’s hearing on Army aviation about the size of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program in the revised Fiscal 2010 budget. The Army-Air Force Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) program was originally supposed to handle a payload of about 20 tons, which fit the profile of early, lightweight FCS vehicles. As the vehicles grew in weight, so did the JFTL requirement, ballooning to 30 tons. Gen.
Engineers have started analyzing boundary layer transition data collected by the space shuttle Discovery as it streaked over the Gulf of Mexico to its Mar. 28 landing at the Kennedy Space Center, adding a post-flight benefit to the 13-day mission that could one day be used by vehicles returning from the Moon.
USAF Maj. Gen. Michael C. Gould has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and appointment as superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. He has been director of operations and plans at Headquarters U.S. Transportation Command, Scott AFB, Ill. Maj. Gen. Stephen P. Mueller has been appointed director of the Air Component Coordination Element of ACC in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was director of operational capability requirements/deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon.
Randy Babbitt, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the 16th administrator of the FAA, is by necessity a man in a hurry. The length of his term is five years, but time will pass quickly because there is so much to do. Nobody knows this better than Babbitt himself (see p. 34). Babbitt faces two big challenges: fielding the first elements of NextGen, the radically modernized air traffic control system for the mid-21st century; and repairing the FAA’s fractured labor relations, particularly with the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca).
Boeing is working on a fix to a signal processing system on its first GPS IIF satellite. Launch has repeatedly slipped, but is now set for November, says Craig Cooning, vice president of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems. Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has completed 61 of 71 preliminary design reviews under the GPS III contract it won over Boeing nearly a year ago. A final system design review is slated for next month. The first GPS III is expected to launch in 2014. Eight satellites are included in the first block, with more expected with future enhancements.
In the next 18 months, airline IT security departments will be focused on complying with the new Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, according to the SITA Global Airline IT Security Survey 2009. Major credit card companies—American Express, Discover, JCB, Master Card Worldwide and Visa International—devised the new standard after incurring the loss of millions as a result of “fraud, breaches and other vulnerabilities,” according to Mark Prince, SITA director of consulting for security, voice and convergence.
Eurocopter has increased its stake in Japan’s Euroheli to 90% by acquiring the bulk of Itochu Corp.’s holdings; the latter retains 10%. Euroheli staff and activities were folded into Eurocopter Japan at the start of the month. Eurocopter says it has a 57% market share in the civil and parapublic sectors in Japan with 360 in-service rotorcraft. The military operates three EC225 VIPs with EC135 training helicopters to be added. Eurocopter also is trying to convince Japan to buy the NH90.
Turkey’s ESAS holding company and TUIfly have become big investors in Air Berlin as it struggles to regain financial footing by reducing debt and focusing on cost control and profitability after suffering a €75-million ($100 million) loss last year. Air Berlin says it and TUIfly will form a strategic partnership for European and domestic flights, starting Oct. 1.
Michael Mecham (East Hartford, Conn.), Robert Wall (Geneva)
Demonstration flights are revealing that biofuels have a higher energy content than conventional Jet-A kerosene and offer the promise that future jet engines could be more fuel efficient and less polluting than the “next generation” engines currently under development. With that promise, commercial and military aviation could become the industrial world’s leader in shifting to non-petroleum-based fuels to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers and address persistent environmental issues, particularly the role carbon dioxide (CO2) plays in global warming.
Outgoing Pentagon acquisitions chief John Young has fired a parting shot at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), taking serious issue with the agency’s assessment of cost overruns in the Defense Dept. GAO’s report says the Pentagon has racked up $296 billion in cost growth on 96 programs. Young says the number is “misleading, out-of-date and largely irrelevant.” In a Mar.
Boeing has turned to Times Aerospace Korea (TAK) to lead design and development of a wing kit to extend the range of the 2,000-lb. version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM ER). The Korean air force is one of 22 international customers for JDAM, which is a low-cost guidance kit that turns unguided, free-fall bombs into accurately guided “smart” weapons. The Boeing-funded effort will increase the bomb’s range to about 50 naut. mi.—a 35-naut.-mi. jump. TAK is to co-develop, test and field the wing kit, which is expected to take 40 months.
First-quarter 2009 delivery rates show Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) has rebounded from the effects of last year’s machinists strike, but the company has not found a way to sell airplanes in a worldwide recession. First-quarter deliveries reached 121, six more than in 2008 and 15 more than 2007, which mostly reflects a continued buildup in the 737 production line. That factory delivered 91 aircraft in the first quarter compared to 87 in 2008 and 83 in 2007.
