With backing from Canada, CAE says it will invest C$714 million ($565.2 million) in Project Falcon for a five-year research and development program to expand the company’s simulation and modeling technologies. The government is investing up to $250 million through its Strategic Aerospace and Defense Initiative. Among the technologies that Project Falcon will focus on are development of an “augmented visionics system” technology to allow takeoffs and landings in restricted visibility.
The U.S. Air Force is planning to increase the number of satellites it monitors for potential collisions in space after a surprise satellite crash earlier this year. At the time of the event in February, U.S. Strategic Command was watching about 140 high-priority spacecraft for potential collisions. That has increased to about 330. The Pentagon expects to boost the number to include all maneuverable satellites—about 800—by Oct. 1, says an Air Force official.
The new “safety of life” GPS civil signal for emergency and rescue calls is expected to become operational on the USAF/Lockheed Martin GPS Block IIR-20(M) satellite that was launched Mar. 24. The satellite, which incorporates an ITT-provided navigation payload, is the first developed to provide an on-orbit demonstration of a third civil signal located on the L5 frequency (1176.45MHz).
Aircraft and training system manufacturers have until later this month to answer a USAF request for information (RFI) on an advanced trainer to replace the Northrop T-38C. The Advanced Pilot Training (APT) “family of systems” RFI calls for an initial operational capability in 2017 to train crews to operate the single-seat Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35, as well as legacy fleets and the Next Generation Bomber. The RFI references an increased need for information management training in future pilot training programs.
Morocco’s flag carrier Royal Air Maroc has ordered two 48-seat ATR 42-600s and four 70-seat ATR 72-600s, with options for two more ATR 72-600s. The aircraft will be operated by regional subsidiary Royal Air Maroc Express, which is scheduled to start operations this summer with four leased ATR 72-200s. Deliveries of the new -600s, powered by Pratt & Whitney PW127M engines, are to start in spring 2011.
Marion C. Blakey, President/CEO Aerospace Industries Assn. (Arlington, Va.)
Adrian Schofield’s article on the en route automation modernization (ERAM) system was an excellent update on an important NextGen program (AW&ST Mar. 16, p. 44). However, I disagree with his description of ERAM as an on-schedule and on-budget program that is “something of a rarity for a major FAA modernization project.”
ESA officials say the Herschel-Planck twin telescope mission, expected to be launched at month’s end, may now be pushed back to mid-May (see p. 38). No reason was given for the latest delay; the mission was already deferred from an Apr. 16 launch.
After more than four years of testing and false starts, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has begun taking responsibility for matching domestic flight passenger names on two aviation watch lists prior to departure. TSA’s computerized passenger screening program, Secure Flight, is starting slowly. Last week TSA assumed the watch-list matching responsibility from four volunteer airlines. It plans to add additional carriers in coming months.
Thales has won the contract to provide NATO with a new air traffic management system at Kandahar air base, Afghanistan. The deal includes acquisition of a Eurocat control center, a co-located STAR 2000-RSM970 Mode S radar and an ITT precision approach radar.
The purchase of a telecommunications satellite launch on a Chinese Long March by Eutelsat is refueling the debate over reforming U.S. technology export rules, and raises the specter of a future launcher glut.
Investigators are examining wind shear—a violent, sudden shift in wind velocity or direction—as a factor in the Mar. 23 crash of a FedEx MD-11F at Tokyo Narita, the airport’s first fatal accident since opening in 1978. Pilots consider wind shear, which can occur horizontally or vertically or both, a major flight hazard. Conditions can render an aircraft uncontrollable as it is difficult, if not impossible, for a flight crew to adjust for the rapid updrafts, downdrafts, and fluctuations in yaw, pitch and airspeed.
Airline consultant Grace Farmer, a veteran of maintenance records and planning who learned the business at Braniff, knows that many commercial airplane leasing companies store their paper-based fleet records in boxes, labeled by date. That leads to quite an excavation whenever anything previous to current activity needs to be researched. Farmer and other airplane management vets formed AviaSphere and developed an Internet-based software that will allow lessors to search the maintenance history of any aircraft by serial number.
Chile-based LAN Airlines’ freighter arm, LAN Cargo, expanded its reach with the Mar. 24 launch of services to Brazil’s domestic market. The carrier is operating daily flights Monday-Friday between Sao Paulo and Manaus with its 54-ton-capacity Boeing 767-300Fs. With the addition of Brazil, Lan Cargo now operates in all South America’s capitals, according to Chief Executive Cristian Ureta. The cargo carrier also offers services to Mexico; San Jose, Costa Rica; and Guatemala.a.
W.W. (Bill) Boisture, Jr., former president of NetJets and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., last week was named chairman and CEO of Hawker Beechcraft Corp. He succeeds Jim Schuster, who announced his retirement in November. Boisture was also president of Hawker forerunner British Aerospace Corporate Jets and CEO of Butler Aviation. Most recently, he was president of a commercial aircraft lessor Intrepid Aviation.
The NTSB’s examination of flight recorder data and wreckage has so far indicated no signs of pre-impact system failures in the Colgan Air Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 involved in the Feb. 12 fatal accident at Buffalo, N.Y. Flight 3407, which originated at Newark (N.J.) Liberty International Airport, was on approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport’s Runway 23 when it was involved in an unrecoverable upset event. The aircraft crashed approximately 5 naut. mi. northeast of the airport, killing 49 people on board and one person on the ground.
Russian defense officials are trying to shield near-term procurement funding from budget cuts driven by the global economic downturn. Even without the ongoing financial travails, however, some air force programs are lagging well behind production targets.
The FAA on Mar. 25 ordered an Air Carrier Evaluation Program (ACEP) audit of American Airlines’ maintenance programs to determine if they meet regulatory standards. A team of 17 inspectors will conduct the audit, which is scheduled to start Mar. 30 and run for 3-4 months, according to FAA official Les Dorr. The FAA performed an ACEP audit on Southwest Airlines in 2008 following congressional hearings into the airline’s alleged noncompliance with airworthiness directives as well as the FAA’s safety oversight of carriers.
British politicians are being lobbied to cut airline checked baggage weight. The argument is to help reduce the levels of injury among airport staff. Members of the union that represents baggage handlers and airport staff pressed Parliament last week for a reduction in the weight limit for each checked bag hold luggage to 23 kg. (50.6 lb.) from 32 kg. The union claims that while “the International Air Transport Assn. has . . .
As if designing a vehicle to meet aviation safety regulations was not hard enough, Terrafugia must ensure its new Transition also complies with highway safety rules to qualify as a “roadable aircraft.” But the result, the U.S. startup company believes, will be a safer light aircraft.
Former U.S. pilot union head J. Randolph Babbitt was widely expected late last week to be nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next FAA administrator. Babbitt has been considered the leading candidate for weeks, but the timing of the announcement has been delayed as the vetting process dragged on. Babbitt, a partner in the management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, was president of the Air Line Pilots Assn.
The challenge of combining rotary-wing flexibility with fixed-wing efficiency continues to fascinate designers, tempting the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency into funding yet another approach to the perennial problem. Darpa has awarded Boeing a contract to study the DiscRotor, which would take off vertically like a helicopter, slowing the rotor and retracting the blades into the disc as it accelerates, until it morphs into a swept-wing aircraft powered by ducted fans.
Not only do satellite telecom executives say, almost unanimously, that their sector will weather the global economic downturn, they also see some unexpected new engines of growth down the road.
What is faster than the two-stage, long-range ballistic missile interceptor the U.S. has proffered for European basing? The speed at which rumors are flying around these days about whether the new White House and Congress will go through with the deal to develop and deploy an Eastern European arm of the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.
It will likely take Airbus another year to reach relative stability in A380 operations as the aircraft maker works with its first three customers to resolve small but high-profile in-service problems.
