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.
Even as nanosatellite makers pursue building products small enough to fit in a pocket, they haven’t found a way to make a business case big enough to attract commercial sponsors. The field, dominated by research laboratories and universities, remains focused on scientific missions, technology demonstrations and student projects. Startup companies are entering with specific applications and major manufacturers are launching technology demonstration missions. But, so far, the customer base consists of just a few government organizations.
The Dutch government has decided to eliminate the flight tax it began collecting last July 1 from passengers who started their journeys in the Netherlands. Low-cost carriers in particular welcomed the decision on the tax, which they said curtailed their ability to stimulate demand with low fares and compelled them to cut services. The carriers also are using the decision to again press Ireland, Italy and the U.K. to repeal similar taxes.
Thales Alenia Space has contracted to build W3C, a large Eutelsat broadcasting and telecom satellite that will serve Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The award is for a 5.4-metric-ton 12-kw. spacecraft carrying 53 Ku-band and three Ka-band transponders, along with three deployable and two fixed antennas. W3C will be launched in the third quarter of 2011 to permit expansion and in-orbit redundancy for the Paris-based operator’s fast-growing neighborhood at 7 deg. E. Long., and ensure Ku-band continuity in the event of the loss of other Eutelsat spacecraft.
Airbus and Boeing share serious concerns about their inability to keep major programs on schedule. The oft-delayed 787 long-range twinjet and A400M airlifter, for example, have not flown yet and suffer from complex, although largely unrelated, production difficulties. Both manufacturers find themselves unable to keep all-new aircraft on track while deeply overhauling supply chains and revising links with risk-sharing partners and vendors.
The pace of research on the International Space Station will double this summer along with the size of its crew, thanks to hardware delivered by the space shuttle Discovery that essentially finished ISS assembly. Discovery was scheduled to land as early as Mar. 28, the same day that a fresh Soyuz capsule was to dock at the station with the core of its first six-person crew.
Hal Rounds points out a logical error in Jonathan Penn’s letter regarding the size of U.S. air forces (AW&ST Mar. 16, p. 10). The aircraft must be where the fight is, or the kill ratio does not matter. Though right on this trivial point, he misses Penn’s much more important statement. The U.S. National Debt is in itself a huge threat to our national security—as big or bigger than any military threat we face. If we keep spending like we have been, China will not need to attack us—they will own us.
The cloud of space junk—at least 19,000 objects of 10 cm. or more; 150,000-plus of 1 cm. or greater—may have reached the point that debris would continue to multiply even if all space launches were permanently halted today. “Some experts believe we have reached the point of no return,” says James B. Higgins of NASA headquarters. He summed up the work of agency scientists at a conference in Washington on space situational awareness Mar. 23-24.
