All space exploration efforts seem trivial in light of the recent “surprise” asteroid near-miss. This one wasn’t advertised as a planet killer, but that would hardly have mattered to people unless it had impacted near them. And of course, there are lots of real planet killers. These things are hard to spot, especially if they come out of the Sun, and impossible to deflect on short notice.
Armed with an unsolicited offer to meet Canada’s need for new search-and-rescue aircraft by putting the DHC-5 Buffalo back in production, a small British Columbia company is briefing potential export customers on the rugged short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) transport.
Service difficulties with the Sikorsky S-92A main gear box lubrication system has prompted Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to publish a safety advisory informing operators of impending changes in the rotorcraft flight manual (RFM) procedures. The move was prompted by the Mar. 12 crash of a S-92A (C-GZCH) operated by Cougar Helicopters. The aircraft was transporting workers from St. Johns, Newfoundland, to an oil platform in the Hibernia field. Shortly after departure, the crew reported mechanical problems and requested a return to St. Johns.
Australia’s need to replace its ancient de Havilland Canada Caribous is offering an opportunity to rebalance and simplify the country’s complex transport aircraft fleet. Planners are considering wider options than simply ordering a suitable number of direct replacements for the Caribous—ether C-27J Spartans from L-3 and Alenia or C-295s from EADS.
In-year funding for the Russian air force’s fifth-generation fighter, known as PAK FA, may be cut by 940 million rubles ($28.2 million) as part of proposed cuts by the government to the country’s 2009 defense budget (see p. 37). First flight of the prototype is expected by the end of 2009, with state acceptance of the type completed by 2015. Budget documents also include increased expenditure for building a naval aviation training center at Eisk in the Krasnodar region, to replace the Saki facility in the Ukraine.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Douglas Barrie (London)
France may be forced to cut A400M numbers and is exploring the option of leasing Boeing C-17s as it tries to craft a rescue package for the struggling Airbus Military program and sustain its airlift capacity. A revised A400M contract is unlikely before the end of 2009. “We have to take an in-depth look at how the present contract might be modified under acceptable conditions,” Laurent Collet-Billon, Director General of armaments agency DGA, told reporters here last week.
Superjet International, the Alenia Aeronautica-Sukhoi venture responsible for marketing, sales and support for the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional 100, has appointed Lufthansa Technik Logistik as its spares management and distribution partner, moving another step forward in completing the aftermarket service network (AW&ST Mar. 9, p. 41). LHT beat out Air France Industries for the deal.
Jay L. Haberland has been appointed to the board of directors of Ducommun Inc. of Los Angeles. He is retired as vice president-business controls for the United Technologies Corp. and had been vice president/chief financial officer of UTC subsidiary Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
Aziz Erdinc (see photo) has become vice president-business development and marketing for Asco Industries Management of Brussels. He was a sales contract lead negotiator for Airbus.
Aerospace and defense companies are beginning to disclose their executive compensation for 2008, and though the industry’s investors have lost a lot of money some of its top executives aren’t faring too poorly.
John D. Clark, 3rd, who is executive director/CEO of the Jacksonville (Fla.) Aviation Authority, has been elected chairman for 2009 of Washington-based Airports Council International-North America .
A state-of-the-art instrument to measure the effects of atmospheric aerosols—both natural and man-made—on the Earth’s climate is ready for installation on the NASA satellite that will take it to orbit this fall. Raytheon finished thermal vacuum testing on the Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS) and delivered it on Mar. 9 to Orbital Sciences Corp., which will integrate it into the Glory satellite at its facility in Dulles, Va.
Southwest Airlines Chairman Emeritus Herb Kelleher has been inducted into the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine at the Wright Brothers National Memorial by the First Flight Society of Kitty Hawk, N.C. The society honors people whose accomplishments have advanced aviation and commemorates achievements in the airline industry.
Aircraft manufacturers and central bankers acknowledge the economy “is bad and seems to be getting worse,” but they are trying to persuade aircraft lessors and traders that the worst for airlines will be over by next year—to little effect, it seems.
Japan is preparing a 10-year Cabinet-level space plan that will build on the long-duration station on the International Space Station that is just beginning for veteran Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. The key to Japan’s plans for the human portion of its space program centers on the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), an autonomous cargo carrier scheduled to make its first flight to the ISS in September on an H-IIB rocket.
The military is picking over the wreckage of an Iranian unmanned aircraft it shot down in Iraq last month. “We’re in the process of exploiting the debris that we’ve recovered,” a Pentagon representative says. “I don’t know if it was a drone that was capable of sending signals back, or whether it was merely recording and then going to return [to base with] its video or data” to be examined by the Iranians. Coalition aircraft shot down the Iranian-made Ababil 3 UAV about 60 mi. northeast of Baghdad. The Feb.
Boeing is looking at modifying one of NASA’s cranked-arrow-wing F-16XLs into a low-sonic-boom research aircraft. The proposal has emerged as a relatively low-cost way to test public acceptance of shaped sonic booms. While previous flight tests have shown that shockwave signature can be controlled by aircraft shaping, they did not succeed in reducing the sonic boom, since modifications were limited to the nose of the aircraft to reshape the front shock.
The global economic crisis is making cantankerous bedfellows of airlines and air traffic control providers. Arguments over ATC charges are growing more heated, but the two industries realize they must work together to urge reform of ATC funding restrictions that are frustrating service users and providers equally.
Qinetiq is now building a revised configuration of its Zephyr high-altitude long-endurance UAV. It will likely fly for the first time early in 2010. Zephyr 7, as the latest variant is known, has several design modifications intended to improve the UAV’s aerodynamic performance and potentially further increased endurance. Changes are thought to include a greater wingspan and modified wingtip design, as well as a reconfigured tail.
Plunging business jet sales and a slowdown in French combat aircraft deliveries are creating a double whammy for Dassault Aviation. The company announced an 8% drop in revenues for 2008, to €3.75 billion ($4.9 billion), and an equivalent decline in orders to €5.8 billion. Although Chairman/CEO Charles Edelstenne says that is a bit better than expected—a 10% sales decrease had been projected, mostly due to unfavorable exchange rates—he predicts a few hard years ahead.
Arianespace has postponed launch of the European Space Agency’s Herschel-Planck science mission because of the need to carry out additional checks on the ground segment following recent software updates. The delay—Arianespace’s second of the year—is expected to be “a couple of weeks.” A new date for the flight, which had been set for Apr. 16, is to be announced at the end of March. Meanwhile, International Launch Services slipped by two days its first mission of the year to Mar. 30 for unspecified reasons. The mission will carry aloft Eutelsat’s W2A. On Mar.
