One increasingly important safety-related educational topic during the 2009 Heli-Expo show this week in Anaheim, Calif., will be how to reduce accidents involving emergency medical service helicopters flying at night in reduced visibility. During the past 20 years, 49% of accidents involving EMS rotorcraft were traced to flying in reduced visibility at night, and that combination continues to be a serious safety issue, according to the Helicopter Assn. International (HAI).
Clyde Space, a Glasgow, Scotland-based company specializing in components for cubesats and other small spacecraft, is at work on a constellation of tiny satellites that can give emergency service personnel worldwide quick notice of a blooming wildfire before it erupts into a conflagration such as those that have ravaged southern Australia. In this image, collected Feb. 13 with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua Earth-Observing System satellite, the deadly fires continued to burn in the mountains east of Melbourne.
Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research has completed tests of a full-scale ScanEagle Compressed Carriage, long-endurance autonomous unmanned vehicle for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. The tests were conducted in NIAR’s Beech Wind Tunnel and centered on collecting aerodynamic data on thrust and drag. An electric motor and propeller were used to replicate the aircraft’s heavy fuel propulsion system, according to David Langness, program manager for ScanEagle. The vehicle is 4 ft. long with a 7.5-ft.
Although its membership companies are now reeling from the global financial crisis and political recrimination in Washington, the General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. (GAMA) reported Feb. 17 that 2008 was a year in which the industry posted a record $24.8 billion in deliveries.
User feedback is causing Selex Galileo to adjust its plans for the Falco tactical unmanned air vehicle, with an eye on improving payload options and making the system more responsive in the field.
Stephen R. Ball has been appointed CEO of Lockheed Martin UK , succeeding Ian Stopps, who is retiring. Ball has been managing director of Lockheed Martin UK INSYS.
NASA and the European Space Agency will take steps toward merging their outer-planet exploration plans, eyeing a mission that would send separate U.S. and European spacecraft to visit the four largest moons of Jupiter circa 2026, while also researching a possible joint visit to Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus.
Chris Strong has become vice president-membership marketing for the Washington-based National Business Aviation Assn. He was director of business operations for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn.
Washington may be full of change, but its mystification with North Korea is no different, nor is its concern about missile launches. North Korea has said that a widely expected launch is related to its space efforts, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Tokyo last week that Pyongyang has not complied with international rules on notification of space launches. “We will continue to seek ways to discourage them from launching a missile for any purpose,” she said.
Astrium Services has concluded an agreement with the French armed forces to supply Ku-band up- and downlink bandwidth for France’s SIDM medium-altitude long-endurance UAVs deployed in Afghanistan. Astrium already provides such service for SIDMs based in France. The Afghan SIDMs were accepted in January and recently flew their first missions, Astrium said.
Juliana P. Blackwell has been named director of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Geodetic Survey . She was chief of the survey’s Observation and Analysis Div. Blackwell succeeds Dave Zilkoski, who is retiring.
Tan Soon Keat and Garrick Andrews have been appointed surveyors in Singapore and Wellington, New Zealand, respectively, for London-based Airclaims . Keat was sales director for AAR Landing Gear Services, while Andrews was head of fleet and maintenance management for Vincent Aviation.
NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope has imaged a gamma-ray burst with the greatest total energy ever witnessed. The explosion, designated GRB 080916C, took place at 7:13 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15, 2008, in the constellation Carina. Working in tandem, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope and Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor instruments provided a view of the blast’s initial emission from energies between 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.
The timing couldn’t be much worse: Airbus is getting ready to birth a new generation of freighter aircraft just as the industry is seeing near-unprecedented declines in demand. But the European aircraft maker is looking beyond the near- and potentially mid-term crisis, and is making a long-term bet on creating a stable of freighter offerings. In the process, it is also trying to once more wrestle marketshare away from its main rival, Boeing, which has long dominated the freighter market.
Alexander M. Cutler TITLE: Chairman/CEO, Eaton Corp. AGE: 57 BIRTHPLACE: Milwaukee EDUCATION: Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and Master of Business Administration from Dartmouth College CAREER: Began in 1975 as a financial analyst for Cutler-Hammer, which was acquired by Eaton in 1979. Named Eaton CEO in 1995 and chairman in 2000.
NASA moved its Kepler observatory to Pad 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Feb. 19, although high winds prevented immediate stacking, in preparation for a Mar. 5 liftoff on a United Launch Alliance Delta II at 10:48 p.m. Built by Ball Aerospace, Kepler will be launched into a solar orbit trailing Earth by about 9 million mi. From there, it will use a 1.4-meter (4.6-ft.) telescope and a 93-megapixel camera to search for planets in a survey of more than 100,000 Sun-like stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way.
Royal Navy Harrier GR9s have dropped 12 of the new Paveway 4 GPS/laser-guided bombs in anger in Afghanistan, with all weapons delivered successfully, according to a Navy officer. Not all the bombs struck their targets, though. In two cases, after weapons release, women and children were spotted in the target area so aircrew shifted the laser spot used to guide the weapon to deliberately miss and have the weapon impact in a unpopulated area. It’s not just in laser-mode that aircraft were adapting weapons employment on the fly.
Japan Airlines will merge its four aircraft maintenance subsidiaries as a single company to be called JAL Engineering Co. Ltd., to improve productivity. The merged company will also take on some of the business of the group’s main airline operating company.
First flight of the A330-200F is planned for this year, as Airbus enters the final phase of the aircraft’s production process. Parts for the first A330-200F are now starting to come together. The center wingbox has been built and the nose landing gear bay have been completed. The critical components are due soon at the production site for integration in Saint-Nazaire, France, before going to Toulouse, where the aircraft will be completed.
The U.S. airline industry’s top priority was passed over in the $787-billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress. The gargantuan spending bill contains just $150 million in NextGen air traffic management funding—through NASA—far short of the $4 billion lobbied for by the Air Transport Assn. (ATA). The measure did include $1.1 billion in Airport Improvement Program funding and $1 billion for the Homeland Security Dept. to install in-line baggage screening machines at airports. “Aviation didn’t make the cut,” laments John Meehan, ATA’s chief operating officer.
Operations in icing conditions and pilot training are two factors under scrutiny by the NTSB as its investigation of Colgan Air Flight 3407 gets underway.
French legislators say that despite deep misgivings about President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to rejoin NATO’s integrated command structure, they are unlikely to block it. Members of the ruling UMP party complain that NATO commitments to give France leadership of the Allied Command Transformation office in Norfolk, Va., and a regional command in Portugal do not constitute sufficient payback for giving up France’s military independence. Sarkozy is expected to announce the return to the command at the annual NATO summit Apr. 3-4.
French legislators say, despite their deep misgivings, they are unlikely to block President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to rejoin NATO’s integrated command structure. Members of the ruling UMP party complain that NATO pledges to give France leadership of the Allied Command Transformation office in Norfolk, Va., and a regional command in Portugal do not constitute sufficient payback for relinquishing France’s military independence (AW&ST Feb. 9, p. 21).
The FAA is hiring thousands of air traffic controllers to stay ahead of a spike in retirements, but this is raising new concerns about an increasingly inexperienced workforce. Trainees now comprise a quarter of the U.S. controller staff—up to half at some facilities—and this ratio is set to rise further.
Martin St. George has been promoted to senior vice president-marketing and commercial strategy from vice president-network planning for JetBlue Airways . He will be succeeded by Scott Laurence, who was promoted from director of network planning. Alex Battaglia has been appointed vice president-airports. He was vice president of JetBlue’s operations at New York JFK International Airport.
