The first design drawings for the Airbus A320 passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion are soon to be released and key supplier decisions also loom as Airbus moves its latest cargo program closer to reality. Airbus plans to add two new freighters to its product family early next decade, with a goal of having the A320P2F certified by safety authorities in 2011, and the A321 to follow around a year later. The A320 would enter service in 2012, with launch customer AerCap. The Dutch leasing company last year agreed to convert 30 of its A320/A321s into freighters.
British and French naval experts are trying to determine how two nuclear-powered submarines, both carrying nuclear missiles, collided early in February and how to prevent a recurrence in the future. The Triomphant, the first of a new generation of French submarines designed to carry the M51 ballistic missile, was forced to return to home port after striking a submerged object. On Feb. 16 the French ministry confirmed that the Triomphant had collided with the HMS Vanguard, which also returned to base.
Controllers driving the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover will get some extra mileage in the coming weeks as it continues the search for silica deposits, following an apparently fortuitous wind that blew accumulated dust off its solar arrays earlier this month. Spirit’s operators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory noted a 30-watt-hour increase in Spirit’s power supply, which they believe is the result of lower dust accumulation on the arrays that generate the rover’s electricity. The increase gives Spirit about 240 watt-hours a day to work with, up from about 210.
Airworthiness authorities will sign off on final software changes late this week allowing operators to begin flying Aviation Partners Boeing (APB) blended winglets in commercial service on the Boeing 767-300ER.
Russia’s aerospace industry is scrambling to keep core development programs alive as large government cutbacks loom. After years of neglect in the 1990s, Russia has been trying to rebuild its flagging aerospace sector through a number of commercial products. But the country’s economy has been hit particularly hard by the global financial crisis, and government revenue has been severely reduced by steeply decreased oil prices.
Unmanned systems are getting an additional push at BAE Systems as the company tries to expand its business, even as it faces several critical program execution milestones this year.
Building an advanced active, electronically scanned array (AESA) that fits in both new and old F-16s is the next big program in the airborne radar world. Raytheon was first out of the chute with an array that the company contends can transmit huge imagery files as well as fire bursts of microwaves into enemy sensors to jam and otherwise confuse them.
Decisions about which Pentagon programs will be cut in Fiscal 2010 are expected to begin trickling out in March. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is having “increased engagement” with the military service chiefs on the matter, according to Geoff Morrell, his spokesman. Others describe intense weekend meetings. Gates has assembled teams to review eight areas: tactical aircraft, mobility, shipbuilding, network-centric capabilities, rotary-wing aircraft, missile defense, irregular warfare and the nuclear triad.
Thai Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan has approved the purchase of a further six Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighters in the coming five budget years. Thailand has already ordered six Gripen C/Ds.
The European Space Agency says it has been assured by Eurockot that the Rockot launch vehicle will be able to orbit ESA’s second Earth Explorer, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission during a three-month window starting in July. The first Earth Explorer, Goce, is due to be launched on Rockot on Mar. 16.
“. . . [The U.S.] is being out-communicated by a guy in a cave,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates (AW&ST Jan. 19, p. 49). How funny. Maybe that’s because the cave guy actually has a message and an audience, which is more than I can say for the aerospace CEO guest columnists whose inanities have graced your back pages since the election.
NASA’s Dawn asteroid probe is moving away from the Sun after flying within 341 mi. of the surface of Mars Feb. 17 for a gravity assist. The maneuver set up the 2,500-lb. spacecraft for another 27 months of ion thrusting before it reaches its first target—the asteroid Vesta—in August 2011. Launched in September 2007, the spacecraft also is scheduled to reach Ceres in 2015. The probe is designed to orbit both bodies, studying their vastly different compositions and other characteristics to gain more knowledge about how the Solar System evolved (AW&ST July 2, 2007, p.
Orazio Ragni (see photo) has been named CEO of Avio , Turin, Italy. He succeeds Luca Zacchetti, who has left the company. Ragni was CEO of Valeo Electrical Systems.
Admittedly, politics can be entertaining, but get this: More members of Congress list their profession as entertainer or actor than engineer. By contrast, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman R. Augustine notes, the predominant backgrounds of the ruling class in Beijing are scientist and engineer. Speaking to the Washington Space Business Roundtable last week, Augustine proffered another shocker: The top three undergraduate schools of doctoral candidates in engineering in the U.S. are not American colleges but institutions in China and South Korea.
A Mobile, Ala., company will install a test-cell diffuser on the new A3 test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center to permit simulated high-altitude tests of the J-2X engine for the planned Ares I crew launch vehicle. American Tank and Vessel Inc. won a five-year, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for the work, which will equip the new stand to generate steam at about 4,620 lb./sec. and reduce test-cell pressure with it. The facility will be able to simulate startup altitudes as high as 100,000 ft.
Passenger numbers in Europe continue to decline faster than many carriers anticipated, with Air France-KLM now scrambling to catch up and implement measures to ride out the current downturn.
One of the hybrid wing concepts uses tail surfaces to shield noise, as described in “Shaping the Future” (AW&ST Feb. 2, p. 50). The concept team should check to what degree the broadband-radiated acoustic vibration from the exhaust would impact the fatigue life of the tail’s skin and substructure. An open rotor would broaden that band even more. Is there a sound-absorbent material that could be applied to the skin, such as an acoustical equivalent to a radar-absorbent material coating?
Detlef Muller-Wiesner, chief operating officer for innovation/deputy chief technical officer of EADS, has been elected chairman of the advisory board of aeronautical think tank Bauhaus Luftfahrt of Munich. He succeeds Frieder Beyer, former CEO of Liebherr-Aerospace Lindenberg. Other members of the board are: Josef Gropper, CEO of Liebherr; Erich Steinhardt, head of technology and advanced products at MTU Aero Engines; and Gerd Gruppe, head of innovation, research and technology at the Bavarian ministry of economic affairs.
I almost totally agreed with Pierre Sparaco’s European Perspective “Runways Are Forever” (AW&ST Feb. 2, p. 46) until he says government’s real mission is “. . . providing runway capacity and other facilities to the airline industry.” They are not only for the airline industry. That’s the approach that constantly derogates general aviation. It’s the same thing as saying government’s mission is to provide streets for buses and trucks, leaving all individual business and pleasure traffic behind.
Liberty Media’s $530-million rescue last week to help Sirius XM avoid bankruptcy leaves room for the satellite radio provider to come up with a better deal. And that means a bidding war could yet emerge for the troubled company. Liberty made $250 million available to Sirius right away to retire $175 million in debt due last week, but a second loan—to the old XM subsidiary—has to go through for Liberty to get its 40% stake in Sirius. The company tells securities regulators in an 8-K filing that a clause in the deal gives Sirius until Apr.
Mounting order cancellations and deferrals are leading Embraer and Airbus to implement sweeping changes in production plans. Less than a year ago, both manufacturers were scrambling to boost output to keep up with surging demand. Now, the question is whether cuts are being made fast enough to keep pace with the shrinking orderbooks.
