Kevin Kuhn has been appointed vice president/general manager of the Paso Robles, Calif.-based Joslyn Sunbank division of the Pacific Scientific Aerospace & Defense Group . He was a plant manager in Costa Mesa, Calif., for Eaton Aerospace.
Italy plans to beef up its presence at the Kenyan space center in Malindi, where it operates telemetry, tracking and control and Earth observation ground facilities. Malindi has long supported Italian, European and U.S. satellite activities and was recently enrolled to help out the Chinese in their manned space missions. The center will receive additional specialists from the Italian air force, which provided support for coastal launch operations off Malindi in 1964-88, and from Italian space agency ASI.
Electronic warfare is making another leap toward new capabilities with a $12.2-million U.S. Air Force contract to Raytheon to study increasing the electronic attack power and adding a data link to its miniature Air Launched Decoy–Jammer. The 300-lb. missile has a range of about 575 mi.
Evan McDougal has become Portsmouth, N.H.-based manager of aviation planning-north for Hoyle, Tanner & Associates Inc. He was manager of Sanford (Maine) Regional Airport.
China’s new helicopter company will be based in Tianjin, where the city government will take 31% of the shares in a first step toward separating the rotary-wing business from national aircraft-manaufacturing conglomerate Avic. Tianjin also will host a new production line with which the company will build light civilian helicopters, part of a range of initiatives that are turning the city into a globally important aerospace center.
European Space Agency Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says the first Soyuz medium-lift booster will take off from a new launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, by year-end, following the resolution of equipment delivery problems. However, inauguration of Europe’s Vega light launch pad in Kourou might slip to early 2010, he says, although installation issues appear to have been resolved.
USAF Maj. Gen. Patrick D. Gillett, Jr., has been appointed to commander of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center of Air Force Materiel Command. He was director of logistics at Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley AFB, Va. He has been succeeded by Brig. Gen. Judith A. Fedder, who has been commander of the 76th Maintenance Wing at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center. She, in turn, has been succeeded by Brig. Gen. Bruce A. Litchfield, who has been director of logistics at Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Hickam AFB, Hawaii.
Weapons that jeopardize strike aircraft and helicopters often come from opposite ends of the spectrum. The primary concern for supersonic jets is advanced surface-to-air missiles. The big killers of helicopters are small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The problem is addressing both without breaking the bank.
Boeing is canvassing airlines on a twin-engine wide-body concept as part of studies into a replacement family, or families, for the 90-250-plus seat range covering the 717 to the 757-300.
European Space Agency managers are intent on rapidly implementing new programs approved late last year, including a sensitive space situational awareness initiative.
Alitalia, now restructured, faces other crucial decisions following Air France-KLM’s agreement to take a 25% stake in the revamped airline. While the new carrier, which started operations last week as a combination of old Alitalia and its former domestic rival Air One, now knows who its new strategic partner will be in the next 3-5 years, two major issues are still unresolved; whether its route system will be built around hubs in Rome and Milan, and determining if it can survive without being fully merged into the Air France-KLM group.
A 20-member National Transportation Safety Board Go Team launched its investigation of US Airways Flight 1549 hours after the Airbus A320 crashed into the frigid waters of the Hudson River off New York on Jan. 15. As of late last week, the board was planning to reclaim the aircraft and its flight recorders for clues to the cause of the accident.
USAF has tapped Northrop Grumman to deliver Next Generation Missile Warning Systems sensors as an upgrade to their Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures system, which offers protection against shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles. The upgrades will be the first two-color IR MWS sensors to be fielded by the Air Force.
Massive stars embedded in the hot ionized hydrogen gas at the core of the Milky Way galaxy are visible with unprecedented resolution in this mosaic produced with data in infrared wavelengths from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. Now the two orbiting observatories will team up to help cut the margin of error in calculating the Hubble constant—the rate of expansion in the universe—from the 10% achieved by the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project in 2001 to something like 3%.
“Deterrence is in the eye of the beholder,” according to former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, leader of the congressionally-chartered Task Force on Defense Dept. Nuclear Weapons Management. Yet the Pentagon has failed to recognize the psychological and political importance of a strong U.S. deterrent, Schlesinger says. He admonished the department for falling prey to the same problems that dogged the Air Force, which the task force accused of mismanaging its nuclear mission in an earlier report last September.
GKN Aerospace is courting Bombardier to secure work on the CSeries single-aisle airliner as the first non-Airbus work at its newly acquired Filton, England, site, as it pursues an aggressive diversification program. GKN formally took over the Airbus wing component and assemblies manufacturing work on Jan. 5. GKN would like to see 40% of its Filton work come from non-Airbus sources by the end of 2012.
The Transportation Security Administration is conducting five public forums over a proposal that some aviation leaders believe could hobble business aircraft operators. Among the controversial measures within the so-called Large Aircraft Security Plan are a prohibition of items including tools and sports equipment, checking passenger names against federal “watch” lists, biennial security audits of flight departments by third parties, and on-demand carriage of air marshals on some private aircraft.
Japan has allocated ¥8.512 billion ($936 million) for the ATD-X stealth demonstrator in the coming budget year. The Defense Ministry asked for ¥10.4 billion. Upgrades for the F-15J fleet will be funded with ¥89.182 billion, compared with a request of ¥94.7 billion.
Precision strike and self-defense are roles foreseen for a high-power laser weapon to be demonstrated under the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Hellads program (see p. 46). The electrically powered solid-state laser is designed to be small and light enough to fit inside a B-1 bomber or, ultimately, an F-35 fighter. In reality, the beam would be invisible. Darpa illustration by Barclay Shaw.
Airlines are taking advantage of extended aircraft ranges to open up new city pairs, but these ultra-long-range flights are spurring fresh debate over pilot fatigue. A legal battle is looming as airlines try to block crew rest rules that the FAA believes are necessary for flights longer than 16 hr.
In 2008, the U.S. State Dept.’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls levied some of the largest fines of the year against the U.S.’s biggest corporations, including Northrop Grumman and Boeing, for alleged arms-export violations.
In a year stifled by a two-month machinists’ strike and a general chill within the airline industry, Boeing Commercial Airplanes took in orders for 662 aircraft for 2008, less than half of the sales recorded in 2007. Even discounting the strike, the 2008 count had been expected to plunge from 2007’s record of 1,422 as airlines pulled back from an ordering binge that included more than 1,000 airplanes from Boeing in both 2005 and 2006. The company’s backlog is more than 3,700 orders.
I am appalled there appears no concern for tanker airframe longevity. Proper selection is so critical I cannot stand silent while there is a possibility of again selecting inappropriate aircraft. U.S. tankers are vital to both America and Canada.
CTT Systems of Nykoping, Sweden, will supply a Cair humidification system for an Airbus A330 VIP aircraft being outfitted by Lufthansa Technik. The installation will be performed in fall 2009. Based on evaporative cooling technology, Cair maintains relative humidity at 25%, countering condensation and preventing the transfer of bacteria. Cair and/or its Zonal Drying anti-condensation system have also been selected as baseline for Boeing 787s and Airbus A380s and A350XWBs.
Air France/KLM was expected late last week to be chosen as the strategic partner of Alitalia, following assurances by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that he would not block the arrangement.
