In Cooperation With The American Society Of Aviation Artists The American Society of Aviation Artists joins Aviation Week & Space Technology for the ninth year in presenting art selected from ASAA’s 2008 Exhibition in this annual special issue. AW&ST has selected its “Best of the Best” award winner and top choices for honors in the categories of Military, Commercial, General Aviation and Space, while ASAA prize winners were chosen by Seattle-based classical realism artist Juliet Aristides and other designated ASAA judges.
Boeing’s web site recorded four 737 orders in the week ending Dec. 16, none with identified customers. Those orders boost 737 results to 483 for the year, a far cry from the 850 reached in 2007. Total orders this year climbed to a net of 661 (there were six cancellations), less than half last year’s 1,422.
The U.S. Air Force has modified a fixed-price incentive contract to Boeing Satellite Systems for $233.8 million that completes all funding for the satellite portion of the six-satellite Wideband Global Satcom contract. Some support systems funding remains uncompleted under the $1.8-billion WGS contract.
Northrop Grumman’s X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator reveals an unprecedented emphasis on all-aspect stealth for the maritime environment.
Every year astronauts, cosmonauts and robotic spacecraft send back thousands of beautiful images of the Universe to be seen beyond — and back through — Earth’s atmosphere. Here are some of them from 2008, selected by Aviation Week & Space Technology’s space editors.
Russia is to provide Lebanon with 10 MiG-29 fighters, taken from air force stocks. Expected to arrive in 2009, the twin-engine multirole fighters will provide a substantial boost for the Lebanese armed forces, which in November reactivated a handful of Hawker Hunters that had been retired 15 years ago.
A new business model, renewed fleet, reworked network, single hub and reduced operating costs are the main ingredients investors are betting on to make the new Alitalia fly.
For the second year, Aviation Week & Space Technology asked its readers to recommend their favorite images from the photo contest entries, at AviationWeek.com. They chose from the same 300-plus finalist entries that our judges reviewed. On these pages, you can see the most-recommended images from each of the contest’s four categories that were not prize winners or honorable mentions. To see all the finalists, go to AviationWeek.com/gallery.
NASA tried and failed to obtain Bush administration approval of an overture to China for a cooperative U.S.-China space mission, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin tells Aviation Week & Space Technology. The White House believes that a higher level of cooperation is too great a reward to China for its human rights and arms-trafficking violations of international law.
A long-awaited restructuring of the Chinese airline sector looks closer after a Beijing-directed management reshuffle put executives from rival companies in charge of ailing China Eastern.
Michael Mecham (San Francisco International Airport)
Emirates expects that five metric tons can be cut from the second batch of Airbus A380s it receives next year, opening the way for the carrier to use it on new polar routes here that it opened last week with the smaller but longer-range Boeing 777-200LR. The Dubai-based carrier, Airbus’s biggest A380 customer, will receive its fifth mega-transport in the first quarter of 2009, and the first of a second batch in the second half of the year. Emirates flies the A380 in a 489-seat configuration; its 777-200LRs operate with 276 seats.
Photographer, author and archivist, DANA BELL has retired after a 30-year career with the U.S. government. Starting as a photo researcher with the Air Force in 1976, he moved to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington in 1982. Bell has written 22 books on aviation history, and is now a full-time author. This year marked his 13th as a photo contest judge.
Ground testing of the F135 powerplant for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter resumed on Dec. 16 after being halted for two weeks when an engine was damaged by a foreign object. Inspection revealed a nut released from a bearing compartment caused minor damage to the fan and compressor. The short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing ground-test engine is repairable, says Pratt & Whitney.
The European Union has issued a draft code of conduct for outer space activities that affirms the principle of no harmful interference against space objects, while agreeing to the rights of nations to defend their space assets. The code, which reflects the EU’s growing role in space, follows its endorsement in November of a European Space Agency program to develop a Space Surveillance System.
China will accelerate the development in 2009 of increasingly capable microsats and smallsats for military and other space missions, according to the country’s launch schedule for next year and U.S. Defense Dept. and university analysis of Chinese work in this field. China could also reveal more test activity with the secret Shenlong (Divine Dragon) air-launched booster designed for drop from a Chinese H-6 Badger bomber for smallsat launch operations.
A U.K. Competition Commission report calls for BAA to divest itself of three of its seven U.K. airports: Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh. “Under the common ownership of BAA, there is no competition,” Christopher Clarke, chairman of the BAA airports inquiry, says. The report recommends legislation and regulatory remedies aimed at improving relationships among airports and client airlines and passengers.
NASA has halted work on the GOES‑R weather satellite program following Boeing’s protest to the U.S. government Accountability Office of the $1.09-billion award to Lockheed Martin to build two satellites with options for a third. Boeing said it learned “very little” from a Dec. 10 contract debriefing on why it lost. Based on what it did hear, Boeing concluded, “We offered a superior proposal under the disclosed evaluation criteria.” The GAO has 100 calendar days to review the protest.
Virgin Galactic’s Scaled Composite WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft has been conducting high-speed taxi, braking and spoiler tests at Mojave, Calif., in the run-up to first flight, which is expected by the end of this month. Flight testing was originally expected to begin in the third quarter, but development issues and recent winter storms have held up the start of what is expected to be an 18-month program. The 140-ft.
France is embarking on a technology demonstration program using a Boeing rotary-wing UAV to determine if such designs can meet naval tactical requirements. On Dec. 16, the French armaments agency (DGA) awarded Thales Aerospace and DCNS a three-year, €22-million ($31.7-million) contract for the project. The team will use a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) UAV, or VTUAV, to perform automatic takeoffs and landings on ships in all weather conditions while meeting stringent surveillance demands.
The Army is looking for private armed guards to handle security at U.S. bases in Afghanistan, and for a contractor to oversee other contractors in Afghanistan, to be based at Bagram. But former Army colonel and author Pete Mansoor says there shouldn’t be any role for private security contractors in combat zones.
