At the height of the Cold War, Greece was an important ally of the U.S. in helping to check the Soviet Union’s potential to threaten the eastern Mediterranean. Since then, the nation has remained a vital player in the region’s security. Along the way, that evolution has done little to suppress Greece’s appetite for modern weapon systems, and today its shopping list may be valued at up to $12 billion over the next 10 years. Less clear is the source of those new armaments and how Athens might go about procuring them.
Please accept my congratulations on being elected the 44th president of the United States. Your campaign inspired millions of Americans and urged us not to abandon hope in favor of building a brighter future. I am confident in the potential for American prosperity during your administration.
NASA and the U.S. Energy Dept. will cooperate on a spaceborne mission to perform highly accurate measurements of distant galaxies and supernovae in an effort to gain a better understanding of the mysterious force astrophysicists call dark energy, the force causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. Dark energy is calculated to comprise about 70% of the Universe’s total mass energy content.
Michael Kahn (see photos) has been appointed executive vice president/general manager of ATK Launch Systems for Alliant Techsystems of Minneapolis. He was vice president-Space Launch Systems and is being succeeded by Charlie Precourt, who has been vice president-strategy and business development.
The Alenia Aeronautica Sky-Y unmanned air vehicle demonstrator has completed a second evaluation at Sweden’s Vidsel test range. The aircraft flew six missions carrying a variety of equipment, including the EOST-45 Selex Galileo optronic surveillance system, as well as a mission computer developed by Quadrics and a satellite data link used to transmit sensor imagery.
Boeing’s delayed 747-8F will not fly for the first time until around January 2010 under the latest development schedule, revised for the second time to include the effects of supply-chain delays, overstretched engineering resources and the recent Machinists’ strike.
Parts of Southern California are on fire yet again and there is no Bombardier CL-415 water bomber in sight. A few years ago, you reported on a demonstration of the CL-415 to relevant firefighters in California and their response that the Canadian aircraft had incompatible radio frequencies, and thus were of no use to them. It’s sad to see the “not-invented-here” syndrome letting houses burn. I hopped in a plane on Google Earth’s flight simulator and could drop 1,600 gal.
Boeing and Chinese partner Avic have begun to expand their joint composites business in Tianjin, breaking ground on the $21-million project that is planned to increase capacity by 60%. Boeing Tianjin Composites Co. is due to begin production in 2013.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), John M. Doyle (Washington)
The battle over how many F-22 Raptors the U.S. needs is getting uglier. Defense Dept. leaders appear to have effectively choked off further purchases by using a loophole in the Fiscal 2009 defense spending bill. Lawmakers say the Pentagon must spend $140 million in advance procurement funding appropriated for 20 F-22s. But John Young, the Pentagon’s acquisition czar, says that only $50 million will be spent on components for four aircraft.
Fixing the A380 airliner and A400M military airlifter have been top priorities for EADS managers all year. They will have that ignominious distinction again next year, as the European aerospace giant has failed to remedy the problem-plagued projects. What’s more, strife that had been quieted over the internal management of the company is again breaking out. French and German stakeholders are resisting reform and acquisition efforts EADS managers deem vital for the long-term growth of the company.
Tom Anderson has been named senior vice president of Airbus North America Customer Services Inc. , Herndon, Va. He succeeds Francois Mourareau, who is retiring. Anderson was senior vice president-technical operations for Virgin America.
Singapore’s Changi Airports International (CAI) will manage King Fahd International Airport for the next six years, under a S$65-million ($42-million) contract signed Nov. 18 with Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation. The airport, located at Damman, is the gateway to the eastern province, which is the largest in terms of population and land mass in Saudi Arabia. Development plans call for an increase in passenger capacity to 16 million a year, compared with the current 11 million.
Anthony L. Velocci, Jr. (New York), Joseph C. Aneslmo (New York)
At last week’s AVIATION WEEK/Credit Suisse Aerospace & Defense Finance Conference in New York, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President/CEO Scott Carson talked with Editor-in-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr., and Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo about the tough times that have descended on the global economy and his company. Aviation Week & Space Technology: The elephant in the room at this conference is the availability of financing. How much of Boeing’s backlog has been financed?
PARTNERSHIPS Nov. 29-Dec. 1—Bengaluru (India) Space Expo 2008. You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/conferences or call Lydia Janow at +1 (212) 904-3225/+1 (800) 240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada Only)
Hundreds of European air route changes to be introduced in March are expected to shorten flight times, cut fuel consumption and reduce congestion, although airlines say they are not growing too excited until they see the new routes actually implemented. The changes slated for 2009 are a key part of a wider three-year airspace redesign effort. The first stage of the redesign was introduced this year, and the third stage—being developed now—will be implemented in 2010, says Joe Sultana, who heads Eurocontrol’s airspace network planning and navigation unit.
NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Div. at Ames Research Center is ranked among the world’s fastest in an exclusive club called the Top500 from the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis. NAS is recruited for some of the aerospace industry’s most complex tasks, from global climate studies to space shuttle main engine thrust analysis. The new network is called Pleiades and is an SGI Altrix ICE system with 12,800 Intel Xeon quad-core processors running 487 teraflops (487 trillion floating point operations per second).
Rolls-Royce is starting performance tests of its RB2011 “pusher” open rotor, but reveals that the main research focus for a future 150-seat aircraft engine is on a yet-to-be-tested “puller” configuration.
The overall passenger traffic at European airports registered a 3.3% decline in September 2008, compared with September 2007, according to the latest report from Airports Council International-Europe. The overall freight traffic among European airports decreased 7.2%. Overall aircraft movements at European airports decreased 0.4%. “The economic turmoil is now clearly taking its toll on airports across Europe,” says Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe.
Eurocopter has added a subsidiary in Indonesia, the 18th such local entity in the helicopter maker’s network. Eurocopter recently signed a deal with local company PTDI to build airframes for the Super Puma Mk helicopter. Jakarta-based Eurocopter Indonesia is to grow to around 100 employees by the end of next year and will be working heavily with PTDI.
Warner and Virginia’s other senator, Democrat Jim Webb, are vowing to fight the Navy’s decision to base a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Mayport, Fla., instead of Norfolk, Va. Warner and Webb, both former Navy secretaries, say the “strategically flawed and fiscally irresponsible” move will cost the Navy $600 million to $1 billion. Senate Democratic Deputy Whip Bill Nelson of Florida has lobbied for the move since the USS John F. Kennedy, the last carrier based in Mayport, was retired in 2007.
The outlook for the business jet market is worsening rapidly in tandem with the global economy. UBS Investment Research predicts deliveries will peak this year—two years earlier than it previously forecast—and decline 25% from 2009-11. UBS analyst David E. Strauss says the climate for financing business jets has collapsed in recent weeks, threatening hefty order backlogs that the industry is counting on to survive the rough economic times. “The decline in U.S.
Raytheon has received its first government funding for work on a Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) concept designed to combat warheads and countermeasures from ballistic missiles. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) strategy for the MKV program is to develop competing designs in parallel. Lockheed Martin also is devising a concept, and Raytheon had been working on its using corporate research money. MDA’s contract to Raytheon is worth up to $442 million for work through December 2011.
The British defense sector faces continued uncertainty over procurement, irrespective of the outcome of a pending review. Full implementation of the U.K.’s Defense Industrial Strategy is also, at best, on hold. These are the warnings being given by senior defense and aerospace industry lobbyists as the government prepares the results of its “equipment examination.” This week’s pre-budget statement provides a first opportunity for the Labor government to present some of the equipment review’s recommendations.
A Shanghai-born U.S. citizen has pleaded guilty to charges that he passed liquid hydrogen technology to China and bribed Chinese officials to select a $4-million, 600-liter/hr. hydrogen liquefier from a French company he represented. Shu Quan-Sheng, a NASA subcontractor and cryogenics specialist, signed a 21-page statement detailing technical assistance he provided to upgrade China’s space exploration and satellite technology capabilities.
