Engineers working on the early design of NASA’s planned Ares V heavy lift launch vehicle have about 600 aerodynamic data points on the big rocket’s performance during ascent after a series of wind tunnel tests run with a 15-in. outer mold line model. Based on the latest configuration of NASA’s next-generation Moon rocket, the tests simulate the aerodynamic loads the vehicle will experience from shortly after liftoff until it drops its twin solid-fuel boosters at about Mach 4.3.
As the presidential election campaign between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama heads into its final week, a lot of prognostications have been made about what the outcome will mean for defense spending. The truth is that military expenditures are going to come under intense scrutiny—and very well could decline—no matter who moves into the White House next January.
Andy Nativi (Ysterplaat AFB, South Africa), Douglas Barrie (London)
South African defense manufacturer Denel and the government are trying to hammer out a deal to secure the future of the air force’s Rooivalk attack helicopter. The fate of the program has been the source of considerable speculation.
After years of steady growth, regional aircraft sales will begin to flatten in about a year and stay that way until 2014-15 as carriers work their way through the current financial crisis and the industry adjusts to shifts in capacity, according to Forecast International. FI predicts total regional sales of 4,066 aircraft worth $116 billion from 2008-17. Sales will be dominated by regional jets—a total of 2,826—but will offer a lot of room for turboprops—1,240—as airlines opt for fuel efficiency over speed at the lower end of the seating range.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has asked Alexandria, Va.-based consultancy TransSystems to help create a strategic plan to expand air services at Stewart International Airport. Located in the Hudson Valley, the former military base is viewed as a reliever facility for New York John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark (N.J.) Liberty International airports. The Port Authority took over Stewart’s lease on Nov.
Pratt & Whitney Canada is to receive C$125 million ($100 million) in reimbursable research and development support from the Quebec government. This is a third of the C$360 million the engine manufacturer plans to invest in R&D in the Montreal area over the next three years. In 2005, Investissement Quebec provided the company with C$75 million over three years, repayable through royalties on sales.
NATO is preparing to expand the scope of its missile defense activities, although concrete decisions to provide a broad-based territorial defense of member states is still some time off. A range of policy and technical considerations is due to be addressed before year-end to help shape next year’s debate on how the alliance should evolve its missile defense stance.
The European Space Agency will slip its ExoMars mission to 2016 from 2013 to gain more time to structure financing for the lander/rover project. A decision to rescope the mission to carry a much bigger array of scientific instruments has boosted the price tag to more than €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion), from €650 million originally. ESA member states, in particular Italy and Germany, have made it clear they are not willing to put any more money into the initiative (AW&ST Oct. 6, p. 36).
It’s a venture that will go down in Russia’s air transport history as audacious or asinine. In the midst of one of the country’s biggest airline crises, a government-backed consortium is trying to merge several unhealthy carriers into a new megacarrier. The large state-controlled Russian Technologies company and the Moscow city government announced last week the formation of the managing company, tentatively dubbed Airlines of Russia. Russian Technologies will be the majority owner.
Nov. 3-5—UCLA Short Course “Spacecraft Dynamics and Controls.” UCLA Extension Building, Los Angeles. Call +1 (818) 784-7006 or see www.uclaextension.edu/index.cfm?href=/locationsAndMaps/index.cfm Nov. 5-7—University of Westminster Aviation Seminar. “Demand Analysis and Capacity Management: The Air Transport Issues.” Also, Nov. 26-28—Air Transport Economics and Planning Seminar. Both in London. See www.westminster.ac.uk/transport
Astronomers expect to squeeze as much science as they can out of the Hubble Space Telescope instrument that will be replaced on the upcoming STS-125 servicing mission, provided controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center can get the telescope working again. The Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC-2) was set to resume science last weekend, after controllers made a second attempt to restart the spacecraft’s main payload computer Oct. 23. While recovering from an earlier anomaly, the redundant B-side of the Science Instrument Control and Data Handling System failed again Oct.
Thanks for your excellent articles on NASA’s 50th anniversary, in particular the lead story by Frank Morring, Jr. (AW&ST Sept. 29, p. 56). I couldn’t help but read them with sadness, however. At 12, mesmerized by 2001: A Space Odyssey, I could not but consider the film prescient when a year later Neil Armstrong took his small step. The times felt like a countdown to the future—and I could hardly wait for it to finally arrive.
Arianespace has landed four new launch contracts, confirming continued strong demand from a buoyant market. Three were from SES under a multi-launch agreement signed in June 2007, and the other is for Rascom-QAF1R, a pan-African telecom satellite being built by Thales Alenia Space to replace a unit that failed to reach the proper orbit after launch late last year.
The FAA on Oct. 16 officially launched its online “Lessons Learned” Safety Library (http://accidents-ll.faa.gov/index.cfm). The FAA’s director of aircraft certification service, John Hickey, describes the site as an “encyclopedia” of fatal transport accident information that was designed as a training tool for regulators, investigators, airlines, educators, the public—and just about anyone interested in building aviation safety. One can cruise the user-friendly site to find major accidents worldwide that have made the most significant impact on the aviation industry.
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is off on its planned two-year mission to map the outer edge of the Solar System, after a Pegasus launch from the Kwajalein Atoll Oct. 19. The $169-million mission will paint the first comprehensive picture of the edge of the heliosphere, where the solar wind butts up against interstellar dust and gas and which protects the Solar System from galactic cosmic rays. Before it begins operations, IBEX will spend 45 days in an orbit-raising period, firing an ATK Star 27 solid-fuel rocket motor to go from its initial 130-mi.
Nov. 12-14—Aerospace & Defense Programs, San Diego. Nov. 19-20—Aerospace & Defense Finance Conference, New York. PARTNERSHIPS Nov. 4-9—Sixth China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition, Zhuhai. Nov. 23-25—Middle East Business Aviation (MEBA), Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Nov. 26-27—Defense Equipment Maintenance Conference, Brussels. Nov. 29-Dec. 1—Bengaluru (India) Space Expo 2008. You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events.
Vanderlei Anjos da Silva has become Brazil-based sales manager for Latin America for DAC International , Austin, Tex. He was an avionics sales executive for Lider Taxi Aereo.
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. has named Spirit AeroSystems to build the pylon for its 70-90-seat Mitsubishi Regional Jet. It is Spirit’s first contract in the regional jet market. The work will be done at Spirit’s Wichita, Kan., facility.
Northrop Grumman has completed FAA supplemental certification flights to permit an engine upgrade to the U.S. Air Force’s E-8C Joint Stars ground surveillance radar aircraft. The company can now install Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 engines on the testbed aircraft in preparation for military certification flights slated to begin in December. The upgrade will give the aircraft additional power, more efficient fuel use, reduce maintenance cost and downtime, and require fewer inflight refuelings.
Warner Robins Air Logistics Center is fabricating 75 new aileron levers per week for U.S. Air Force T-38s to keep the training aircraft flying after the lever was cited as a contributing cause of a fatal crash. A T-38 crashed during a routine training flight on Apr. 23 at Columbus AFB, Miss. USAF operates 546 T-38s. The original forgings used to make the levers are no longer available, so the parts have to be manufactured from scratch.
Airline, business jet and military transport pilots have used airborne weather radar for decades to see and avoid hazardous thunderstorm cells, but they have been stuck with looking at a 2D view of these phenomena on a cockpit display.
As a result of startup problems with two key programs, the Swiss air force may be hobbled as shortfalls are fixed. Efforts to upgrade the nation’s advanced pilot training have been underway for some time. Although service officials are generally satisfied with progress made so far, elements of the Jet Pilot Training-21 (Jepas-21) program are still deficient.
The British Defense Ministry is admitting it was a mistake not to initially equip Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules aircraft deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan with explosive-suppressant foam (ESF) systems for their fuel tanks. A British coroner last week said there was a “systemic failure” that led to the decision not to fit the system, the lack of which he said contributed to the loss of 10 people when a C-130K was shot down in Iraq in January 2005.
Annual membership fees for the Clear registered traveler program have risen to $199 a year from $128, while renewals rose to $159 a year. Expansion at the top U.S. airports—including those at Atlanta, Denver, Oakland, Calif., Washington Dulles and National, and Salt Lake City—was the reason given by Clear CEO Steven Brill to justify the price hike.
