Airbus is now solidly pulling ahead of Boeing in both order intake and deliveries for the year through September. The European aircraft maker boosted its net order book to 737 aircraft (785 gross)—around 100 units more than its rival—with deliveries reaching 349 units. Boeing is stuck at 325 owing to its machinists strike. Airbus did suffer a net reduction of five A340-500 orders in the last month, bringing the backlog to only five more aircraft of that type.
Richard C. Forsberg has been named vice president-contracts management, Nancy A. L’Esperance vice president-human resources and Alphonse J. Lariviere vice president-finance of the Kaman Aerospace Group , Bloomfield, Conn. Forsberg was an assistant vice president, while L’Esperance was director of human resources for aerospace. Lariviere was vice president-finance of the Helicopters Div.
EADS North America and its KC-45 prime contractor Northrop Grumman are still in talks with the U.S. Air Force about termination of its tanker contract. But, in the meantime, the company has picked up another U.S. military service customer. EADS North America is now planning to deliver UH-72A Lakota utility helicopters to the U.S. Navy and Army. Its Lakota win marked a first for the young company as a U.S. prime for a Pentagon contract. The Navy is procuring five of the helicopters for use in pilot training at the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Md.
FAA awarded Goodrich Corp. a supplemental type certificate for a new one-piece fan cowl design for IAE V2500-A5 nacelles that replaces the cowl’s traditional honeycomb interior with a monolithic structure that is manufactured with a resin transfer infusion process pioneered by Bombardier Aerospace. Goodrich, which developed the cowl in collaboration with Bombardier, said the one-piece components are more durable and longer lasting than their predecessors.
Northrop Grumman flew its new Airborne Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Minefield Detection System (Astamids) for the first time on board a UAV on Sept. 12. Astamids, in development for the U.S. Army, flew on a company-owned MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Unmanned Air System helicopter, “P6.” The flight was one of two that took place at an Army test facility that day.
The U.S. Air Force is planning to procure a single satellite to collect overhead imagery of the Middle East through its new Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office. The requirement is an “urgent need” for commanders in the field at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, says Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space.
Embraer has selected Kollsman’s EVS II infrared enhanced-vision sensor and a Rockwell Collins’ digital head-up display as an option for the Lineage 1000 large-cabin business jet. EVS II also has been selected by Gulfstream as an option on the midsize G150 and new super-midsize G250, and is now available on all Gulfstreams. Kollsman, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems of America, and Jetcraft Avionics plan to certificate the EVS for retrofit on other aircraft, beginning by year-end with the Bombardier Challenger 604.
The U.S. Transportation Security Adminisration’s proposed Large Aircraft Security Program (LASP) rule, issued Oct. 9, is galvanizing the general aviation community. The proposed rule would require all U.S. operators of aircraft over 12,500-lb. maximum takeoff weight to adopt the new security program. The LASP essentially replaces current programs applicable to different types of GA operations with a common framework.
Two important European launches have been postponed because of payload or launch system problems. The sixth Arianespace mission of the year was pushed back a month, to late November. Arianespace imputed the delay to a satellite availability problem presumably involving NSS-9; SES insisted the matter concerned scheduling issues under the operator’s multilaunch agreement with the launch company. Instead of NSS-9, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., the mission will carry W2M, another Eutelsat spacecraft.
Michael A. Taverna (Bourges, France), Douglas Barrie (London)
France is pursuing a revamped plan to flight test an experimental hypersonic vehicle, with Russia’s leading air-launched cruise missile developer, Raduga, tasked to oversee this element of the program. France’s LEA hypersonic research project—the acronym stands for the Russian term for flight-test vehicle—was begun in 2003 and the first of six flight tests was due in 2009. The vehicle is powered by a dual-mode ramjet capable of speed in the 4-8 Mach region. A revised prog ram schedule now foresees four test flights over the period 2012-14.
The U.S. airlines that fell into bankruptcy protection this year got their final push from different sources: ATA Airlines lost a big military contract, Frontier Airlines had issues with a credit card processor, and Skybus couldn’t survive high fuel costs and what many considered a flawed strategy.
Nextant Aerospace plans to fly its re-engined Beechjet 400A light jet in June 2009, aiming for certification and delivery of the Williams FJ44-3AP-powered 400NXT in 2010. Replacing the JT15D-5s will reduce fuel consumption by 32% and extend range to 2,005 naut. mi., says Nextant. The company is selling fully remanufactured 400NXTs for $4.9 million and conversions of customer Beechjet 400As and Hawker 400XPs for $2.4 million. The upgrade includes a Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 cockpit. This will be certificated by year-end, says Nextant.
Chinese controllers are practicing proximity operations with a small subsatellite released from the nose of the manned Shenzhou 7 spacecraft Sept. 30 that continues to circle the Shenzhou orbital module left in orbit when the crew rode the descent module back to Earth. The BX-1 subsatellite, weighing about 35 kg. (77 lb.) and equipped with a maneuvering system as well as two cameras, shows the growing maturity of Chinese small-satellite development.
MBDA says its Otomat antiship missile has undergone a successful test firing from a Royal Malaysian Navy Laksamana-class corvette using TG2 over-the-horizon inflight retargeting with target hand-off provided by a Super Lynx helicopter.
Michael M. Rombach has become senior vice president-market development for Input , Reston, Va. He was vice president-product marketing at America Online.
Emirates will open its Terminal 3 at the Dubai hub Oct. 14. The phased opening will eventually lead to a capacity of handling 43 million passengers per year. Initially, flights from Gulf Cooperation Council states will operate there, as well as from New York, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Toronto. In a second phase, other Middle Eastern and African destinations will shift to the new facility. European, Indian subcontinent, Far East and Australian destinations come even later. Five of the 26 gates are configured for double-decker A380 operations.
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission will use a new orbit-raising method that could allow a variety of future small science missions to get beyond low Earth orbit without upgrading to large launch vehicles. The 1,016-lb. spacecraft is set to be placed in an initial 130-mi. orbit Oct. 19 by an air-launched Pegasus XL originating from Kwajalein Atoll. To reach its final, highly elliptical orbit, the spacecraft will fire an ATK Star 27 solid rocket motor to boost it to its apogee, then use a hydrazine propulsion system to reach its final 200,000 X 4,400-mi.
Oct. 20-21—Technology Training Corp.’s Space-Based ISR Conference. Hilton Arlington (Va.). Also, Oct. 23-24—Military Energy & Fuels Conference. Caesars Palace Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. Call +1 (310) 563-1223 or see www.ttcus.com Oct. 20-22—Airports Council International-North America’s Public Safety and Security Fall Conference. Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City Hotel, Arlington, Va. See see www.aci-na.org/conferences
Douglas Barrie (London), David A. Fulghum (Washington), Robert Wall (Paris)
The British Royal Air Force could have the first of three Boeing RC-135V/W Rivet Joint electronic intelligence aircraft 24 months after concluding a deal to replace the capability now provided by the Nimrod R1. While the Defense Ministry says it is continuing to weigh a variety of platforms for its Elint program, known as Project Helix, industry executives on both sides of the Atlantic suggest the Rivet Joint option is emerging as the preferred approach.
The Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, 920 million mi. from Earth, dove to within 82,000 ft. of the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus Oct. 9 to sample the composition of water vapor geysers blasting material 300 mi. into space. The flyby at nearly 40,000 mph. was with Cassini flying backward relative to its imaging systems, to enable the spacecraft’s particles and field instruments to be hit head-on by the plume materials. The geysers could mean Enceladus harbors a subsurface ocean, warm enough to form a stew of living organisms nearly 1 billion mi.
A new focus at the Pentagon on shoring up USAF’s nuclear stewardship is allowing Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) to begin a program to buy new helicopters for security teams supporting the Minuteman III mission. Maj. Gen. Roger Burg, 20th Air Force commander, says funding will be allocated in the Fiscal 2009 budget for a program office to manage the procurement. AFSPC needs 25-30 helicopters that have greater range, an all-weather/day-night capability and can fly faster than the 25 Hueys now conducting the mission, he says.
European airlines are feeling the effects of the global economic crisis, if passenger traffic figures are a barometer. British Airways’ numbers most clearly illustrate the situation, with its vital premium traffic down 8.6% in September over last year’s results. Overall, traffic for the carrier was down 4.8%. While a slowdown was expected, “this volume drop was greater than anticipated,” say analysts at financial institution Dresdner Kleinwort.
Dave Duesterhaus (see photo) has been named site director of the Arnold Engineering Development Center ’s National Full Scale Aerodynamics Complex, Moffett Field, Calif.
