The Oct. 8 plunge of the Cassini spacecraft to within 15 mi. of Enceladus as both orbited Saturn a billion miles from Earth is providing new data on the water and dust jets firing from the moon of Saturn 300 mi. into space. The deluge of new water-related findings from the fleet of multinational spacecraft exploring Saturn and Mars is increasing the odds that habitable conditions for alien life exist now, or did earlier, in the Solar System.
Tammy Romo (see photos) has been named vice president-financial planning of Southwest Airlines . She was vice president/controller and has been succeeded by Leah Koontz, who has been promoted from assistant controller.
Airbus and Pratt & Whitney are preparing to measure external noise characteristics of the PW1000G geared turbofan engine in Moron, Spain, following an initial set of test flights from Toulouse, France, on Oct. 14 and 15. The first flight on Airbus’s A340-600 testbed lasted 2 hr. and included a takeoff with the PW1000G at full power as well as expansion of the flight envelope to 37,000 ft. and maximum Mach operating number.
On Dec. 1, Dubai-based Emirates plans to increase its service to Cyprus to daily from five times weekly, using Boeing 777 aircraft. According to Emirates, the island of Cyprus, which averages 300 days of sunshine a year, attracts more than 2.4 million tourists annually.
Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Corp. (Ameco Beijing) will add blended winglets to nine Boeing 767-300ERs for Condor under a contract that also includes C checks, beginning in April. Ameco Beijing estimates the winglets will save 4-6% of fuel on medium- and long-haul flights while increasing payload range capability and improving takeoff performance.
Dominic Chow (see photo) has been appointed director of custom power solutions for Crane Aerospace and Electronics , Lynnwood, Wash. He was head of the segment’s business development and business management.
According to “Ares Power” (AW&ST July 28, p. 51), two 5.5-segment solid rocket boosters supply insufficient mass margin for the Ares V. In addition, they are expensive, as every time a solid rocket motor (SRM) is altered, the design, development and testing costs are similar to those for a totally new rocket. The solution is simple. Use three of the flight-proven four-segment SRMs that the shuttle employs, without any changes. This should increase the mass margin to 8-9 from 6 tons.
Pratt & Whitney says it will reorganize a few sectors under a new unit “to drive strategic alignment and improved responsiveness.” The new organization, Commercial Engines & Global Services, will include the Commercial Engines, Global Service Partners and Global Material Solutions units. Todd Kallman will be its president. Pratt will continue to use the Global Service Partners brand for its maintenance, repair and overhaul sales efforts.
U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command awarded General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products two orders to produce Hydra-70 rockets and warheads. The orders, worth a total of about $85 million, were awarded under a five-year contract signed in 2005 that has a total potential value of more than $900 million if all options are exercised. Deliveries will begin in May 2010. Hydra-70 is a family of unguided rockets offering several warhead configurations to enable an aircrew to match a rocket to a specific mission.
The Luftwaffe, with support from the U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin, conducted its first test of the PAC-3 missile using a German Patriot launcher Oct. 13 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. This was the second international test of PAC-3; the first, Sept. 18, was for Japan. During this test, the Army simulated a theater ballistic missile, and the PAC-3 flew a trajectory that would have produced an intercept had a physical target been present.
The first Level D full-flight simulator (FFS) for the Eurocopter EC225 has entered service at HeliSim in Marignane, France. Jointly owned by Eurocopter and simulator manufacturer Thales, HeliSim also operates four FFSs for the AS365, EC155 and AS322L1/L2 helicopters. An NH90 simulator will be added in 2009. Eurocopter, meanwhile, has EC135 flight training devices (FTD) at its plants in Germany and Texas, and will install EC225 FTDs in Aberdeen, Scotland, and Southeast Asia in 2010.
The VH-71 presidential helicopter program continues its budgetary rehabilitation with a $173-million contract plus-up from the U.S. Navy for design and integration of communications, navigation and mission systems.
Lorraine Bolsinger has been appointed president/CEO of GE Aviation Systems . She has been vice president-ecomagination, and will be succeeded by Steve Fludder. He has been head of global sales for Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based GE Water and Process Technologies.
Striking machinists were not surprised that the first talks between their leaders and Boeing since they went on strikeSept. 6 ended without a resolution last week. They say “Boeing just doesn’t get it.” Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief negotiator Tom Easley and Douglas Kight, vice president for human resources, met with International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 751 President Tom Wroblewski and chief negotiator Mark Blondin in Spokane.
The first two men to follow their fathers into space are working together on the International Space Station, following the safe docking of the Soyuz TMA-13/17S vehicle at the nadir side of Russia’s Zarya module Oct. 14. Expedition 17 Commander Sergei Volkov, son of Soyuz cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, will return to Earth Oct. 23 with Richard Garriott, a Texas-based computer game designer who paid a reported $30 million for his ride to space and who is the son of Skylab and shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott.
A relatively small $125-million contract to Northrop Grumman signals a big shakeout in the world of electronic attack and network-centric operations—the heart of future joint U.S. Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force airborne warfighting concepts. The company has landed a contract to build its fourth lot of ICAP III airborne electronic attack (EA) systems for the Marine Corps’ growing fleet of EA-6B Prowlers.
Defense Minister Herve Morin says France may cede some ground on penalties that EADS is liable to incur for late delivery of the A400M airlifter under its fixed-price contract. Penalties, which have already led to €1.4 billion in write-downs and, with delays slipping further to the right, are likely to increase. EADS CEO Louis Gallois has threatened to stop work on the A400M if penalties for delays, which he says are not entirely EADS’s fault, are not waived or reduced.
Iran plans another satellite launch attempt soon, says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Debate continues over whether an attempt this summer was a success or if only the upper stage of a launch vehicle reached orbit. The payload planned for the next attempt will be designated “Omid” (Hope) and will carry imaging and radio-relay equipment. The spacecraft will be launched with a multistage booster equipped with 16 engines, designed to place the satellite into a 430-mi. orbit.
SuperJet International has received Italian certification to provide multi-crew coordination, instructor rating and instructor theoretical training. The move is a step toward establishment of a type rating activity for the Sukhoi Superjet 100, which SuperJet International is marketing, completing and supporting for Western clients.
The NTSB on Oct. 16 issued an urgent recommendation to the FAA to require that all Pratt & Whitney PW2037 engines be removed from service for inspection of the second-stage turbine hubs when they have accumulated 10,880 flight hours or 4,392 cycles. The action comes from the NTSB’s ongoing investigation of an uncontained failure of the second-stage hub on a Delta Air Lines Boeing 757-200 on Aug. 6 at Las Vegas. Post-incident examination of the engine revealed a hole in the bottom of the core cowl that was in line with the engine’s high-pressure turbine.
Sensis Corp. will install an Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS) at Perth, the fourth contract the East Syracuse, N.Y., company has received from Airservices Australia. The Perth contract includes installation of VeeLo NextGen units for identifying vehicles on aprons, taxiways and runways plus a Sensis Aerobahn airport management tool for controlling ground operations. A-SMGCS fuses data from multiple surveillance sources to locate and track aircraft. It provides tower controllers with predictions of collisions via visual and audio alerts.
France, the U.K. and Sweden have agreed to study a lightweight compact radar suitable to be carried on tactical unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. Known as Simclairs (studies for integrated multifunction compact lightweight airborne radars and systems), the four-year European Defense Agency study will seek to develop basic technologies for a European light radar capability expected to appear around 2020, including moving target detection, detection behind dense vegetation cover, passive electronic signal intelligence and communications.
GPS-based landing systems for military aircraft are a step closer following the award to Raytheon of a contract to develop the first increment of the long-anticipated Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS). A Raytheon-led team has received a $233-million contract for system development and demonstration of JPALS Increment 1A to provide an all-weather precision landing capability on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.
India has been heralded as a bright star in aviation, but its image of undimmed growth keeps being tarnished. Kingfisher Airlines been forced to seek protection through an alliance while it defers aircraft deliveries. Its proposed partner is Jet Airways, but the worldwide credit crisis is hitting that carrier, too. Jet will cut 15% of its international routes this winter
