The British Defense Ministry is to sell the former Royal Air Force base at Machrihanish in the southwest of Scotland. Machrihanish has a 3,049-meter (10,000-ft.) runway, one of the longest in Europe.
BAE Systems is developing a compact head-up display for business and commercial aircraft using holographic-waveguide optics technology under development for military helmet-mounted displays. HUD use has been limited to airliners and larger business jets because of the bulky optics, but the Q-HUD is half the size and weight of conventional displays. The overhead electronics mount between the cockpit structure and liner, and only the combiner and control panel protrude into the cockpit.
Diehl and Thales have completed the acquisition of an EADS Airbus plant in Laupheim, Germany, that specializes in cabin system integration. The two companies were selected in August to acquire the facility, which employs 1,100 people and makes cabin linings, crew rest compartments, overhead baggage bins and air ducts for all Airbus aircraft. It will be known as Diehl Air Cabin and owned 51% by Diehl and 49% by Thales.
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.
Space Systems/Loral will supply a new telecom spacecraft for SES’s Sirius unit. Sirius 5 is scheduled to be launched in 2011 to 5 deg. E. Long. The unit is intended to provide broadcasting and broadband sevices to Sirius’s core Nordic and Baltic market as well as countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
FlightSafety International is expanding aviation training for Bombardier Learjet, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft, increasing its five facilities in Wichita, Kan., by a total of at least 200,000 ft. and adding 250 staffers to the more than 450 it employs there. Grants and tax credits from state and local agencies are expected to underwrite the work. For Cessna, FlightSafety will expand pilot training and replace an existing maintenance training center.
The Transportation Dept. is facing multiple legal challenges to its final rule on slot auctions at New York-area airports—New York’s Kennedy and LaGuardia and New Jersey’s Liberty International in Newark—but department officials insist they will proceed with the auctions anyway. The rule will see the FAA auctioning 10% of slots at the three airports, with the first wave of auctions set for Jan. 12. The Air Transport Assn. says it will seek an injunction to halt the first auctions. Meanwhile, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says it will too.
After Airbus won the U.S. tanker competition, many politicians said America should not depend on a non-U.S. company for its defense. To demand that America should be defended using equipment manufactured in the U.S. is a praiseworthy view and a common nationalistic one. But if you want U.S.-made defense equipment, don’t invite a European company to compete. Running the competition again in the hope of getting a different result should never be an option. If Boeing had won, would we be having a rerun now?
Ian Coxhill (see photo) has been appointed director of engineering at the Westcott facility of Ampac In-Space Propulsion UK . He was a propulsion engineering executive at Surrey Satellite Technology.
Alliant Techsystems says it successfully demonstrated the propulsion system for the proposed Non Line-of-Sight Launch System (NLOS-LS) Precision Attack Missile (PAM). Three tests were conducted at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the company announced Oct. 6. NLOS-LS, developed for the Army’s Future Combat System, is slated for initial fielding in 2011. The Army plans to procure more than 25,000 PAM missiles for use against moving and stationary targets. The PAM is a 7-in.-wide, 60-in.-long, 118-lb. modular missile with a planned 40-km. range.
A Raytheon-led team claimed major progress Oct. 6 after completing stationary and moving target intercept tests under the Active Protection System, part of the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems program. The APS, which is supposed to protect FCS manned ground vehicles, comprises short- and long-range components. The short-range system was slated for a July test while the long-range countermeasure is planned for development and testing in 2010.
Labor representatives have endorsed a plan by EADS to sell a majority stake in its Socata unit to Daher. Worker councils at all three entities backed the move aimed at creating a larger aerostructures business, which would also be active in business aviation and services. Under the deal, Socata also is assured a Tier 1 supplier role on the Airbus A350.
Bob Bell has been named vice president-enterprise risk solutions for Strategic Thought Inc. of Washington. He was risk manager for the Joint Strike Fighter program at the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in Fort Worth.
EADS Astrium is planning to launch two microsatellites next year that will be used for the early missile warning mission, says French air force Gen. (ret.) Bernard Molard, security and defense adviser to the EADS Astrium CEO. Under the Spirale program, each 120-kg. (264-lb.) satellite will carry infrared ballistic missile detection payloads.
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.
