Green Tweed’s Enercam’s unidirectional, hydro-mechanically activated, cam-type design is a demonstrated solution for both Skydrol V and military red oil systems that operate up to 5,000 psi. Low leakage rates guarantee hydraulic fluid will be available to operate the flight controls, according to the company. The Enercam provides wear and deformation resistance, allowing for lower maintenance requirements and longer mean time between actuator overhaul. The product can be installed in a closed groove, so it can easily be retrofitted.
Virgin Blue Airlines will shift to next year the launch of its long-haul V Australia operation because the machinists strike at Boeing means the required 777-300ERs will not arrive on time. The airline has now tentatively set Feb. 28 for the beginning of operations.
Airbus is stepping up its efforts to become a major player in the Chinese aerospace sector with the opening of its final assembly line for the A319 and A320 in Tianjin. Late last month, the Airbus executive committee held its first official meeting in China, signalling to China’s political and industry establishment how seriously Airbus takes its relationship with the emerging aerospace giant. CEO Thomas Enders says he also wanted his colleagues in Airbus’s top management who travel less frequently to see for themselves how China is evolving.
Top NASA managers will soon decide the fate of the Mars Science Laboratory, a nuclear-powered astrobiology rover that already has cost $1.5 billion and is likely to hit the 30% overrun ceiling that could trigger cancellation by Congress. Officials from the Mars exploration program and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory plan to brief Administrator Michael Griffin and Science Associate Administrator Ed Weiler this week.
As the machinists’ strike that has shut down airplane production at Boeing enters its second month, the company is making modest progress toward the first flight of the 787. Boeing has also announced its first new delivery date: Launch customer All Nippon Airways will receive the first airplane in August 2009. This confirms that production problems have cost 15 months in the schedule. Under the previous timeline, ANA was to get its first of 50 787s last May.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has added a doctoral studies program—the first of its kind to be geared toward the working professional—according to the university. Currently, those aspiring to a Ph.D. in aviation must default to an education/aviation degree, rather than a specifically tailored one. The doctorate is being offered online as a collaborative effort between Embry’s College of Aviation and its Worldwide Campus organization.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates may be fighting two wars and trying to transform his ingrained department, but he still finds time to deliver earth-shattering messages to future military leaders. His Sept. 29 speech at the National Defense University in Washington (see p. 92) reiterated his message that the status quo does not meet growing U.S. needs, particularly in asymmetric warfare. Gates says top officers and lawmakers are too devoted to massively complex weapons systems that promise total solutions only years from now.
The consortium looking to take over and remake Alitalia last week voted to make a formal offer for the airline. The Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) would merge parts of Alitalia with Air One and put around €1 billion into the company. British Airways has signaled that it, too, is interested in a relationship with the new airline, offering Oneworld alliance membership but no equity stake. Air France-KLM and Lufthansa are both vying to become shareholders.
Searchers located the wreckage of aviation adventurer Steve Fossett’s Bellanca 8KCAB (N240R) at 10,000 ft. in the Sierra Nevada near Mammoth Lakes, Calif., on Oct. 2--some 13 months after he and his airplane vanished. The discovery was triggered by a hiker who found Fossett’s pilot’s license and Soaring Society of America ID the previous day. Fossett was last seen Sept. 3, 2007, after he took off from a private airstrip at Yerington, Nev., in good weather. The NTSB is investigating.
Regarding Denis P. Edkins’ letter “Hydrogen Use a Poor Choice” (AW&ST July 28, p. 12), it would be a waste of hydrogen to burn it when we could use fuel cells to generate electricity, which can spin unducted fan propulsors. This would bring hydrogen’s energy content close to that of jet fuel by volume, and far exceed it by weight.
Joseph W. Pallot has been named general counsel and Mark H. Hildebrandt to the board of directors of the Miami-based Heico Corp. Pallot was a member of the Miami law firm of Devine Goodman Pallot Rasco & Wells. He has resigned from the board of directors and succeeds Victor H. Mendelson, who was president of Heico’s Electronic Technologies Group and a corporate executive vice president. Hildebrandt succeeds Pallot on the board and is a partner in the Miami law firm of Waldman Hildebrandt Trigoboff Marx and Calnan.
Former Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) manager S. J. Dietchman’s “correction” (AW&ST Sept. 8, p. 10) provided readers a brief glimpse of Lockheed’s quiet aircraft program during the Vietnam War, but contained some errors.
NASA has been granted the authority to continue purchasing trips to the International Space Station (ISS) on Russian Soyuz launch vehicles throughout the projected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the planned 2010 retirement of the space shuttle and the introduction of the Orion spacecraft, or as late as July 2016.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Glasgow, Scotland), Michael A. Taverna (Glasgow, Scotland)
NASA’s partners on the International Space Station are developing their plans for future participation in human exploration beyond low Earth orbit with a keen eye on the 10-year history of the orbiting laboratory.
Malaysia has chosen Eurocopter as the preferred bidder to replace its fleet of Sikorsky S-61 helicopters. If the government awards a contract, Eurocopter will supply an initial batch of 12 EC725 Cougars out of a potential total requirement for 50 helicopters.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) has started hot-fire tests of the RS-68A upgrade to the main engine for the United Launch Alliance Delta IV space launch vehicle with a 40-sec. burn at Stennis Space Center. Engineers are analyzing data from a Sept. 25 test that was the first in a 12-month test series that will use three different engines. The RS-68A is designed to boost thrust on the three-engine Delta IV Heavy more than 100,000 lb. by raising the sea-level thrust of the basic RS-68 from 660,000 lb. to more than 700,000 lb.
The picture of the Lockheed/ Schweizer QT-2 quiet airplane provided by S.J. Deitchman triggered a recollection of my discovering a disassembled later version of this aircraft in storage at the former Tanner-Hiller Airport in Barre, Mass., in the early 1990s.
The City of Chicago has accepted a $2.521-billion bid from Midway Investment and Development Co. (Midco) for a 99-year lease of Midway Airport. City Council and federal approvals are required before Midco begins managing the South Side facility. Midco was formed by Vancouver Airport Services, Citi Infrastructure Investors and John Hancock Life Insurance Co.
The German parliament’s economics committee has given preliminary approval to a lunar orbiter. Government and industry officials say the committee late last week voted €300 million ($414 million) to begin work on the mission. The research ministry will also contribute funding, which is to be finalized when the overall 2009 budget is approved in November, officials said. The 2-metric-ton spacecraft, to be built by EADS Astrium and OHB System, will be Europe’s first probe to the Moon since the European Space Agency’s Smart-1 in 2003-07.
NASA has awarded Boeing a two-year, $650 million sole-source contract to continue to deliver and integrate components and software for the ISS. Boeing has been the prime ISS contractor since 1995. The new contract, which runs through September 2010, includes management of station subsystems and specialized ground-based engineering work.
Sikorsky has teamed with Carson Helicopters to modernize the S-61 Sea King, about 620 of which remain in civil and military service worldwide. Pennsylvania-based Carson has developed replacement composite main and tail rotor blades, which provide a combined 2,300-lb. lift increase, and a Sagem glass cockpit upgrade.
European Space Agency (ESA) engineers are confident that problems affecting its ambitious BepiColombo Mercury mission can be fixed, enabling the joint European-Japanese project to go forward.
