Boeing 777 freighter taxis for a test flight at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. The sixth member of the 777 family, the freighter is capable of flying 4,885 naut. mi. with a full payload. Launch customer Air France is scheduled to receive the first 777F in the fourth quarter. Special report on the complications of the U.S. congressional mandate to increase cargo security, and plans for e-freight paperless electronic transactions, begins on p. 52. Boeing photo by Jim Coley.
University of Tennessee Prof. J. Reece Roth’s defense that two foreign nationals working on Air Force contracts had access only to basic research failed to persuade a jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Roth was convicted Sept. 3 on 18 counts of unlawfully passing data to Chinese and Iranian post-graduate students on a plasma actuator used in an unmanned aerial vehicle munitions project.
Joe Bottenfield (see photo) has been named vice president of the Microwave Systems Solutions Div. of Lynnwood, Wash.-based Crane Aerospace & Electronics . He was director of avionics for North America for Barco Inc.
CIT Group has concluded a firm agreement to take another 10 A320-family transports. The purchase boosts CIT’s Airbus order book to 199 aircraft, including 157 A320/321s, 30 A330s, seven A350s and five A319 executive jets.
Boeing will support Mitsubishi Aircraft in the development, marketing and after-sales support of the MRJ regional jet. Fuji Heavy Industries, meanwhile, also plans to support development of the aircraft, according to a media report apparently sourced from the company. Initially, Fuji will assist only in design of the center wing box and other major parts.
The U.K. will acquire three General Atomics Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles during 2009. The Royal Air Force is operating two Reapers in support of combat operations in Afghanistan. A third Predator will be delivered in January to replace one the RAF was forced to destroy following a crash landing as a result of an engine problem. The RAF also has received approval to purchase a further two Reapers to bolster its UAV capability in the Afghan theater. The U.K.
RapidEye—a German commercial remote-sensing startup that’s staking its future on supplying affordable wide-swath imagery with frequent revisits to geospatial-information users—will push its case following the successful launch of its space segment.
A year after buying and combining StandardAero and Landmark Aviation, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise is replacing the top management at the U.S.-Canadian maintenance, repair and overhaul operation. President and CEO Paul Soubry, an industry veteran, is out—though he’ll remain an adviser. The company will be managed by DAE Engineering, DAE’s aftermarket division. Meanwhile, the credit crunch and weak U.S. economy have DAE scaling back plans to acquire a string of MRO operations.
Russia’s Progress M-64/29P resupply spacecraft will continue the Plasma-Progress experiment started in September 2007 with Progress M-60, following its Sept. 1 undocking from the International Space Station. Using ground-based radar at the Solar Terrestrial Physics Institute in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russian scientists will observe the plasma formations that arise when the Progress vehicle’s thrusters fire while the spacecraft is in different attitudes.
There is growing concern among U.S. Air Force leaders in Europe that they will be hobbled in working with allies if they don’t get their hands on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter first. “A fifth-generation fighter is essential for Europe,” says Maj. Gen. James P. Hunt, director of air and space operations for U.S. Air Forces in Europe. “We think it is important that Usafe have at least an F-35 capability to maintain participation in NATO when it comes to tactics and concepts.”
Boeing is well placed to pick up another small C-17 order after South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Committee approved a plan to buy “large transport aircraft” for about 700 billion won ($616 million). The large transport aircraft will be used to send Korean peacekeepers or disaster relief materials overseas.
Northrop Grumman has begun flying a company-owned MQ-8B Fire Scout to accelerate development of additional payloads and missions for the vertical takeoff and landing unmanned air vehicle.
The U.K. is considering contingency options in attempting to cover the risk of an increasing capability gap in tactical lift as Airbus Military partner nations wait to find out the actual extent of delays to the A400M tactical military airlifter. Airbus and the European partner nations are trying to determine “what is a realistic delivery time for the aircraft,” according to Air Marshal Barry Thornton, chief of materiel (Air) within the U.K.’s Defense Equipment and Support organization.
Workers are installing equipment and systems at Europe’s new Soyuz launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, and hope to have the facility ready by mid-2009.
Concerns about a five-year gap in U.S. manned launches, workforce retention and worsening relations with Russia are forcing NASA to study a continuation of shuttle missions to 2015, instead of killing the program in 2010.
Kevin Wright has become group vice president-marketing for Meggitt Fluid Controls , North Hollywood, Calif. He was group vice president-customer satisfaction at Crane Aerospace, Burbank, Calif.
Chad D. Thorne (see photos) has been promoted to vice president-business development and marketing from director of business development for Innovative Solutions & Support , Exton, Pa. Farhad Daghigh has been promoted to vice president-military business development from director of military marketing.
Japan’s ATD-X stealth demonstrator project will step up a gear next year, according to the Defense Ministry’s budget request, which also seeks accelerated upgrades of F-15J fighters. A laser close-in defense weapon is also proposed for development, although its specific application is unclear. Both the F-15J upgrades and the ATD-X funding are a response to Japan’s failure to secure the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor as its next fighter.
Sept. 15-17—CargoFacts 2008. Loews Miami Beach Hotel. Call +1 (206) 587-6537 or see www.cargofacts.com/symposium Sept. 15–17—Air Force Assn.’s 24th Annual Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition. Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Washington. Call +1 (202) 328-2000, fax +1 (202) 234-5853 or see www.afa.org/events/Conference/2008/ Sept. 15-17—Speednews’ Ninth Annual Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference. Hotel Palladia, Toulouse, France. Call +1 (310) 595-9403 or see www.speednews.com
Hawker Beechcraft workers returned to work last week after voting to approve a new three-year contract. The 5,200 employees—more than half the business jet manufacturer’s workforce—walked off the job Aug. 4.
Arianespace will launch a Korean Telecom Corp. communications satellite—Koreasat 6—from the Guiana Space Center in the second quarter of 2010. The 2,750-kg., 3.4-kw. spacecraft was ordered from Thales Alenia Space in May, and will use a Star-2 platform from Orbital Sciences Corp. It will be launched on either an Ariane 5 or a Soyuz. To be equipped with 30 Ku-band transponders, Koreasat 6 will provide telecommunications and broadcasting services throughout South Korea from its orbital position at 116 deg. E. Long.
Capacity at U.S. legacy, regional and low-cost carriers will drop 3.2% in 2008 and 6.1% in 2009 as they continue to contract in the wake of high fuel prices, according to a Morgan Stanley report. The forecast for 2009 will represent the second-largest annual systemwide capacity cut the industry has experienced since 1978, says analyst William Greene. “Moreover, the only other period during which the industry has experienced two consecutive years of capacity cuts was in 2001 and 2002, post 9/11,” he observes.
Andrea L. Amram (see photos), Glenn A. Davis, David S. Eccles, S. Scott Gustafson, Sumner S. Matsunaga and William F. Tosney have been appointed general managers at The Aerospace Corp. Amram has been promoted to head the Developmental Planning and Architectures Div. in the Systems Planning and Engineering Group in El Segundo, Calif., from principal director of the Architecture and Design Subdivision of the Engineering and Technology Group. Davis has been promoted to head the Imagery Programs Div.
Patricia Grace Smith, former associate FAA administrator for commercial space transportation, has been appointed to the board of directors of SpaceDev , Poway, Calif.
