Italy’s defense and aerospace sector is aiming to secure substantial business in Libya following a strategic agreement between Rome and Tripoli, which includes a $5-billion, 20-year reparations package for Italy’s 1934-43 occupation of Libya. Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi signed the global cooperation agreement that Italian industry hopes will increase its business in the North African country.
Bombardier’s CRJ1000 prototype, powered by GE CF34-8C5 engines, flew for the first time Sept. 3 from Montreal’s Mirabel airport. The 100-seat aircraft will continue tests at the company’s facility at Wichita, Kan. It is scheduled to enter service in late 2009.
With a large number of its forces assigned to support military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and others likely to be assisting the emerging U.S. Africa Command, do the U.S. Air Forces in Europe still have a mission of their own?
NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander collected this image of the Sun emerging over a slight rise to the north at 51 min. after midnight local solar time Aug. 25, following a summer night that lasted only 75 min. From its position north of the Martian Arctic Circle, the Sun wouldn’t set at all if it weren’t for the higher ground to the north, but the short night is getting longer. Four Martian “sols” before this shot, the Sun was out of sight for only about a half hour.
Boeing is to continue work on a new high-speed compound helicopter concept under Darpa’s DiscRotor program. Teamed with Virginia Tech, Boeing has completed an initial assessment of the performance and flying qualities of the DiscRotor, in which a rotating circular wing houses blades that are extended for vertical flight and retracted and stowed for forward flight at speeds up to 300-400 kt. Under the next phase, Boeing will conduct wind tunnel testing to establish the feasibility of the concept and develop options for a DiscRotor flight demonstrator.
A major reshuffling of its mission is ahead for the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (Usafe) with the pending creation of U.S. Africa Command. In recent years, Africa has been one of the main areas of operation for Usafe, with an aim to reach out and establish ties with local militaries. When the Pentagon’s interest in Europe started to wane, Usafe officials at the time looked to Africa to find a mission that would keep the command relevant.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has awarded five contracts for the initial conceptual design phase of its Rapid Eye program to demonstrate a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle deployed from the U.S. by rocket, to fill a surveillance gap anywhere in the world within two orbits. Phase 1 contracts have been awarded to Boeing, Coleman Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Orbital Sciences.
French engineering company GECI has formally launched development of the Skylander, a light twin-turborop intended for freight, utility and humanitarian applications. The aircraft will be developed and assembled in Reims at a plant owned by Reims Aviation, which was acquired by GECI in July. Major subassemblies will be built in Portugal. First flight is expected in mid-2010.
For the first time, U.S. Northern Command and Canada Command have called on a new Civil Assistance Plan to coordinate Canadian military support in response to a natural disaster in the U.S. Two Canadian CC-130 aircraft and a CC-177 Globemaster were deployed last week to the Gulf Coast to support search-and-rescue efforts ahead of Hurricane Gustav. The bilateral deal, signed Feb. 14, facilitates military-to-military cooperation during a civil emergency in either country.
U.S. Army Capt. (ret.) Brian Hennaman (Richmond, Va.)
“Component Failures Impact F-35 Flight Testing” (AW&ST Aug. 11, p. 24) outlining the continued delays and engineering problems afflicting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program confirms what a growing number of military experts believe: JSF is a poster child for wasteful Pentagon spending.
USAF Brig. Gen. Barbara J. Faulkenberry has been appointed commander of the 15th Expeditionary Mobility Task Force of Air Mobility Command (AMC) at Travis AFB, Calif. She has been deputy director of strategic plans, requirements and programs at AMC Headquarters, Scott AFB, Ill. Faulkenberry will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Susan Y. Desjardins, who has been commandant of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. She will be followed by Col. Samuel D. Cox, who has been nominated for promotion to brigadier general.
After the overwhelming rejection of its three-year contract offer of an 11% pay increase and 14% improvement in benefits, Boeing Commercial Airplanes started a 48-hr. push late last week to identify the “critical” issues that would stave off a strike by the 26,000-member International Assn. of Machinists in Aerospace (IAM).
The Boeing Co. has stated that, prior to the original Tanker Award, it had never challenged a Defense Dept. award to others, while it has weathered repeated challenges from competitors. Now Boeing’s request for fairness and its actions to protect their interests are being described as uncalled for. They have been accused of holding up production of this needed aircraft. Some have even described these actions as near-treasonous.
Craig Spitzer has been named chairman and Gregory D. Cohen as CEO of Halcyon Jets Holdings Inc. of New York. They succeed Mitchell Blatt, who has resigned from both positions.
The Canadian government’s insistence on charging airport rents hurts the country’s competitiveness in trade and tourism, says a report from the Canadian Airports Council (CAC). “Canada’s aviation tax regime is among the highest of any nation in the developed world,” states the report. “A recent World Economic Forum study ranked Canada 114 out of 130 countries in terms of cost-competitiveness in the travel and tourism sectors.” Tourism is a $70-billion industry in Canada, according to the report.
Thailand will have to wait a bit longer before it can join the growing ranks of developing nations able to deliver a near-metric-resolution overhead imaging capability. Launch from Kazakhstan of the 750-kg. (1,650-lb.) Theos satellite—designed to supply 2-meter panchromatic and 15-meter multispectral wide-swath imagery for cartography, land use, agriculture and other products—was scrubbed at the last minute on Aug. 6 because of a long-running overflight dispute with neighboring Uzbekistan.
High energy prices, inflation tendencies, declining stock markets and the slowing economy account for the contraction in world domestic traffic in July, according to Airports Council International (ACI). Total global traffic was flat compared to the same month in 2007, with international traffic growing only 1% and domestic traffic contracting 1.4%, the second consecutive month of decline—results that ACI notes are below average for the season. In the U.S., nearly every major airport felt the impact of route and frequency cuts, according to ACI.
Midwest has received commitments of up to $60 million in additional financing from TPG Capital and Republic Airways Holdings, including $20 million if the airline completes “certain milestones” in its restructuring plan, but also is making significant changes to its fleet mix that will result in more layoffs. Republic Airways is providing $25 million under a deal that also includes a 10-year commitment from Midwest for Republic to provide Midwest Connect service using Embraer 170 jets, or for Midwest to lease those aircraft to operate on its own.
An integral rocket ramjet propulsion system for a higher speed, longer range anti-radar missile has been flight-tested under the U.S. Navy’s High Speed Anti-radiation Demonstration (HSAD) project. A test vehicle powered by Aerojet’s variable-flow ducted rocket (VFDR) ramjet was launched from a QF-4 over White Sands Missile Range, N.M., last month. The vehicle accelerated to supersonic speed and transitioned from rocket booster to ramjet propulsion, which sustained supersonic speed until the planned flight termination.
I welcomed your outstanding tribute to the unique organization now known as Darpa, but would like to offer a small correction: As director of Project Agile, the counterinsurgency R&D program ARPA initiated during the Vietnam war from 1966-69, I commissioned Lockheed’s development of the QT-2 quiet airplane (AW&ST Aug. 18/25, p. 58), which was very successful in observing nighttime Viet Cong mine-laying activity on roads in South Vietnam and calling in ground forces to counter them.
The international air cargo sector faces a dilemma and an opportunity in the near future. U.S. companies have less than six months to put into force increased security that will result in screening half the cargo loaded on passenger aircraft. The 50% rule is the first congressional mandate arising from the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007. A large, unanswered question is whether the law applies to inbound cargo and to non-U.S. carriers that operate across the U.S. border.
“Darpa at 50” (AW&ST Aug. 18/25, p. 54) was an excellent set of articles about the old ARPA. My first assignment out of U.S. Air Force Basic Training was as an engineering and scientific aide at the Air Force Special Weapons Center’s Pulsed Power Laboratory.
The shooting may be over for now in and around Georgia, but political fireworks are expected to continue in and around Capitol Hill for the foreseeable future. The Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee scheduled hearings this week with Pentagon and State Dept. personnel on the Russia-Georgia conflict’s implications for U.S. defense and foreign policy. President Bush has promised $1 billion in humanitarian—but not military—assistance for the war-racked former Soviet republic, with the blessings of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The U.S. Navy has tapped Lockheed Martin and L-3 Integrated Systems to begin supplying replacement outer wing kits for P-3s grounded by critical structural fatigue. The Navy grounded 39 P-3s in December, and expects to ground another 6-10 a year. L-3 has received $60.6 million to supply four outer wing kits by June 2010, and Lockheed $129.3 million to deliver 13 kits in March-December 2010.
Australia is cutting short its program to replace the center fuselage barrels of its F/A-18A-B Hornet fighters, partly because analysis suggests the fleet can operate until its planned withdrawal in 2018-20 with fewer than 15 of the 71 aircraft refurbished.
