A number of bold steps, including abolishing the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center should be taken to shake up ineffective military space procurement and operations structures, a national commission recommends, warning that this is becoming an increasingly vulnerable area for the Pentagon.
Back in the Cold War, the Pentagon published an annual series of articles, “Soviet Military Power,” that sensationalized the threat and capabilities of the Red Army, to justify its own claim on budget appropriations. Following the Soviet implosion, the U.S. military-industrial complex seized on China as the convenient new villain, with its periodic provocations across the Taiwan Strait and non-transparent defense spending. The articles by David A. Fulghum and Douglas Barrie (AW&ST July 21, pp. 54-60) may have served this interest group’s ulterior motive.
Are U.S. airlines positioning themselves to make money again next year? A growing body of optimists thinks that’s plausible if the recent easing of oil prices holds. They believe sharp capacity cuts will enable airlines to keep raising fares, supplemented with revenue from annoying surcharges on checked luggage, soft drinks and even pillows. Factor in savings from the parking of older, gas-guzzling jets and you have a recipe for recovery. Morgan Stanley analyst William J.
Under Darpa’s Quiet Supersonic Platform program, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in 2000 began studying a long-range aircraft with low sonic boom allowing unrestricted supersonic flight over land. In August 2003, Northrop’s Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstrator, an extensively modified F-5, proved that an aircraft could be designed to shape its shockwave signature and so reduce the sonic boom.
The National Business Aviation Association reports selling out all 5,305 exhibit booth spaces for its Oct. 6-8 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. More than 30,000 people are expected to attend. Meanwhile, President Ed Bolen says the success the Inaugural Light Business Airplane Exhibition and Conference, set for San Diego, Mar. 12-14, 2009, will be defined by national attendance by current operators and concept buyers.
A new digital cockpit for the B-2 is being designed and built by Northrop Grumman and Rockwell Collins. A prototype has been tested as the first step toward fielding a smarter, higher resolution display to support bomber modernization. The idea is to ease pilot workload, increase mission effectiveness and ensure the aircraft remains survivable against improving air defense threats.
The JAL Group is initiating trials of User Preferred Route flights to Hawaii in a drive it says could save 3.4 million lb. of fuel and 4,700 lb. of CO2 annually. The group is acting based on improved satellite navigation systems and ongoing safety audits begun last November by the Japanese ministry of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism. Led by Japan Airlines, the group flies 4,700 one-way flights to Hawaii a year, making it one of JAL’s most popular overseas destinations. Flights between Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya to Honolulu and Kona will be affected.
Lufthansa and Air France-KLM are the frontrunners in the bidding for the privatization of financially struggling Austrian Airlines. The Austrian government last week pushed through plans to sell the airline to a strategic investor. State holding OEIAG hopes to conclude the process by year-end. The airline could retain 25% plus one share, the ruling coalition’s two parties agree. But this could change as bidders hone their demands.
Erin Marie Hammons, a senior at the University of Nebraska, is among five summer interns at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland who have received John Mather Nobel Scholarships from The Henry Foundation Inc. Funding for the $3,000 scholarships originated from a contribution from the John and Jane Mather Foundation for Science and the Arts, which in turn was funded from the award of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics to Mather. Hammons is a systems engineering intern for the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier at NASA Goddard.
A review of Darpa’s research portfolio suggests its ideal sensor has the range of radar and resolution of electro-optics, can see through trees and walls to track vehicles and people and is small enough to fit into an unmanned aircraft.
Alliance Spacesystems has delivered a prototype robotic arm to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) that could be used to repair satellites in orbit or tow them to new orbits. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company, a unit of Canada’s MDA, developed the arm, related electronics and first-level control algorithms as part of the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency’s Front-end Robotics Enabling Near-term Demonstration (Frend) program, which will work with NRL to mount the prototype arm on a spacecraft for on-orbit demonstrations “later in the decade.”
Darpa and the Air Force funded a program to demonstrate that a highly unstable aircraft with forward-swept wing and close-coupled canard could be flown to extreme angles of attack. Grumman was awarded the contract to build two X-29 demonstrators, the first flying in December 1984. The X-29 demonstrated advanced digital flight controls and aeroelastic tailoring of the wing using composites.
The Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan (GTF) looks like a great engine, but it is far from being an innovation. The first GTF engines ran during World War II in Germany (Heinkel S-10 and Daimler-Benz DB007), but never flew. The first GTF to fly, Turbomeca Aspin, did so on Jan. 2, 1952. The first to enter production did so in 1966 (Turbomeca Aubisque, which was not built for long, and only in small quantities).
The Air Force and Darpa began a program to develop a stealthy battlefield surveillance aircraft with a low-probability-of-intercept radar, and in 1977 Northrop was awarded a contract to build the Tacit Blue demonstrator. First flown in February 1982, Tacit Blue contributed to development of the B-2 bomber. Later, Darpa’s Teal Dawn program would develop key technologies for the stealthy AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missile.
In 1968, ARPA approved plans for a “resource-sharing computer network” to be called ARPAnet. In December 1958, BBN was awarded the contract to build the interface message processors—the first routers—for the packet-switched network, and ARPAnet became operational in 1969, linking four computer research laboratories. As ARPAnet grew and was upgraded, it became known as “the Internet.”
From the feedback received from previous AVIATION WEEK Workforce studies, it’s clear that employees and investors alike care deeply about tracking where talented people opt to work, and why.
Thales has demonstrated automatic takeoff and landing of its Watchkeeper UAV system now in development for the British Defense Ministry. Trials were performed in late July, with the Defense Ministry present, leading to the validation of the automatic takeoff and landing system, known as Magic Atols. The trials were carried out using the Megido airfield in northern Israel. The basic air vehicle for the Watchkeeper is the Elbit Hermes 450. The in-service date for the Watchkeeper system is 2010.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London)
Georgia’s relative success against the Russian air force, compared with its unalloyed failure against the Russian army, is shedding light on other recent air campaigns. In particular, why was the Israeli air force able to penetrate Syria’s Russian-made air defenses while Moscow was unable to finesse Georgia’s Russian-made weaponry? U.S. analysts suggest that the simplicity of the Georgian air defenses, with far less dependence on networking, made it tougher to knock out or blind major parts of the system.
Engineers at Japan’s Space Communications Corp. and SES Americom are checking out two new communications satellites after Arianespace’s fifth launch of the year orbited their birds in a flawless launch Aug. 14. The Ariane 5 ECA lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 4:44 p.m. EDT—the beginning of its launch window—with the Japanese Superbird-7 and SES Americom AMC-21 on board. Superbird-7 separated 25 min. later, and AMC-21 followed 5 min. after that.
With the launch of two Northrop Grumman Space Tracking and Surveillance Systems (STSS) set for early 2009, there are no plans to press ahead with a program to design a follow-on system for global coverage yet. Missile defense officials say concern about space acquisition management has prompted Capitol Hill to take a wait-and-see approach. If the two satellites demonstrate the concept on orbit, a follow-on system could follow. USAF Lt. Gen.
Lance Crawford has been named vice president/chief information officer of the Hawker Beechcraft Corp. , Wichita, Kan. He was an account executive for the Computer Sciences Corp. Crawford succeeds Larry Duntz, who has retired. Drew McEwen has been appointed vice president of the Domestic Executive Beechcraft Sales unit. He succeeds Brad Stancil, who is now vice president of the Domestic Corporate Beechcraft Sales unit. McEwen was head of Hawker Beechcraft Authorized Services Centers.
Launch of the GeoEye-1 high-resolution commercial-imaging satellite will slip until Sept. 4 from Aug. 22 to give United Launch Alliance more time to organize telemetry resources down range from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., GeoEye Inc. reports. The spacecraft is ready to go, and is scheduled to be mated to its Delta II launch vehicle this week, GeoEye says.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is exploring whether it needs to develop a solid propellant for the divert-and-attitude-control system for its Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) for use on Navy ships. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are exploring different MKV concepts, which are designed to deploy a number of small kinetic kill vehicles to counter warheads and countermeasures. However, the use of a hypergolic propellant could be a concern for the Navy’s stringent shipboard requirements, and MKV will be mated with Standard Missile-3 Block IIs.
A USAF B-1B fitted with the Sniper advanced targeting pod has delivered weapons during combat operations for the first time. The aircraft, belonging to the 34th Expeditionary Bomb Sqdn. from Ellsworth AFB, S.D., and detached to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, dropped a GBU-38 bomb during operations in Afghanistan. Operational commanders first asked for the B-1B upgrade in 2006, and the initial installation was completed in April. USAF had to modify the B-1B pylon to carry the 440-lb. pod. All B-1Bs assigned to Afghanistan are supposed to receive the capability.
