BAE Systems is ramping up production at its radiation-hardening foundry modernized with U.S. Defense Dept. funding while designing new and upgraded devices to support U.S. civil and military space efforts and other specialized applications.
Thales is starting to develop the next generation of its Eurocat X (export version) automated ATC system—used for en route, terminal area and airport tower operations—for the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. The contract is valued at approximately $228 million. CAAS’s Lorads III will replace the current system provided by Thales in 1995. The company has already sold 260 of its Eurocat Xs to 55 nations, including China, Vietnam and Thailand.
Ian Shiu has been appointed director of corporate development, Ivan Chu director of service delivery, Quince Chong director of corporate affairs and Rupert Hogg cargo director, all for Cathay Pacific Airways . Shiu was general manager for revenue management, sales and distribution. Chu was general manager for the Southwest Pacific and succeeds Chong, who was an executive in the Corporate Communication and Inflight Services departments. Hogg was managing director of James Finlay Ltd., which like Cathay Pacific is a subsidiary of John Swire & Sons Ltd.
Prof. T. Nejat Veziroglu’s letter “Hydrogen, Future Airline Fuel?” (AW&ST June 23, p. 12) says how the use of hydrogen by the airline industry will address environmental concerns because there are “no CO2 emissions.” This is a fallacy. Having been in fuel cell R&D for 10 years, I’ve long chafed at this common misperception.
Martin O’Brien (see photo) has been promoted to president from vice president of the Ophir Corp. , Littleton, Colo. He succeeds Loren Nelson, who has been promoted to chairman/CEO.
Saab has teamed up with Rheinmetall Schweiz and Pilatus Aircraft as part of its bid to win Switzerland’s contract for an F-5 fighter replacement. The Gripen will go up against the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale.
Lockheed Martin has developed a common baseline configuration for the new HC/MC-130Js that will recapitalize the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of 115 special-mission Hercules. The company has received a $470-million contract to build the first six of at least 68 aircraft, with initial operational capability set for 2012. The aircraft will replace and augment both USAF Air Combat Command HC-130P/N tankers used to refuel combat search-and-rescue rotorcraft and Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130E/P tanker/transports.
NASA will fund two science proposals as the agency’s next Explorer Program Mission of Opportunity investigations. The first, proposed by Goddard Space Flight Center, will provide a U.S. soft X-ray spectrometer at a cost of $44 million for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s New exploration X-Ray Telescope (NeXT) that will study black holes and other extreme environments in the Universe. The other, by the University of Central Florida, will fly an atmospheric remote-sensing instrument package on a yet-to-be-determined future commercial satellite.
July 9-10—Shephard’s Group Unmanned Vehicles Europe Conference and Exhibition 2008. Novotel London West Hotel. Also, Oct. 12-13—Air Power Middle East. Armed Forces Officers’ Club, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Call +44 (162) 860-6979 or see www.shephard.co.uk/events July 14-20—Farnborough (England) air show. Call +44 (125) 253-2800, fax +44 (125) 237-6015 or see www.farnborough.com
Sam Gilliland, chairman/CEO of Sabre Holdings, Southlake, Tex., has been appointed to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board , which consults to the U.S. Commerce secretary on policies and programs that affect the U.S. travel and tourism industry and provides a forum for solutions to industry problems.
Boeing has booked four 737 orders from Westjet Airlines and identified Biman Bangladesh Airlines as having ordered two previously listed as unidentified. Orders through June 24 include 341 for the 737 and 459 total aircraft.
Airbus has shipped parts for the new Airbus A320 final assembly line in Tianjin, China, in preparation for the start of assembly operations in August. The first airplane will not be ready for delivery to Aer Dragon until the second quarter of 2009. Airbus shipped the forward and rear fuselage sections, wings, empennage and engine pylons by sea from Hamburg. The Tianjin site will not meet all of China’s demand for Airbus narrow-body jets, with the balance to come from Airbus in Europe.
Frank Moore (see photo) has been appointed as Reston, Va.-based lead executive for the Aerial Common Sensor program for the Northrop Grumman Corp. He was vice president/general manager of the Missile Defense Div.
Germany’s Fraport Airports is managing daily operations at Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and King Abdulaziz International in Jeddah in an effort to improve customer service and sustain traffic growth. The contract is part of a six-year program aimed at improving the airports for an initial public offering scheduled for 2011. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation had indicated it wanted to increase capacity at Jeddah to about 30 million passengers annually by 2012 and to 80 million by 2035.
Although both presidential candidates are busy painting themselves green and touting their environmental credentials, the airline and aerospace industries are leery about how that will play out for their sectors.
If the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry thinks it doesn’t know enough about Sen. Barack Obama yet, Sen. John McCain may be someone it knows all too well.
Boeing has begun assembly of the fourth 787 destined for the flight-test fleet. It will be the last airplane equipped with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. The aircraft’s wings, aft fuselage, empennage and nose assemblies are in Everett, Wash. The mid-fuselage is undergoing systems installation in South Carolina by partner Global Aeronautica (GA). GA will only complete about 50% of the systems work—the remainder will be done by Boeing in Everett. The fifth and sixth flight-test 787s will be powered by General Electric GEnx-1B engines.
Strong economic growth, increasing military spending and aging aircraft are driving the market for new aircraft and radar upgrades to those already being used in the Asia-Pacific region for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, according to a study by Frost & Sullivan. The highest priority is for airborne early warning aircraft followed by maritime patrol platforms. Frost & Sullivan forecasts the market will grow to $432 million in 2014 from $381 million in 2007.
Boeing recently passed its electrical “Power-On” milestone for the pre-production 787 airliner, tentatively scheduled for first flight, late in October. The testing process, which required eight days to complete, eliminated significant technical risk and validated the airplane’s design tools, says Pat Shanahan, program manager. The tests probed deep into the 787’s new distributed electric architecture to check its operation. Boeing has released a video of the “Power-On” event at http//poweron.tpninteractive.com
Safran is reportedly planning to group electronics activities from various affiliates, including Hispano-Suiza and Messier Bugatti, into a new division as part of a plan to develop all-electric aircraft technologies. The move would beef up the electronics capability of Sagem, whose acquisition was motivated in part by the growing importance of electronics in aircraft mechanical systems.
French armaments agency DGA has completed a second successful test firing of the AASM precision weapon in infrared seeker mode. The test, from a Mirage 2000 fighter, used the AASM’s inertial navigation system for the initial 25-km. cruise, with the GPS shut down, before switching to the IR for terminal guidance.
Israel Aerospace Industries will form a joint venture with Brazilian conglomerate Synergy Group to offer aerospace and defense products and provide commercial aviation services in the Latin American market. Products will include UAVs, missile systems, radars, electronic warfare and intelligence systems. Synergy has interests in aviation, oil and gas production, power generation and construction. In addition, it owns the Colombian airline Avianca.
The Phoenix Mars lander, in its first series of soil chemistry tests, has discovered that Martian soil is remarkably Earth-like and could support a wide array of plants and organisms. The discovery “is a huge step forward” in the study of Mars, says Michael Hecht, the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) lead investigator from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Swedish air force is aiming to progressively upgrade its fleet of Saab JAS 39C/D Gripen fighters to the next-generation E/F standard by 2025, senior officers in the service say. The plan is a signal that Sweden’s military will back the country’s aerospace industry in its efforts to win export customers for the E/F model. Saab is targeting Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) partner nations Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, along with India, Brazil, Finland and Switzerland as potential buyers.
Boeing and several system suppliers have been awarded contracts by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to mature technology for an airborne electronic attack pod to be carried by the B-52H. Under the initial three-year contracts, Boeing will study integration of the underwing jammer pods on the bomber, while other suppliers mature the receiver, exciter and phased-array jammer technology. A two-year follow-on effort, not yet funded but expected to cost $300-350 million, would flight-test two pods on a B-52 in fiscal 2012.
