The Defense Dept. has doubled planned expenditures on new weapons since 2000. Back then, it had plans for some $790 billion of spending through the programs’ completion. By 2007, the commitments had grown to $1.6 trillion. In that same period, costs and delays have also grown, the Government Accountability Office finds. Defense “acquisition outcomes appear increasingly suboptimal,” a 205-page GAO report concludes.
Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, the country’s air navigation service provider, has selected Era Corp. of Virginia, to provide a nationwide Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system for next-generation surveillance coverage.
The Indonesian government will sell up to 40% of Garuda Indonesia in an initial public offering, possibly this year, but will not immediately pursue its plan to bring in a strategic partner for the barely profitable carrier. The timing will depend on the state of financial markets.
Qantas plans to allow customers to send and receive e-mail and SMS text messages via mobile phone or personal electronic device on its domestic aircraft, starting later this year. The decision follows a 10-month trial. AeroMobile is supplying the cabin connectivity equipment.
The European Space Agency plans to seek €2.2 billion ($3.5 billion) in new funding to replenish and expand its vast Earth observation satellite fleet. ESA already has arguably the most extensive EO program anywhere, with 15 spacecraft of various types to be launched over the next decade, including a half-dozen Global Monitoring for Environment and Security satellites and two Metop weather satellites for the European Polar System.
Pratt & Whitney will deliberately try to replicate the vibration that caused a turbine failure in a Joint Strike Fighter engine as part of a critical test targeted at proving a long-term design fix.
China’s second unmanned lunar mission, Chang’e 2, will be an orbiter, not a rover as implied earlier by Chinese reports. Planned for launch in 2009-10, it will carry somewhat different instrumentation than Chang’e 1, but will make no attempt to land, according to Ye Peijiam, who helped design the first spacecraft, which is still operating in lunar orbit. The initial Chinese Moon landing attempt will not be made until about 2012 with a rover that could be followed by a sample-return mission as early as 2017. Both vehicles will be powered in part by nuclear generators.
The successor to Britain’s Defense Export Services Organization, the U.K. Trade & Investment Defense & Security Organization (Ukti Dso), officially began operating last week. Following the government’s decision to scrap DESO, industry and the Defense Ministry worked, perhaps belatedly, to ensure that a credible follow-on structure was created. The decision to break up DESO was taken against the backdrop of concern over BAE Systems’ conduct regarding some U.K.
Last week’s Viewpoint by Eric R. Sterner was refreshing, as I have long thought the government R&D system needed change (AW&ST Mar. 31, p. 58). A major problem is the process of getting federal funds hinders innovative research. The process requires proposal writing and then peer review. First, there must be some idea of a reasonable approach, something that is usually not available when starting an investigation of a radically new problem. Peer review tends to inhibit very radical ideas, as they fall outside the norm.
As of the beginning of April, two of the elements of the U.K. Defense Ministry’s Combined Aerial Target Services (CATS) were introduced into service by defense technology company Qinetiq, prime contractor for the program. The project, awarded at the end of 2006, covers a 20-year period and has a value of up to £308 million ($616 million). The Banshee aerial and the pop-up helicopter targets—both produced by Meggitt Defense Systems—are now available within the CATS program following evaluation and verification trials.
A factor that won the U.S. Air Force replacement tanker program for Northrop Grumman’s KC-45 may have operational repercussions, say U.S. Air Force critics. The KC-45’s ability to carry cargo and passengers is being used to validate the need for production of fewer C-17 transports. But a long-time operations expert says USAF will now be required to assign the tanker “for too many missions” because of its “significant strategic airlift capability,” he says.
The Russian commander and engineer for the International Space Station Expedition 17 crew, along with the first South Korean astronaut, are set for liftoff in a Soyuz from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Apr. 8 on a mission that will debut several firsts for the ISS. Major highlights will involve: •The first mission to utilize all three partner laboratories—the U.S. Destiny, European Columbus and the Japanese Kibo—to be delivered this spring by the shuttle STS-124 mission.
While I can understand the patriotic outrage of some of your readers about the KC-45A tanker program award, the U.S. should never have put itself in the position of having only one heavy airframer, that is the root of the problem.
Charles E. Billings, M.D. (Clinical Professor Emeritus)
Regarding your editorial “Don’t Let Courts Trump Safety” (AW&ST Mar. 24, p. 58), the issue of blame versus more constructive approaches to aircraft accident analysis has been discussed in these pages ever since implementation of our NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) brought the question to the forefront in 1975.
Running out of time to find a buyer or secure continued financing, Aloha Airlines ceased inter-island and transpacific flights on Mar. 31—“an incredibly dark day for Hawaii,” according to Aloha CEO David A. Banmiller. Honolulu-based Aloha was founded in 1946 to provide island air transport; its cargo arm has offered services since 1985. “Unfair competition succeeded in driving us out of business,” says Banmiller, whose airline filed for bankruptcy protection Mar. 20.
Lockheed Martin also won big by snagging a $766.2-million USAF contract to design and develop software tactical radios for aircraft, ships and fixed installations. The company is to produce 42 engineering models of the small airborne configured system, which is designed for the CH-47, UH-60, AH-64, Class 4 UAV and C-130, and Marine Corps helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
Just when EADS seems to have moved beyond the financial and operational crises of the last two years and is rebuilding its reputation as a company that knows what it’s doing, it encounters a setback—highlighting just how fragile its progress really is. The latest blow: a decision by French stock market regulators (AMF) to press charges against a large number of current and former executives over alleged insider trading.
Embraer this week is scheduled to unveil the detailed concepts behind its midsize MSJ and midlight MLJ business jets. The seven- and 12-seat aircraft are supposed to fill Embraer’s business jet gap between the Phenom 300 light jet and Legacy 600 super-midsize aircraft. The development bill is expected to be $750 million. The MSJ is expected to enter service in the second quarter of 2012, followed a year later by the MLJ.
France will cut back its nuclear arsenal, reduce the number of bases and reef the sails of armaments agency DGA in the biggest force streamlining and modernization the country has undergone since the Cold War.
Robert Sturgell is not exactly a favorite-son candidate for FAA administrator. First, New Jersey’s senators, both Democrats, put a hold on his nomination, complaining that the redesigned New York airspace would have an adverse effect on their state. And one of the senators, Frank Lautenberg, says FAA inspection failures that caused five U.S. carriers to cancel thousands of flights were the result of “a management failure at the highest level of the FAA . . . .
Rising oil prices and sluggish world economic growth have prompted the International Air Transport Assn. to downgrade—for the second time—its 2008 industry profit forecast. Based on 2.6% world growth and an average price of oil at $86/bbl, IATA is now predicting a $4.5-billion profit—down from its December 2007 forecast of $5 billion and its September 2007 outlook of $7.8 billion. All world regions, with the exception of Africa, are expected to be in the black, especially those with strong ties to the booming economies of China, India and Latin America.
Air France and Aeroports de Paris executives have signed off on the development of S4, a new satellite terminal associated with Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport’s Terminal 2E. The structure is to accommodate 7 million passengers per year and operations are expected to begin in 2012.
