A center-of-gravity problem could have caused the B-2 crash on Guam, says a U.S. Air Force general who flew the bomber and watched over its development. Last week, Air Combat Command’s commander said the bomber rotated prematurely, lifted off too early and stalled which caused the aircraft’s destruction. “The fly-by-wire flight control system in the bomber is supposed to compensate for shifts in the center of gravity [CG],” says the former B-2 pilot.
As a retired USAF tanker crewmember with 22 years of experience in flying, employing and tasking tankers from the squadron and air operations center levels for the U.S. and NATO, it appears no one article or advertisement has completely laid out the tanker mission.
Intended to provide an improved air picture for land commanders, the U.K. Defense Ministry is to fund the Land Environment Air Picture Provision (Leapp) with Lockheed Martin acting as industry lead for the £100-million ($199.5-million) program. The Leapp capability will include the Saab Giraffe air-surveillance radar and will draw data from the Link 16 network. BAE Systems, L-3, Systems Consultant Services, Saab and Qinetiq are the other industry participants.
The British Defense Ministry is faced with committing to the Joint Strike Fighter F-35B version before the aircraft has demonstrated key capabilities, or delaying its procurement process—risking a trickle-down effect on its overall program.
After much discussion, the German military has finally kicked off a competition for a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. The Luftwaffe has long been asking for such a capability, with the goal of fielding equipment as early as 2010. The German defense armaments agency, BWB, has now told industry it’s ready to get going. General Atomics and Israel Aerospace Industries are bidding the Predator and Heron TP, respectively. A contract for what is expected to be a four-year deal is expected in December.
Safran’s aircraft equipment division expects solid revenue growth and the sliding dollar to generate more expansion and takeovers abroad, particularly in the U.S. The company has already invested heavily in new plants and acquisitions during the past decade, first in Europe and Canada and more recently in the U.S. and emerging markets outside Europe. These outlays have propelled Safran to a worldwide leadership position in landing gear, wheels and brakes, aircraft wiring and power transmission.
Saturn’s bizarre moon Enceladus is a little more mysterious, after the recent Cassini flyby found it to be remarkably like a comet in its internal chemistry. As shown in this heat map, the March flyby also found that the so-called tiger stripes around the south pole are some 200 deg. F warmer than the rest of the moon (although still a frigid -135F). The tiger stripes—essentially fissures in the frozen surface—are the source of the spectacular geysers of water and ice that spew so far into space that they actually feed the nearby E-ring around Saturn.
The campaign for extra F-22 production is over and lost, says a key general, and leadership must quickly move on to fully embrace the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “Nobody in [the Bush] administration, nor any of the possible upcoming administrations, is a fan of the F-22. No one.” By comparison, the F-35 still has appeal. “It’s tri-service, more versatile in terms of roles and missions, and a lot cheaper,” he says. “I don’t understand the reluctance of the Air Force to say we’ve lost the battle for more F-22 production. We’ve got 183 Raptors.
Michael A. Taverna (Washington), Amy Butler (Washington)
Commercial satellite operators are working with the U.S. Air Force to transform a pilot project for space traffic control into an operational system that can help protect orbital assets, in particular geostationary satellites.
Astrium-Khrunichev venture Eurockot says it will push back the launch of the European Space Agency’s Goce gravity field/ocean circulation satellite to August from May because of a Proton M/Breeze M failure last month that stranded the SES Americom AMC 14 telecom satellite in incorrect orbit. The Breeze KM upper stage on Rockot shares technology with the Breeze M, which cut out toward the end of the second of three burns during the AMC-14 launch. However, it features shorter burns, which suggests it might not be implicated in a Breeze M remedy.
Canadian-headquartered maintenance, repair and overhaul specialist Vector Aerospace Corp. last week completed the acquisition of the U.K.’s Defense Aviation and Repair Agency’s (DARA) rotary and components business. The former U.K. Defense Ministry business was acquired for £17 million ($33.9 million). As part of the restructuring of its U.K. business, DARA’s engine maintenance company, Sigma Aerospace, will be “re-branded” as part of Vector Aerospace’s U.K. business.
Lockheed Martin F-35 program officials are pulling their hair out over the press’s dismissive response to the Pentagon’s judgment in the 2007 Selected Acquisition Reports that the Joint Strike Fighter program is actually going down in cost (see p. 39). In the report, $11 billion in actual cost growth was offset by $12 billion in estimated future savings. The mysterious item was $9 billion transferred from recurring costs (which get added to the price of each aircraft) to a non-recurring cost category.
Jeffrey W. Peterson (see photo) has been named executive vice president/chief financial officer of PAS Technologies Inc. , Kansas City, Mo. He succeeds interim CFO Wayne Booth. Peterson was vice president-finance/CFO of MachineryLink Inc. and Brand Services Inc.
An informal coalition of satellite communications and cabin system providers are trying to get the U.S. to lift its prohibition of the use of cell phones on passenger jets, contending that foreign carriers with this capability will have a competitive edge over U.S. airlines.
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.
