Japan Airlines plans to add its code to six more routes operated by China Eastern between China and Japan. The additional code-shares will give the two carriers joint services to 13 Chinese cities on 36 routes.
Delta and American airlines were returning MD-80s to normal operations late last week after the carriers voluntarily grounded them for wiring rechecks—and to make certain the aircraft were in full compliance with an FAA airworthiness directive.
Gulfstream’s gambit to one-up Bombardier’s Global Express at the top of the business jet line will rely heavily on new technology developed by European propulsion, systems and aerostructures suppliers.
Lockheed Martin expects to develop 4,000-5,000 new lines of software code to fix a problem in its Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) satellites bound for geosynchronous orbit. Rick Ambrose, vice president of surveillance systems, says the first Sbirs satellite displayed a potential timing problem among its onboard processors. If certain functions don’t synchronize correctly, the timing issue could prohibit use of the safe mode that shuts down all but essential systems until the satellite receives commands from the ground in the event of an on-orbit problem.
The U.K. and France say they intend to forge a “joint industrial strategy for complex weapons,” one of a number of defense initiatives that emerged from an Anglo-French summit on Mar. 27, between British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The aim is to provide renewed impetus to bilateral defense cooperation between the two countries. A communique from the summit also stated the two countries are to “pursue a common approach to in-service support” for the Airbus Military A400M.
NTSB investigators plan to conduct a ballistic trajectory analysis to help them locate a 4 X 5-ft. wing panel that separated from a US Airways Boeing 757 on Mar. 22. The composite panel, from the trailing edge of the upper side of the left wing, broke loose and struck several rear windows, cracking the outer pane of one. The safety board says the inner pane was not damaged, and pressurization of the aircraft was not compromised.
Undeterred by the turmoil surrounding potential industrial partners, Airbus officials are moving forward in defining the A350, with further supplier decisions and important configuration changes due soon. One of the latest design alterations is a shift to a 5,000-psi. hydraulics system. The baseline design used 3,000-psi. hydraulics, but the higher-pressure system allows for lighter and smaller pipes and actuators, improving fuel efficiency.
Turkmenistan Airlines has ordered two Boeing 737-900ERs and one 737-700. Boeing also added two 737 orders to its unidentified-customer list but said one 737 order has been withdrawn. The changes raise Boeing’s net 737 order list for 2008 to 184 aircraft and its total for all airplanes to 286.
J. Michael Loomis of Fort Wayne, Ind., has been elected president of the Washington-based National Transportation Safety Board Bar Assn. He succeeds Tony B. Jobe of Madisonville, La. Other new officers are: vice president, Mark T. McDermott of Washington; secretary, John S. Yodice of Washington; and treasurer, Christa Hinkley of Dallas. Regional vice presidents are: Gregory Miller of Anchorage, Alaska; Kent S. Jackson of Shawnee, Kan.; Jeffrey R. Small of Coraopolis, Pa.; Gregory J. Reigel of Hopkins, Minn.; Paul A. Lange of Stratford, Conn.; Robert F.
Designs to follow the stealthy F-35 are already being defined and to some extent described by Lockheed Martin’s competitors. Boeing was first out of the gate in February in discussing a follow-on fighter with wider-spectrum stealth. The company simultaneously floated to potential customers the idea of buying fewer Joint Strike Fighters and skipping to an even more advanced sixth-generation combat aircraft.
The final report on Adam Air Flight 574 cites deficiencies in airline oversight, maintenance and pilot training as factors in the crash that killed 102 people—and its findings are helping to reinforce a growing belief that Indonesian carriers are unfit to fly. Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee released its findings on Mar. 25. On Jan. 1, 2007, Flight 574 departed for Surabaya-Juanda Airport on Java from Sulawesi Island’s Manadao-Sam Ratulangi Airport.
The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is seeking more flexibility and discretion to better regulate airports and respond more quickly to market changes. Agency officials told the Competition Commission (which is in the midst of a market inquiry into CAA’s U.K. airports) that its regulatory framework has not changed in 20 years. There's a clear case for reform, but airport investments and service quality improvements will still need to be paid for, according to the CAA.
Robert Burkhardt, director of the Engineer Research and Development Center’s Topographic Engineering Center, Alexandria, Va., has become the Army ’s first geospatial information officer.
U.K. air traffic control authority NATS has awarded an £80-million ($160-million), five-year contract extension to Lockheed Martin UK for support of the London Area Control operation at Swanwick ATC Center. There is an option to the agreement that could extend it past 2013 for a second five-year period. Lockheed Martin will maintain and enhance the software system used to control traffic over England and Wales, extending the 30-year relationship between the two parties.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
Signs of growing dissatisfaction in Congress with Thales’s Chinese space links could upset the company’s carefully crafted strategy to increase penetration of the U.S. defense and aerospace market.
The U.S. Navy’s most recent estimate of a 69 F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet shortage will soon be abandoned and replaced by an almost 300% jump in that shortfall.
In April, NASA Ames’s Earth Science Project Office will begin a series of spring/summer flights and satellite observations in what the agency is billing as the largest airborne experiment ever conducted to investigate the impact of air pollution on the Arctic’s atmospheric chemistry and changing climate. The flights will originate in Fairbanks, Alaska, on a Beechcraft King Air B200 from NASA Langley, a Lockheed P-3 from NASA Wallops and Douglas DC-8 from NASA Dryden.
A Boeing A160T Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft carries a 1,000-lb. payload module during a test flight from Victorville, Calif. The pod could carry supplies, a miniature robotic vehicle or even be used to evacuate a wounded soldier, and represents an extended role for UAVs that Boeing hopes to demonstrate in coming months (see p. 48). Successful tests, however, also depend on a smooth return to flight following a crash last December which destroyed a prototype vehicle.
The only B-2 to have crashed did so after it “rotated early, rotated excessively, stalled and then dragged the left wing tip,” says Gen. John Corley, chief of Air Combat Command. At that point, the pilots ejected and the aircraft ran off the left side of the runway and burned still largely intact.
France has launched a fourth Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarine that is the first to carry new-generation M51 missiles. Christened “The Terrible,” the submarine is scheduled to enter service in 2010 and be equipped with 16 M51s. The new missile features 50% more throw weight than the M45 it replaces, carries up to six warheads and has a range of up to 8,000 km. The first M51 test firing from The Terrible is planned for next year.
The Pentagon offered no explanation for a shipping gaffe involving sending Taiwan four nuclear missile fuzes instead of replacement batteries for UH-1 helicopters in the fall of 2006, an error only discovered in late March. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne assured reporters that U.S. personnel “took action to first secure and then to regain custody of the items” as soon as it learned of the error. The revelation of the incident came not long after the news that a B-52 ferried nuclear weapons between Minot AFB, N.D.
In case you missed it, the first shot in the war over the U.S. military’s role in the 21st century was fired in March. A panel of seven not-very-senior members of the House Armed Services Committee issued a preliminary report suggesting that the U.S. defense establishment should re-think national security roles and missions. And Congress will need to reconsider how to oversee and pay for any changes, the panel says.
Michael Bruno (Washington), Amy Butler (Washington)
Boeing executives say a planned U.S. ballistic missile intercept test under the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program may be pushed to later this year. The news comes as congressional watchdogs have renewed criticism over the program’s testing regime. In the meantime, Boeing has locked in a sole-source extension of its GMD development through Fiscal 2013, including the integration of European interceptors and a new radar considered controversial on Capitol Hill and in Europe.
