Researchers at the University of Dayton in Ohio are preparing an Air Force report showing the corrosion-protection potential that results from prodding oysters to produce pearl-like coatings on metals. Senior research scientist Doug Hansen says his team has manipulated oyster blood cells, prompting them to deposit nacre, a natural calcium carbonate ceramic, onto aluminum, titanium and stainless-steel alloys. The deposits are “fracture resistant” and, as coatings, “they can last a lifetime,” he says. The work is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Dion Flannery, who has been vice president-financial analysis for US Airways, has been named president of US Airways Express . He succeeds Robert Martens, who is retiring.
John M. Mitnick (see photo) has become vice president/general counsel of the Raytheon Technical Services Co. , Reston, Va. He was associate counsel to the U.S. President for homeland security matters and had been associate general counsel for science and technology at the Homeland Security Dept.
Two AgustaWestland Lynx helicopters are operating until the end of this month from the deck of the icebreaker HMS Endurance to fly five scientific teams to locations on the Antarctic Peninsula. The British Antarctic Survey scientists are working on projects that include drilling ice core samples from the summit of a volcano. Each day, they are ferried out to a new location and then returned to the ship for overnight shelter. The 91-meter-long (298-ft.) HMS Endurance displaces 2,500 metric tons.
The U.S. Air Force’s Fiscal 2009 budget request does not include funding for a new bomber, which the service wants in the field by 2018. A USAF budget official, Maj. Gen. Larry Spencer, says the first funding for the next-generation bomber will come in the Fiscal 2010 request. Instead, USAF is requesting $1.05 billion to continue operating and upgrading its B-1s, B-2s and B-52s.
Thales is bringing to market enhanced/synthetic vision systems and new-generation helmet-mounted sight displays to extend its reach in all-weather systems.
Concerns about Silverjet’s business model have come to the fore again, after the all-business-class service provider saw load factors in January fall to 54%, around 10 percentage points below the break-even point. Load factors since operations began between London Luton and Newark and Dubai have been 58%. Management vows Silverjet will achieve its first month of pre-tax profit in March, when two further Boeing 767s acquired from Thomsonfly will enter service.
Delta Air Lines and SkyWest Inc. are disputing responsibility for paying expenses resulting from irregular operations, such as cancellations and diversions, over a two-year period. SkyWest filed a complaint in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Ga., against Delta to protect its contractual rights under its traffic feed partnership agreement with Delta. SkyWest says Delta withheld $25 million from a weekly scheduled wire payment to SkyWest Airlines and its SkyWest Inc. partner carrier, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which operates Delta Connection flights.
As to the latest intelligence surprise, Al Qaeda’s attacks against the government of Pakistan, Vickers says that he has great hopes for a Pakistan training package to which could be added, if requested, operational support from the U.S. to include low-visibility intelligence-gathering and surveillance. “Training for the Frontier Corps is part of a broader program to develop the tribal areas,” Vickers says.
Wildlife biologists are increasingly using GPS satellite collars to track wild animals and the Royal Institute of Navigation in London’s Animal Navigation Group monitors many of these efforts.
I am the wife of the pilot and on the chase crew for one of the balloons shown on the Table of Contents of your annual aviation photo and art issue (AW&ST Dec. 24/31, 2007, p. 7). Many times, we receive pictures of a flight and, yes, we smile, but this flight has a special story. The gentleman in the balloon is terminally ill, but he and his wife had an escape that day, which was captured by the photographer. Many of us who met the gentlemen and his wife in the balloon haven’t forgotten the many events that made this happen.
Airbus is once again revising its 20-year forecast upward and says it’s not just the market that’s growing, but the size of aircraft as well—larger aircraft are being sought. The market is estimated at $2.8 trillion over two decades, with competitors vying for 23,385 passenger airliners and 877 new freighters.
I would like to register my disgust that Cessna will be manufacturing light aircraft in China. This is a big slap in the face to U.S. workers and the majority of airplane owners, who come from the U.S. What could motivate them to move this work to a country that is not only our competitor, but is well-known for producing shoddy products and using illegal materials? I have owned three Cessna aircraft over the years, but no more. The U.S. should not allow transfer of technology to China.
Passengers faced more late flights and mishandled baggage in 2007 than the previous year, according to the U.S. Transportation Dept.’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The 20 airlines reporting on-time performance (no flight more than 15 min. late), recorded an arrival rate of 73.4% last year, down from 75.4% in 2006. Carriers recorded 7.03 mishandled baggage complaints per 1,000 passengers, up from 6.73 in 2006. With a record like that, it’s not surprising that 13,168 consumer complaints were filed about airline service, 58.2% more than in 2006.
Buying a new route to space for U.S. astronauts after the space shuttle is retired remains the primary objective of the last Bush administration funding request for NASA—but in an election year, even that goal isn’t necessarily a done deal.
Bell Helicopter Textron delivered 181 commercial aircraft in 2007—a 14% improvement compared with 2006 and a 29% increase from 2005, says Bob Fitzpatrick, senior vice president for marketing and sales. The company is now streamlining its offerings to focus production on its most popular models, such as the single-turbine-engine 407 and the new twin-engine 429. Fitzpatrick says fleet replacement and expansion worldwide are driving commercial sales upward.
Iran is closer to launching its first “Omid” satellite into orbit, following a second heavy sounding-rocket mission flown on Feb. 4 by its Shahab rocket—a substantially upgraded version of the Scud ballistic missile. The first mission—on Feb. 25, 2007—used a Shahab-3A, but the latest flight used the more advanced Shahab-3B. The rocket carrying its “Kavoshgar” payload was fired from a missile base southeast of Tehran in the Semnan Desert. The payload achieved at least 70-100 mi. altitude, entering space where it was in a vacuum and weightless for a few minutes.
Chinese aircraft maker Avic I will set up an airline to fly its regional airliners. Xingfu Airlines, meaning Happy Airlines, will have China Eastern Airlines as a 40% shareholder and buy Chinese regional aircraft. Avic I is due next month to fly the first prototype of its ARJ21 regional jet, for which it has 123 orders.
Avic II, China’s second-largest aircraft maker, will buy a 31% stake in Sikorsky’s joint venture in the company, Shanghai Sikorsky. Avic II is also the country’s rotary-wing specialist.
Space Launch Complex-3 is the second pad at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., to undergo a major refurbishment to support the United Launch Alliance’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle lineup of Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. SLC-3 is set for the Pacific Coast debut of the Atlas V in a night launch Feb. 26 of a classified mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. For a detailed look, turn to p. 50. William G. Hartenstein/AW&ST photo.
Starsem is scheduled to launch a second test satellite for the Galileo satellite-based navigation system on Apr. 26. The European Space Agency’s Giove B is intended to validate a second, more accurate atomic clock and to guarantee International Telecommunications Union frequency-use requirements in the event the first spacecraft is lost. Giove A has been in orbit two years and a third test spacecraft is in development at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in case there’s a problem with Giove B.
