Aviation Week & Space Technology

Canada’s purchase of four C-17 transports—two have entered service—has resulted in $420 million in offset work coming to Canada, says Boeing Vice President Mark Kronenberg. Boeing will match every dollar spent by the Canadian government in acquiring its C-17 fleet by partnering with and issuing contracts to companies in Canada.

The U.S. Navy and Air Force are studying enhanced weapon systems they could field quickly to attack moving targets and ones that are hardened and deeply buried—missions with which the Pentagon continues to struggle. The Navy plans to test its Multiple Effects Warhead next month. The product of a technology demonstration program, MEW is designed to increase the blast overpressure of the ship-launched Toma­hawk cruise missile warhead by 40%, says Capt. Rick McQueen, the Navy’s Tomahawk program director.

ANA will scrap seven unprofitable domestic routes in its coming fiscal year, which begins in April, and reduce frequencies on five other routes.

Sometimes it is all about being in the right place at the right time. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) were available to meet the soaring U.S. and international demand for aerial reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities.

Singapore Airlines plans to use Jeppesen’s electronic flight bag (EFB) software applications on its aircraft as well as Jeppesen paper charts. Singapore will also use Jeppesen’s OpsData services, which provide aircraft performance calculations. The company already provides Singapore Airlines with software for Class 3 EFBs on its Boeing 777s and Airbus A380s, and will do so for Class 1 EFBs on Singapore’s 747s.

Efforts to create a stretched, 130-seat version of the Superjet 100 are moving forward, in part thanks to a memorandum of understanding between Spirit AeroSystems and Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. Spirit would likely participate in the development and manufacture of the carbon-fiber reinforced plastic wing for a stretched version of the 95-seat Sukhoi Superjet 100. A rewinging is seen as essential to grow the aircraft to 130 seats; Aeroflot has evinced an interest in this iteration.

The bomber market has long been dormant, but concerns about the age of the U.S. bomber fleet may result in a small revival. Driven by a mandate to field a new long-range bomber by 2018, the U.S. Air Force appears to have settled on a concept for its next generation of strike aircraft.

Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission and Port Co. and the U.S. Nuclear Security Administration have begun operating radiation detection equipment at the port of Haifa. If a shipping container is flagged by radiation detectors, Israeli-developed technology then identifies the radioisotope involved.

Fixed- and rotary-wing crew numbers continue to be an issue for the British Royal Navy. Figures provided to Parliament last week showed that the Navy is substantially below its target personnel figures in some key areas of naval aviation. In terms of BAE Systems Harrier GR7 instructors, there is a 57% shortfall, while at some ranks the Navy is 51% short of its intended number of Harrier pilots. In the rotary arena, there is a 39% shortfall in AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin pilots, while this figure is 46% for Merlin observers.

Further delays with a troublesome Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (Viirs) sensor will push back the launch of the Npoess Preparatory Project (NPP), the precursor mission for the civil/military weather satellite system. Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says he is “extremely disappointed with the pace of the contractor in analyzing and closing potential quality, workmanship, and testing issues,” pointing the finger directly at Raytheon, manufacturer of the Viirs. NPP was set to launch in 2009.

USAF Col. Christopher F. Burne is one of five colonels who have been nominated for promotion to brigadier general. He is staff judge advocate at Air Combat Command Headquarters, Langley AFB, Va. The others are: Dwight D. Creasy, staff judge advocate at Air Education and Training Command Headquarters, Randolph AFB, Tex.; Mark A. Ediger, command surgeon at Air Education and Training Command Headquarters; Richard A. Hersack, command surgeon at Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; and Daniel O.

Scientists on NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (Messenger) project have started poring through some 500 MB. of data recovered from the spacecraft recorder after its first flyby, including this previously unseen view of the planet’s south pole. The low Sun angle at the day/night terminator gives better terrain-height perspective than was possible with Mariner 10 in 1974-75.

Aerospace consultant Yvonne Brill is one of the three honorary fellows appointed for 2008 by the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The other two are Henry McDonald of the University of Tennessee SimCenter and Abe Zarem, strategic adviser to the knowledge and information technology industries. Damodar Ambur of the NASA Langley Research Center is one of the 30 AIAA fellows for 2008.

Further restructuring is pending for South African aerospace and defense manufacturer Denel, with the likely creation of a merged unmanned aerial vehicle company as well as changes at its missile business unit and munitions and armored vehicles businesses.

Grob is becoming a major partner on Bombardier’s newest business aircraft, the just-named midsize Learjet 85. Grob is bringing its composite expertise to the project, and will develop primary and secondary structures. It also will be a partner on systems integration. The first three Learjet 85 prototypes will be built by Grob Aerospace.

French armaments agency DGA has awarded Eurocopter a 220-million ($321-million) contract to upgrade 27 Cougar helicopters in a move that should help fill a looming rotorcraft capability gap.

Raptor 03 has landed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The third F-22, manufactured by the team of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney, will be part of a permanent exhibit showcasing air dominance fighters. It was one of nine F-22s built for engineering, manufacture and development testing. This particular model was considered the test fleet workhorse, undertaking loads testing, crosswind landing trials, arrester hook evaluations and weapons bay environment studies.

Gentex won a $95.5-million contract to design a two-part, Modular Aircrew Common Helmet for use on both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. The even wider-cast concept is to reduce the logistical burden by cutting the 27 helmet configurations to a single design. The production run could involve 26,250 units.

Richard A. McConnell has become director of the Boise City (Idaho) Airport . He was manager of Rick Husband International Airport, Amarillo, Tex. Honors And Elections

Lufthansa Systems is working with Lufthansa Airlines and Goodrich to develop a new electronic flight bag that will be standard equipment on Lufthansa jets. The system is designed to bring the airline industry one step closer to a paperless cockpit, according to Lufthansa Systems officials. The EFB software will be combined with Class 2 hardware, and a laptop computer docking station and a Goodrich touch screen will be used to supply power to the system, display information and connect the EFB to aircraft systems.

Herb Lustig has been promoted to president/CEO from general manager of VECTr Systems Inc. , Falls Church, Va.

Boeing has won a $14.9-million USAF systems engineering and modeling contract for the A-10 wing replacement program. The modeling is to institute a cost-saving, paperless engineering package. This award follows a $2-billion 2007 contract for manufacturing 242 sets of A-10 wings.

Eurocopter intends to sharply increase its international footprint and grow its service business in an attempt to vastly expand sales and improve profitability, areas in which it still lags behind its primary competitors.

All Nippon Airways has included Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ MRJ 70-90-seater on its list of regional jet candidates, along with those from Bombardier and Embraer.

Phillip M. Balisle, who is senior vice president-maritime strategic plans and programs for DRS Technologies Inc. , Parsippany, N.J., has been appointed to succeed Michael L. Bowman, who will be retiring as executive vice president-Wash­ington operations.