Prospects for Piaggio Aero are looking buoyant following two big new contracts for its P.180 Avanti twin-turboprop business aircraft. One of the purchases, announced last week, came from U.S. fractional ownership company Avantair, the P.180’s leading customer. Avantair placed a $150-million order for 22 Avanti IIs, adding to an existing fleet. The company has 38 Avantis in operation, and aims to be flying 102 by the end of 2012.
Maxwell Technologies of San Diego will provide the single-board computers (SBC) for the European Space Agency’s Gaia astronomy mission that will survey more than a billion stars and other celestial bodies in the Milky Way. Seven Maxwell SCS750 SBCs will be used to process images collected by the two-ton satellite’s camera. Gaia is to be launched in December 2011 into an orbit at the second Lagrange point, 932,000 mi. on the “night side” of the Earth.
MD Helicopters MD Explorer A single-main-rotor helicopter with twin turboshaft engines driving a Kawasaki-designed main rotor gearbox, the aircraft incorporates the patented Notar (no tail rotor) system, including a circulation control tail boom and internal variable pitch fan. In early 2001, MD Helicopters launched the Combat Explorer armed variant, specifically targeting the air arm services of Latin America. The Explorer is cleared to carry the GAU-19/A .50-caliber Gatling gun, M2 .50-caliber gun pod and 70mm Hydra rockets.
Australia has agreed to cover the cost of one of the six spacecraft in the U.S. Wideband Global Satellite Communications system, in return for a share of the network’s capacity. In choosing to cooperate with the U.S., Australia is moving away from reliance on its national Optus commercial satellites now owned by the Singapore government company Singtel. Including ground infrastructure, the cost to Australia will be $820 million. The satellites are to be introduced into service from 2008-13.
The U.S. Army is trying to gain consensus in the Pentagon to fund a flyoff of design concepts for the Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) helicopter, the only high-technology rotorcraft in development for the Pentagon in the foreseeable future.
Bell AH-1 Cobra Series The series features single- and twin-engine, single-main-rotor attack helicopters. Through 2006, Bell delivered approximately 2,300 AH-1s, while Fuji delivered about 90 units. Presumably the final iteration of the Cobra, the AH-1Z is an improved version of the AH-1W for the U.S. Marine Corps and for export. Powered by two GE T700-GE-401 turboshaft engines rated at 1,690 shp. each, the AH-1Z features a four-blade composite main rotor and uprated (2,625-shp.) transmission, providing 30% more power to the rotor.
Philip Milazzo (see photo) has been appointed executive vice president of PAS Technologies Inc., Kansas City, Mo. He has been senior vice president/general manager.
Boeing CH-47 A twin-engine, tandem-rotor, medium/heavy-lift transport helicopter, the CH-47 Chinook first flew in 1961 and is offered in several variants, either as new-build helicopters or as conversions. The new CH-47F is powered by two 4,075-shp. Honeywell T55-GA-714A engines with Full Authority Digital Engine Control. Honeywell has begun supplying kits to upgrade the T55-L-712 engines of the U.S. Army’s CH-47Ds to the new T55-GA-714A standard. The Army intends to acquire 513 new Chinooks.
Gulfstream Aerospace is actively researching sonic boom mitigation techniques and studying the noise impact of sonic over-flights to people on the ground, having verified the ability of its patented Quiet Spike extendable nose probe to turn a “boom” into a muted “rumble.”
Antonov An-70 A transport aircraft intended to compete with the Boeing C-17, the An-70 has a high-wing design with four 14,000-shp. ZMKB Progress D-27 propfan engines with six-blade counterrotating propellers. An An-70 prototype flew in 1994 and a second in 1997. The An-70 effort took a hit after Russia pulled out of a deal to buy 164 aircraft, leaving Ukraine as the sole client. Only five aircraft are forecast to be completed through 2016.
The Royal Norwegian Air Force temporarily grounded eight of its Bell 412 helicopters because of corrosion problems found in two spare main rotor masts. The aircraft, four at Bardufoss AS in northern Norway and four at Rygge AS in the south, will have to be dismantled mostly to allow for the inspection, says the Norwegian defense logistics organization. The 10 other Bell 412s in the RNoAF have a different type of rotor mast and are allowed to continue flying.
NASA’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle finally is nearing its weight target, says NASA project manager Skip Hatfield. Going into its most recent round of redesigns, the Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft was still about 5,000 lb. over its target weight (AW&ST May 21, p. 43). Removing a layer of redundancy from the vehicle’s systems has produced a stripped-down “zero-base” Orion design, to which the team is now judiciously adding systems back.
Aero L39/L59/L139/L159 Members of the L39 family include two-seat trainers and single-seat light attack aircraft. All are single-engine. The current version is the L159. It is equipped with a 6,300-lb.-thrust Honeywell/International Turbine Engine Corp. F124-GA-100 turbofan. The maiden flight of the L39 occurred in 1968, with the L159 following in 1997. About 3,000 aircraft in the series have been produced.
Record-breaking U.S. spending in defense and aerospace continues, with the funding burden bolstered by annual supplemental spending bills passed by Congress to fund ongoing activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the U.S. Congress is pressuring President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, so the defense industry is bracing for an end to supplemental spending. This would force recapitalization bills to compete with other service needs for annual cash. Also causing some anxiety about U.S. defense spending is the upcoming presidential election.
The Pentagon is reinitiating the incorporation of countermeasures into its missile defense system flight-test program after a successful intercept test last month.
Congress is growing increasingly frustrated with several new-technology helicopter initiatives, although lawmakers remain eager to fund workhorse rotorcraft for major combat operations, according to the latest quartet of annual defense bills working through Capitol Hill. From the Army’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) to the Air Force’s Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) replacement vehicle, lawmakers are withholding, or delaying, requested funds for Fiscal 2008. They also are pushing defense officials to get the programs in order.
Leave it to the Japanese to bring us the classic blue Earth image from space in high-definition television (HDTV). That’s what the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has done in this view showing the west coast of South America illuminated by sunlight. The image was taken Sept. 29 by JAXA’s Selene lunar probe from a distance of 68,000 mi. from Earth as the spacecraft was performing an instrument check-out following its Sept. 14 launch. JAXA put Selene into a two-orbit pass around Earth to gain a gravity assist for the voyage to the moon.
Pilatus PC-9 The PC-9 tandem-seat military flight trainer is produced by Pilatus, although it also has been assembled under license by Hawker de Havilland Ltd. A PC-9 prototype first flew in May 1984, followed by initial production deliveries in 1986. The current production model is the PC-9M, which was introduced in 1997. The PC-9M is powered by a single 1,150-shp. Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-62 turboprop engine. Approximately 275 aircraft have been built.
A vehicle is said to be flying supersonically if it is moving through the atmosphere at a speed greater than the local velocity of sound. The speed of sound (Mach 1) varies with temperature and pressure, and at sea level and 59F (15C), is about 760 mph. As temperature reduces with altitude up to the tropopause at around 36,000. ft. and a temperature of -69.7F, the speed of sound reduces to around 661 mph. at this level.
Nearly all Bombardier Q400 aircraft grounded by Transport Canada’s Sept. 13 urgent airworthiness directive for main landing gear inspections are currently back in service. The directive followed two gear-collapse incidents in September, both of them involving SAS Q400s. Inspections have been completed, and 149 of 165 Q400s have returned to service; the 16 remaining aircraft, all SAS-operated, are expected to be operational by Oct. 15.
The Royal Saudi Air Force will get new General Electric F110-129C engines for its F-15S aircraft. A $300-million package will provide 65 engines and logistics support, with deliveries to begin next year. The engine is also being flown in South Korean F-15Ks and Singapore’s F-15CGs. The RSAF engines will come with service life extension hardware.
NH Industries NH90 This medium-lift troop transport and anti-submarine warfare helicopter is powered by either two GE T700-GE-T6E1 turboshafts rated at 2,040 shp. each or two Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RTM322-01/9 engines rated at 2,100 shp. each. Basic models include the Tactical Transport Helicopter, which functions as a tactical troop assault transport and ground support aircraft capable of hauling 14-20 fully equipped troops, more than 2,500 kg.
After 14 years of studying greenhouse gas concentrations in the upper atmosphere, Japan Airlines (JAL) hasn’t reached any conclusions about global warming.
Thales has landed a major subcontract from ITT to supply and support radios for the FAA’s planned Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. The radios will feature Thales’s modular platform technology, already used on ADS-B systems in Australia and Europe, that can be applied for reception and en-route, terminal and surface broadcast applications. The three-year contract, worth up to €28 million ($39.6 million), followed a late August decision to award ADS-B to an ITT team that also includes AT&T and ACSS, in which Thales has a 30% stake.
Boeing’s A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter has set a record by staying aloft for 8 hr. with a 1,000-lb. payload. It reached an altitude of 5,000 ft. during the test flight at Victorville, Calif. The aircraft was the second of 11 built for a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project. Eventually, the rotorcraft is expected to fly at up to 140 kt. for up to 20 hr.
