With all the talk of the Boeing 787 being the first airliner to use major components fabricated from composites, several writers have offered comments on previous composite aircraft, claiming several firsts including the Beechcraft Starship and Windecker Eagle. The first all-composite modern aircraft was the Phonix sailplane of 1957. Designed and built by University of Stuttgart students, it sported a measured lift-to-drag ratio of 40:1, in an era of wood and metal sailplanes with L/Ds in the low 30s.
EADS, in announcing its new, 12-member executive committee, has gone against the wish of Thomas Enders to be the sole Airbus representative on the decision-making body. Enders will nominally be the lone Airbus representative, but COO Fabrice Bregier will sit beside him. To protect Bregier, whom French interests view as their rising star in the Franco-German company, EADS CEO Louis Gallois named him to the executive committee, but in the new role of overseeing EADS’s operational performance.
Applying Bird-Proof, a gel that birds evidently find noxious, is simple, requiring only a caulking gun, rubber gloves and a utility knife to cut a small opening at the end of the tube, according to the company. Each tube provides 10 ft. of coverage. There is no extra work required to smooth it out because Bird-Proof doesn’t dry like caulk does, and can last for up to a year or more in any weather.
It’s likely “but not inevitable” that Iran will develop its own nuclear weapons, says retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, the former head of U.S. Central Command, and the U.S. should “not preclude any option that we may have” to prevent it. But if the Iranians do succeed, Abizaid concedes there are ways to live with a nuclear Iran. “Let’s face it, we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union; we’ve lived with a nuclear China; we’re living with other nuclear powers as well,” Abizaid tells an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Whiting-Turner Contracting’s recent $134.4-million contract to design and build the Marine Corps Special Operations Command complex at MCB Camp Lejeune (N.C.) will include headquarters, an intelligence center, maintenance complex, aid station, supply/deployment/isolation facility and a special operations equipment site.
Philippine Airlines (PAL) will end nine years of receivership in October, two months ahead of schedule, says President Jaime Bautista. Shareholders have authorized a share issue to fund aircraft purchases. Bautista says $1.4 billion is needed for seven Airbus A320s to be delivered by 2008 and six Boeing 777s to arrive 2009-11. Debt has fallen to $869 million from a 1999 peak of $2.1 billion, and the company has made money in its last three fiscal years.
Flight monitoring for general aviation needs led to the creation of Alerts (Aircraft Logging and Event Recording for Training and Safety) System, the award-winning product submitted by Appareo Systems in the AW&ST Product Breakthrough Startup of Development-Stage Category.
“Our customers have spoken,” says Southwest. Famous for its no-frills open-seating policy, which it said helped keep fares low, Southwest began feeling pressure in the past few years from other low-fare competition that offered assigned seating and other “frills.” But when the Dallas-based carrier surveyed passengers, it reports they opted to keep open seating, which Southwest achieves by classifying passengers into boarding groups on a first-come, first-served basis. This practice has prompted Southwest regulars to check in online 24 hr. in advance of their flight.
The introduction of a new breed of small jets into the global general aviation industry in the next two years promises to not only reinvigorate the entry-level segment of the market, but could revolutionize personal air travel. Aviation Week & Space Technology takes a look at the chief contenders in this crowded market and at the status of their aggressive certification programs.
Jonathan Gaffney (see photo) has been named president of the National Aeronautic Assn. He was vice president-communications for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
EADS is test-flying a Eurofighter Typhoon development aircraft fitted with what it calls “apex strakes” to examine high angle-of-attack (AOA) maneuverability. The modification extends the leading edge of the wing considerably further forward on the inlet box. The work is being carried out on behalf of the German defense ministry. Flight testing began on Sept. 13 and is scheduled to conclude in October following 10 flights.
NASA is looking for a few good people to join its next group of astronauts—Class of 2009—for duty that could include exploring the Moon. With the space shuttle fleet due to retire in 2010, astronauts selected early in 2009 under a new round of recruiting will be assigned for extended stays on the International Space Station “and missions to the Moon,” the agency says. Deadline for application is July 1, 2008, with selected candidates to report to Johnson Space Center for basic training in the summer of 2009.
Gary E. Hart has become senior vice president-flight operations for NetJets Aviation, Columbus, Ohio. He was vice president of flight operations/director of operations and had been president of Raytheon Travel Air.
Close-air support will get a boost from a $45.5-million U.S. Navy contract for Rockwell Collins Network-Enabling Software. The project is to support development and deployment of the Tactical Air Control Party, Close Air Support System, and will provide digital communications between the TACP, aircraft and command-and-control systems by 2012.
The first two-seat Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft are already in build at BAE Systems for the Royal Saudi Air Force, with the work underway well in advance of last week’s announcement of the U.K.-Saudi Arabia government-to-government deal.
The letter from Walter Sonneborn in support of the Bell/Agusta BA609 tiltrotor accuses V-22 critics of bias (AW&ST Aug. 13, p. 8). Yes, I am biased. The V‑22’s 30 fatalities before it even goes to war have made me biased. Do you think it will do better once people are shooting at it?
Reflecting confidence that the Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) missile warning satellites will operate as expected, the Air Force is changing the direction of the program it hastily established less than two years ago as a backup. The Alternate Infrared Satellite System will now be named the Third-Generation Infrared Surveillance program, Air Force Space Command officials say. The new name reflects a shift in focus toward exploring technologies that can be infused into Sbirs after construction of its fourth geosynchronous satellite.
A group of retired generals says the Pentagon’s airlift community is suffering from two major crises—an unmet requirement for nearly 350 C‑17s during the next decade and a lack of leadership capable of obtaining funding to purchase them.
What do you do when you’re scheduled to take over from a retiring CEO who has transformed a laggard company into an industry model, delivering nearly a 1,300% shareholder return along the way? For starters, you don’t talk about deviating far from his playbook.
China will demand many more aircraft over the coming 20 years than Boeing expected a year ago, according to the manufacturer’s latest forecast. Average annual traffic growth of 8.8% will drive Chinese purchases of 3,400 new aircraft worth $340 billion from 2007 to 2026, Boeing says. Demand forecasts routinely creep up from year to year as the period under review edges further out, but the latest figures from Boeing show a radical revision to its outlook. The unit forecast has risen by 18% from last year and the value forecast by 21%.
Russia’s Foton-M3 robotic recoverable capsule, crammed with life sciences and other microgravity experiments, is due to parachute back to Earth Sept. 26 following this successful Sept. 14 liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (see photo). The Soyuz-U rocket carried the 6,500-kg. (14,330-lb.) capsule to its 300-km. (186-mi.) orbit without incident.
Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems (ACSS) expects to certify its SafeRoute software for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast on UPS 767s this month and UPS 747-400s by year-end. The novel software has already been certified on UPS’s 757s. The small-package carrier plans to use SafeRoute to manage its freighters’ merging and spacing operations arriving at UPS’s WorldPort Hub in Louisville, Ky. The software can show other UPS freighters nearby on a cockpit display during arrivals.
In December engineers at NASA and the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) in Tullahoma, Tenn., are scheduled to conduct advanced aerothermal tests of sample materials that could be used on the heat shield of NASA’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). The team already has completed a preliminary round of tests to help AEDC validate and calibrate the High Enthalpy Aerothermal Test H2 facility.
