The British Royal Air Force has lost another C-130K Hercules special-forces aircraft as a result of operations in Afghanistan. The aircraft was taken out of service by British forces late last month following damage during an operational mission—reportedly the result of a heavy landing. There were no serious casualties. Three of the RAF’s C-130Ks have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Proton failure and a fresh delay in starting up Sea Launch’s Zenit-based Land Launch derivative are likely to keep global launcher capacity tight and prices high, just as the return to service of Sea Launch and India’s GSLV were expected to provide some relief.
The U.S. and Australia have signed an agreement to ease export rules for defense equipment. The arrangement gives Australia the same preferred status so far only granted the U.K. It eliminates the need for certain export licenses and should foster industrial cooperation. Moreover, Australia will more easily gain access to U.S. technical information.
The Israeli military has unveiled a defense spending plan that should take effect in January. The plan, called “Tefen,” emphasizes improving ground forces, which is a priority in the wake of perceived shortcomings during last year’s war in Lebanon. For the air force, the modernization plan calls for acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, as well as further unmanned aircraft. Early-warning and anti-rocket and missile defenses also are priorities, as are better intelligence gathering and information processes.
Sept. 17-19—SpeedNews Eighth Annual Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference in Toulouse, Hotel Palladia, France. Call +1 (310) 203-9603, fax +1 (310) 203-9352 or see www.speednews.com/Conference/euroconference.html Sept. 17-20—SAE’s 2007 AeroTech Congress & Exhibition. Los Angeles Convention Center. Call +1 (724) 776-4841, fax +1 (724) 776-0790 or see www.sae.org Sept. 17-23—Aeromart Beijing. China World Trade Center. See www.aeromart.tm.fr/Beijing
Pierre Sparaco’s column, “The Kolk Machine Flies On” was interesting but he may have left an erroneous impression (AW&ST July 30, p. 45). Sparaco mentioned American Airlines several times along with Cyrus Smith and Frank Kolk. However, Sparaco omitted the fact that the first U.S. operator of the Airbus was Eastern Airlines, in mid-1977. This “broke the ice” and Airbus was firmly ensconced in the North American market.
Cessna Aircraft has delivered the first Citation Mustang to a European customer. Of more than 350 orders for the entry-level jet, one-third are from European buyers, according to Cessna.
New York airspace redesign may be as complicated legally as it is technically. The FAA gave its stamp of approval Sept. 5 to the massive project, confirming as expected an alternative that should significantly ease traffic flow into and out of New York and Philadelphia airports. However, the record of decision may not be the final word, as local communities are likely to challenge the redesign in court.
FAA certification of Lynx Aviation has been delayed beyond the scheduled startup date of Oct. 1. Denver-based Lynx is a subsidiary of Frontier Airlines. Lynx’s president, Tom Nunn, says he’s frustrated by the lag in the certification process but is pleased with progress made in forming the new company. Lynx is acquiring Bombardier Q400 turboprop transports but will rely on Frontier’s Airbus A319, Embraer 170 and Bombardier CRJ700 jets to serve its initial routes to Wichita, Kan.; Rapid City, S.D.; Sioux City, Iowa; Albuquerque, N.M., and Billings, Mont.
TerreStar, a U.S. mobile satellite service startup, has issued an Authorization to Proceed to EADS Astrium for an S-band MSS spacecraft to serve Europe. TerreStar has yet to complete licensing or financing arrangements for the hybrid satellite/terrestrial system, targeted for a 2011 startup. The company has acquired two units from Space Systems/Loral for a U.S.-Canadian service expected to begin in December 2008.
Frank Thompson (see photos) has been appointed group vice president-supply chain and Joan Clark group vice president-human resources for Parker Aerospace, Irvine, Calif. Dennis Rice has become general manager of Parker’s Electronic Systems Div., Smithtown, N.Y. Thompson was supply chain director for the Air and Fuel Div. Clark was director of human resources for the Control Systems Div., while Rice was his division’s chief compliance officer.
Mark Weir (see photo) has been named senior director of the Sabreliner Corp.’s Ste. Genevieve, Mo., operation. He was a senior operations manager at Boeing’s San Antonio facility and a production operations manager for the E-6B program in Jacksonville, Fla.
More than half of all orthopedic implants may be detected by airport security metal detectors, says a new report from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The study asked 129 volunteers with a total of 149 implants to walk through an M-Scope three-zone metal detector at two sensitivity settings. The overall detection rate was 88% for prosthetic replacements compared with 32% for plates. All total hip replacements and 90% of knee replacements were detected at the low-sensitivity setting.
Era Corp. has received a patent on Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast and multilateration techniques in which redundant transponder signals can be filtered and time-stamped before aircraft tracking information is forwarded to air traffic control centers and other users. This will allow users to manage massive amounts of real-time aircraft transponder data using a plethora of data links and networks with a variety of bandwidths. The technology has both military and civil applications.
MIT scientists have devised a software tool to measure visual clutter that could lead to more user-friendly displays and maps as well as a means for designers to add an attention-getting element. Visual clutter is a challenge to fighter pilots picking a target and for people seeking specific information in a graphical interface. Ruth Rosenholtz, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences Dept.
In his letter on weapon planning and high-speed penetration (AW&ST July 23, p. 6), G.D. Goldshine says “the military made bad decisions on the B-58 and F‑111 programs.”
Homeland Security Dept. officials say the idea behind the planned National Applications Office—to coordinate requests for access to satellite-gathered intelligence by nonfederal agencies—is nothing new. The office, set to start work Oct. 1, is said to be no more than a clearinghouse to systematize what’s been taking place for decades on an ad hoc basis: allocating classified satellite imagery to help monitor borders, forest fires and hurricanes.
After a push last year from the White House to lighten the payload for the first National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System spacecraft, the Bush administration now says it may restore one of the sensors dropped from the first operational satellite. The combined military-civil weather satellite program’s cost has ballooned from an original $7 billion to its most recent estimate of $12.5 billion.
The federal government is forecast to spend 33% of the Fiscal 2007 budget for information technology in the final months of the fiscal year. According to Input, a Reston, Va.-based market analysis company that tracks federal IT spending, the $20 billion that agencies plan to invest in IT in the final quarter follows a trend over the past decade during which outlays in that category are heavily concentrated in the last months of the year.
The writer of “A Call for Sound Science” repeats a common refrain in the debate over climate change: Only climatologists can opine on the issues surrounding global warming. However, while the problems may well be as important as he/she states, the writer ignores the fact that the political, economic, technological and social decisions relating to global warming involve many more people than climatologists.
In the wake of increased exploitation of the Internet by insurgent groups, the U.S. military is reviewing how modern war-fighting should be conducted. Boeing has signed a three-year cooperative R&D contract with the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JSFCOM) to analyze emerging and future joint warfighting concepts and capabilities, in concert with JSFCOM’s joint innovation and experimentation directorate. Plans call for using modeling and simulation techniques while combining live and virtual experiments.
Northrop Grumman is providing its TouchTable technology to the FAA to help the agency respond to and counter cyber security threats and attacks against its information technology network. Multiple users can collaborate with the system, which is run by an 84-in. touch-sensitive computer screen at the FAA’s Cyber Security Incident Response Center. Northrop Grumman has supported the agency’s network security programs since 2004 and provides around-the-clock monitoring of FAA computer systems.
Douglas Barrie (Zhukovsky, Russia), Alexey Komarov (Zhukovsky, Russia)
Russia’s guided-weapons manufacturers face a war on two fronts—a battle to sustain and expand their position in the export market, and a fight to retain and attract specialist staff at home. Future success in the export arena will hang on the air-launched weapons now in (sometimes prolonged) development for the Russian air force. The Moscow air show, held here Aug. 21-26, provided an insight into major programs, including a key tactical air-to-surface weapon for a modular missile family.
