Alliant Techsystems (ATK) will start key tests of a third-generation scramjet combustor in October as part of efforts to advance its goal of powering free-flying hypersonic test vehicles, possibly including later flights of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Boeing X-51 WaveRider demonstrator.
Defense contractors will have more time to tailor their proposals for a joint U.S. Navy-Marine Corps small tactical unmanned air system (Stuas), now that the project’s schedule has slipped into next summer. The program was expected to issue a draft request for proposals in late 2007. Now the draft RFP isn’t expected until January, with the final RFP coming in June or July 2008.
Qantas says its overseas maintenance is not compromising safety despite allegations to the contrary by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Assn. The union identified wiring issues on two aircraft repaired outside Australia, but David Cox, Qantas’s executive general manager of engineering, says these problems didn’t compromise safety. The airline had already found the problems and notified Australian safety authorities. About 90% of Qantas’s heavy maintenance is performed in Australia, he adds.
CAE Inc. of Montreal is making a big push into training, and logged $66 million in new contracts in the quarter ending June 30. It signed a 20-year agreement with Bombardier to provide training for Global Express business jets and the Challenger 300. And, CAE signed a five-year contract with Flight Options to train maintenance technicians. After the end of the quarter, CAE said it will provide training center operations for Air Canada, a first for CAE with a North American legacy carrier. The company also sold 13 civil full-flight simulators in the quarter.
A flight attendant for Atlantic Southeast Airlines has pleaded not guilty to charges that she was intoxicated Aug. 5 while preparing an aircraft for departure from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky. Airport police removed Sarah Mills, 26, of Atlanta, from the aircraft. ASA has a zero tolerance policy toward employees who break federal regulations related to alcohol use while on duty.
Tensions between Georgia and Russia grew last week after a Russian Raduga Kh-58 (AS-11 Kilter) anti-radiation missile hit territory of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Whether the Kh-58 was accidentally released, jettisoned under fire or represented a deliberate attempt to destroy Georgian air surveillance radar, has still to be determined. The missile was possibly carried by a Russian air force Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer. Radar data released by the Georgian government reportedly shows the tracks of two aircraft.
Germany’s second SARLupe radar reconnaissance satellite, shown during launch preparations, has entered service a month after it was orbited atop a Cosmos 3M rocket from Plesetsk, Russia. Together with the first spacecraft, launched in December 2006, the new submetric-resolution unit will permit the German armed forces to begin using the SARLupe system for routine operations, notably in Afghanistan.
Deployed by politicians like so much chaff and flare, the phrase “there’s no need to worry” inevitably sets off caution warnings. Boris Alyoshin, head of the Russian government’s industry agency, recently expressed such a sentiment concerning development of an engine for the Russian air force’s fifth-generation fighter requirement, known as PAK FA. “I’m confident all the timescales will be kept,” Alyoshin ventured.
Proxy Aviation says it completed the first demonstration of multiple UAVs performing autonomous cooperative flight. The demonstrations, which took place in July, used the SkyWatcher and SkyRaider systems with two simulated UAVs flying through a networked system. Nine missions over nine days included scenarios for target search, simulated weapons release and dynamic retasking as well as formation flying and collision avoidance. The tests were part of the UAV Battle Lab’s Cooperative Rules Based Reconnaissance Unmanned System program.
Eutelsat is preparing to order an all-Ka-band spacecraft intended to leapfrog over pioneering broadband and broadcasting initiatives by WildBlue and DirecTV/Spaceway in the U.S.
Analysis of radar soundings by Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite “Daichi” before and after the July 16 earthquake 17 km. under the seafloor west of Niigita Prefecture shows that the 6.8-magnitude quake pushed the nearest dry land downward, while land more distant from the epicenter rose. Researchers plotted the diastrophism with a differential interferometric process comparing terrain elevations measured with the Palsar L-band phased array radar on Daichi Jan. 16 and July 19. The process revealed changes totaling some 30 cm. in elevation.
USAF Gen. Kevin P. Chilton has been named commander of U.S. Strategic Command , Offutt AFB, Neb. He has been commander of Air Force Space Command, Peterson AFB, Colo. He will be succeeded by Lt. Gen. Claude R. Kehler, who has been deputy commander and has been nominated for promotion to general. Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula has been appointed deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at USAF Headquarters in Washington. He has been deputy chief of staff for intelligence.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency’s Air and Marine branch will begin flying two AgustaWestland AW139 medium-lift helicopters this month after operational evaluation is completed (see photo). The twin-engine rotorcraft will be deployed for border-security missions. The aircraft are equipped with electro-optical/infrared sensors, in combination with a laser designator. The AW139 can carry up to 12 passengers, fly more than 570 naut. mi. and has a maximum speed of about 160 kt.
Telesat Canada reported a 35% jump in second-quarter revenues to $161.4 million and a 54% jump in cash flow to $59.9 million, but net earnings dropped 3% to $41.6 million, due to higher taxes. Results will put the company in a good position to exploit five new spectrum licenses awarded by the Canadian Ministry of Industry on June 13. The company has been mulling new Ka-band and Ku-/C-band satellites as it maneuvers to counter a challenge from SES-affiliated startup Ciel. Ciel received seven of the 12 licenses up for grabs.
Program managers are always working to find an innovative way to measure the success of their efforts. Col. David Rice, the Army’s precision fire rockets and missiles program manager, raised the bar last week. He told reporters during a teleconference on his Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System that insurgents in Iraq are calling the precision rockets the “Hands of Allah.” The system is deployed there and defense officials say that they are comfortable enough with its accuracy to take the extraordinary step of launching them against targets in urban areas.
Continued expansion in satcom demand, plus strong interest from the Earth-observation community, is increasing the likelihood of a near-term go-ahead for Iridium’s next-generation mobile satellite system.
Thales says it expects to conclude by the end of the summer an agreement with a U.S. manufacturer to team for an unmanned aerial vehicle system foreign military sale, possibly for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Executives say Thales is in discussion with Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell for the system, which would draw on experience with the U.K. Watchkeeper tactical UAV and be equipped with a U.S. air vehicle and Thales and/or U.S. subsystems. It would be integrated by the French defense contractor, which is already helping the U.K.
More than 1,000 pilots applied for jobs at United Airlines in the first ten days after the carrier said it would hire 100 pilots by the end of the year. Vice President of Flight Operations Hank Krakowski said the airline is impressed with the caliber and diversity of candidates as well as the volume of applications.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to test the feasibility of patrolling wide swaths of the Gulf Coast and Caribbean with land-based unmanned aircraft early next year. The Coast Guard, possibly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other federal agencies are partners in the 3-4-week demonstration, according to Michael Kostelnik, head of CBP’s air and marine division.
I take issue with your editorial “Turning Up the Heat Isn’t Shedding Any Light” (AW&ST May 28, p. 78) in which you compare the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca) to the fabled “Boy Who Cried Wolf” for issuing press releases that expose FAA air traffic control facility staffing and safety issues. Natca’s often legitimate concerns are being downplayed by the FAA and dismissed by industry observers, the public and Congress, as rhetoric in light of the ongoing labor dispute.
Vitalyi Lopota has been named president of the Russian Energia Rocket and Space Corp. (Energia RSC). Since 1991, Lopota headed the St. Petersburg-based central research and development institute of robotics and technical cybernetics, and in June he was appointed first vice president and general designer of Energia. He succeeds Nicolai Sevastiyanov, who was dismissed by the board in June.
First flight of the Kawasaki Heavy Industries C-X will be delayed, after the big Japanese airlifter failed structural tests. The P-X maritime patroller, a parallel development by the same manufacturer, has also suffered structural problems. And delivery of the first Boeing KC-767 to Japan has been delayed for a third time—from the end of this month until March—because it has not passed U.S. safety requirements, says the defense ministry.
India’s Tata Airlines is the first to start operations from a helipad on its luxury hotel in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital. Currently, private operators use a public helipad when flying into downtown Mumbai, but the government is considering opening up rooftop operations, says Kanu Gohain, directorate general of civil aviation.
Regional airlines in the U.S., which feed the majors passengers, will soon be feeding them nearly all their pilots. The majors are projected to need more than 50,000 pilots during the next 12 years, more than twice the 20,000 they now employ.
