An ambulating robot being devised by the European Space Agency has completed a second set of trials in a neutral buoyancy tank at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany. Intended to assist astronauts in extravehicular activity and eventually to handle mundane EVA tasks, Eurobot features three identical arms, each provided with seven joints, a camera and an end-effector.
UPS has taken delivery of the first of 13 Boeing 747-400 Freighters it plans to introduce over the next three years. The aircraft will be used for service primarily to Asia-Pacific destinations, but also to Cologne, Germany; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Mumbai, India. The carrier operates 11 747-100/-200s, but they are converted passenger aircraft and lack the tilt-up nose of a factory freighter. In 2-4 years, the -400s are to replace 747 classics, but current demand will keep all of its 747s working. UPS also uses 38 MD-11Fs on long-haul routes.
East Star Airlines will become the first privately owned Chinese carrier to run services beyond the mainland, although the first of those will be to China’s own special territories, Hong Kong and Macau.
Much of China’s civil aircraft industry will go into publicly listed companies, one of them open to foreign shareholders, under plans by aerospace conglomerate Avic I. As the industry prepares to compete with Western firms, the reorganization should help raise efficiency by concentrating work into companies that must answer to non-government owners. And it will push forward the separation of commercial business from key military work, the melding of which has been an obstacle in the pursuit of foreign contracts.
A letter by Steve Jensen (AW&ST June 25, p. 7) raised an interesting issue. All commercial passenger aircraft since at least the early Douglas Corp. models have, among other things, been very effective at flying Faraday cages/shields because of their electrically highly conductive outer skins. This has provided adequate protection from unavoidable lightning strikes.
Carlos Suarez (see photo) has become managing director of Spain-based Airbus Military.He also is head of the Military Transport Div. of EADS and chairman of EADS CASA. Suarez succeeds Francisco Fernandez Sainz.
China’s airports made more money in the first half of the year than the country’s airlines. While the airlines managed profits of just 1.54 billion yuan ($204 million), the airports raked in 2.11 billion yuan.
Northrop Grumman has selected Honeywell’s formation flying system for the KC-30 tanker. It is a version of the FAA-certified “military airborne collision avoidance-formation rendezvous” system to help pilots fly in the tight formations inherent to air-to-air refueling.
The U.S. Navy has received its first Near-Term, Sea-Based Terminal missile—an upgraded Block 2, Standard Missile 2—from Raytheon. Teamed with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the trio made the modifications to improve defenses against short-range, ballistic missiles. The concept was tested against a Lance target last summer. Sea-Based Terminal is the Navy’s concept to intercept short-range missiles at the terminal phase of their trajectory. Raytheon also is working on the successor SM-6 missile, which will carry an active radar and deploy in 2010.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a good plan in place if NASA’s eight-year-old Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite fails, and could make up for the loss of its data “very effectively” to preserve the quality of hurricane forecasting.
Ian Godden has been appointed chief executive of the London-based Society of British Aerospace Companies Ltd.He has been a consultant to major U.S. and European corporations on international aviation, aerospace and defense industry affairs.
Barring a sudden burst of action, it looks less and less likely that an FAA reauthorization bill can be passed before the current authorization expires at the end of September. This would mean an extension—an outcome that some industry leaders have been predicting for months. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey is still fighting the good fight and urging lawmakers to finish work by Sept. 30. The Senate Commerce Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee both have approved their versions of the bill.
In its case to Midwest’s board of directors, AirTran executives predicted little route overlap if the two carriers end up merging. AirTran management believes the airlines would overlap on just five routes, while reducing dependence on the Atlanta and Milwaukee hubs. Milwaukee accounts for 70% of Midwest’s departures, and Atlanta accounts for a 68% share of AirTran’s. Once the networks are combined, Milwaukee should account for 25% of departures, with Atlanta’s share dropping to 46%.
U.S. Navy Capt. Scott Stearney, commander of Carrier Air Group Seven, which just returned from duty in the Middle East, says his recent deployment was the first in which nonkinetic effects were emphasized during operations. Kinetic and nonkinetic effects—such as electronic warfare—were “equally important” during recent ops, he said during the association’s symposium. On the kinetic side, use of the GBU-38, a 500-lb. GPS-guided bomb, was widespread but pilots are increasingly turning to strafing to kill targets in Iraq, he says.
EDO Communications and Countermeasures has won a $209.9-million contract increase for the production and support of 3,000 vehicle-mounted systems to counter improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Safran surveillance board has named Jean-Paul Herteman head of the company’s Safran Defense and Security Div., to succeed Jean-Paul Bechat as chairman/CEO when he turns 65 on Sept. 2. Bechat, who had been asked to step down at that date following a crisis in the defense business late last year, had hoped that the company’s strong performance would permit him to stay on until next year. Herteman will continue as division head.
Ken Bristol (AW&ST June 18, p. 12) notes that the Boeing 787 offers considerable gains in efficiencies compared to the current airliner fleet. I agree, but the 787’s 20% gain in efficiency over the aircraft it is replacing does not offset the 5-6% annual growth in the fleet, so the global aviation industry has to reduce emissions just as other industries. And flying very long stages is not helping.
The Italian government must decide in the next few days a new course of action for Alitalia after it found no takers for its treasury’s 49.9% stake in the ailing flag carrier.
Afallen dollar has pushed India into a corner on its Russian military contracts. A recent Russian insistence that India must pay more for defense equipment—how much is not known—to offset the effects of a weaker dollar has unnerved the Indian defense ministry, which already faces demands for an additional $10 billion in procurement.
L-3’s Link Simulation and Training division is integrating the Advanced Helmet-Mounted Display system into the U.S. Army Flight School’s Reconfigurable Collective Training Devices. To date, L-3 has delivered 11 RCTDs that can be configured to represent the UH-60A/L, CH-47D, OH-58D and AH-64A/D. In other news, L-3 will build six Tactical Operational Flight Trainers for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The units will be installed beginning in 2008.
U.S. military space controllers are very slowly beginning to maneuver two secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) ocean surveillance spacecraft to higher orbits after the satellites were deployed substantially lower than planned following launch June 15 on board an Atlas V. At least three orbit-raising maneuvers have been carried out between the two spacecraft, and more are planned. However, the spacecraft are still averaging approximately 89 km. (55 mi.) below their intended orbit of about 1,006 X 1,206 km.
Although Israeli officials say privately that something must be done by year’s end to delay Iran’s work on nuclear weapons, nothing currently appears to be underway in the U.S. or Israel to prepare an attack on development facilities, Pentagon officials report. Now, new satellite images reveal that Iran is excavating for a second underground facility in a mountain near the existing Natanz nuclear installation, and U.S. officials say it, too, may be associated with weapon development.
The popularity of amateur-built airplanes and rotorcraft continues to grow in the U.S. as an alternative to the high cost of a new aircraft. According to the Experimental Aircraft Assn., the number of airworthiness certificates issued by the FAA for homebuilts now exceeds 29,000, with about 1,000 new aircraft joining the general aviation fleet each year.
As the European Commission prepares to review a new round of perceived irregularities in airport state aid policies, Ryanair, targeted in several of the cases under review, is continuing to pressure secondary airports for more aid (AW&ST July 16, p. 49). Last week, it was reported that the Irish low-cost carrier is demanding a 15-30% increase in assistance from small French facilities to aid in developing marginally profitable routes.
The facts do not support that man can create global warming. In basic physics and chemistry courses, we are taught that if gases or liquids are mixed we must know the mass of each constituent to predict a viable outcome.
