Virgin Atlantic Airways this month will assess efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by towing aircraft to runways and thereby reducing engine run time. The move comes as a follow-up to a promise by Virgin Chairman Richard Branson to move to more environmentally responsible operations. The trials at London's Heathrow and Gatwick Airports are being supported by the BAA airport authority and NATS air traffic management provider, and will involve Virgin 747-400s. A follow-on test phase is planned in the coming months.
MARKET FOCUS Top Boeing salesman cautions on expectations for 2007 12 NEWS BREAKS 'Integrated Stage 2' installed for AirLaunch's QuickReach rocket 18 Thales in deal to buy Alcatel-Lucent space and homeland security businesses 18 Customers want Airbus to commit more engineering resources to A400M 20 TSA continues to evaluate passenger body-scanning machines 22 Leonard Greene dies, co-founder of Corporate Angel Network 22 WORLD NEWS & ANALYSIS
Bruce Karatz and Ratan N. Tata have been named to the board of trustees of Rand, Santa Monica, Calif. Karatz is chairman/CEO of KB Home, while Tata is chairman of India-based Tata Sons Ltd.
U.K. Defense Procurement Minister Paul Drayson, visiting Washington this week, will ask questions about Joint Strike Fighter technology sharing and has a mysterious Plan B available in case he doesn't like the answers. He is scheduled to meet with the Pentagon's acquisition chief, Kenneth Krieg, and possibly with Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, and if things work out badly--or if the U.S. hedges--the U.K. almost certainly will defer into 2007 signing the F-35 production sustainment and follow-on development memorandum of understanding.
Bigelow Aerospace is ready for the January launch of its Genesis II inflatable space module on a converted Russian ICBM as the company continues the successful orbital test of its first subscale module. The Bigelow flights are pioneering the development of privately financed inflatable manned space modules, while also providing business for a new commercial spaceport at a Soviet-era SS-18 ballistic missile base.
The study group issues a blistering indictment of intelligence in and about Iraq. Human intelligence in the field is improving but isn't as effective as it should be for lack of U.S. personnel who speak Arabic or understand the culture. Because of business-as-usual career rotations among military personnel, the panel is told, there are fewer than 10 analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency who have more than two years' experience analyzing the Iraq insurgency.
Airbus will have to commit more engineering resources to the A400M military airlifter program to rein in "critical risk areas" and preserve its schedule, customers are concluding after EADS briefed them on the results of a study of the project's status. The report suggests there are "significant" challenges to meeting first flight in March 2008 and other scheduled milestones. The risks are "systems design (in particular electrical harnesses), maturity of military mission systems, engine modifications, remaining work to be done on the final assembly line."
Liberalization of the transatlantic air transport market could be years off, after the U.S. Transportation Dept. last week withdrew its proposal to relax rules for foreign ownership of airlines. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said that "it was clear from reviewing the comments that the department needs to do more to inform the public, labor groups and Congress about the benefits of allowing more international investment. We need a stronger national consensus about the best means of achieving that objective."
The Galileo Joint Undertaking, the public-private partnership managing development of Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system and negotiating with a concessionaire to operate it, says terms for the concession agreement will be signed before Dec. 25, and a final contract next year. The GJU also said the Egnos wide-area GPS augmentation system that will precede Galileo will enter full operation in March.
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, a long-haul low-cost carrier that started up in October, has growth in mind. Oasis has introduced its second Boeing 747-400 into service, though that's only the start of its plans for a very large fleet. "The company is actively seeking to acquire up to five aircraft a year and expand its fleet to 25 aircraft by 2010," says CEO Stephen Miller. The carrier also says it now has acquired Russian overflight rights, which will enable it to cut time and costs on Hong Kong-London services.
Peter Hartman has been named acting CEO of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, effective Apr. 1. He is scheduled to become CEO on July 5, succeeding Leo van Wijk, who will retire but remain vice chairman of Air France-KLM.
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Faced with increasing competition in its bread-and-butter microsatellite niche, Surrey Space Technologies Ltd. is expanding product offerings while using its smallsat recipe as a stepping-stone to more traditional market segments.
The British Defense Ministry will make fundamental choices as to the future shape of its offensive air capability in 2011, with a full-scale stealthy unmanned combat air vehicle demonstrator critically informing its decision making. The air force aims to determine its future mix of manned and unmanned platforms in around 2011, says the assistant chief of the air staff, Air Vice Marshal Chris Moran. This could lead to a decision to field a deep strike UCAV by 2018-20.
Leonard M. Greene, co-founder of Corporate Angel Network, died in at Mamaroneck, N.Y. , on Nov. 30 after a long bout with cancer. He was 88. In 1981, Greene, with Pat Blum and Jay Weinberg, founded the nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free flights for cancer patients, using empty seats on corporate and fractional aircraft. Greene, a pilot, operated the first CAN flight on Dec. 22, 1981. Since then, White Plains, N.Y.-based CAN has arranged about 25,000 flights and continues to schedule about 200 per month among 530 participating corporations.
External camera images the Bigelow Aerospace Genesis I unmanned, privately financed inflatable space module and its solar arrays, with the Earth 300 mi. below. Genesis I was launched July 12 from the new Russian Yasny spaceport using the Dnepr commercial version of the SS-18, which is also to launch Genesis II in January. The 15 X 8-ft. Genesis I module is demonstrating how larger Bigelow inflatables could support commercial astronauts by about 2010, possibly in collaboration with Lockheed Martin (see p. 50).
I want to thank you for "Contract of Trust" by William B. Scott. I have never read an article that described flying so vividly, so realistically and so wonderfully. I have seen the Blue Angels fly and like every other person staring up in awe, I wanted to know what it was like to be up there in the cockpit. The article did that and more. Within moments of beginning the article, I was right up there, grunting in an oxygen mask, strapped in and pulling Gs while breaking out of the Diamond.
Eurocopter is to make India's largest defense manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., its aerostructure excellence center and a first-line partner for the global supply chain of airframe manufacturing, following an agreement to enlarge the production scale of the Ecureuil/Fennec. HAL has built around 600 predecessor Chetaks and Cheetahs, under license.
The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has developed a graphical display that will allow air traffic controllers, pilots and other users of aviation weather information to assess and rate areas based on icing severity. The displays are part of an upgrade to the Current Icing Product (CIP) developed with funding from the FAA.
The Airbus A350XWB industrial launch without any firm orders suggests airlines are still evaluating whether the airframer can deliver what it's promising and that a difficult sales job could lie ahead. After deliberating over program-affordability concerns, EADS (Airbus's parent) gave the go-ahead to the first three of five planned A350 versions covering a 250-375-seat capacity and range of roughly 8,300-8,500 naut. mi. The aircraft are designed to rival segments of both the Boeing 777 and 787 families.
The Korean Aerospace Research Institute has awarded Arianespace a contract to launch Coms-1, a hybrid satellite earmarked for broadband/ multimedia communications, ocean monitoring and weather forecasting applications.
British Finance Minister Gordon Brown came under fire from both trenches of the environmental front last week, following his pre-budget report. Condemned by green lobbyists for not going nearly far enough, he was also attacked by the airline sector for his increase in airline passenger duty.
Astronauts will have an easier way to monitor their closed environment in space with a new medical device set for delivery to the International Space Station on the STS-116 space shuttle mission. Using lab-on-a-chip technology, the portable test system will give ISS crews a quick readout on whether surfaces carry bacteria, mold or other contaminants. Ultimately, the system will let crews determine if they are at risk from dangerous bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella.
