NASA is mounting an alternate effort to develop thermal protection system (TPS) materials to protect the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle during a return from lunar orbit, after having disappointing results from the primary development program. The agency said it will procure alternate TPS materials and enclosing structures for the high-speed lunar-return reentry. A draft RPF is due out Nov. 1, with the final expected Nov. 13.
Bob Jordan has become executive vice president-strategy, procurement and technology; Ron Ricks executive vice president-law, airports and public affairs; and Lori Rainwater vice president-internal audit for Southwest Airlines. Jan Marshall has been promoted to vice president-technology/chief information officer from chief development officer and Kerry Schwab to vice president/chief technology officer from director of application architecture.
The fate of the F-35 and F-22 may be linked to other high-profile programs. The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon MP-RTIP modular radar, designed for the Global Hawk and E-10 surveillance aircraft, suffered a funding cut, and the E-10 and its Wide Area Surveillance Radar (WASR) were zeroed. Although the E-10 won't be resuscitated, England has privately assured lawmakers that the overall radar program will be saved and the WASR will be put on older E-8 Joint Stars aircraft, whose radar has run into supportability problems.
Three North American airlines with large Boeing 737 fleets hope to improve spare engine productivity by as much as 30-50%, thanks to a new cooperative agreement organized by lessor Willis Lease Finance Corp. The arrangement will create a pool of CFM56-7B engines, which will be shared among American, Southwest and WestJet. Together, the three carriers have about 450 aircraft, which will be serviced by the new agreement. Willis has been working with the airlines for more than five years on this endeavor.
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Low-fare startup Skybus, based in Columbus, Ohio, has placed a first order for 65 Airbus A319s. The carrier plans to begin operations with leased A319s next spring. The seating layout and route structure have yet to be announced.
David Scott Orner has been appointed director, Antares Reis vice president, and Oliver Althoff, Andrea Zana and Alejandro Henriquez assistant vice presidents in the Aerospace and Defense Finance Group of New York-based CIT Aerospace. Orner will be responsible for originations in Eastern North America. He and Henriquez were executives at ING Capital. Reis will be based in London and responsible for originating and leading financial solutions for European aerospace and defense companies. He was assistant vice president at GE Commercial Finance.
Valerie I. Lang (see photo) has been promoted to assistant general manager of the corporate Chief Architect/Engineer Div. from principal director of systems engineering and acquisition at The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif.
With maximum commonality now assured, British and French military planners are beginning to discuss a structure for tying together their new aircraft carrier programs.
Questions about the position of an orientation antenna on the Progress resupply vehicle that arrived at the International Space Station Oct. 26 delayed hatch opening by a day and required a partial station powerdown, but posed no other major issues for either spacecraft. Controllers at Mission Control Center-Moscow didn't receive telemetry indicating one of five orientation antennas on the front of the Progress vehicle had retracted as required, raising concerns it might block the docking mechanism from achieving a solid seal.
Randy Nelson has become senior vice president-product development and engineering and David Bernstorf vice president-airworthiness, certification and technical engineering for the Raytheon Aircraft Co., Wichita, Kan. Nelson was vice president-research and advanced technology for the Cessna Aircraft Co., also in Wichita. Bernstorf was a product development executive for the Beech Aircraft division of Raytheon.
Lufthansa is opting for Rolls-Royce Trent 700s to power its new Airbus A330s. Lufthansa is buying the A330s partially as a capacity bridge due to A380 delays. The first of the A330s is to be delivered in early 2008.
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s recent earnings reports paint a picture of a company that has been masterful in squeezing more profits out of its operations. Going back over the last six quarters, the defense and information technology giant posted only modest year-over-year revenue increases of 4%, 7%, 9%, 5%, 9% and 6%. But net income during the same periods rose by 47%, 26%, 60%, 44%, 39% and 56%.
VERY LIGHT JETS CONTINUED TO GARNER A LOT OF ATTENTION on the exhibit floor at the National Business Aviation Assn. convention in Orlando, Fla., two weeks ago. One receiving much positive notice is the Embraer Phenom 100 (due to enter service in mid-2008). Sitting in the roomy cockpit of the mockup of the new 1,160-naut.-mi.-range aircraft, all you can see is glass. Round-dial instruments are banished and the front panel is graced with three high-definition displays. The completely integrated Garmin Prodigy flight deck provides all the data pilots will need on two 12-in.
The first openly identified mission for a Boeing Delta IV launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., is undergoing final preparations there for a Nov. 4 liftoff. The U.S. Air Force F-17 payload is the second in the Lockheed Martin Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Block 5D-3 series. Including F-17, the company has four spacecraft awaiting launch. The others are maintained for DMSP operations at Lockheed Martin Space Systems' Sunnyvale, Calif., storage facility.
Business aviation is an incubator for avionics innovation, and now it's spurring revolutionary developments in enhanced and synthetic vision as well as new display options.
A pair of U.S./German satellites has added to the body of evidence that global warming is melting the polar ice caps, generating data that the Greenland ice sheet is losing almost 100 gigatons of ice per year. The twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) spacecraft detect changes in the mass of the part of Earth directly below with precise measurements of the distance between them as they orbit in close formation.
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Boeing has opened the swing tail on its 747 Large Cargo Freighter for the first time, as part of the aircraft's certification process. The tail allows direct insertion of full-diameter fuselage barrels and full-length wing boxes for the 787. As of last week, the first LCF had accumulated 270 hr. of ground tests and 55 flight-test hours.
Whether or not the Chinese and South Koreans search ships leaving North Korea for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the U.S. has other ways to prevent shipment. So says Mario Mancuso, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for special operations and combating terrorism. He says that special operations forces have the capability to derail shipments intended to proliferate WMDs. Moreover, the U.S. also has far broader capabilities. "We're doing things across the spectrum," Mancuso says.
At Vokel air base in the Netherlands, the flying weather was excellent on Sept. 21. A Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16BM was making touch-and-go landings. Two local photographers where snapping away, including Peter de Vos, at the end of the runway, and Rene Wilthof. Wilthof says he was about to head home when the F-16 made a low pass over one of the parallel runways and he heard a loud bang as a "big flame" shot out the engine exhaust. The pilot pulled straight up to gain altitude in order to bail out, Wilthof says. Several more explosions followed with more flames.
EADS and SITA have agreed to cooperate on developing airport information systems aimed at speeding aircraft turnaround times. The two groups will work on melding mobile radio and information technology: EADS will focus on the radio element, where its Secure Networks unit has expertise, while SITA will concentrate on the IT aspects.
