The Royal Air Force is beginning to reap the benefits of a radio frequency identification (RFID) system being put through its paces at RAF Cottesmore in the east of England. The base, home to the Joint Force Harrier, is testing a system that is managed on the industrial side by defense technology company Qinetiq. The proof of concept trial, using active RFID tags, is aimed at rapidly locating high-value test and role equipment.
Bureaucrats are emerging as the biggest obstacle to Ryanair's brash offer to acquire Aer Lingus and create an Irish airline powerhouse capable of competing with its continental rivals. After years of pointing to Aer Lingus as an example of everything wrong with non-low-fare carriers, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary now promises to cure those ills, from high fares to fuel surcharges, if his takeover bid is allowed to proceed.
With the commissioning last week of the new Hot Bird 8 from its 13 deg. E. Long. broadcasting neighborhood, Eutelsat will move the older HB3 spacecraft to 10 deg. E., alongside W1. Renamed Eurobird 10, this 20 K u-band transponder unit will help meet heavy demand for TV, HDTV and terrestrial broadband feed.
NASA's long-term robotic Mars exploration program will be shaped in part by data from the scientific probes already operating at the planet and those planned for launch in the next three opportunities. Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the U.S. agency's Mars exploration program, tells an IAC plenary session the path is unclear following the Mars Science Lab rover set for launch in 2009, a 2011 Mars Scout mission in competition right now and launch of a proposed aeronomy orbiter to study the evolution of the Martian atmosphere in 2013.
The U.S. Air Force's new space commander is raising the space-surveillance bar well beyond simply counting and tracking objects in orbit. He intends to fully characterize a spacecraft's movements, capabilities and purpose.
Olivier Jankovec has become director-general of Brussels-based Airports Council International-Europe. He succceeds Roy Griffins, who has retired. Jankovec was director of strategy and communications.
The editorial about the Comair crash (AW&ST Sept. 4, p. 58)--though dealing with the need for standard operating procedures (SOPs), a sterile cockpit and enhanced technology in the tower, cockpit and on the ground to avoid this kind of accident--misses the boat. Simple technology--GPS-based moving maps with airport diagrams--could be an answer. The chance of an incorrect runway lineup is virtually eliminated when pilots see taxiing progress on the actual airport diagram. Why isn't this on board every commercial airliner?
Comair has submitted a bid to parent company Delta Air Lines for future regional flying assignments, but its management does not expect to win new work in the competition with other regional airlines--and Comair may even lose some aircraft. The bid does not reflect restructuring cost targets for pilots, since management was unable to reach an agreement with the Air Line Pilots Assn. unit by the Oct. 2 deadline.
Lufthansa Technik and its regional jet maintenance expert, Lufthansa CityLine, have signed an exclusive five-year total technical support agreement with Nigeria's Arik Air, which is scheduled to start operations Oct. 17. The deal covers the carrier's two new Boeing 737-300s and three Bombardier CRJ200s and three CRJ900s. Lufthansa CityLine also will take over complete line maintenance support at the carrier's hub in Lagos. Lufthansa Technik, together with Bombardier Aerospace, launched the new Total Support Program for the CRJ aircraft family.
Kathleen L. Kraninger has become director of the Office of Screening Coordination for the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. She was a staff member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and had been a policy adviser to the Transportation and Homeland Security secretaries.
Charles Armitage, a London-based analyst for Merrill Lynch, laid out the gloomy landscape at EADS in a note to his clients. Yet another slip in deliveries of Airbus's A380 is upping the cost of the mega-transport's delays to €2.8 billion ($3.6 billion) through 2010 (see p. 26). Add to that an estimated €2 billion to convert orders for the A350 into the redesigned A350XWB and cover overruns from EADS's A400M long-range military transport. And, he cautions, "We still do not have the complete certainty that this is it."
CFM International has received certification from the FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency for its CFM56-5B technology insertion package, which is supposed to deliver longer time on wing by boosting exhaust temperature margins of 15-20C. Approval clears the way for the engine to be flight tested on an Airbus A320 this year, with aircraft certification expected early 2007.
Jeff Connelly has become Pacific Region senior program manager for Lockheed Martin Systems Management, Centreville, Va. He is a retired U.S. Navy officer who was commander of the Pacific Missile Range Facility.
The National Test Pilot School's Masters of Flight Test Engineering (FTE) program has been accredited by ABET Inc., which assesses college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering and technology. The Mojave, Calif.-based school satisfied a set of stringent criteria established by ABET's Engineering Accreditation Commission, becoming the first institution in the FTE field to be accredited, says Sean Roberts, NTPS director.
About 1,100 unionized production and assembly workers at Bombardier's Learjet plant in Wichita, Kan., shocked the company by walking off the job last week, rejecting a contract negotiated and endorsed by the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. It was the first strike in Learjet's 46-year history. About 1,200 nonunionized workers remained on the job. Union members, whose pay was frozen in the last three-year pact, say Bombardier's offer of a 10% raise over the next three years is insufficient.
Escalating activity at suspected underground nuclear weapon test sites in North Korea is reinforcing a declaration by Kim Jong Il's regime that it will detonate a fission-type nuclear device, ostensibly to deter a "U.S. threat of aggression."
Astrobiologists are digging in--literally--on Mars to learn more about the subsurface environments where life might exist in fossil, dormant or active form. NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and ESA's ExoMars rovers both will probe beneath the surface where microbial life is protected from ultraviolet radiation and other killers. Those results will help future exploration planners decide how to protect Martian life from human-borne microbes, and humans from microbial Martians.
Laura Holmes (see photo) has been named general manager of customer training for Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, Conn., and Beijing. Dev Rudra has become general manager of Pratt & Whitney Global Services' Asian Compressor Technology Services in Taiwan. He was vanes business unit manager at Pratt's Connecticut Airfoil Repair Operations. Kevin Kirkpatrick (see photo) has been appointed general manager of Global Services' Lansing (Mich.) AutoAir facility. He was general manager of the company's International Aerospace Tubes unit in Indianapolis.
New deep-penetrating, bunker-buster bomb designs still interest USAF. Boeing won a $9-million, three-year contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory at Eglin AFB, Fla., to design and test a large penetrating munition, demonstrate its lethality against multi-story buildings with hardened bunkers and tunnels, and reduce technology risk for development.
The U.S. Defense Dept. has ordered $57 million worth of M211 special material decoys used on military aircraft as missile countermeasures from Alloy Surfaces of Philadelphia. In addition, the Defense Dept. has ordered $23 million worth of M206 and MJU-7A/B infrared countermeasures for the U.S. Air Force from Kilgore Flares Co. Both concerns are units of the U.K.'s Chemring Group.
John A. Maguire has been promoted to general manager of the new NASA Div. from principal director of the NASA and Other Civil Programs Directorate for The Aerospace Corp. in its Rosslyn, Va., office. Also appointed were David A. Bearden as principal director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Advanced Systems Directorate in Pasadena, Calif., and Francesco Bordi as principal scientist and liaison with the NASA chief engineer at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
NASA will try to get the space shuttle Discovery underway for another International Space Station assembly mission as early as Dec. 7 to give hard-pressed ground crews at Kennedy Space Center more time off during the holidays later in the month. The launch window was originally set to open a week later, and there is a conflict on the range with an Atlas V launch Dec. 8-9. Agency managers are negotiating the Dec. 7 date with Lockheed Martin and the Air Force, and have not formally reserved the range.
The U.S. Navy's new MH-60R Seahawk is bringing orders-of-magnitude improvements to surface and undersea warfare, both in open ocean and close-to-shore littoral environments. The next-generation submarine hunter's sophisticated mission avionics also make the helicopter a critical node in the maritime service's network-centric warfare architecture.
