The long-awaited request for proposals for the Air Force's next-generation tanker competition should be out by year's end, Pentagon acquisition chief Kenneth Krieg says. He has not yet reviewed the draft of the RFP but says it's forthcoming. Krieg doesn't take a position on whether the Defense Dept. will buy a mixed fleet, which would mean dividing the work between Boeing and a Northrop Grumman-EADS North America team. "It depends on how mixed mixed is," he says.
BAE Systems has agreed to buy National Sensor Systems (NSS), a privately held Massachusetts company, for $8.7 million in cash. BAE said NSS will help expand its capabilities in airborne sensors, electronic warfare and communications.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has assigned a $47 million contract to BAE Systems to develop a web-based surveillance and targeting system to rapidly identify threats on the battlefield and speed decision-making by intelligence analysts. The BAE program is called the Global Net-Centric Surveillance and Targeting System. It uses an interface on a secured computer network to gather real-time data from a number of sensors, and then processes and fuses the information with complex algorithms, say company officials.
Following cessation of CanJet Airlines services Sept. 10, Air Canada and regional arm Air Canada Jazz is planning to add low-fare services to Eastern Canada. Starting in September, flights will be added on an as-needed basis. In October, the airline will add four weekday round-trip flights on existing routes from Halifax to Toronto, with Embraer 175s, and to Montreal, Ottawa and Deer Lake with Bombardier CRJs. Market conditions will dictate what services will be provided to the region beyond November.
A U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin C-5M Super Galaxy has completed a series of taxi tests at Edwards AFB, Calif., aimed at validating the heavy transport's new engine pylon as part of the airplane's Reliability Enhancement and Re-Engining Program. The tests focused on evaluating structural characteristics of the C-5M's General Electric CF6-80C2 engines and pylons during operations on rough surfaces. The engines increase thrust by 22%, which results in a 30% reduction in takeoff distance and a 58% improvement in climb rate compared with earlier versions of the C-5 Galaxy.
A Herculean effort by the launch team here and shuttle engineers across the U. S. took the orbiter Atlantis to the precipice of its launch window, but allowed the STS-115 astronauts to begin revival of station assembly this week, pending expected launch Sept. 8-9. The difficulty involved an electric current irregularity in a coolant pump for orbiter Fuel Cell 1.
Aled Miles has become president/ chief operating officer of Helinet Aviation Services, Van Nuys, Calif. He was vice president/managing director for the Symantec Corp.'s European, Middle East and African operations. New members of the board of directors are: Barry Frank, vice chairman of IMG Media; former U.S. Army Secretary Louis Caldera; James Hunt, managing director of Bison Capital; Helinet founder Alan Purwin; and Helinet CEO David Calvert-Jones.
USAF Maj. Gen. (select) Ronald R. Ladnier has become vice commander of the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Air Mobility Command (AMC), Scott AFB, Ill. He was director of resource integration/deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. He succeeds Brig. Gen. Donald Lustig, who has been named AMC inspector general. Brig. Gen. Charles R.
Ted Yellman may not have experienced the pressure that pilots face to make schedule where "adverse environmental conditons" or faulty equipment are not acceptable excuses for delay or cancellation, but assigning accident "causation" to pilot error does little to determine the root cause of an accident (AW&ST Aug. 21/28, p. 10). An aircraft accident is a series of events, many of which occur routinely on flights. When initial events are not handled properly, or undetected, later events become more serious and can lead to an accident.
After a tough year of snags and a major cost overrun, Global Hawk program officials are saying completion of load testing on the new high-flying unmanned aerial vehicle's wing is a validation of its design. The new wing, which is larger than its predecessor, achieved 132% of the expected load during the final trial of load tests last week. Performance exceeded the requirement, which was to achieve 125% of the total load before the massive wing snapped. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor; Vought is building the structure.
Astronaut Ellen Ochoa has been promoted to director from deputy director of flight crew operations at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. She succeeds astronaut Ken Bowersox, who will become an assistant to the JSC director. Ochoa will be succeeded by astronaut Mike Bloomfield. Astronaut Steve Lindsey will become chief of the Astronaut Office, following Kent Rominger, who is leaving NASA.
USAF Col. (ret.) David A. Carlson (Melbourne, Fla.)
Now that the U.S. Air Force has decided that 193 C-130Es, 14 MC-130Es and 29 HC-130N/Ps are not worth upgrading in the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP), how should they be replaced? The 20 Naval Air Reserve C-130Ts, 28 Marine Air Reserve KC-130Ts and 14 active Marine KC-130Rs could be transferred to the active Air Force after being replaced by new KC-130Js. This would give the Navy and Marines, active and reserve, a common C-130. These Navy/Marine KC/C-130Js would replace active USAF grounded and operationally limited KC/C-130s.
Europe's Smart-1 lunar orbiter crashed into the Moon's Sea of Excellence Sept. 3 as planned, just three weeks short of a three-year mission that demonstrated several advanced spacecraft technologies and produced valuable data on Earth's natural satellite right up to the end. The European Space Agency's control center in Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed touchdown at 1:42 a.m. EDT, when the New Norcia ground station in Australia lost radio contact with the probe. Launched Sept.
A 2006 one-meter resolution image, taken at an altitude of 423 mi., shows the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Iran. Iran announced plans to begin installing the first of 3,000 centrifuges in its underground halls in late 2006. But there is speculation in Washington's defense community that installation has been deferred out of fear that Natanz would be a primary target for military attack. There is also U.S. concern that key Iranian capabilities are instead being set up in secret, so far unknown facilities (see p. 44).
A pathfinder satellite slated to demonstrate eight new space technologies and a powerful supercomputer for inflight data processing is in its final stages of testing, on track for a December launch. Developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Cibola Flight Experiment (CFE) will validate a power-supply system, inflatable antennas, deployable booms, a new launch-vehicle-separation concept and a high-density pack of AA-size lithium-ion batteries.
With its increasing focus on Asia, and an anticipated 30% rise in traffic over the next year, Finnair is looking to buy four new Airbus A340s by the end of 2008 to serve the growing market. By Dec. 31, with an average load factor of 80% on its Asian sectors, Finnair will have flown around one million passengers this year on its Asian flights, says President/CEO Jukka Hienonen.
MARKET FOCUS Fuel hedging makes all the difference for airline stocks 11 NEWS BREAKS First flight for Boeing 737-900ER; service entry expected in 2008 15 LockMart plans to take over marketing of commercial launch services on Atlas Vs 16 Npoess Preparatory Project spacecraft completes some first-phase testing 17 Next-Generation satellite for Orbital Express heads for the Cape 18 Ladislao Pazmany, designer of series of light aircraft, dies 18 SATCOM
Defense Dept. spending on goods and services grew to more than $250 billion in Fiscal 2005, but the staff that keeps an eye on all those contracts hasn't kept pace. Defense Dept. contract obligations increased 88% in the past five years while the acquisition workforce stayed flat at about 70,000, according to a defense contracting study by the Government Accountability Office.
Robert Wall (Paris), Pierre Sparaco (Toulouse), Douglas Barrie (London)
Airbus's new chief, Christian Streiff, is set to soon unveil his strategy for moving the aircraft maker into a new phase. His overarching goal will be to end the two-year period of tumult that has been marked by major personnel and structural changes.
Inmarsat will start a new global satellite phone service in cooperation with an Indonesian partner and launch a third broadband spacecraft, in a further sign of renewed vigor in the mobile satellite system business.
Poland will become part of NATO's E-3A AWACS program later this year, making it the 16th partner. Hungarian officers started flying as part of the AWACS team in July. The 17 alliance-owned aircraft are based in Geilenkirchen, Germany.
AirTran Airways is "working on a plan to reduce our growth in the 2007 and 2008 time frame," says Chief Financial Officer Stan Gadek. In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the carrier said a softening of demand started at the end of August and appeared to be continuing into September. Gadek attributed the trend to last month's terrorist arrests in England, Tropical Storm Ernesto and capacity additions on the East Coast. The company said it expects the year-over-year percentage growth of its third-quarter revenue to be in the low single digits.
Boeing's newest variant of the 737, the -900ER, has begun its flight test program with the goal of achieving certification next year. The inaugural, 45-min. flight took place Sept. 5 from Boeing's Renton, Wash., facility, piloted by company flight test pilots Capts. Ray Craig and Van Chaney. The flight test program, which will include a second aircraft, is to accumulate 235 hr., with another 210 hr. of ground tests planned.
Preston Bentley, a 26-year-old charter pilot, will attempt a 30-day, 48-state cross-country flight beginning Sept. 17 from the Blue Ash, Ohio, Air Show, in a donated Sky Skooter T-11. Bentley is honoring a cousin, Seth Bailey, who died in 2004 at age 21 from a rare disease, and is trying to raise $500,000 for the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati, which cared for Bailey during many visits to Cincinnati Children's Hospital. IndUS Aviation of Dallas donated the light sport aircraft.
