The mission of training pilots to fly the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter has been assigned to the U.S. Air Force's 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Fla. The unit will include all the U.S. services and an international cadre and will operate all three versions of the aircraft including conventional, short takeoff and aircraft carrier variants. The wing's F-15s will be redistributed by 2010, the same year that the first F-35s arrive.
Tough times, largely induced by high fuel prices, are hurting airline investment in Asia. Beijing-based Air China had to scale back its initial public offering by nearly 40% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Investment analysts blamed the fall on broader market concerns within China. But airline analyst Peter Harbison, executive chairman of the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, sees it as part of a broader "crisis of investor confidence" in Asia-Pacific airlines. The driving issue is the continued high price of fuel. Japan Airlines is facing similar investor revolt (see p.
The articles and editorial on technology transfer in your July 17 issue brought back memories of the early 1980s, when the Defense Dept. attempted to curtail publication of and access to American scientific research and technologies. The intent was to prevent exploitation by the Soviet Union.
South African Airways is to sell 49% of its stake in Air Tanzania, cutting a five-year strategic alliance. It reportedly wants to recover $20 million it had infused into Air Tanzania. The partnership ended in March when the SAA board resolved to strike Air Tanzania off its books.
Peter Loverso has been appointed acting federal security director (FSD) at Charleston (S.C.) International Airport. He was the Transportation Security Administration's acting general manager for mass transit and passenger rail.
James A. Van Allen, the Iowa physicist who discovered the radiation belts around Earth that carried his name on the first U.S. orbital space mission, and went on to explore deep into the solar system, died Aug. 9 of heart failure. He was 91. A professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa (seen here in 1960) with a long-time specialty of studying space radiation, Van Allen's Iowa team was the logical choice to provide a payload for the U.S. response when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I--and the Cold War space race--on Oct. 4, 1957.
The questions were asked for the first time more than 40 years ago: Will Japan's aerospace industry eventually evolve into a world-class player? Will powerful groups such as Fuji, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi join forces to develop, for example, next-generation commercial transports?
The Italian transportation ministry's civil aviation body, ENAC, has levied a 150,000-euro ($192,000) fine against Air One for failing to support and compensate passengers caught up in a series of 87 flight cancellations and heavy delays in the July 29-31 travel period; smaller schedule disturbances occurred into August. The fine marks the first time ENAC has used its new powers granted through European Union air-passenger rights legislation. The fine will triple if the airline does not pay within 60 days.
Boeing intends to offer an F-15E+ "Super Eagle" to the U.S. Air Force as a less-expensive gapfiller if congressional proposals to delay the Joint Strike Fighter's production are sustained in budget negotiations this summer.
The European aerospace industry is looking to further compress the aircraft design process through building on advances in wind-tunnel testing After about a decade of refining the system, the European Transonic Windtunnel (ETW) is starting to make its impact felt. And Airbus and Dassault Aviation are among the airframers that would like to capitalize on the British, Dutch, French and German investment.
Four U.S. universities will share $100 million in NASA funds to develop payloads for a planned 2012 mission to study near-Earth space radiation, an investigation that has also drawn support from the National Reconnaissance Office. For starters, the schools will spend $4.2 million to define costs and management and technical issues on the Radiation Belt Storm Probes. The two spacecraft will study the effects of space storms on the radiation trapped in Earth's magnetic fields, with implications for protecting astronauts, spacecraft and jet transports flying polar routes.
Please note that the dollar-amount cut-off point for Aviation Week & Space Technology's Product Breakthrough Award is now $800 million (AW&ST June 26, p. 13). Nominations will be accepted through Sept. 10. Finalists will be notified by Oct. 10. Contact Patricia Parmalee ([email protected]) for entry forms.
The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Aug. 3 confirmed President Bush's National Transportation Safety Board nominees. Mark V. Rosenker will serve a two-year term as chairman, succeeding Ellen Engleman Conners. He has been acting chairman since March 2005. Robert L. Sumwalt, 3rd, will serve as a member until Dec. 31, 2011. He was manager of aviation for the Scana Corp., a US Airways pilot for 24 years and group chairman for human factors and training at the Air Line Pilots Assn.
The In Orbit item "Closet Space" (AW&ST July 3, p. 14) brings to mind the fate of the Multi-Purpose Logistic Modules. After the 2010 space shuttle retirement, they will become early International Space Station museum artifacts. Perhaps it's not too late to consider leaving one attached to ISS to provide additional pressured volume. Such an MPLM would need to be retrofitted with micrometeoroid and orbital debris protection, but would help alleviate the inevitable accumulation of supplies, equipment and disposable items on ISS.
High fuel costs are propelling European airlines to ask regulators to examine pricing, with carriers struggling to match savings measures with ever greater fuel bills.
A graphic accompanying a Face to Face feature in last week's magazine (AW&ST Aug. 7, p. 60) gave an incorrect title for John W. Douglass of the Aerospace Industries Assn. He is president/CEO.
NASA and the Air Force will cooperate on future aeronautics research under an agreement signed by Administrator Michael Griffin and Sec. Michael Wynne. Intended to reduce duplication of effort and expand information sharing "when security guidelines permit," the Aug. 7 pact establishes a joint "executive research committee" to oversee aeronautics research and development by both organizations.
The Pentagon is poised to exceed its foreign military sales (FMS) projection for the year and could beat its high of $13.5 billion set in 2004. As of last month, the Pentagon had already generated $11.8 billion in FMS business--about $1.1 billion short of its Fiscal 2009 forecast. Historically, about 33% of the deals occur in the fourth quarter, says Richard J. Millies, deputy director at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, and all signs indicate that a new record may be set.
New Zealand has placed a firm order for nine NH-90s to be used by its air force to replace Iroquois transports. Only eight of the helos will be used operationally, with another functioning as a reserve.
Key choices on the future of the U.K.'s strategic nuclear capability will be determined "in the near-term," with Defense Ministry decisions on whether to take part in the U.S. life-extension program for the Trident D5 missile, and on extending the life, or replacing, the Vanguard-class submarine. The U.S. Navy's D5 life-extension program would see the missile in service beyond 2040. A decision to take part in the D5 life-extension program would tie the U.K. to a submarine-launched deterrent for the coming three decades or more.
Shuttle mission STS-121 astronaut Mike Fossum maneuvers at the top of Discovery's Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) with astronaut Piers Sellers, in red stripes, below as they fly at 17,500 mph. and 220-mi. altitude. The International Space Station's port truss is at left with ISS solar arrays at top. The crew demonstrated that the Canadian MD Robotics OBSS, extending 100 ft. with the shuttle arm, can be a stable work platform for orbiter autonomous thermal protection system repairs.
Riding an industry-wide revenue spurt that has lifted all airlines into the black, at least temporarily, United Airlines and Frontier Airlines earned substantial if unspectacular profits during the second quarter. But each is bucking a major industry trend.
Russia's senior military officer has just published an article denouncing U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans. The authoritative nature of the critique by Gen. Yurii Baluyevskiy, chief of the Russian General Staff, is evident in the decision to publish the text under his own name in Russia's leading defense weekly, Voenno-Promishlenniy Kur'er. Among other points, Baluyevskiy accuses U.S. officials of seeking strategic supremacy by negating the nuclear deterrents of both Russia and China.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] Aug. 29-31--SAE's General Aviation Technology Conference & Exhibition. Wichita (Kan.) Hyatt. Call +1 (724) 776-4841, fax +1 (724) 776-0790 or see www.aerospace.sae.org Aug. 29-31--AUVSI's Unmanned Systems North America 2006. Orlando, Fla. Call +1 (703) 845-9671 or see www.auvsi.org
The British government is scrambling to address rotary-lift and unmanned aerial vehicle shortfalls, harshly exposed by ongoing operations in Afghanistan. At the top of the ministerial agenda is finally sorting out a near-farcical Chinook procurement. Providing deployed forces with unmanned aerial vehicle support is also coming to the fore. The U.K. has committed 3,500-plus personnel for operations in southern Afghanistan over the next three years.
