Bombardier Aerospace has selected Lufthansa Technik to provide its Total Support Program for the CRJ 50-90-seat regional jet program. Auxiliary power unit, landing gear, wheels, tires, brakes and rotables are covered. Bombardier signed a similar contract recently with SAS Component for its Q400 program.
Eurocontrol has launched air-ground safety initiatives that will lead to a variety of actions in the next year and a half. National air safety authorities are being asked to ensure that flight-crew proficiency checks cover air-ground communications issues including standard phraseology, procedures and best practices for air crews and air traffic controllers. Other major aviation organizations are involved.
A decision by Italy's high administrative court to suspend a decree that Alitalia take over bankrupt Volare is causing new turmoil and delays in resolving the airline's fate. Alitalia has paid for Volare and is running the company after a ministerial decree issued in March that saw the Italian flag carrier win an auction against rival Air One by bidding 38 million euros ($48 million). Volare is supposed to serve as Alitalia's low-cost carrier. The court, however, says that because of irregularities in the proceedings, a new auction should be held.
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Three months after launching Astro-F, JAXA has completed instrument checkout and unveiled initial infrared-camera images of a galaxy and nebula thousands of light-years from Earth that establish the satellite as an important new IR observatory. Also called Akari, the 925-kg. (2,035-lb.) Astro-F is in a 462-mi.-high polar orbit and carries with it a 68.5-cm. telescope cooled to 6K that can observe in wavelengths from 1.7 (near infrared) to 180 (far-IR) microns.
David Gonski has been named to the board of directors of Singapore Airlines Ltd. He is chairman of the Investec Group in Australia and chairman of Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd.
I am not an astronaut, but on historical grounds I feel very confident in predicting that if safety is the primary concern of our explorers, we will not return to Earth's Moon or go anywhere else in the Solar System. Deep Space flight is the most difficult task humanity has tackled since learning to travel confidently over our world's oceans. Safety was not the primary concern then, and if we want to succeed it cannot be now.
The STS-121 shuttle vehicle including Discovery on its modified external tank will begin processing on Launch Pad 39B this week after being stacked in the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Vehicle Assembly Building (right). Rollout to the pad was scheduled for May 19 aiming toward a liftoff as early as July 1 (see p. 58). As Discovery headed to the pad, so did the payload for its mission to the International Space Station.
British defense contractor TRL Technology is drawing inspiration from Cerberus, the giant, three-headed watchdog of Hades. Like the mythological creature, TRL's Cerberus Portable Radar and Optical Surveillance System has three heads: 360-deg. radar protection, day-or-night optical surveillance and a remote-monitoring mapping interface. Cerberus is in production, and the company is negotiating to sell it, but won't say with whom or for how much. The technology was unveiled in late March. TRL says the rugged Cerberus trailer can be deployed in just 15 min.
Russia is bent on attracting NATO support for the upgrade of its venerable Il-76 fighter and to bring Europe into a project to build a new-generation space transportation system as it broadens its attempt to integrate its aerospace industry into the international market.
VT Group is bouncing back from any disappointment over the failure of its joint bid with BAE Systems for Babcock with a robust set of preliminary results. Revenues for the British defense, support services and shipbuilding company grew by 15% between March and the same quarter last year, to a total of 847 million pounds ($1.59 billion). Pre-tax profit increased by 33% to 55.5 million pounds. Its defense and U.S. services business units are the two largest revenue earners in the group. Turnover for VT Services Inc. rose by 53% to 208.1 million pounds.
Field Aviation of Toronto, Canada, will supply the Swedish Coast Guard with three Bombardier Dash 8 Q300s converted to a maritime surveillance aircraft (MSA) configuration under an $80-million contract. Each aircraft will be equipped with long-range fuel tanks, a maritime search radar, an electro-optical/infrared pod, side-looking radar and an infrared/ultraviolet line scanner. The sensor will feed an L-3 Communications integrated data handling system.
The U.S. Navy's nascent fleet of electric ships, designed to produce tens of megawatts of power, could be the technological bridge that moves directed energy from large, earthbound systems to full-scale, highly mobile weapons.
The first installation of an advanced Internet-based intelligence-sharing network called the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) is slated to begin in early fall at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. DCGS is the initial link in a network that would function as a single enterprise system for receiving, processing and disseminating U.S. multi-service and space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data.
European missile manufacturer MBDA is remaining coy about the details of its first test firing of the Meteor rocket-ramjet missile. A test shot was carried out on May 9 from a Saab Gripen.
Despite successful testing of its first autonomous unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) in January, the U.S. Navy is forgoing production in favor of a more advanced system. Boeing's Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System (LMRS) achieved the first docking of a UUV with a nuclear attack submarine while both were underway. The Navy is applying the lessons learned from that 20-ft.-long, single-mission, mine-detecting vehicle to a more affordable multimission UUV that can be reconfigured with modular payloads.
Indian has ordered $500 million worth of CFM56-5B engines to power its fleet of 43 Airbus A320 family of aircraft scheduled for delivery from late 2006-10.
Military planners in the U.S., Europe and Scandinavia are pressing ahead with development of hybrid diesel-electric armored vehicles, convinced of the advantages they will provide in efficiency, fuel consumption, plug-in mobile electric power and noise reduction. However, after millions of dollars and years of research, the technology is not quite ready for prime time.
Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) fears about the U.S. Air Force's contract to buy C-130J cargo airlifters using a commercial contracting method have been allayed. McCain last year complained that using commercial regulations for the 60-aircraft, multiyear buy crippled Congress's ability to monitor cost and other procurement data. The Air Force's first attempt to shift the contract to a traditional military procurement last year was unsuccessful, and McCain sent service officials back to the drawing board on the $6.6-billion program.
Austrian VIP charter operator JetAlliance is adding to its fleet of Airbus business jets, taking an A318 Elite to be outfitted by Lufthansa Technik. The company bought an A319 Airbus Corporate Jet a few weeks ago, its first Airbus purchase.
Six initial images from Astro-F, the infrared observatory that the Japanese space agency JAXA launched in February, are to be released May 22 in Tokyo. Project Manager Hiroshi Murakami says he was surprised and pleased by their quality. They are of the M81 galaxy and reflected nebula images of IC4954. The spacecraft has ongoing problems with two sun sensors that have limited its field of view relative to the Sun.
Eutelsat has awarded Arianespace a contract to launch its W2M spacecraft, ordered in early 2006. The launch--the fifth won by the company this year--is set for the second-quarter of 2008.
Tupolev officials say delivery of the first of five Rolls-Royce-powered Tu-204-120s intended for China is now set for September. Officials said options for 23 aircraft--five 120s and 18 PS-90A-powered Tu-204-100s--hinge on the success of the first unit, whose handover is way behind the initial delivery timetable.
USAF Col. (ret.) David A. Carlson (Melbourne, Fla.)
Larry Robert's (AW&ST Mar. 27, p. 8) and Art Moss's (AW&ST May 1, p. 8) suggestions about using the C-17 as a tanker transport are worthy of consideration. It would provide the Air Force with more than the 183 C-17s, and reduce the number of aircraft types. It is possible with minimal modifications the C-17 could refuel drogue-equipped aircraft. It must be determined that fighters can fly in refueling position behind the C-17 wings.
Britain has concluded a series of trials of the Boeing ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) being operated from the Type 23 frigate HMS Sutherland. The UAV was launched and recovered from the ship. The UAV provided real-time imagery to the ship, a Sea King helicopter, and to a command center via a satellite link during the tests.
