U.S. Army researchers are determining whether tactical vehicles powered by hydrogen could be the wave of the future and a means of reducing dependence on increasingly expensive fossil fuels.
Market Focus 12 Allegiant Air's profits, unique approach attract notice News Breaks 19 The first modified C-5W rolled out in Marietta, Ga., this month 19 STS-121 shuttle vehicle to begin processing on Launch Pad 39B 20 Satellite images volcanic activity on Indonesia's Mount Merapi 22 Kaman, U.S. Army developing autonomous resupply helo 21 U.K.'s new satellite program to provide rural area access Berlin Air Show 2006
In a nod to its growing presence in the U.K. through AgustaWestland and Selex, Finmeccanica is looking to open its advisory board to foreign, likely British, individuals. The move is part of Finmeccanica's broader effort to expand overseas.
Filling cockpit seats, particularly at regional airlines, is likely to be more difficult than expected when as many as 8,000 pilots are currently furloughed at U.S. airlines and a future shortage is probable, according to a report by a career counseling service.
Independent regional airlines moved deftly in 2005 to preserve their business, working to broker financing packages with some of their partners as four major U.S. legacy carriers went through the revolving door of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Investigators say exploration engineers at NASA would do well to heed the lessons of the failed Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) mission, a high-risk "experiment" that grew into the $110-million first flight test for President Bush's redirected space program, without parallel growth in technical oversight.
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You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.AviationNow.com/conferences or call Lydia Janow at +1 (212) 904-3225/+1 (800) 240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada Only) Sept. 19-21--MRO Asia Conference & Exhibition, Xiamen, China. Oct. 24-26--MRO Europe Conference & Exhibition, Amsterdam. Nov. 13-15--Aerospace & Defense Programs, Phoenix. PARTNERSHIPS May 31-June 1--Global Aviation RFID Forums, Vienna, Va. www.globalaviationrfidforum.com
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. has contracted two German companies to supply production tooling for the Russian Regional Jet. Fooke GmbH. will supply portal milling machines for aluminum profiles, while Brotje Automation will provide CNC-controlled assembly stations for fuselage and wings.
The intelligence official responsible for coordinating information-sharing among the gaggle of organizations responsible for fighting terrorism has ranked handling "sensitive but unclassified" (SBU) information right up with ensuring the privacy rights of the public in his priority list.
NASA's Centennial Challenges program will join the X Prize Foundation in offering $2.5 million in prizes to teams who develop lunar lander analogs and demonstrate them in a competition scheduled this October in New Mexico. The contestants' rocket-powered vehicles should be able to take off vertically, fly a course, hover and land to simulate a trip from the lunar surface to orbit and back again. Prizes ranging from $150,000 to $1.23 million will be offered in the Oct. 22 competition, which will involve two levels of difficulty.
Darpa is at it again with its far-fetched ideas. Actually, it's been at this one since at least 2003, but officials are not giving up on the promise of odor detection. The program is now called Unique Signature Detection and falls under a broader effort called Novel Sensors for Force Protection, according to the U.S. Defense Dept.'s Fiscal 2007 budget request for research, development, test and evaluation. The detection program seeks to identify if enemy combatants have unique smells that can be used to track them.
Peter Zalizniak has become account manager for military, government and maritime sales for EMS Satcom of Ottawa. He was regional director of channel development for Iridium Satellite.
GE-Aviation is beginning the detailed design phase for the GEnx engine selected as the Boeing 747-8 powerplant (AW&ST Apr. 17, p. 48). The architectural design is complete, and this new phase will continue for more than a year. The engine contains the same technology as the engine for the Boeing 787--composites fan case and fan blades and the twin-annular, pre-swirler combustor system--but the engine has been resized, along with components, to meet the latest 747's airframe and thrust requirements. The front fan on the Boeing 747-8 engine will be 105 in.
"Can you bring a gunship to Kirtland?" That's how Rudy Martinez got involved in laser weapons. Martinez, then an operations officer, got permission to fly an AC-130 to Kirtland AFB, N.M., where the man who called showed him a classified weapon that would, he said, "revolutionize the gunship": a chemical laser. The laser was as big as the plane, Martinez recalls.
An innovative European public-private venture will test the ability of small, inexpensive telecom satellites to provide broadband and broadcasting coverage to rural and remote areas where existing ground infrastructure is inadequate. The venture, known as the Highly Adaptable Satellite (Hylas), was announced at the Case for Space Conference in London on May 15 by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Avanti Screenmedia Group of London. Avanti raised most of the financing for the project and will operate the spacecraft, to be launched toward the end of 2008.
The technology that produces electricity from sunlight could soon be in use by the Pentagon as a low-cost, high-efficiency source of energy for an experimental airship.
For those interested in a shiny new jet from Boeing, the cost just went up. The midyear hike in list prices for 2006 averages 4% across all models above 2005 levels and is attributed to "the general inflation rate for manufactured goods." In reality, aircraft list prices bear little resemblance to what customers actually pay because of discounts and such variables as performance options, interiors, avionics and fuel capacity.
The Japan International Transport Institute (JITI) is completing a study, aided by experts from the U.S. and Japan, on the usefulness of the Chicago Convention, the legal framework set up in 1944 to govern international commercial aviation. The study, expected to be released later this year, addresses the impact of government deregulation and liberalization on the document and is likely to contain amendment recommendations. Advisers include Clifford Winston, an economics scholar at the Brookings Institution, and Steve Morrison, professor and chair of the Economics Dept.
Cracks are beginning to emerge in NATO's plans to buy the TCAR multinational radar for its Allied Ground Surveillance (AGS) aircraft system. That radar may be augmented by the U.S. Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program sensor, a sophisticated active electronically scanned array radar built by a Northrop Grumman-Raytheon team. Already, NATO is limiting TCAR's application to the A321 platform while an off-the-shelf alternative may be proposed for the unmanned Global Hawk adjunct. The U.S.
Having followed your excellent coverage of the Tanker/Transport since its inception several years ago it's easy to conclude that U.S. Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) seems to have a special interest in assisting Airbus. His early multiple roadblocks derailing Boeing's submittals, in retrospect, illustrate obvious purpose. These hindrances started well before the illegal hiring of an ex-government employee and a conviction.
France's way of conducting aircraft accident investigations continues to stun the international flight safety community. Parallel technical and judicial inquiries double the amount of search work, technicians and policemen frequently interfere, while delays in the courts are fiercely criticized by all involved, including victims' relatives and lawyers. Obviously, a top-to-bottom review is urgently needed to prepare for a political initiative to devise new methods.
Maureen A. Dougherty (see photos) has been named vice president-737 Airborne Early Warning and Control programs for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Seattle. She was vice president for the F-22 program. Dougherty has been succeeded by Paul J. Bay, who was site director of IDS' Puget Sound (Wash.) area operations.
USN Rear Adm. Matthew G. Moffit has been named director of the Fleet Readiness Div. in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington. He has been commander of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, Fallon, Nev. Moffit will be succeeded by Rear Adm. (sel.) Mark T. Emerson, who has been commander of Strike Force Training Pacific, North Island, Calif.
