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.
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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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.
