It's not surprising that Singapore Aero Engine Services Ltd. regards the Trent 1000--an engine choice on the Boeing 787--as "the next logical step" for its engine repair lineup. SAESL is Rolls-Royce's biggest Trent engine service center.
The first of 48 F-16s ordered for the Polish air force flew Mar. 14 at Lockheed Martin's facilities in Fort Worth. The airplanes, configured to Block 52+ standards, are scheduled for delivery beginning later this year and will be the most advanced versions of the fighter within NATO. Irma Sipple, director of the Poland F-16 program for Lockheed Martin, says the first fighter will be flown to Edwards AFB, Calif., next month for a series of systems-specific tests.
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) Apr. 25-27--MRO USA Conference & Exhibition 2006, Phoenix. May 16-17--MRO Military Europe, in conjunction with ILA air show, Berlin. Sept. 19-21--MRO Asia Conference & Exhibition, Xiamen, China. Oct. 24-26--MRO Europe Conference & Exhibition, Amsterdam. Nov. 13-15--Aerospace & Defense Programs, Phoenix.
Aero Vodochody has completed its 100th S-76C airframe, Serial No. 624, for Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. Aero has been supplying helicopters, excluding dynamic parts and final interiors, to Sikorsky since 2000, and says volume is increasing in the double digits each year. Although the Czech manufacturer has been striving to diversify its aerostructures business, Sikorsky still accounts for 90% of its sales in this area.
The U.S. Air Force and Britain's Royal Navy have awarded Raytheon a $346-million contract to supply Block IV Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles. This is the third installment of a multi-year contract that could total $1.6 billion. Fiscal 2006 production calls for 473 missiles, 65 of which are the torpedo tube-launched variant for Britain.
Bruce Chudoba (see photos) has been promoted to principal director from associate principal director in the Electronic Programs Div. of the National Systems Group of The Aerospace Corp.'s Chantilly, Va., office. Christopher T. Knapp has been promoted to principal engineer in the division from senior engineering specialist supporting the GPS program at the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB and East Coast national-security space offices. In the Rosslyn, Va., office, Allan W.
The first Boeing 767, referred to as VA1, is in storage in the desert near Victorville, Calif. Sometime before Apr. 30, this aircraft is to be chopped up and hauled away.
Lockheed Martin and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers are readying the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for seven months of aerobraking set to start the end of this month, after it was captured about the planet on Mar. 10. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is to begin a two-year science mission in November, followed by two years of relaying data from surface craft that will likely be augmented by more science observations. The spacecraft is well-supplied with propellant and could last until the middle of the next decade.
As NASA gears up to return humans to the Moon, a pair of U.S.-funded instruments picked to fly on India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter next year will continue the search for water at the Moon's poles and other surface resources that might support lunar bases one day. The U.S. instruments--an 8-kg. synthetic aperture radar and a sensitive imaging spectrometer--will work with others provided by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the European Space Agency and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to refine lunar maps dating back to the Apollo era.
Union employees at New Piper Aircraft voted Mar. 15 to end representation by the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and nullified the existing labor agreement.
Wilbur C. Trafton has been named to the board of directors of Marotta Controls, Montville, N.J. He is an aerospace consultant and has been president/chief operating officer of Kistler Aerospace.
China's Hongdu Aviation flew its L-15 (JL-15) lead-in fighter trainer candidate for the first time on Mar. 13. The L-15 bears a notable resemblance to the Yakovlev Yak-130 jet trainer from Russia. Yakovlev is thought to have provided technical support to the L-15 program. The Chinese air force needs a jet trainer for its Chengdu J-10 which is entering service, as well as for its Sukhoi Su-27s and Su-30MKK Flankers. The L-15 is in competition with the Guizhou JL-9 for the air force program.
The International Civil Aviation Organization and other related bodies are devising initiatives aimed at keeping the flow of information open and avoiding judicial reviews that could stymie safety enhancements.
Congressional scuttling of a deal that would have seen Dubai Ports World operate six U.S. ports prompts the question of whether Boeing, America's biggest manufacturing exporter, faces retaliation as it battles Airbus for airplane sales in the Middle East. The stakes are huge: By Boeing estimates, the region's airlines will buy about 870 aircraft worth $115 billion over the next 20 years.
Launch of TerraSAR-X, the first civil 1-meter resolution radar imaging satellite to be commercially available, has been rescheduled to Oct. 31. The Dnepr launch had been set for June. In addition to its primary imaging payload, the spacecraft will carry a laser data-relay terminal supplied by Tesat Spacecom, a unit of EADS Space. Meanwhile, German Aerospace Center DLR and EADS Astrium, which are cofunding TerraSAR-X under a public-private partnership arrangement, say they are negotiating a PPP agreement for a follow-up spacecraft, Tandem-X.
The British Defense Ministry is considering whether to consolidate Royal Air Force rotary lift at RAF Lyneham. The base faces closure in 2012, following the relocation of RAF C-130 squadrons to Brize Norton. Under Project Belvedere, however, the Joint Helicopter Command is looking at a "helicopter super base," says Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram.
Meanwhile, in Poland, Alcatel and EADS Astrium demonstrated the role space-based systems can play in European crisis management. This 2-million-euro ($2.4-million), 14-month project, called Astro+, was funded as part of preparatory activities in anticipation of the EU's 7th Framework Research Program, intended to run from 2007-13.
A new analysis is putting some numbers behind the widely held view that aerospace and defense companies are the driving forces behind robust mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the government information technology (IT) sector. Two-thirds of 118 M&A transactions in government IT and defense in 2005 were focused on security and defense, with an emphasis on military communications, sensors and signal-processing technologies, according to the analysis by Input, an IT market research firm in Reston, Va.
Australia's top planners began with the search for an airborne radar that could pick out very small targets at great distances. But that vision has made a quantum leap into the esoteric world of network-centric warfare with development of the Wedgetail aircraft. Dubbed an airborne early warning and control aircraft (AEW&C), the name camouflages much more. As it's fielded in the next couple of years, the Boeing 737-based platform will become the hub of net-centric operations and conduct a wide range of active and passive surveillance.
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has received the Satellite Leadership in Government Award from the Washington-based Satellite Industry Assn. This annual award is given to a federal employee who "exemplifies leadership and whose dedication to public service serves as an example to others in government." Stevens was cited for "recognizing the important role that satellites can play before, during and after disasters."
Aer Lingus last week sent a St. Patrick's day present to Toulouse in the form of an order for two Airbus A330s, bringing its total fleet of the type to nine. The General Electric CF6-powered aircraft are to be delivered in mid-2007. Aer Lingus is taking a -200 and -300, both to be operated in two classes.
There were more than a couple of unexplained line items in budgets back in the 1980s and '90s. If the engines of this one were that noisy, the typical black-world sense of humor might well have resulted in the moniker "Aurora." Aviation Week & Space Technology never applied the term "Aurora" to the SR-3/XOV two-stage-to-orbit system. We considered "Aurora" as just a budget line-item cover name for money allocated to a not-so-black program of the period, such as the B-2--Ed.
Revenues at Singapore Technologies Aerospace climbed 9.5% in 2005 to S$1.2 billion ($741 million) over the previous year, with profits after tax of S$210 million, up 11%. The company, ranked by AW&ST's affiliate Overhaul & Maintenance magazine as the world's largest airframe MRO provider, has branches in Europe and the U.S. (AW&ST Mar. 13, p. 58). Last year, it added C-130 depot maintenance work from the U.S. Pacific Air Force and avionics development for various foreign defense forces to its portfolio.
The Spanish air force expects to overhaul its air combat tactics as it realizes what new capabilities it can bring to the battlefield with the Eurofighter Typhoon. But first, military and industry technicians need to work through problems presented by the aircraft.
Problems pulling control-fin locking pins on its Pegasus launch vehicle have delayed the start of NASA's ST-5 constellation-control mission until no earlier than Mar. 21. Orbital Sciences' L-1011 ferry aircraft was almost ready to drop the Pegasus for ignition Mar. 15 when at least one of the pins that hold the fins in place failed to withdraw during the pre-launch sequence. The aircraft returned to Vandenberg AFB, Calif., where engineers were unable to find the cause of the problem on a first look.
