Jill Smith has become president/CEO of DigitalGlobe, Longmont, Colo. Herb Satterlee will continue as chairman. Smith was president/CEO of eDial and had been chief operating officer of Micron Electronics Inc.
Emirates and Qantas recently exchanged a new round of jabs after the Dubai-based carrier asked the Australian government for permission to double the number of flights to the country as part of its aggressive expansion plan.
Michael B. Baughn has been promoted to president/chief operating officer of B/E Aerospace, Wellington, Fla., from vice president/general manager of B/E's commercial aircraft segment, effective Dec. 31. He will succeed co-founder Robert J. Khoury, who will retire as president/CEO but remain on the board of directors. Amin Khoury will become CEO and remain as chairman.
What could the Pentagon do with a perfect lens? It probably won't get one, but it might come pretty close. In 2000, university scientists began claiming they'd created materials in which light bends in the direction opposite to the direction it bends in every other material on earth. If the scientists had done what they claimed, the material's potential uses were considerable, including lenses that can focus light more tightly than the ordinary rules of physics allow.
The launch of FalconSAT-2, a small satellite designed, built and tested by U.S. Air Force Academy undergraduates for ionosphere research, has slipped to Nov. 23. It will be the sole payload on the inaugural flight of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Corp.'s Falcon 1 booster from Omelek Island in the Pacific (AW&ST Aug. 22, p. 31).
International Launch Services will launch Telenor's Thor II-R telecom satellite, under construction at Orbital Sciences Corp., on a Proton Breeze M booster. The launch is planned for late 2007.
NASA's new Commercial Cargo/Crew Projects Office will seek proposals from industry by about late January toward demonstration of a range of International Space Station servicing capabilities.
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Australia's new business-class airline, OzJet, on Nov. 29 plans to begin operating eight Sydney-Melbourne round trips daily with three Boeing 737-200s. Australian owner Paul Stoddart will transfer seven aircraft from his European Aviation charter fleet next year to help OzJet's planned expansion of services to Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra. Aircraft are configured for 60 business-class-only seats, and ticket prices will be based on traditional, fully flexible economy fares at A$325 ($237) one way.
Five driverless cars recently motored across the finishing line of an arduous 132-mi. journey dubbed the "Grand Challenge." Four of the vehicles finished within the 10-hr. time limit. The race across the Mojave Desert was indeed a grand testament to the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and its legacy of groundbreaking innovation (p. 41).
As budgets are being crunched, the Pentagon names eight major troubled programs on its new list of Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs). These latest estimates of cost, schedule and technical status are required only for programs experiencing unit cost increases of at least 15%, or schedule delays of at least six months. The total estimate of acquisition costs for programs covered by SARs increased by 4.4%, or $64.999 billion, from June to September over an earlier total cost of $1.474 trillion.
Twenty-two months after winning the contract, Hamilton Sundstrand has completed its first test of the APS 5000 auxiliary power unit for the Boeing 787. The APU was started at the company's San Diego Power Systems facility and operated at 100% speed under the APU controller (see photo). The APS 5000 is a traditional design using a single radial compressor and two-stage axial turbine developing about 1,000 shp., says Program Manager Joan Inlow. Its size is unremarkable at 38 in. long, 30 in. high and 30 in. wide. With oil, it weighs 538 lb.
Alcatel Alenia Space says it has completed the installation of 51 weather data receiving stations intended to link 47 African countries to Eumet- sat's second-generation MSG weather satellite system. The so-called Puma project is meant to bolster monitoring of food and water supplies and help prepare for natural disasters.
Dynamic and innovative, the Canadian aerospace industry experienced a tremendous expansion during the 1990s, led by world-class companies such as Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney Canada and CAE Inc. But underneath the surface were problems: lagging R&D investment, inadequate productivity and a supply base that was unprepared for stiffer global competition (AW&ST Dec. 4, 2000, p. 54). Those problems were laid bare during the commercial downturn that began in 2001. Today, Canadian aerospace is an industry in transition.
Rolls-Royce and General Electric have committed to 74,000-lb.-thrust versions of their Trent 1000 and GEnx engines, respectively, for the Boeing 787-9 stretch version. These changes will permit Boeing to increase the maximum takeoff weight by 40,000 lb. to 540,000 lb. and give the aircraft a range of 8,600-8,800 naut. mi. with passenger loads of 250-290.
Mid-century, Chinese historians may well record 2005 as the Summer of American Discontent: the time when in the midst of a global war on terrorism, uneasiness over China's economic, diplomatic and military successes erupted in an uncoordinated and poorly-waged series of attempts by the U.S. to put China in its place as a second-rate world player and one of the few remaining vestiges of Communist ideology.
Pushing for C-130J, P-3C Orion and F-16 fighter sales in India, Lockheed Martin has opened a corporate office in New Delhi, brought in some big names to help it lobby India's government and begun talks on offsets with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL). Requests for proposals to provide 126 aircraft for India's multirole fighter program are expected by late December, pitting the F-16 against the Boeing F/A-18E/F, Dassault Mirage 2000-5 and Saab/BAE Systems JAS 39 Gripen.
Special operations is a growth industry and is expected to stay that way despite a shrinking defense budget, says Army Gen. Bryan Brown, chief of Special Operations Command. The annual production of new Army Green Berets has increased to 789 from 550 two years ago, he says, and the force now totals 54,000 people. The Navy side is to grow by two SEAL teams, and the addition of Marine Corps special forces will add dimensions to the joint force, including air and naval gunfire teams, radio reconnaissance specialists and foreign military training units.
Many Middle East-based airlines and their respective governments have a lot of progressive changes to make before they can ride the expected large wave of passenger and freight air transport growth predicted for the region over the next decade.
The European Union is undertaking an across-the-board effort to improve aviation safety, with increased participation by Eurocontrol and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). European institutions, including the European Commission (EC), parliament and EU Council, have also struck a deal clearing the way for establishment of an EU-wide blacklist of banned airlines and providing passengers more information on a carrier they are considering using even when outside the EU. Both measures dominate the debate in Europe over enhancing aviation safety.
In 2002, Israeli navy commandos seized 50 tons of weapons and ammunition during the capture of the Palestinian Karine A ship in the Red Sea, thanks in large part to Elta's M-2022 radar. Operating in an inverse mode, the synthetic aperture radar allowed operators to see telltale silhouette images of suspect vessels. But the M-2022 radar operated from a testbed on board a Boeing 737, and Israel now is looking at unmanned aerial options.
National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. President John Carr told members of the Wings Club in New York on Nov. 15 that he believes the FAA is being "fundamentally mismanaged." Natca has been sniping at the FAA on a weekly basis since contract negotiations began this summer. "The first and most pressing problem, and one of the FAA's own creation, is staffing," he says. There are 1,500 fewer controllers today than two years ago and during Fiscal 2004, the agency only hired 13 new controllers, he adds.
US. Coast Guard planners are in the midst of mapping a strategy to meet the agency's latest Homeland Security assignment: patrolling the airspace over the nation's capital. In a memorandum of understanding, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has given the Coast Guard 30 days to report back on how and when it could take over Washington air patrol duties from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), another Homeland Security unit. The report is due Dec. 3.
As the Pentagon moves into the final stages of its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)--the four-year assessment of U.S. military strategy--possible cutbacks in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program are worrying international partners now working on the $60-billion project to build the next-generation combat aircraft.
India's future launch of the Insat series 4A, 4B and 4C spacecraft will add 36 K u-band transponders to the Indian Space Research Organization's capacity. This should sizably increase transponders for direct-to-home (DTH) operators. DTH providers can beam a maximum of 12 channels per transponder. Insat 4A and 4B have a capacity of 12 K u-band and 12 C-band transponders each. Insat 4C, on the other hand, has just 12 K u-band transponders.
