Lockheed Martin has set up the F/A-22 Technical Support Center in Marietta, Ga., as a "one-stop shop" for call-in queries from maintenance and technical support personnel for the fighter. The TSC is jointly staffed by 20 U.S. Air Force personnel and contractor members from the Lockheed Martin team.
Michael Dolby (see photo) has been promoted to president from vice president-business development of ATK Mission Research for Alliant TechSystems, Edina, Minn.
Ronald B. Cohen (see photos) has been promoted to principal scientist in the Space Materials Laboratory of The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif., from director of the Propulsion Science and Experimental Mechanics Dept. Kirk Nygren has been promoted to principal director of Mission Integration and Systems Engineering in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Div. from systems director in the division's Mission Management organization.
CAE of Montreal has sold four Level D full-flight simulators, including three Boeing 737 NG systems, valued at $50 million to Japan Airlines, and an Embraer 170 simulator to Finnair. The 737 NGs will be delivered to JAL's training center at Tokyo Haneda Airport over a 12-month period beginning in the spring of 2007, and the Finnair system will be delivered to the airline's training center in Helsinki next summer.
William B. Scott (Colorado Springs), David A. Fulghum (Washington)
Capitalizing on advancements in microcircuits and nanotechnology, U.S. intelligence agencies may be moving very small flight vehicles from the laboratory to field operations. A recently spotted micro-UAV featured a 3.5-in.-long, 0.25-in.-dia. body or fuselage and three tapered rows of extremely thin, feather-like fins measuring about 3.5 in. tip-to-tip (see drawing). The rows of curved fins were placed equidistant around the center shaft, 120 deg. apart. The tiny vehicle had a bulbous nose, possibly containing a nano-scale sensor.
Geoffrey A. Landis has been named by NASA to the Ronald E. McNair-NASA Visiting Professorship in Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. He has been a scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center and a member of the Mars Exploration Rovers science team.
U.S. and European efforts to provide ballistic missile protection to deployed forces are picking up pace, with multiple systems now being readied that are designed to exceed the basic capabilities resident in the U.S. with the Patriot systems. The next iteration of systems will increase the focus on protecting troops against more than mere Scud-like threats (p. 48). The U.K., Italy and France, for instance, are starting to explore whether to extend the range and capability of the Aster-30 interceptor so it can destroy medium-range ballistic missiles.
News Breaks 18 Satellite checking feasibility of orbiting short-lived, low-altitude spacecraft 19 Air Canada may revive canceled order for Boeing 777s and 787s 19 Britain moves ahead with JSF engine demonstrator program 20 Construction completed on new Dulles airport ATC tower 20 TSA reviews fee-based, private-sector model for Registered Traveler World News & Analysis 24 U.S. space exploration backers raise specter of China in pushing Bush plan
As President Bush's Moon-Mars initiative shifts from basically friendly authorization legislation to potentially hostile appropriations action, a Republican representative from California has come up with a supporting argument that deserves to be squashed before it can spread.
JetBlue Flight 292's touchdown with a cocked nosegear is not the first evidence of Airbus A320 landing gear problems. The Sept. 21 incident was the second for JetBlue Airways, which operates an all-A320 fleet. Shortly after takeoff from Burbank (Calif.) Airport, the nosegear of the aircraft (N536JB) failed to retract and remained cocked at a 90-deg. angle. The nosegear was destroyed in the rollout, but the flight landed safely at Los Angeles International Airport with no injuries among the 146 occupants on board (AW&ST Sept. 26, p. 18).
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has completed construction of a new 325-ft.-high air traffic control tower at Washington Dulles International Airport and turned it over to the FAA to be outfitted. The 25-story-tall structure has a standard 850-sq.-ft. cab for controllers on the top level. Operations are expected to begin next year. The tower is needed in part to handle traffic on fourth and fifth runways, when they are built. They are in the planning stages and undergoing environmental reviews.
The FAA is preparing for a surge of interest from other makers of unmanned aerial vehicles after General Atomics Aeronautical Systems won the first UAV experimental airworthiness certificate on Aug. 25, according to Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily. Certification of the UAV Altair will allow the company to conduct certain constrained flights within the national airspace for research and development.
Flight testing of a new European airborne radar is about to begin, which industry officials argue substantially strengthens Europe's know-how vis-à-vis the U.S. Moreover, officials from EADS believe the X-band radar system could meet a German requirement to field an imaging unmanned aircraft and perhaps serve as a backup in case NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) effort falters.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and three military space projects took big hits in the $440.2-billion Fiscal 2006 U.S. Defense Dept. spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. The bill contains $7 billion less than the White House requested and $939 million less than Congress approved for Fiscal 2005. The JSF program was cut $270 million because of "instability in the aircraft's design," according to the committee. The measure also calls for $475.8 million in cuts to military space projects.
An interagency group is expected to recommend that the Landsat Data Continuity Mission camera get assigned to its own satellite, instead of trying for space on the troubled National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (Npoess) weather satellite constellation. After a commercial option fell through, the government explored the possibility of using Npoess to orbit the latest Landsat sensor, which would extend the 30-year-old Landsat database. But last week the Air Force revealed that Npoess's cost was ballooning.
John Jarrell (see photo) has been named to the board of directors for Laser Data Command Inc., Eden Prairie, Minn. He is senior vice president-Airport and Desktop Services for SITA Information Network Computing and chairman of South Africa-based e.Airports Ltd.
Senate appropriators are countering the Missile Defense Agency director's approach to the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program. Although Lt. Gen. Henry (Trey) Obering is pushing KEI as a boost-phase interceptor backup to the Airborne Laser program, senators say, "in a decreasing budgetary environment, funding for this future developmental program serves only to crowd out much needed funding" for other priorities. The committee proposes docking KEI by $111 million.
Some congressional supporters of NASA's $104-billion back-to-the-Moon program will use China's space advances to buttress their case in the coming fight for funds.
There is a possibility--bordering on probability--that haunts those planning the nation's information operations for future conflicts. What if all those networks that are being tracked and monitored in peacetime to provide intelligence on our enemies are suddenly changed?
The effort to bring onboard cell phone wireless networks to commercial aircraft cabins is picking up stride, and initial phone service set to begin as early as next year. At the recent World Airline Entertainment Assn. (WAEA) conference and exhibition in Hamburg, Airbus demonstrated a wireless system designed to support cell phone, Internet access, video streaming and other inflight services.
The FAA is stretching its safety arm beyond Earth's atmosphere. "Private Human Space Flight--You Can't Be Serious, Can You?" is the focus of a panel discussion at the agency's 2nd Annual International Aviation Safety Forum to be held Oct. 20-21 at Chantilly, Va. Space panel members will include former astronaut Robert (Hoot) Gibson and Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's new company dedicated to space travel. Space tourism could generate more than $1 billion annually by 2021, according to the FAA.
The navy has successfully test-fired the Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile, also designated the SS-NX-30. The launch, from the Dmitri Donksoi (Project 941U) submarine, is part of a flight test program for the SS-27 Topol-M-derived missile, which is intended as the primary nuclear armament of modern Russian ballistic missile submarines.
With the U.S.'s self-imposed deadline to field a national missile defense system having come and gone late last year, building systems to destroy incoming ballistic missiles has moved out of the spotlight. But behind the scenes, technical and policy developments are taking place in the U.S. and Europe that will shape how allied forces that deploy during the next decade can be protected. NATO allies agree that the continued fielding of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles by potential adversaries requires systems that can defend troops.
Singapore-based Tiger Airways will add four flights a week to Kolkata in East India--its 12th destination and seventh country--pending India's formal approval. Tiger plans to increase its four Airbus A320 fleet to nine by the end 2006, and is now looking at starting services to southern China and Cambodia. However, the airline plans to reduce its three daily Singapore-Bangkok flights to one. Twenty airlines are already flying the route.
