JetBlue Airways will donate $10,000 to an educational trust fund for each Embraer 190 jet delivery. That totals $1 million--there are 99 remaining aircraft on firm order--and may be $2 million, if the airline exercises 100 options. The fund will be used to pay stipends to about 100 college-bound graduates of Engenheiro Juarez Wanderly High School, near Embraer facilities at Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. The school is funded by the Embraer Education and Research Institute. Airline CEO David Neeleman (see photo) received delivery of his first Embraer 190 on Sept.
Senior officials are signaling they may reduce taxes on the purchase of foreign-built aircraft, something Russian carriers have long sought as they look to modernize their fleets with more fuel-efficient Western aircraft.
Homer's Achaeans might have felt right at home on this rocky coastline reminiscent of their native Greece, were it not under the methane smog of Titan orbiting the planet Saturn at a brisk -290F. Imaged Sept. 7 with the radar on NASA's Cassini probe, the dark area in the lower right of the image corresponds to smooth terrain--a liquid sea or the bed of an area once covered with liquid.
BAE Systems has proposed to the government that the company start providing analyses and finished intelligence products to the Pentagon. Military analysts are in their jobs for very short periods of time, the company reasons, and this prevents them from gaining the expertise they need. "It would be much better to have civilians working that problem, to provide continuity over longer periods," says a senior company official.
Controllers have shut down the xenon-ion engine on Europe's Smart-1 lunar orbiter, after almost 5,000 hr. of operation, because its supply of fuel is exhausted. The technology testbed reached lunar orbit Nov. 16, 2004, using the solar-electric propulsion system to raise its elliptical Earth orbit gradually until it was captured by the Moon's gravity. Since then, the Swedish-built spacecraft has relied on the electric engine to optimize its orbit for scientific measurements of the surface below. Overall, the thruster was switched on 843 times.
The British military faces a sharp reduction in the number of helicopters it will be allowed to buy, with the Army's plan for a battlefield reconnaissance helicopter under the heaviest attack. Acquisition numbers for the so-called Land Find element of its Future Rotorcraft Capability (FRC) will only be around half of the Army's original target. The initial plan called for the Army to procure 100 Battlefield Light Utility Helicopters (BLUH). That number has steadily eroded, first falling to 85, and now likely to drop further, according to industry officials.
The Predator unmanned aerial vehicle is the wrong platform for the right sensor package (AW&ST Sept. 5, p. 19). UAVs are used to eliminate the risk to pilots in high threat environments at great cost, complexity and rates of airframe attrition. Protection of the Southwest U.S. border with Mexico does not warrant or require a UAV system.
I was astounded to read the opening sentence in "Clash of Wills" by James Ott (AW&ST Sept. 5, p. 39). To classify the strike at Northwest as a "stubborn union against a management determined to survive" is an opinionated interjection. The strike is a struggle by mechanics determined to survive against a management who never really wanted to bargain. Any management that lays plans to hire replacements 18 months prior to a strike is not worried about survival; they are intent on union-busting. The mechanics never had a chance.
Edward T. Smith has been appointed senior vice president-international affairs for the Washington-based General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. He succeeds Barry Valentine, who has retired. Smith was director of the U.S. State Dept. Office of Aviation Negotiations.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Air Force Reserve kept either a NOAA WP-3D or a USAF WC-130J flying in Hurricane Rita around the clock last week. Jim McFadden, chief program and project officer for the NOAA aircraft operations center, says this year probably will account for the most hours ever flown by NOAA's two WP-3Ds and its one Gulfstream IV. NOAA's P-3s have been flying twice as much as the 250 hr. expected this year for research missions because the National Hurricane Center needs more operational support for forecasts.
France's recent placing of Cameroon Airlines on its blacklist of airlines banned from operating in the country shows the complexities of such decisions. After being banned on Sept. 16 for safety violations, the carrier was back operating in France only a few days later, using chartered aircraft. The fallout from the edict also caused Air France to cancel flights to that African country for security concerns, although they quickly resumed.
Mocket engines from across the history of the U.S. space program would power NASA's new exploration plan, along with a new development that could draw its fuel from the atmosphere of Mars. Planners on the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS), released last week, chose the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne space shuttle main engine (SSME) and the ATK reusable solid rocket motor (RSRM) to do the heavy lifting on the way back to the Moon. The idea was to save the time and money of new development.
Airbus may one day offer its customers an option based on software being developed by Honeywell to take control of an aircraft automatically and steer it away from terrain.
To embellish Lee Gaillard's point regarding the Russian Beriev Be-200 amphibian, Canada also has airtanker amphibians: the Canadair CL-215 and newer Bombardier CL-415 (AW&ST July 18, p. 6). Unlike typical airtankers, amphibians can scoop their loads from bodies of water or refill at reload bases. Many countries such as France, with a fleet of 12, have employed these tankers for years while their use in the U.S. remains limited.
Accident investigators, looking for the cause of the Aug. 2 runway overrun of an Air France Airbus A340-300 at Toronto Pearson International Airport, plan to run simulator tests this week at Airbus facilities to assess what may have happened during the bad-weather landing.
President Bush's efforts to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina may have an adverse effect on defense contractors. Bush has ruled out any new taxes to fund his ambitious blueprint for reconstructing the Gulf Coast, which some fiscal watchdogs believe could top $200 billion. That means adding to the already worrisome federal budget deficit or taking from other discretionary spending--such as the defense budget. Pentagon planners are currently grappling with a potential shortfall of $50 billion through 2010. "We are growing more concerned . . .
The House Armed Services Committee has a new, bipartisan panel to examine potential threats to U.S. national security over the next 20 years. Reps. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) and Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) will co-chair the Defense Review Threat Panel, comprising six Republicans and six Democrats. The panel will conduct hearings on possible threats around the world, followed by another series of hearings to identify existing U.S. military capabilities and future defense requirements, all meant to complement the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review.
It started as just another routine day at the office. Of course, my office happened to be the cockpit of a U.S. Army UH-1 Huey helicopter flying over Vietnam. Every day started routinely. Some even ended that way. Mar. 16, 1966, wouldn't be one of those days. Two 173rd Airborne Brigade cooks quickly loaded large containers of hot chow into our bird. Fully loaded and carrying a 400-lb. sling-load of ice, we headed for War Zone D north of Bien Hoa. Our LZ or Landing Zone, we later learned, was designated "Zulu-Zulu."
The Finmeccanica/Alcatel venture Telespazio has signed a preliminary agreement with the Malaysian industrial conglomerate Akriz Snd Bhd to build and run jointly a space center devoted to Earth observation and space communications services. Work on the Perak-based center--said to be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia--will start in 2006. It should become operational in 2008. Malaysia is upgrading its space infrastructure as part of an overall modernization scheme, and has plans to buy five third-generation satellites.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] Oct. 4-6--American Astronautical Society's Short Course on the U.S. Government Space Sector. George Mason University, Arlington, Va. Also, Nov. 15-16--AAS National Conference and 52nd Annual Meeting. South Shore Harbour Resort, Houston. Call +1 (703) 866-0020, fax +1 (703) 866-3526 or see www.astronautical.org
Boeing has won two design contracts worth a total of almost $7 million for vertical takeoff and landing concepts--one dual-rotor and one quad-rotor (see below)--for the Joint Heavy Lift program. The company's Phantom Works is proposing the advanced tandem-rotor helicopter (ATRH) for the low-speed category (160-200 kt.) while Bell Helicopter Textron and Phantom Works are teaming on the QuadTiltrotor (QTR) as a high-speed (250-kt.-plus) entry. The designs will be refined over 18 months.
The 15th Reconnaissance Sqdn., which carries the major combat load for Predator unmanned aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan, will soon begin splitting into multiple units--reserve, active duty, Air National Guard, special operations and, perhaps one day, even homeland defense. But it won't be fast enough to alleviate the pain of sustained operations on the limited number of aircrews that fly them and operate their sensors.
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The swell of activity to realign German aerospace and defense business is likely to lead to fewer, but stronger companies and could reshape EADS by giving the aerospace giant a broader portfolio.
USAF Brig. Gen. (select) Paula G. Thornhill has been named principal director of special plans for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs at the Pentagon. She has been special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brig. Gen. (select) David E. Price has been promoted to director from deputy director of financial management/comptroller for headquarters of the Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
