Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is one of the staunchest advocates for defense funding on Capitol Hill. But some of the Vietnam War veteran's positions--including advocacy of "Buy America" restrictions--have put him at odds with both Pentagon brass and his Senate counterpart, John W. Warner (R-Va.). In a wide-ranging interview, Hunter discussed with Defense Technology International's Joseph C.
Jerry Agee has become acting president of the Mission Systems Sector of the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. He succeeds Donald C. Winter, who has been nominated as secretary of the Navy. Agee has been deputy sector president.
A new round of consolidation in the fixed satellite service business is likely to push back an anticipated upswing in commercial satellite orders. However, companies building smaller spacecraft could benefit, industry officials said at a Euroconsult-sponsored industry gathering here last week.
When Darpa ended its work on the Metal Storm sniper rifle in 2002, the agency's official explanation was that it had decided to pursue a "more promising endeavor" called Mach 5/50. Like Metal Storm, Mach 5/50 was an Australian concept to demonstrate a weapon with very high rates of fire and no moving parts. Also like Metal Storm, Mach 5/50 would utilize stacked projectiles with a "unique positioning, seating and sealing approach" to develop a weapon that could be used in everything from naval air defense to firepower for combat vehicles.
The long-depressed launch service industry is gearing up to meet growing demand for small satellites, and to benefit from a momentary dearth of launch positions for large spacecraft.
World News Roundup 16 Investigators find crashed ATR 72 had wrong fuel quantity indicator 16 NTSB joins probe into crash of Indonesian 737-200 17 Startup Chinese cargo airline orders six Boeing 747-400Fs 18 Loral aiming for Chapter 11 exit this month 18 Space executives report on many fronts at industry gathering World News & Analysis 20 Pentagon blames procedures, com- munications in Katrina response 22 Homeland Security assisted rescue and recovery efforts
Jade Cargo International is expected to announce soon an order for six Boeing 747-400ER freighters, as the Chinese venture prepares for the launch of operations early next year. The airline had planned to start operations earlier this year, but has been delayed by a lack of suitable aircraft as well as ownership changes. Jade Cargo picked Shenzhen airport in the Pearl River Delta of southern China as its base, to take advantage of the expected boom in air cargo traffic from the continued growth of consumer goods production.
Cockpit confusion is seen as a contributing factor in the crash of a Helios Airways 737 last month in Greece. The German pilot and Cypriot copilot had trouble communicating in English, which further encumbered efforts to fix an airflow valve problem. The valve was set incorrectly, leading to the aircraft failing to pressurize.
Are electrostatic-discharge weapons really on the horizon? On Aug. 17, Thomas Dearmin, president and CEO of Ionatron Inc., rang the closing bell of the Nasdaq stock exchange. It was a day that marked a high point in what has been an exciting year for the company that produces what it calls a "next-generation" directed-energy weapon.
Mars Exploration Rover scientists and engineers are planning the next phase of operations for the rover Spirit, using the view that unfolded upon reaching the summit of Columbia Hills late last month. The journey up the hills took more than a year--four times the "guaranteed" 90-Martian-day lifetime of the rovers.
Bill Watters has become vice president-flight operations for Adam Aircraft, Englewood, Colo. He was chief pilot/senior international captain for Gulfstream Aerospace.
Russia is beginning civilian/military Earth-imaging operations with two new spacecraft, one a Kometa film-return mapping satellite and the other a Monitor electro-optical platform. The Cosmos 2415 Kometa, based on the original Vostok manned spacecraft design, was launched Sept. 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Soyuz booster into an initial 122 X 175-mi. orbit inclined 64.8 deg. It will spend about a month aloft performing a medium-resolution broad-area mapping mission for Russian military and civilian uses.
The pending merger of Intelsat and PanAmSat is expected to trigger further consolidation of the fixed satellite service industry, unless it is sidetracked by regulators first.
Sonaca, a major aerostructures producer, is considering cutting about 300 jobs. The decision is causing a stir in southern Belgium where the unemployment rate hovers above 8%. The Charleroi-based company's difficulties are a direct result of the euro's unfavorable exchange rates against the U.S. dollar and of Embraer's decision to significantly reduce the 35-50-seat ERJ 135/145 production rate. In addition, Sonaca executives say the company is facing competitive pressure on prices in the regional twinjet market.
A look across the Atlantic shows European network airlines are returning to profitability after the rise of low-cost carriers (LCCs), while their U.S. peers continue to lose money. One major reason may be that their parent corporations rely less on passenger airline income and more on diversifying their networks and revenues.
While House and Senate leaders wrangle over the best way to investigate the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is pressing ahead this week with its own probe.
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) Oct. 18-20--MRO Europe. Estrel Hotel & Convention Center, Berlin. Nov. 8-10--MRO Asia, Suntec City, Singapore. Nov. 14-16--A&D Programs & Productivity Conference, Phoenix. PARTNERSHIPS Oct. 10-12--HeliAsia. Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok. Oct. 25-27--ARA '05. Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore.
Worried about troop casualties in conflict zones, the German defense ministry is buying a container system to shield personnel moving around crisis areas against sniper fire, shrapnel and even nuclear, biological and chemical weapons attack. So says EADS, which developed the TransProtec system with Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
With 18,500 striking machinists having shut down their assembly lines and forced layoffs at suppliers, executives at Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) are about to face another headache: Their engineers want a raise. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea), the union representing 11,600 engineers and 6,000 technical workers at Boeing's Seattle area plants, is planning to deliver a proposal to the company this week demanding hefty wage and benefit concessions. Speea's current three-year contract with Boeing expires Dec. 1.
EADS has completed its acquisition of Nokia's Professional Mobile Radio unit. The deal, announced earlier this year, passed anti-trust review. EADS has created a new business unit, EADS Secure Networks, where it has bundled its own activities in this field with those acquired from Nokia. Tetra and Tetrapol digital radio standards form the technology backbone of the venture.
Contrary to what some Boeing executives would like the outside world to believe, labor-management relations at the U.S.'s largest aerospace contractor haven't exactly been a model for industry. Rather, they have been characterized by resentment and distrust. So it came as no big surprise when more than 18,000 members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers recently decided to strike over retirement, health care benefits and job security (see p. 39).
Maneuvering by European firms to win stakes in the production, sustainment and follow-on development phase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project is expected to intensify this fall. International participants will lay their financial and industrial cards on the table to remain part of the 196-billion-euro ($245-billion) project to develop and manufacture over 3,000 combat aircraft for the U.S. and allied air forces.
LRAD on steroids is what the U.S. Marine Corps jokingly calls the linguistically unwieldy "man-portable long-range, non-kinetic, nonlethal weapon" it wants to send to Iraq. While the description reads like a shopping list of nonlethal weaponry, it's really the Marines' way of getting a scaled-back version of Sheriff (see right column).
Air France-KLM says it is upping its year-end profit target, and that it will beat last year's result of 534 million euros ($662 million). The airline group benefited from a strong fuel hedge position, but also growth in its business-class traffic. The long-suffering short- and medium-haul traffic also is showing a gain. Air France-KLM has 83% of this year's fuel demands hedged at $42 per barrel, with 54% of next year's demand hedged at $52.
