THE NATIONAL CAPITOL REGION Visual Warning System--designed to warn pilots that they have strayed into the Washington Air Defense Identification Zone, or Flight Restricted Zone--began operating late last month. The ground-based system uses low-intensity laser light beams to alert pilots that they are violating restricted airspace. The lasers generate and repeat a flashing red-red-green signal aimed at the aircraft, and can be seen in good visibility up to 15 naut. mi. during the day and 20 mi. at night.
Saab is cutting 350 jobs as production of the JAS 39 Gripen for the Swedish air force begins to wind down. The air force will take the last of its aircraft in 2007.
Middle Eastern carriers are coming under fire for their funding, financing and business practices, and European airlines might soon be offered more flights to the Persian Gulf region as compensation, according to a senior aviation official in that area. The improved bilateral rights are seen as a way to silence critics of the region's state-backed carriers.
The Air Traffic Management Bureau here is talking with Thales ATM about a joint venture that would transfer air traffic control technology to China, building on a business relationship in which Thales has already modernized three ATC centers in eastern China.
Representatives of eight Central and Eastern European nations signed a declaration in Vienna on June 1 to begin the implementation phase of the Central European Air Traffic Services (CEATS) project. CEATS, coordinated by Eurocontrol, aims to establish a single air traffic control center in the upper airspace (above 28,500 ft.) over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, northern Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia--airspace where traffic is expected to double by 2015.
Lockheed Martin has validated facility systems and their integrated operations with the Atlas V at the new Space Launch Complex-3E at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. First launch is expected next year.
U.S. airlines, pressing Congress for long-term pension-relief legislation that would kick in before last year's short-term relief expires, are looking past Bush administration reforms and embracing a much more generous proposal from Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).
Lockheed Martin moved another step closer to launching Atlas V boosters from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., when a propellant-loading test was completed at Space Launch Complex 3 East (SLC-3E) early this month. That test marked the completion of a "pathfinder" phase designed to validate a new Atlas V West Coast launch facility. The refurbished SLC-3E is configured with a stationary pad, and will use a traditional mobile service tower. At Cape Canaveral, Atlas V rockets are stacked in a vertical integration facility, then rolled to the pad 12 hr. prior to launch.
EADS is supplying a secure communications system to Brazilian police forces, which should begin operations next year. The equipment uses the Tetrapol standard EADS has been marketing for security forces. The Brazilian network will initially cover the cities of Brasilia, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. It is part of a wider Brazilian domestic security enhancement initiative.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] July 2--Air Museum Planes of Fame. Military Observation Aircraft, Chino (Calif.) Airport. Call +1 (909) 597-372 or see planesoffame.org July 5-6--International Quality and Productivity Center's Military Satellites 2005. Holiday Inn, Toulouse. Call +44 (207) 368-9300, fax +44 (207) 368-9301 or see www.iqpc.co.uk
Clarisa Faye Howard (see photo, p. 16), president/CEO of bd Systems Inc., Torrance, Calif., has been named Small Business Person of the Year by the Los Angeles District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The company was founded in 1981 as a space systems engineering business with a staff of three to provide engineering and technical assistance for the U.S. military. It now has a payroll of more than 300 and operates from 20 locations in 10 states.
Future threats are going to include many small, agile targets such as stealthy cruise missiles, attack aircraft, or artillery and mortar projectiles. As a consequence, Raytheon researchers are betting that a big part of countering these threats involves the development of speed-of-light, directed-energy weapons--among them, the solid-state laser.
President Bush's choice of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) to head the Securities and Exchange Commission sparks a guessing game about who will succeed Cox as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. The senior Republicans on the panel may have other fish to fry. Rep. Don Young (Alaska), with the most seniority, is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Term limits will force him to step down in 2007, but Hill staffers say he is enmeshed in this year's highway funding bill and unlikely to leave Transportation anytime soon. Next comes Rep.
The expected purge of NASA headquarters and field center personnel closely tied to previous Administrator Sean O'Keefe is underway, as Michael Griffin takes the helm with a more dynamic vision on how the agency and its future programs should be run. One of the first to go is retired Navy Adm. Craig Steidle, who headed the new office of Exploration Systems. Griffin wants a faster-paced, more focused approach to new manned exploration than the procurement plan Steidle put in place (AW&ST Jan. 31, p. 20).
The European Commission and the African community have endorsed a project aimed at using Earth observation data to improve management of water and land resources. The project, called African Monitoring of the Environment for Sustainable Development (AMESD), will allow the dissemination of data from space-based operations via the EumetCast distribution system and a network of 53 ground stations being installed under an earlier project designed to broadcast weather data from Eumetsat's Meteosat Second Generation system.
As interest in ADS-B heats up around the world, Thales is upgrading its Eurocat system to handle this new type of surveillance in Australia nationwide, giving the French company a potential edge over competitors.
Decades of brainstorming by a plethora of time- and money-wasting commissions and committees aimed at solving an imagined air-capacity problem has resulted in nothing but buzzword-driven confusion. The U.S. doesn't have a capacity problem, only a self-imposed one because airlines want only to fly to certain airports. There are hundreds of perfectly capable airports, including U.S. Air Force bases that could absorb capacity growth handily, but that would make all those doomsayers and committees irrelevant.
BAE Systems is working on a classified low-radar-observable UCAV project, dubbed Nightjar, for the British Defense Ministry. The sensitive program has been underway for several years, and an airframe may already have been built. The unmanned combat air vehicle program follows on from the company's Testbed low-observable-aircraft work, which saw a full-scale airframe built and tested on the company's radar cross-section range.
All Nippon Airways has asked Japan's transport ministry for the right to double its fuel surcharge rates on most routes to Europe and North America to $48.
Embraer is ramping up an intense certification schedule for the four members of its commercial jet family, with the Embraer 170 already in service in Europe and the U.S.
Eurocopter is augmenting and streamlining production for main rotor blades and studying new blade designs in a bid to increase competitiveness, keep up with rising output and meet future operating requirements. Profitability at the trinational company, as at other EADS affiliates, is under intense pressure because of unfavorable dollar-euro exchange rates. At the same time, capacity needs are rising rapidly, driven by the ramp-up of production for the NH90 and Tiger military helicopters and booming export sales (AW&ST May 30, p. 29).
Improperly installed components, found in critical electronics for the new Modernized Global Positioning System spacecraft series, will spark quality-control revisions at ITT Industries, which builds the parts, and at Lockheed Martin, the GPS prime contractor. Left undiscovered, the problem could have resulted in the navigation system failure of at least three of the Modernized GPS satellites about to be launched to support military and civil users around the world.
