Two secret National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft with characteristics like ocean surveillance satellites are undergoing checkout in a highly elliptical orbit this week following their launch on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIIB from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 3. After liftoff at 2:41 a.m. EST in dense fog, the vehicle flew an unusual northern trajectory abeam the U.S. East Coast until the initial Centaur upper stage cutoff south of Greenland.
The U.S. Navy's surprise selection of the US101 team to develop a new U.S. presidential helicopter fleet is adding momentum to a push by Italian industrial giant Finmeccanica SpA. to become a European defense powerhouse. While the winning team was led by Lockheed Martin Corp., its aircraft was designed by Finmeccanica's Anglo-Italian helicopter unit, AgustaWestland, a fact that is not going over well in "Buy America" circles on Capitol Hill.
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The FAA has issued an airworthiness directive (AD) for Embraer ERJ 135BJ aircraft. Effective Mar. 7, operators will be required to modify the stickpusher system's electrical wiring to prevent reduced aircraft controllability in event of a system malfunction. The move is prompted by a report that the system was not inhibited when the AP/PUSH/ TRIM switches were activated.
Satellite navigation and surveillance products and services can cut costs, improve accuracy, expand coverage and enhance safety. But the global transformation of air traffic management (ATM) that satellites and ground augmentation systems have promised is being realized much more slowly than expected.
An influential House Democrat says defense spending shouldn't be spared the ax as Congress looks for ways to rein in the massive federal budget deficit. "Everything should be on the table," says Rep. John Spratt (S.C.), the second-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Last year, Budget Committee leaders tried to slow the rate of growth in the Pentagon's budget but were thwarted by Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and other defense hawks.
Portugal may add a maritime patrol flavor to the acquisition of a tactical airlifter. Selection of a successor to the air force's CASA C-212 is anticipated in mid-February, with the Alenia/Lock- heed Martin C-27J competing against EADS' CASA C-295. Deliveries would begin in 2007. In the maritime role, the aircraft would be used to complement the Lockheed P-3 Orion. The aircraft selected will be used initially as a complement to the Lockheed C-130H, as acquisition of the Airbus A400M or C-130J has been delayed.
Pilatus plans to upgrade its remaining PC-21 prototype and add the first production aircraft to the test program to offset the loss of one of the trainers in a crash last month.
Aerospace executives are forecasting another robust business cycle in 2005, despite a Bush administration proposal to cut at least $30 billion from the Pentagon's six-year spending plan.
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A multibillion-dollar NASA contracting effort, the largest since the Apollo, shuttle and space station developments, is formally underway with the release of the draft request for proposals for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to replace the shuttle and eventually return astronauts to the Moon as a stepping-stone to Mars.
JetBlue Airways and AirTran Airways, newly minted U.S. major airlines, will expand further and look for markets of opportunity this year with the impetus of a profitable if unspectacular fourth quarter.
It's too early to draw conclusions, but Asia's new pool of discount carriers seem most vulnerable to the aftereffects of the tsunami that is now estimated to have taken at least 175,000 lives in South and Southeast Asia late last year. A good area to judge is the tourism-rich south of Thailand and Sri Lanka. Indications are that while major airlines are not generally cutting back on expansion plans, their low-cost competitors must be positioned to suffer through a rough short- to medium-term passenger drought.
SES Global is set to launch its AMC-12 spacecraft on an ILS Proton/Breeze M rocket on Feb. 3. AMC-12 will provide 72 high-power C-band transponders for broadcasting as well as Internet connections over the Americas, Europe, Africa and Middle East.
Fasten your seat belts for what is shaping up to be another year of financial bloodletting for the U.S. airline industry. A spate of fare reductions led by Delta Air Lines should make legacy carriers more competitive in the long run, but it's forcing them to rack up bigger losses in the near term. And stubbornly high oil prices threaten to drive those losses to mammoth levels and choke off a profit recovery that analysts had forecast for 2006. Even successful low-cost carriers are seeing their margins squeezed by fuel costs and stiffer competition from legacy carriers.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has apparently beaten back an 11th-hour attempt by Northrop Grumman to create a competition for the Hunter-Killer UAV concept. The U.S. Air Force is expected to continue with a sole-source contract to GA using its Predator B. Northrop Grumman will proceed with weapons testing, however, using a manned Proteus high-altitude test aircraft that was the model for one of its Hunter-Killer concepts. The other was a downsized version of the Global Hawk.
While reading about the possible FB-22 derivative of the F/A-22 (AW&ST Nov. 29, 2004, p. 26), I still have to shake my head --because of cost and combat performance--at the Air Force's selection of the YF-22 over the YF-23.
Mineo Yamamoto (see photo) has been named president/CEO of All Nippon Airways, effective Apr. 1. He has been senior executive vice president. Yamamoto will succeed Yoji Ohashi, who has been appointed chairman. Ohashi in turn will succeed Kichisaburo Nomura, who will become executive adviser.
Northrop Grumman says it will install and flight test its commercial aircraft protection system on a Boeing 747 and MD-11 this year. The Guardian system involves directional infrared countermeasures technology development to protect military aircraft from attack by shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport's incentive program to lease 22 gates in Terminal E has attracted the interest of more than one airline. Delta Air Lines will vacate the gates at the end of the month as it de-hubs at Dallas. One possible taker is AirTran Airways, a rival of Delta's at Atlanta. AirTran is expecting a 20% capacity increase this year as it takes delivery of 13 new-generation Boeing 737s and six 717s. Some of that capacity will be dedicated to its Atlanta hub and to new point-to-point services.
US Airways is one step closer to emerging from bankruptcy protection after the last of its unions agreed to accept major pay cuts. A new contract ratified Jan. 21 by the carrier's machinists union is expected to save US Airways more than $350 million annually and was crucial to the airline's plan to cut labor costs by $1.1 billion a year (AW&ST Jan. 24, p. 39). While US Airways avoided a strike that could have forced it to liquidate, the airline is not out of the woods yet.
British plans to adopt net-enabled warfare are being hampered by slippage in key programs, and the threat of lags in acquisition of underpinning systems. The Royal Air Force will in the next 24 months lose both tactical and strategic reconnaissance platforms, central to the U.K.'s intelligence, surveillance, target-acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capability. In turn, ISTAR is a fundamental part of the Defense Ministry's net-enabled concept of operations.
An ugly fight is shaping up over the future of the Hubble Space Telescope, now that the Bush administration has let it be known it plans to cut funding for a robotic servicing mission in its upcoming Fiscal 2006 budget request. Backers of the telescope, led by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), have vowed to "fight again this year" to keep the telescope flying, but White House bean-counters have targeted the estimated $1-billion price tag as a good place to trim NASA without eating into President Bush's exploration program. The issue may wind up moot anyway.
Honeywell has begun flight testing its 13-in.-wingspan Micro Air Vehicle. Tests will continue through March, after which the company will deliver the first 10 MAVs to the Army for initial experimentation. The MAV is designed to carry cameras, chemical sensors and other equipment.
