Aviation Week & Space Technology

The military transport market is no longer the virtual private preserve of Boeing, with its C-17, and Lockheed Martin, with the ubiquitous C-130. Airbus Military Co. is the new player and following a lengthy gestation period, the multinational consortium launched its four-engine, turboprop A400M in May 2003 on the strength of requirements for 180 aircraft.

EADS has approached all 50 U.S. states to compete to house a new Airbus engineering center and the company's future Military Modification and Assembly Line for U.S. KC-330 tanker conversions, should the European aerospace giant win part of the USAF tanker program. The company has issued a request for information to lawmakers and will host a meeting next month to present its requirements. A 9,000-ft.-long runway, access to deepwater port, and educated workforce are seen as essential, but the company will entertain other inducements, including tax breaks.

As Air Force Secretary James Roche leaves office, the service heads into an undetermined period without civilian leadership and plenty of hot-button issues on the agenda, such as funding questions for the F/A-22 and C-130J. Undersecretary Peter Teets, who has been serving as the Pentagon's space czar and director of the National Reconnaissance Office, will postpone his planned retirement, but not by much.

Flight Safety Australia, the magazine of the country's Civil Aviation Safety Authority, offers some commentary on the European Union's study of the Innovative Future Air System. It cites the study manager, Claude Le Tallec, who says the goal "is to do something very different: no pilot, no controls, only passengers, operated like an unmanned air vehicle." Flight Safety Australia says the study should consider how passengers would feel about such a system, apart from technical issues. The French aeronautics agency Onera is coordinating the study.

Recent air operations over Afghanistan and Iraq have highlighted the value of high-payload, long-range bombers that deliver precision-guided munitions, prompting the U.S. Air Force to accelerate its bomber modernization program.

The Pentagon hopes to test some new features of its missile defense system this year, but first it will repeat last December's integrated test flight during which the interceptor failed to launch. Analysis showed that message dropout rates between a flight computer and thrust vector controls breached a threshold, causing the interceptor to shut down. USAF Lt. Gen. Trey Obering says the parameter was too narrowly defined and a statistical fluke led to the breach. Engineers are rewriting software to allow more message dropouts before a shutdown occurs.

Airbus and Boeing have dramatically different views regarding the future of the commercial transport market, with each developing a major new product that reflects its company's strategy. To some extent, both companies may be right and their products will be successful.

Lockheed Martin officials expect to mate the fuselage and wing of the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in June as preparations to begin Low-Rate Initial Production of the multi-service airplane accelerate.

Snecma will have a role in the GenX engine that will power the Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner. The company earlier declined to take a share of the risk in developing the new powerplant. In December, Fadec International, a joint venture of its Hurel-Hispano unit and BAE Systems, was chosen to design and build the full-authority digital engine control for the GenX. Simultaneously, Snecma's Belgian affiliate, Techspace Aero, agreed to develop and produce guide vanes for the engine's low-pressure compressor.

Northwest Airlines and the pilots who flew for 1980s merger partner Republic Airlines are toe-to-toe in a dispute over who owns more than 1.5 million Prudential shares related to the pilots' pension fund. When Prudential shifted to a public from a mutual company, it issued the shares in consideration of annuities that Republic had acquired for its pilots when their pension plan was terminated prior to the merger. The Prudential shares have more than doubled in value, rising to $50 from $24. In aggregate, they are worth an estimated $80 million.

The 2005 Aviation Week & Space Technology Aerospace Source Book was prepared by a team headed by Michael Stearns, assistant managing editor-production. Source Book Managing Editors were Katherine P. Smith and Mark Gibel. Assisting them were Samuel Zanger, Norma Autry and Bridget Bell. Other members of the Source Book staff were Stanley W. Kandebo, assistant managing editor-technology; Nicole Jacobs, and Lisa Bernstein.

The launch vehicle industry's survival is dependent on market demand for satellites of all types and is based on a relationship that goes well beyond the commercial communications sector to include remote sensing, military and scientific spacecraft.

A still-evolving reorganization of U.S. Strategic Command headquarters and a realignment of supporting commands along functional rather than service lines to achieve specific "effects" are intended to streamline Stratcom ties to warfighters. However, the creation of four new subordinate commands to take over certain day-to-day Stratcom mission functions is being questioned by retired senior officers. One suggests the end result will be a "further emasculation of Stratcom--more responsibility, but less influence" in Washington.

The Fundamentals of Aircraft Combat Survivability Analysis and Design By Robert E. Ball American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics--Education Series 900 pp., Hardcover ($105.95) Getting the timing right for a book release is not always easy, but the rerelease and update of Robert E. Ball's The Fundamentals of Aircraft Combat Survivability Analysis and Design has certainly hit the mark.

Lockheed Martin has chosen Craig Field Airport near Selma, Ala., as its preferred site for pilot candidate training in its bid to win the U.S. Air Force Introductory Flight Training (IFT) contract. The airport was selected because it meets all of the education and training requirements set forth by the service. The IFT program was initiated by the Air Force Education and Training Command to provide screening of 1,300-1,700 candidates each year. A contract award is scheduled to be issued in the first six months of this year, according to Lockheed Martin.

M. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell (see photos) has been appointed to the board of trustees and Gary P. Pulliam has been promoted to vice president-civil and commercial operations from division general manager at The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif. Paté-Cornell is professor and chair of the Management Science and Engineering Dept. at Stanford University. Gary F. Hawkins has been promoted to principal director of the Space Materials Laboratory from distinguished scientist in the Office of Innovative Materials. Jana L.

You have before you the Aviation Week & Space Technology Aerospace Source Book for 2005. It is our 10th annual attempt to bring you the statistics and analyses you need to understand the current state of and likely prospects for military aviation, civil aviation and space.

After three years of turbulence, the global airfreight industry has experienced its best year since 1997. Most major measures of tonnage handled or ton-kilometers flown were expected to show double-digit growth in 2004 over 2003, at least for international operations. The U.S. domestic market continued to be stagnant, as shippers moved a higher percentage of goods via expedited trucking services, a factor that has produced lackluster growth in air express and airfreight traffic despite a buoyant national economy.

A Yale University astronomy team has used Hubble Space Telescope data to map clumps of theoretical "dark matter" in galaxy clusters, finding "extremely good agreement" with the so-called concordance model of the Universe that predicts dark matter. Headed by Priyamvada Natarajan, the team used gravitational lensing of distant galaxies to calculate structure in the intervening dark matter causing the light to deflect.

James Wanliss, assistant professor of physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Fla., has received the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Award. It recognizes the early career-development activities of teachers who are considered most likely to become academic leaders. Wanliss will receive grant funds over five years to develop local predictions of the effects on Earth of the magnetic storms that originate from explosions on the Sun.

Indonesian fishing/seafood operator PT ASI Pudjiastuti is flying two of its Cessna Grand Caravan utility airplanes around the clock to deliver supplies and medical personnel to survivors of the recent tsunami in Asia. Cessna Aircraft Co. has teamed with Pudjiastuti by donating $20,000 to purchase water and water purification equipment, rice and milk.

In a study published by the Flight Safety Foundation, the Helicopter Assn. International (HAI) reports that the number of accidents involving commercial helicopters operating in the U.S. increased in 2003. Using the latest data available from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, HAI found that there were 1.39 fatal accidents per 100,000 hr. flown by single-engine, turbine-powered rotorcraft--the highest rate during the 1999-2003 reporting period.

Defense stocks are heading into uncharted waters as Wall Street struggles to make sense of the jostling in Washington over U.S. defense spending priorities. At issue: How much will the costly war in Iraq drain Pentagon weapons programs, what programs will really be cut and how deep will the cuts be?

A Singaporean air force C-130 on Jan. 7 delivered some unusual cargo to Indonesia: a Mobile Air Traffic Control Tower (MATC) to restore air traffic control capability at Banda Aceh airport. The Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami damaged Aceh's tower, hampering its ability to handle the influx of relief flights. Humanitarian operations have increased to 200 from 10 daily following the tsunami.

Scott R. Dickson has become senior vice president/chief marketing officer for the Midwest Air Group Inc. He succeeds the late Thomas Vick. Dickson was president of Airline Partner Services of Miami and had been chairman/ president/chief executive of Vanguard Airlines.