Kennedy Space Center workers have started stacking the right solid rocket booster for the next space shuttle flight, although it remains to be seen if NASA's shuttle Discovery will be ready to fly by the planned May launch date. Administrator Sean O'Keefe says the external tank for the STS-114 mission is due at KSC by year-end, but vows the shuttle won't fly until it meets the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
While the Airborne Laser test program brings a list of unprecedented challenges, it's also viewed as an opportunity to create a U.S. center for evaluating directed-energy weapon systems. Very little about testing a missile defense laser here fits the mold of traditional Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) programs, though. From organizing a test force to devising meticulous safety procedures, the government-contractor team is blazing new trails.
It is reprehensible in this age of computer design and fly-by-wire that any company would design an aircraft from which the pilot could so easily rip off the tail. If that wasn't bad enough, Airbus decided essentially to keep this fact a secret from the aviation world. The result was the deaths of innocent people on AA587, an Airbus A300. To fault the pilot or airline is ridiculous.
Airservices Australia has been selected by the FAA for a five-year, multimillion-dollar award to provide air traffic control services at four towers in Hawaii, one in Guam and another on Saipan.
Lockheed Martin designers are taking the wraps off four concepts they're offering to the U.S. Air Force to meet its requirements for an interim long-range strike platform to fit in between the B-2 and whatever will replace the 21 stealth bombers in the 2035 period.
With an eye on the Pentagon's efforts to prepare for network-centric operations, Honeywell signed a 10-year agreement to acquire engineering and technology services from IBM. The deal, valued by IBM at up to $250 million, gives Honeywell access to IBM's systems, chips and devices for design and development of aircraft, network-centric battlefield systems and space systems. In September, IBM formed a similar 10-year partnership with Boeing, worth $200 billion, aimed at bidding on network-centric systems (AW&ST Sept. 27, p. 36).
Vertical navigation situation displays now appearing on airline flight decks should help spur a reduction in hull-loss and fatal accidents. For a half century, airline pilots have navigated using just horizontal views of their flight paths--starting with electromechanical instruments and, more recently, glass cockpit displays. However, the vertical picture is more complex and easier to misunderstand, so fatal errors can result quickly from pilot confusion.
The National Audit Office, the British government financial watchdog, is offering a more upbeat appraisal of the Defense Ministry's Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) process than it is the overall procurement program. A report released earlier this month, entitled "The Rapid Procurement of Capability to Support Operations," considers the 658 million pounds ($1.2 billion) spent on 312 UORs for the war with Iraq.
U.S. intelligence analysts are concerned about the planned launch from Iran, by early 2005, of an Iranian built satellite on an upgraded version of Tehran's largest ballistic missile, the Shahab-3. Such an "Iranian Sputnik" would elevate the stature of the country in the Middle East, where only Israel has previously been able to use its own modified ballistic missile to fire Israeli satellites into orbit.
The 50-seat regional jet that revolutionized commercial aviation more than a decade ago is transmuting into an albatross. Embraer projects a 43% decline in demand in the 30-60-seat category, from an earlier forecast of 1,150 aircraft to 650 during the next decade. And, rival Bombardier got an earful from analysts in the wake of a production rate cut late last month in the 50-seat CRJ200.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is helping shield soon-to-resign Air Force Secretary James Roche and acquisition chief Marvin Sambur from criticism in the Darleen Druyun scandal, saying their attempts to take authority from the now-convicted acquisition executive are what drove her to negotiate a job with Boeing and leave her Air Force post. Rumsfeld also identifies two systemic problems that let Druyun accumulate enough power to approve flawed contracts. "You have too much turbulence on the military side . . .
Boeing has installed a next-generation, long-range radar in a second Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft designed for Australia. The Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar antenna comprises hundreds of advanced transmitter/receivers that allow beams to be focused for maximum range, discrimination of small objects and tracking of multiple targets over a wide area. While work on the system continues, the first Wedge-tail is undergoing an airworthiness flight-test program. Australia has ordered six of the aircraft.
AirBridge Cargo plans to grow into a major Boeing 747-200 freighter operator, as the airline builds up its long-haul and regional network from two Russian bases. The airline earlier this month announced the latest step in its anticipated expansion, the launch of a four-times weekly 747-200 service from Frankfurt via Moscow to Shanghai. The route adds to flights from Frankfurt to Beijing and from Luxembourg to Tianjin/China, both via Russian intermediate stops.
U.S. Army officials expect their future intelligence aircraft, Aerial Common Sensor, will allow them to predict an adversary's actions by rapidly stitching together information from a variety of sensors rather than just collecting individual bits of data.
AirAsia debuted on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange last week--the first budget carrier to do so--and plans to buy 40 aircraft from either Boeing or Airbus in the next two years. The airline now operates a fleet of 19 Boeing 737-300 aircraft. Its shares rose about 16% on their first day of trading, with expectations of a fuel-price drop and planned new routes to China and Indonesia. AirAsia's initial public offering of 700.5 million shares raised about $210 million for the carrier and over $42 million for private stakeholders, according to AirAsia. Starting Dec.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who has explored Washington's readiness for space cooperation with China since early in his tenure (AW&ST Apr. 1, 2002, p. 27), is finally getting a meeting with his Chinese counterpart. Sun Laiyan, newly appointed head of the Chinese National Space Agency, will call on O'Keefe at NASA headquarters Dec. 2 in what the U.S. agency describes as a "courtesy visit." O'Keefe downplays the significance of the event, professing not to know who made the initial overture and dismissing it as an "exchange-of-views" session.
Tony Lavoie has been appointed director of space systems programs and Teresa Vanhooser and Chris Singer co-deputy directors of the Engineering Directorate at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Lavoie was director and Vanhooser deputy director of the Flight Projects Directorate. Singer has been acting director of space transportation. George R. Schmidt has become manager of the Propulsion Research Center. He was program executive for nuclear power systems at NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
U.S. Air Force electronic-warfare experts are planning an aggressive push in the coming months to sell their service counterparts on the idea of tying together a broad range of EW sensors to thwart modern integrated air defenses.
Henry L. Taylor has become president of the Auburn, Ala.-based University Aviation Assn. He is professor/director emeritus of the Institute of Aviation at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. Other new officers are: president-elect, Allan Skramstad, assistant chairman for academics of the University of North Dakota Aviation Dept.; secretary, Raymond Cain, associate professor of aviation at Florida Memorial College; and treasurer, Steven L. Anderson, associate professor of aviation at St. Cloud (Minn.) State University. Trustees are: Merrill R.
NASA plans to follow President Bush's Jan. 14 priority list in spending the $16.2 billion in Fiscal 2005 funding it won as Congress gasped its last: Get the space shuttle flying again, restart International Space Station assembly and start work on a Crew Exploration Vehicle to go to the Moon and Mars.
Japanese discount carrier Skymark Airlines is to launch four daily round-trip services from Tokyo Haneda airport and Osaka Kansai International Airport next March. A month later, Skymark will begin code-sharing with Japan Airlines on that route, a big step for Skymark as it battles for recognition in the Japanese domestic market, which is largely a duopoly of JAL and All Nippon Airways. Fifty-five seats on each flight are to be exchanged. With the code-share, JAL will have 11 daily trips and Skymark eight.
U.S. Army Col. (ret.) Robert Furney (Pacific Grove, Calif.)
Regarding the article "Missing the Flight" (AW&ST Oct. 25, p. 35), what goes around comes around. The same battle of the U.S. Air Force's efficiency versus the Army's immediate needs has surfaced again.
Japan Airport Building Corp. has completed the 182,300-sq.-meter (1.96-million-sq.-ft.) second passenger terminal at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, giving All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines (JAL) separate facilities at Asia's busiest hub. ANA will share the $651-million five-story building with Hokkaido International Airlines (Air Do), one of Japan's discount carriers. They officially move in Dec. 1.
