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The Air Force-convened fleet viability board that reviewed the C-5 transport has now been asked to take a look at KC-135E refuelers, which USAF wants to retire and replace with KC-767s. The independent group will inspect 30 KC-135Es, looking at each individually. The Air Force thinks those aircraft are at the end of their useful lives. The Center for Naval Analysis recently found no major problems across the KC-135 fleet, but Air Force Secretary James Roche points out the study also notes that the E-model tankers now require 11% more maintenance than the newer R models.
At first glance John Wall, the national secretary of labor organization Amicus, appears an archetypal trade unionist: a pugnacious Scot, committed to the workers he represents. Amicus, however, counts more than half of the U.K.'s aerospace and defense employees, some 70,000, among its members, in both blue- and white-collar positions. Wall's views mirror this sophistication. Now 57, Wall is a veteran of the sector, with experience gained over the last three decades.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded a network-centric solutions contract with a potential value of $9 billion over five years to seven teams. The teams are led by Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Booz Allen Hamilton, the Centech Group Inc., NCI Information Systems Inc. and Multimax, an information technology services company. They will compete for task orders for global networking of voice, video and data communications and information technology systems. Nearly 80,000 commercial information technology products will be available.
Japan plans to double its KC-767 tanker fleet, making the refueling aircraft the second big winner next to missile defense in Tokyo's new spending plan, which offsets the new initiatives with cuts to fighters, surveillance aircraft, ground and naval equipment. Japan's Defense Agency has asked the finance ministry for $45.3 billion for fiscal 2005, a 1.2% increase over current spending. The Japanese fiscal year begins Apr. 1.
ITT Industries' Space Systems Div. will develop, build and test an Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) for next-generation National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites under a $359-million NASA contract. The imager is slated to fly in 2008 on the GOES-R geostationary spacecraft to gather critical data for National Weather Service forecasts.
Hostile jamming is a major concern for military users of GPS, leading to anti-jamming requirements for satellites and receivers. But there is no program underway to solve the problem the other way--by locating and eliminating the jammer. Direction-finding on jammers is a well-practiced art, but GPS adds a new twist--effective jamming signals can be so weak, near to background noise, that standard direction-finding (DF) equipment can't home on them. The usual jammer works by brute force and is easy to find, but GPS is a different beast.
To improve its capabilities against countermeasures and upgrade information warfare against new and evolving threats, the U.S. Air Force has awarded a $19-million contract to Georgia Technical Applied Research Corp. for collaborative electronic warfare/sensor technology, modeling simulation and analysis research. The work is to be completed by August 2009.
Worldwide air freight growth was up nearly 11% for the first five months this year and should average 6.2% over the next two decades, triple current levels and a full percentage point higher than passenger traffic is likely to reach.
John Rogacki has been appointed director of the University of Florida Graduate Engineering and Research Center at Shalimar. He was director of the space transportation technology division of the NASA Office of Aerospace Technology.
In reply to the several recent letters on the shuttle, no one who saw John Young walk bespectacled around the shuttle after its first flight in 1981--thrusting his fists excitedly into the air--can say the shuttle was a failure. It may have outlived its purpose and should be replaced, but it was the right vehicle at the right time.
Hamilton Sundstrand has added another power and control system win to its 7E7 portfolio and extended its role as a leading systems integrator among the prime suppliers for the mid-sized jet. Boeing has tapped it to make the airplane's electric motor pump system. Now undergoing its final configuration, the 7E7 is to make its first flight in 2007 and enter the market in 2008.
Caleb Tiller has been appointed senior manager of public relations for the Alexandria, Va.-based National Business Travel Assn. He was communications associate at the Airlines Reporting Corp.
Raymond Culbreth has been promoted to federal security director from assistant director for screening for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration at Juneau (Alaska) International Airport.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] Sept. 27-29--SAFE Assn. Symposium (Safety, Survival and Flight Equipment). Grand America Hotel, Salt Lake City. Call +1 (541) 895-3012 or www.safeassociation.com Sept. 28-30--Seventh Global Aviation Information Network World Conference. Hilton Bonaventure, Montreal. Call +1 (202) 267-9740, fax +1 (202) 493-4950 or see www.GAINweb.org
Finmeccanica and Alcatel S.A. expect to conclude due diligence on a pair of planned space ventures this month, but final negotiations on a defense electronics venture to be created by Finmeccanica and BAE Systems remain stalled.
Thales is shipping the first A380 inflight entertainment systems to Airbus in Toulouse, France, for installation on a flight-test aircraft that is due to be completed in July. The 550-seat Thales TopSeries i-5000 system, under development for four years, has been tested at a laboratory in Irvine, Calif. Similar systems in the series are flying on 50 aircraft, including the A330. An A380 version is expected to cost $8 million per aircraft.
The Netherlands is looking to buy Standard Missile equipment under a U.S. foreign military sales contract that could reach $70 million. The deal would cover 55 SM-2 Block IIIA missiles, and an equal number of Mk.13 canisters and other equipment.
Steven J. Hill has been named president of Boeing Business Jets. He succeeds Lee Monson, who has become vice president-sales of Boeing Commercial Airplanes for the Middle East and Africa. Hill was business director of Boeing Aircraft Trading.
The chairman of the State Commission last week said terrorist acts caused the Aug. 24 crashes of a Siberian Airlines Tupolev Tu-154B and Volga Aviaexpress Tu-134, according to Russian news reports. The commission is leading the investigation of the two crashes that killed a total of 90 people. Traces of hexogen, which is in the RDX family of plastic explosives, were found at the crash sites, and two Chechen women, one on each aircraft, are believed to have carried the explosives on board.
If US Airways shuts down, likely beneficiaries are Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways and AirTran Airways, according to Philip Baggaley, credit analyst with McGraw-Hill Companies subsidiary Standard & Poor's. He expects those low-cost operators to move into key East Coast airports, acquire slots and expand into many domestic and some Caribbean routes. The shaky financial condition of legacy competitors would preclude them from such investments, he says, but US Airways' traffic would divert to Delta, Continental and American airlines.
Drew Baker (see photo) has been promoted to president from vice president-marketing and repair development for Bearing Inspection Inc., Los Alamitos, Calif.
Despite efforts by NASA to downplay the issue, European Space Agency managers are expressing concern that a Russian decision to refocus scarce space resources on research and development may lead to a logistics snag at the International Space Station. They also fear NASA's proposed schedule for launching ESA's Columbus module could brake the impetus in Europe for future space exploration.
Although chances of keeping to the original schedule and budget for Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system are increasingly remote, planners still expect to start services by decade's end--and will benefit from experience with a precursor system to boot. Rainer Grohe, executive director of the Galileo Joint Undertaking, which is managing the demonstration/validation phase and overseeing the search for a concessionaire to deploy and operate the system, acknowledged that meeting the initial 2008 service start deadline will be difficult.
Scandinavian carrier SAS is hoping to move on the acquisition of a regional jet fleet by around the end of 2005, dependent on improving financial performance. SAS plans for a regional jet purchase have previously been delayed by cash issues, but senior company executives are underscoring the need to introduce a regional jet as soon as realistically possible.
