The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Topographic Engineering Center commissioned the company to develop software tools to merge digital elevation models (DEMs) of varying sources, scales and resolution. The Army ERDC-TEC, whose mission involves terrain visualization, requires models fused from data generated by differing sources: synthetic aperture radar, and light detection and range radar. The left image shows high-resolution LIDAR data of San Francisco merged with low-rez bathymetric data of the Bay itself.
British industry executives and politicians are scrambling to try to resuscitate U.S. interest in an air-to-air version of the Starstreak missile, with any future for such a derivative now unclear.
Both threaded and unthreaded fasteners can be temporarily held in place during transport, fabrication or assembly with the patented NYSTAY locating patch. The polymer, which is preapplied in a ring around the fastener, is soft enough to allow hand assembly, and allows users to preinstall certain components. The material is non-toxic and environmentally safe. It replaces old methods of using plastic washers to hold solid rivets. The patch can also be located at any point on the fastener length, facilitating robotic riveting-type production.
The 2J4 air filter with stainless steel housing is damage- and corrosion-resistant, and smaller and lighter than competing air filters, according to Parker Hannifin. This is an OEM-certified, and FAA- and PMA-approved product that is a second-generation air filter, welded instead of glued, making it less susceptible to damage and rust. Filters are available for most major general aviation aircraft. Parker Hannifin Nichols Airborne Div., 14 Robbins Pond Road, Ayer, Mass. 01432. 186 on www.AviationNow.com/oic
The U.S. Air Force is embarking on a push to station its bombers closer to potential conflict areas, with a plan to aggressively enhance bases in the Pacific and Europe. Service leaders already had devised plans to boost the infrastructure in Guam, Diego Garcia and Fairford AB in the U.K., but those have received extra emphasis as a result of a recent high-level meeting on USAF's long-range strike strategy. USAF will also deploy bombers there regularly, not just in times of crises, say officials close to the deliberations.
Saft's MP series lithium-ion rechargeable batteries were chosen by Remote Diagnostic Technologies for the Tempus 2000 electronic medical diagnostic unit, designed for use on aircraft, ships and in remote locations. The diagnostic unit enables non-medical personnel to collect and transmit a patient's vital signs--blood pressure, pulse and heartbeat--to doctors. The unit was used recently on a British Midland flight from Chicago to Manchester to take an electrocardiogram of an ill passenger and transmit it to doctors in the U.S.
The last mission to return samples from a terrestrial body was the Soviet Luna 24 unmanned Moon lander in 1976. The comet dust being returned by the NASA Stardust spacecraft is the first U.S. sample return since Apollo 17 (AW&ST Jan. 12, p. 29).
The Cobra quad-video windows solution--available as a single-slot 6U VME card or as a stand-alone 2U box-level product--is a multi-input, video windows processor that can accept up to 12 video inputs and then simultaneously display up to four as windows on a digital flat panel or analog display. A selected video source can be scaled to any position on the screen, or can be zoomed to full-screen. Other display configurations include quad-video, picture-in-picture, side-by-side and overlapping windows.
In October 2003, Singapore short-listed the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale and Boeing F-15 for its next fighter purchase. While for a small number of planes--only 10 at first, with another 10 to follow--this competition has broad implications for aircraft contractors in the U.S. and Europe. It also speaks eloquently about new dynamics in the fighter market. RENEWED HIGH-END DEMAND?
India's Defexpo exhibition, scheduled for Feb. 4-7 in New Delhi, has sold all of its floor space to 300 companies from 15 countries. The largest delegation is from the U.K., with 20 companies participating. Other companies displaying their wares include Dassault, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Denel and Israel Aircraft Industries. Defexpo centers chiefly on land and naval weapons systems.
India last week successfully test-fired Akash, a medium-range, surface-to-air missile from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur-on-sea in eastern India, the second firing in a two-day period. The missile, which weighs 650 kg. (1,430 lb.) with a 50-kg. payload capacity, hit an airborne target. The multitarget Akash uses a ramjet propulsion system and is one of five missiles under various stages of development at the Defense Research and Development Organization.
Space shuttle managers plan an exercise in early February to make sure future mission management teams (MMTs) know how to obtain classified military imagery of the shuttle or space station in orbit and what to do with it when they do.
While homeland security officials recently asked that certain non-U.S. carriers' flights from Europe carry sky marshals, Israel employs them only on El Al Israel airlines. Leo Glesser, an Israeli security specialist who heads International Security & Defense Systems, said foreign airlines that fly to Israel are not required to carry sky marshals.
Designed specifically for aerospace manufacturing, the A99E-CD high-speed horizontal machining center can cut up to 75% off cycle times of both milling and grinding production operations due to its utilization of "continuous dress" creep feed grinding technology on the same machine as conventional high-speed milling processes. The A99E-CD can mill, bore, drill, tap and turn, as well as grind; the company adds that combined milling and grinding operations can further reduce up to 90% of cycle time.
The continued absence of a large new Pentagon rotorcraft modernization program is causing dismay among helicopter makers, but subsystem builders see encouraging signs in the Army's revamped modernization strategy.
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Pratt & Whitney, Boeing's Phantom Works and the U.S. Air Force will conduct flight tests of a liquid-fueled, scalable supersonic combustion ramjet propulsion system under a contract awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory. Under the scramjet engine demonstrator-WaveRider (SED-WR) program, the team will use a B-52H to air-launch a free-flying scramjet-powered WaveRider vehicle that will be mounted atop an ATACMS booster. Launch conditions of the 24-ft.-long, 3,700-lb. booster/ WaveRider stack are expected to be about 35,000 ft. and Mach 0.85.
The global maintenance, repair and overhaul business is shaky but surviving as operators grapple with growing customer pressures to lower labor costs and increase efficiency, while prospects for a genuine market turnaround may still be years away. For the past two years MRO companies have been struggling to make ends meet. Maintenance capacity remains excessive and there is not enough work to go around.
Afew major new avionics projects and slowly improving avionics service and support sales are providing the first signs of hope for a deeply depressed commercial avionics market.
BOMBARDIER AEROSPACE DELIVERED THE FIRST CHALLENGER 300 business jet Jan. 8 to Bombardier Business Jet Solutions in Dallas. The twin-engine jet will be operated as part of the Bombardier Flexjet fractional ownership program and is the first of 25 Challengers ordered by Flexjet. In related news, the second Global 5000 flight test aircraft flew for the first time Jan. 9 in Toronto. Certification of the jet is scheduled for the end of this quarter, according to Bombardier.
Japan's Ministry of Education and Science has officially postponed launch of the ETS-8 engineering test satellite scheduled in fiscal 2004 as the investigation of the H-IIA launch vehicle failure proceeds. The ministry also will postpone the Selene Moon survey and Winds (Wideband Internet Demonstration Satellite) in fiscal 2005. In addition, the Japanese space agency JAXA has postponed formal handover of H-IIA launch operations to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The investigation is focused on a burn-through of one of the H-IIA's solid rocket booster motors.
The Russian air force has received its first batch of upgraded Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker fighter aircraft, with five delivered to the Lipetsk combat training center. The Su-27SM aircraft has improved avionics and radar.
The U.S. Air Force's work on the E-10A ground-surveillance project may be exceeding what Pentagon officials have approved. A review of the multi-platform radar technology insertion program did not clear USAF to integrate the sensor on the E-10A, but the service is acting as if it has been given the go-ahead, says Steve Cambone, the Pentagon's undersecretary for intelligence. The memo, first reported by AW&ST sister publication Aerospace Daily, asks Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne to review the issue and issue findings by Jan. 30.
The Pee-Wee thermoplastic panel receptacle connector is part of a series of subminiature, high-voltage connectors and cable assemblies for use in high-voltage applications where dense electronic packaging is required. Pee-Wee uses a method of sealing high voltage at reduced atmospheric pressure, which permits the Pee-Wee series to be rated at 12 KVDC at 70,000 ft. and with a temperature range of 55 to +125C.
The NTSB is recommending the FAA require replacement of unguarded rotary buckles on flight crew seat belts with the kind that cannot inadvertently unlatch. The Jan. 2 recommendation, which also asks the FAA to identify all aircraft that have such buckles installed on flight crew seats, arises from the board's investigation of the Jan. 8, 2003, crash of Air Midwest Flight 5481 at Charlotte, N.C. (AW&ST Jan. 20, 2003, p. 38). According to the board, the Raytheon Beechcraft pitched up 19.2 deg. maximum aft and rolled 18 deg.
