William B. Scott (Big Sky, Mont. and Colorado Springs)
Incident commanders and air tanker pilots battling U.S. forest fires are capitalizing on commercial satellite imagery, advanced infrared sensors developed by the Pentagon, and network-centric warfare-like communications. As they become widely available, these tools will give aerial firefighters the timely intelligence needed to attack and contain fires much faster and at less risk than in the past.
Boeing is nearing completion of its design for the Republic of Korea (ROK) Air Force's F-15K, as part of a $4.2-billion deal that will provide Seoul with the 40 most modern F-15s in the world--specialized for air-to-air combat as well as ground attack and maritime strike.
INTUITIVELY OBVIOUS It didn't take long for the Army's new chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, to get crosswise with the boss. Asked July 29 at his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing whether the Army has enough personnel given its worldwide commitments, Schoomaker said he would need time "to formally assess this." So far, so good. But then he rushed in where angels fear to tread, adding that "I'm going to take a little risk here [and say] intuitively I think we need more people. I mean, it's that simple." Oops.
FIREFINDER RADARS TO INDIA VIA C-17 U.S. Air Force C-17s have delivered two AN-TPQ/37 Firefinder counter-artillery radars, which are part of a $190-million Indian-U.S. military sales agreement for the Indian army. The radars are expected to be used along the 463-mi. Line of Control in Kashmir. Signed in 2002, the agreement calls for India to acquire 12 radars and delivery to continue through September 2006. They were purchased through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program.
The last Boeing S-307 Stratoliner touches down at Washington Dulles International Airport last week for a last taxi, to its retirement home adjacent the airport--the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
Siberia Airlines is seeking to reinforce its growing hold on domestic markets and to expand international service in a bid to overtake Aeroflot as Russia's leading carrier.
U.S. teams from the Iraqi Survey Group still haven't found any Scud tactical ballistic missiles or obvious weapons of mass destruction, but they have uncovered a number of Su-25 ground attack and MiG-25 high-speed interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft (this Foxbat B was specialized for reconnaissance and electronic-intelligence gathering) buried at Taqqadum airfield west of Baghdad.
Despite some public hand-wringing when a V-22 landed with a hydraulic failure last week, the investigation has shown a missing clamp to be the culprit, not a systemic design problem with the tiltrotor aircraft. The question now will be whether the clamp was missing because of a manufacturing error or as the result of a maintenance slip-up. The aircraft had 250 flight hours and was considered one of the most reliable in the test program. One of two hydraulics systems failed on aircraft No. 21 during a flight at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.
New German low-fare airline Germania Express plans to expand its fleet rapidly in the next two years with more used Fokker F100s, posing a significant threat to growth opportunities of other emerging low-fare carriers.
READYING ENDEAVOUR United Space Alliance and NASA will take the shuttle orbiter Endeavour off line for about 1.5 years of previously planned modifications before shuttle flights resume next spring using just Atlantis and Discovery. The modifications, to be performed at Kennedy, will include installation of a glass cockpit like that now being installed in Discovery and previously added to Atlantis and Columbia. NASA had always planned to remove Endeavour from service for roughly 18 months once the work currently underway on Discovery was completed.
James W. Simpson's viewpoint regarding the future for Starships (AW&ST June 30, p. 44) might be different if he considered why airplane crash tests are conducted. In almost every such test the primary reason is to improve the survivability of passengers and crew. Numerous improvements have been incorporated into production aircraft based upon full-scale crash test results.
Malaysia and Russia have completed and signed an earlier announced agreement on purchase of 18 Sukhoi Su-30MKM two-seat combat aircraft (AW&ST May 26, p. 33) during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Malaysia on Aug. 5. The package deal valued at roughly $900 million includes delivering fighters in batches in 200607 and establishing Sukhoi's maintenance and support center in Malaysia. As an offset arrangement Russia will train and put a Malaysian cosmonaut into space in 2005.
American Eurocopter Corp.'s new U.S. production facilities, now being built at Columbus, Miss., will assemble A-Star-series aircraft and produce subassemblies for additional aircraft types, EADS executives said last week. On Aug. 7, the European group broke ground on the new facilities. "This is the first of many industrial milestones in the U.S., and we can envision increased production presence in defense and commercial aerospace in the future," EADS Co-CEO Philippe Camus said.
U.S. Homeland Security Dept. teams are in the process of inspecting a dozen international airports overseas for vulnerability to attacks by manportable air defense systems (Manpads), and have already completed inspections at all Category X and Category 1 airports in the U.S. (about 100 facilities). The inspections in the U.S. began early this year; the overseas ones at airports frequented by U.S. airlines started in June, as first reported in The New York Times last week.
Alexey Komarov (Moscow), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
The Russian government finally appears determined to accelerate consolidation of Russia's aerospace and defense industry, but there is still considerable debate over just how to achieve this long-stalled objective.
It is encouraging to hear that NASA is looking to organizations such as the U.S. Navy and "various commercial industries" for ideas in reducing risks in space flight (AW&ST July 21, p. 31). However, I think they are missing a key ingredient in their new program. Although there was a short section in the NASA/Navy Benchmarking Exchange report describing the Navy approach to human factors, it appears to relate only to design of the human/machine interface.
Although a healthy company, Snecma exemplifies a vanishing species, European state-owned companies. The propulsion group's long-overdue privatization, however, is scheduled for the next few months on the condition that the Paris stock exchange adopts a more optimistic trend. The right-wing government of French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin last year suspended a plan to sell Snecma to private investors to avoid selling off cheaply a profitable company with 6.5 billion euros ($7.3 billion) in annual sales.
The Justice Dept. has determined that online travel company Orbitz--owned by five major U.S. airlines--is not in violation of antitrust laws. Following an extensive investigation, Justice concluded Orbitz has not reduced competition or harmed airline customers. The joint venture of American, United, Continental, Delta and Northwest airlines launched service in June 2001.
CONSOLATION PRIZE In a tiny victory for last year's National Aerospace Commission, FAA reauthorization bill conferees approved NASA and FAA scholarship programs for college students who, after graduation, will work full-time for the agencies at least two years for every year they receive financial help. Conferees see a $10-million-per-year program for each agency. The commission recommended a much more elaborately coordinated federal workforce education program but has found no interest. Aerospace Industries Assn.
JETBLUE MRO CONTRACT Air Canada Technical Services will perform the maintenance, repair and overhaul of JetBlue Airways' fleet of A320 aircraft for a six-year period, under terms of a C$139-million ($98.9-million) agreement concluded last week. The New York-JFK-based airline now operates 45 A320s and has 107 additional aircraft of the same type on order.
TESTING FOR T-50 DECISION South Korea has begun the initial operational assessment phase for the T-50 trainer developed jointly by Korea Aerospace Industries and Lockheed Martin. The review will feed into a production decision Seoul is slated to make later this year with deliveries two years hence. The program has already completed two other milestones required before production can begin, logging 105 development flight tests and undergoing an initial logistics review. The operational assessment is to run about a month at Sachon air base.
Christopher Hjelm has become chief technology officer of Chicago-based Orbitz. He was senior vice president-technology of eBay Inc., San Jose, Calif., and had been senior vice president/chief information officer of the Federal Express Corp., Memphis, Tenn.
SHINMAYWA FLIPS LEARJET The Japanese navy has disclosed in an interim investigation report that a U-36A (Learjet 36A) crashed at Iwakuni AB near Hiroshima on May 21 during touch-and-go training. The report says that after takeoff the Learjet was hit by wake turbulence of a ShinMaywa US-1A rescue amphibian (99,200-lb. maximum takeoff weight) that took off 28 sec. earlier. The U-36A (18,300-lb. MTOW) spun out of control, rolled and was consumed by fire after it crashed. All four crewmembers were killed.
GE Capital Aviation Services has leased two Boeing 737-800 aircraft to Shenzhen Airlines Co. Ltd. of China. GECAS already leases four Boeing 737-700 jets to Shenzhen, one of the fastest growing carriers in China.
A former Toyota executive has shown the Japanese government how a combination of smarter purchasing, low interest rates and revised schedules can save the nation's biggest airport project from a potentially crippling cost overrun. Called Centrair, the airport is being built on a 580-hectare site (1,433-acre) site on Ise Bay near Nagoya. It will have a single, 3,500-meter (11,500-ft.) runway and is due to open in mid-February 2005. Funding is being provided by both public and private sources.
