APOCALYPSE NOW The Senate Armed Services Committee's cut of two F/A-22s from the Fiscal 2004 budget request could have more far-reaching consequences than the lawmakers intended, warn service officials. Advocates for the stealth fighter paint a doom-and-gloom scenario, saying as many as nine aircraft could be lost as a result of the measure because the per-copy price would go up, in part because "supplier confidence" would be eroded. Still lingering are software problems for the stealth fighter, with reliability running far below where it should be.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries holds nearly a third of the $11.1 billion the Japanese Defense Agency spent in fiscal 2002 for military equipment. MHI, the prime contractor on Japan's F-2 close air support fighter, also builds the SH-60K helicopter and Patriot missile defense system under license. It received slightly more than $3 billion of the JDA's total procurement allocation, and its business base was three times larger than its nearest competitor, Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
HACK ATTACK Hackers are starting to overwhelm the decision-making of computer systems administrators trying to defend against attacks with viruses that work faster. Richard Clarke, who has advised President Bush on cyber-security, says the "Slammer" worm in January infected more than 300,000 computer networks on five continents within 14 min. "It is almost impossible to react in time to a new threat like Slammer, even if you do see it coming," he said. So far, hackers who have taken control of computer systems haven't used that power for destruction, Clarke said.
6 Correspondence 10-11 Who's Where 14-15 Market Focus 17 Industry Outlook 19 Airline Outlook 21 In Orbit 22-23 World News Roundup 25 Washington Outlook 79 Classified 80 Contact Us 81 Aerospace Calendar
WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP 22 Grand Canyon tour operator gets its first EC130 22 Four major international carriers post profits 23 Boeing hires ex-French official to revamp European strategy WORLD NEWS & ANALYSIS 26 Back from brink, V-22 once again eyeing rosier future 28 AgustaWestland likely to get an equal role on the BA609 30 Bell looking for performance to match tiltrotor promise 31 Raytheon wins decoy pro- gram; jammer version stalls
Timothy P. Malishenko has been named corporate vice president-contracts and pricing for Chicago-based Boeing. He succeeds Robert J. Ingersoll, who has retired. Malishenko was vice president-contracts and pricing for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
Ronald B. Woodard, former president of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, has been appointed to the board of directors of Continental Airlines. He is chairman of the MagnaDrive Corp.
The CFM56-powered Airbus A318 obtained JAA certification on May 23, while FAA certification is expected to follow next month in preparation for first delivery of the 107-seat twinjet to Frontier Airlines. A Pratt & Whitney-powered version, which has been delayed repeatedly by the technical difficulties with the PW6000 turbofan, is scheduled to enter service in November 2005.
Los Angeles-based Senior Engineering Editor Michael A. Dornheim visited the pair of Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) while they were undergoing final assembly and test at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in nearby Pasadena, Calif. The 400-lb. vehicles dwarf the first rover to operate on Mars, the 23-lb. Sojourner that was a key part of the 1996 Mars Pathfinder mission. The flight spare for Sojourner is in the foreground at lower left. The first MER launch is set for June 5, which will take it to a Jan. 4, 2004, landing in what may be an ancient lakebed (see p. 54).
BAE Systems plc has been in talks with Bombardier Inc. about acquisition of its NATO and Canadian aviation flying training centers. The business is valued at around $100 million.
Add Applied Signal Technology Inc. to the list of small defense electronics companies whose most recent quarterly performances substantially exceeded Wall Street expectations and provided further proof that there are industry niches where the concept of "aggressive growth" remains the order of the day.
EIGHT-IN-ONE Rockot is preparing for a late-June launch that will see no fewer than eight small scientific satellites lofted into space on a Rockot booster, including the company's first Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) missions. One of the larger satellites, to be placed in elliptical orbit, will be a Czech spacecraft, Mimosa, intended for upper atmospheric density measurements. Another to be sent into SSO will be Canada's first space telescope, Most. The rest of the payload, also earmarked for SSO, consists of nanosatellites.
CORE PROBLEM Back when O'Keefe's biggest problem was getting space station spending under control, he designated delivery of the second multi-hatch node to the station as key. That would get the program to the "U.S. core complete," a milestone that slipped way to the right with the Columbia mishap. Still, workers at Alenia Spazio's factory in Turin, Italy, are packing up Node 2 to ship to the Kennedy Space Center. There were a few bad moments earlier this month after the 16 "petals" designed to protect the node's peripheral hatches were installed and fit-checked.
John Martin's response to Gareth Williams of the European Space Agency (AW&ST Apr. 21, p. 6) regarding a redundant GPS states, "America is not at all interested." I beg to differ. Being able to track, target and strike with near global pinpoint accuracy, while denying that capability to a foe, is unprecedented and akin to being the only nation with a nuclear weapon.
The British Defense Ministry's top level procurement body, the Investment Appraisals Board, was due to consider purchase of the Hawk 128 advanced jet trainer, May 27. Also expected to be on the agenda was a choice between the Joint Direct Attack Munition and Paveway IV for the precision-guided bomb program. Paveway IV appears to be leading the competition.
I am astonished at the childish and unrealistic attitude of weapons designers toward polygraphs. The labs have been prime targets for foreign intelligence agencies for several decades. At a time when every American must endure increasingly invasive and inconvenient security measures, one can have little sympathy for members of the defense community who balk at a little invasion and inconvenience themselves. Most government offices and contractors would rightly fire you if you refused to cooperate with a proper security investigation.
The U.S. Air Force has selected Raytheon to develop an air-launched decoy aimed at spoofing enemy air defenses, but the service so far is holding off on pursuing an adjunct jammer.
The Pentagon is moving to a two-year budget cycle, overhauling the decades-old planning, programming, budgeting and execution process. The process will begin with an abbreviated budget review for Fiscal 2005, for which no Defense Planning Guidance will be issued. In the off-year, the services will have to submit so-called budget change proposals to adjust their planned funding in response to cost increases, schedule delays, congressional actions or other factors.
Rita Hirschmann has become chair of Hirschmann Industrial Holding Ltd., Zug, Switzerland, parent of the Jet Aviation Group. She succeeds Moritz Suter. Heinz Kohli has been named interim CEO of Jet Aviation and Theo Staub chief operating officer of Jet Aviation in the U.S.
OLYMPIC BOOST Initial in-orbit operations for Greece's Hellas Sat, orbited May 13 by an Atlas V booster, will be handled by SES Astra under a contract announced on May 14. SES Astra will also provide a pair of ground stations for commercial service, which is due to begin by next year, in time for the Summer Olympics in Athens. The spacecraft is owned by Hellas-Sat, a consortium comprising the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization, Avacom Net of Cyprus, the Cyprus Bank of Development, the Hellenic Aerospace Industry and Canada's Telesat.
The June 16-22 Paris air show is expected to emphasize the aerospace-defense industry's economic concerns rather than new technical achievements. Moreover, French President Jacques Chirac will be opening a show clouded by political tensions with the U.S.
The U.S. regional jet market is entering a new growth phase as major airlines and their regional carriers acquire next-generation airplanes designed to fly longer routes with increased service frequency. RJs and their growing role within a struggling U.S. airline industry were a major topic at the Regional Airlines Assn.'s convention held here last week. RAA represents 56 carriers in the U.S.
NEW LOW-FARE CARRIER IN THE WIND Another low-cost airline is set to challenge the traditional airlines in the lucrative Italian domestic market. Starting on June 18, Sicilian-based Wind Jet, with headquarters in Catania, will provide six daily flights to Rome and two to Forli. By the end of the month, new frequencies from Palermo and Lampedusa island are to be added. By August, the carrier plans to open new routes to Milan and Pisa. The pricing strategy is aggressive, with fares ranging from 19.99-99.99 euros ($23-116).
With an eye on the development of future tiltrotor aircraft, Bell Helicopter Textron is investigating several technologies that could enhance current designs.
Biggs C. Porter has become vice president/corporate controller of the Raytheon Co., Lexington, Mass. He was corporate controller of the TXU Corp. Porter succeeds Edward Pliner, who is now senior vice president/chief financial officer.
