The Joint Strike Fighter competition between Boeing and Lockheed Martin may come down to a classic replay of performance versus cost. With low observables, on-board processing and aerodynamic performance roughly at parity (although short takeoff and vertical landing propulsion systems are yet to be tested), the choice of a winning design may be determined in other areas such as the radar and electro-optical sensors, according to aerospace industry officials here for the International Powered Lift Conference 2000.
Members of the space shuttle ice and debris inspection team at the Kennedy Space Center have been honored for safety observations prior to the launch of Discovery on its mission to the International Space Station last month. Gregory N. Katnik and Jorge E. Rivera of NASA received its Exceptional Achievement Medal, while Michael Barber, John B. Blue and Thomas F. Ford of the United Space Alliance and D. Scott Otto of the Lockheed Martin Space Services Co. received the NASA Public Service Medal.
Gulfstream, the General Dynamics business jet subsidiary, has just leased five military version Gulfstream C-37As to the Air Force for $477 million, but company planners have a bigger sell in mind: pitching the long-endurance, high-altitude aircraft to the Navy as a utility electronic reconnaissance and patrol aircraft. Officials at the Center for Naval Analysis have asked Gulfstream to look at an even larger version of its newest and biggest G-VSP. The Navy wants technical data by Dec. 1 on a G-V with a longer fuselage and more powerful engines.
The U.S. National Security Agency's Echelon electronic surveillance system generates serious concerns, could threaten public and individual freedoms and requires ``appropriate responses,'' according to the French parliament's defense committee.
The first A340-600, which rolled off the final ssembly line in Toulouse, France, late last month, is entering the ground test phase in preparation for its maiden flight next year. The 56,000-lb.-thrust Rolls-Royce Trent 500 turbofans, auxiliary power unit and additional systems have not been installed as yet on the 380-seat aircraft, the biggest commercial transport built in Europe. The stretched-fuselage derivative of the in-production A340-300 has a 7,500-naut.-mi. maximum range and will be complemented by the 313-seat, extended-range A340-500.
Enormous debt, low yields and escalating fuel costs factored into cash-strapped Malaysia Airlines' recent decision to scale down its fleet by 20 aircraft by Jan. 1 and significantly reduce services. Malaysia Airlines (MAS), which has suffered losses since 1995, is in debt to the tune of M$9 billion ($2.4 billion)--30% of which is attributed to the depreciation of Malaysian currency at the height of the Asian economic crisis in 1997.
An advanced forward-looking infrared system being developed for the U.S. Army's RAH-66 Comanche helicopter will be matured and refined as part of Lockheed Martin's ``Arrowhead'' upgrade to U.S. Army AH-64A/D Apache rotorcraft. By sharing technology between the programs, overall cost and risk should be reduced substantially.
USMC Maj. Gen. (ret.) James E. Livingston has been appointed to the board of directors of Petroleum Helicopters Inc., Lafayette, La. He is executive vice president of Columbus Properties.
France and the U.S. are planning a validation flight in 2007 to test vital technologies for a planned joint Mars sample return program. The flight will test a main orbiter/reentry vehicle to be provided by French space agency CNES, a high-precision landing/hazard avoidance system to be developed by NASA and a telecom relay orbiter to be supplied by Italy. It will also demonstrate a novel aerocapture orbital braking technique and deploy four European Netlanders to probe the Martian weather and subsurface structure.
China says it has launched its first navigation/positioning satellite. The official Xinhua news agency released a photo of a Long March 3-A lifting off from the Xichang launch center in Sichuan province in southwest China. The news agency said the payload was ``the Beidou Navigation Testing Satellite'' and that the launch was in the early morning hours of Oct. 31.
After coming in for strong criticism from Congress about the state of its science and technology program, the U.S. Air Force is taking steps to try and allay lawmakers' concerns.
The European Space Agency has released one of the first images taken with its new XMM-Newton orbital X-ray observatory. The image, taken by the satellite's EPIC-pn camera in the 0.3-2.0-keV. energy band, is a mosaic of 12 independent observations of the Coma Cluster of galaxies. The mosaic, obtained thanks to the very large collecting area of XMM's telescopes, shows the huge number of galaxies belonging to the cluster. Some of these galaxies have been tentatively identified.
Congress is stepping up the FAA's aviation security program, concerned that too many weapons still clear airport checkpoints undetected. The strongly bipartisan Airport Security Improvement Act of 2000 mandates better training of security personnel, and fingerprint checks to buttress the control of access to the nation's airports. Other provisions order the FAA to strengthen the physical protection of air traffic control facilities, and encourage more extensive use of explosive detection systems.
Bruce E. Tarletsky has become vice president-marketing and development of the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport Authority. He was director of business development for the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority, Allentown, Pa.
The FAA has hired a headhunter to find a chief operating officer (COO) for its air traffic control system. The new executive will be responsible for ATC strategic plans and the acceleration of ATC modernization. Word is a candidate will be selected by Administrator Jane Garvey early next year, subject to approval by an adjunct of the new Aviation Management Advisory Council. It was established by Congress in the AIR 21 aviation modernization bill President Clinton signed into law last spring.
Sophie Vossenaar, manager of inflight communications for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, has been elected president of the World Airline Entertainment Assn. She succeeds Karen Schipper of El Al Israel Airlines. Other new officers elected are: vice president, Kent Craver, manager of product marketing for Continental Airlines; secretary, Joan Barker, sales and marketing director of Inflight Productions Ltd.; and treasurer, Linda Palmer, senior vice president-nontheatrical sales for Buena Vista Pictures.
Accident investigators at Taipei last week began sorting through wreckage and other evidence following the Oct. 31 crash of Singapore Airlines Flight SQ006 as conflicting accounts of what happened stirred up controversy that focused on three issues--a night takeoff into bad weather, possible departure from the wrong runway and a collision with an object on the runway.
Sabotage, malicious code buried in software, terrorism, earthquakes and hurricanes now top U.S. Space Command's list of threats to military and commercial space systems, displacing more-esoteric ones such as anti-satellite weapons.
Former astronaut Neil Armstrong has been named chairman of the Edo Corp. of New York. He succeeds Frank Fariello. Armstrong was chairman of AIL Technologies Inc. and associate NASA administrator for aeronautics.
A decision could be made as early as this week on whether a new company--Iridium Satellite--will be able to acquire the assets of the bankrupt Iridium satellite communications system. A hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has been scheduled for Nov. 8 to hear the proposal from Iridium Satellite, which is headed by Dan Colussy, a former president of Pan American World Airways.
Air Force Space Command has assumed responsibility for the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite, which had been a research platform for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization since 1996. The spacecraft will improve AFSPC's ability to monitor and collect information on deep-space commercial and military satellites, augmenting ground-based tracking systems while avoiding some of their limitations. MSX has increased revisit rates of ``militarily significant objects'' by 50% and reduced the lost-satellite list by 80%, according to command officials.
Henry Borysewicz has become director of the Scientific Computing Center and will remain director of the AeroSpace network at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences of the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Dave Vangsnes has become site manager of the UND Flight Training Center in Mesa, Ariz. He was director of crew resource management at the Odegard School.
Billings for new general aviation airplanes during the third quarter exceeded $2 billion--a record amount for the period, and deliveries reached 684 units, the highest since 1984. According to the General Aviation Manufacturers Assn., 472 piston-powered aircraft, 144 business jets and 68 turboprops were shipped. So far this year, customers have taken delivery of 431 business jets, 233 turboprops and 1,336 piston-powered light airplanes.
ITT EXPECTS TO START SHIPPING ITS NEW PINNACLE image intensifier tubes to the U.S. Army for helicopter and ground-based night vision use early in the first quarter of 2001. Pinnacle uses an upgraded Generation 3 technology that actually gives it better performance than previous Gen-3 and Gen-4 systems. Improved photoresponse gives it a 24% better signal/noise ratio. A new gated power supply reduces the voltage and vastly improves the viewing under bright light conditions, so helicopter pilots can continue using their NVGs when they turn on landing lights.
Boeing and the Pentagon are going to be working closer together on National Missile Defense, literally. With the Pentagon's encouragement, the company has decided to move its program management shop from Anaheim, Calif., to the Washington area to bolster coordination with the NMD program office. As part of the shift, Boeing's newly appointed NMD program director, Jim Evatt, is relocating here. Boeing hopes the move, along with a few other changes, will improve its performance on the NMD program and increase how much money it gets under the existing contract.
