The U.S. Navy has joined the rush to develop unmanned, high-performance combat aircraft which Pentagon seers say will dominate wartime skies by 2030. In fact, aerospace industry officials predict the first contract for development of an uninhabited combat air vehicle (UCAV) will be awarded before the end of 1998. Meanwhile, Naval Air Systems Command officials have contracted with Lockheed Martin to define a family of vehicles that could be launched from small surface combat ships and submarines built to carry ballistic missiles.
Morlaix, France-based regional carrier Brit air will exercise its option for two additional Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) Series 100 airplanes that are scheduled to be delivered in January and March 1998. The airline operates nine of the 50-passenger, twin-engine transports, and is scheduled to take delivery of the additional airplanes next month and in January 1998. Plans call for operating the new jets on routes stemming from a franchising agreement between Air France and Brit air.
India is having a terrible time in space lately. First, its new remote-sensing satellite, IRS-1D, ended up in a low orbit due to under-performance by the indigenously developed Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Now, the newest Indian-built communications bird has died. Launched by an Ariane 4 last June, the 2.3-ton, 25-transponder, Insat-2D (actually a multipurpose satellite carrying meteorology and search-and-rescue payloads, as well) suffered power problems, lost its Earth lock Oct. 2 and was declared useless on Oct.
ORENDA RECIP INC. OFFICIALS expect to open a 45,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia, next month to produce 600-hp. OE-600 turbocharged piston engines. The liquid-cooled, aluminum block V-8 powerplants are intended to replace Pratt&Whitney Canada PT6-series turboprop engines in older Beechcraft Model 90 King Airs, as well as remanufactured Piper Navajos and Cessna Model 421s. FAA and Canadian certification is scheduled for late this year.
Chances seem to be improving that the beleaguered MD-11 will make the cut when Boeing announces which former Douglas Aircraft Co. transport programs will be retained. ``The prospects are good that the program will proceed,'' according to a Boeing official, based primarily on the aircraft's freighter capabilities and a booming air cargo market--which has generated strong demand for trijet passenger-to-freighter conversions.
MIDWAY AIRLINES CORP. has ordered 10 Canadair Regional Jet Series 200ERs, valued at about $207 million including pilot and mechanic training and spares. Deliveries will take place between next month and December 1998.
Northrop Grumman technicians have begun installation and operational checks of the first of three full-scale development (FSD) versions of the company's Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) for the FAA at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. AMASS monitors airport surface traffic and alerts controllers of potential conflicts through systems integration with ASDE-3 and ASR-9 radars. The FSD version includes automated conflict alerting, signal and data processing electronics and an automated radar terminal system interface.
As of late last week, neither the flight data nor cockpit voice recorder had been recovered from the wreckage of Garuda Indonesia Airways Flight 152 which crashed Sept. 26 at Medan, on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The accident killed all 234 on board.
A slight ``tone'' detected during tests under abnormal flight conditions has prompted Boeing to reinforce the horizontal stabilizer on its new ``next-generation'' family of 737 transports. The change will delay FAA certification by several weeks and move the first delivery of the 737-700 to launch customer Southwest Airlines to the end of this month.
AW&ST: What should this nation be doing to push the boundaries of high-speed research? YEAGER: If you go back and look at what we did once we got beyond the speed of sound and uncovered the [benefits of the] flying tail--which took the rest of the world five years to find out--and using afterburners on jets, you'll see we started running into a little compressor stall problem once we got to Mach 2 in the F-104. The shock wave was being ingested by the inlet, so we solved that by going to variable-geometry intake ducts--like on the F-4 and F-15.
With a burgeoning order book, Saab Ericsson Space is looking to hire 100 new engineers this year. That would expand its workforce by 18% to 650 employees. The company also will start work on a new building at its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, to accommodate its growing business. Sales have doubled in the past four years, to $61.5 million, with the largest increase coming in the commercial sector.
Congress last week paved the way for former FAA Administrator T. Allan McArtor to proceed with plans to start a new business-traveler oriented airline out of restricted Dallas Love Field.
Flir Systems Inc. of Portland, Ore., is successfully expanding its imaging technologies into the television news field. The company recently delivered its 50th UltraMedia unit since product launch in April 1996. FSI also introduced a compact version, the UltraMedia RS, last February. The UltraMedia and UltraMedia RS host long-range, broadcast-quality video cameras in 5-axis stabilized mounts, allowing news helicopters to operate at standoff ranges when airspace over a news scene is closed and to conduct covert investigations.
A conference on airline competition sponsored by Business Travel Contractors Corp. (BTCC), which represents 58 of America's largest corporations, is urging Congress to take action to assure airline competition. ``The airline industry is at a crossroads in its experiment with deregulation,'' BTCC President Kevin Mitchell said at a ``competition summit'' here last week attended by about 275 community, business, industry and government leaders.
Turkish Airlines will acquire 26 ``next-generation'' Boeing 737-800 transports through the year 2002 to renew its fleet, and has taken options to buy an additional 23 aircraft for delivery between 2000 and 2002. If all of the options are realized, the sale could be worth more than $2 billion to Boeing.
Military personnel planners seem to believe increased airline hiring of pilots is the primary root of their difficulty in retaining flight crews. It is far easier for these planners to blame their losses on the pull of the airlines, rather than their own policies and lack of insight. The normal attrition due to new careers or returning to school is being accelerated by burdens of increased operational tempo, less meaningful flying time and a ``politically correct'' military.
Daimler-Benz Aerospace of Germany has offered to codevelop an advanced AT2000 jet trainer with South Africa for local and export markets. The wide-ranging, cooperative deal also would include the purchase of Eurocopter EC-135 and AS 532 helicopters and coastal patrol aircraft based on the Fairchild-Dornier 328. The AT2000, on the drawing boards at DASA for some time, would cost $1.35 billion to develop and carry a per aircraft fly-away price of $16-20 million, depending on the version.
On the morning of Oct. 14, 1947, U.S. Air Force test pilot Capt. Charles E. (Chuck) Yeager became the first man to successfully fly faster than the speed of sound. Anniversaries often provide us with opportunities to reflect on the past, but they can also be used as benchmarks for assessing the future. In the following series of articles, an Aviation Week&Space Technology editorial team examines where we are--and where we may be going--in the realm of airbreathing, sustained high-speed flight.
French Education Minister Claude Allegre, who is also responsible for space, confirmed last week that he planned to scale down participation in the International Space Station and to reorient France's space policy toward space exploration and applications where necessary, independently of the U.S.
THE FRENCH REGIONAL AIRLINE Flandre Air has become the European launch customer for the EMB-135, Embraer's new 37-seat jet. Embraer officials said at the European Regions Airline Assn. meeting at Baveno, Italy, that they have secured another regional launch customer in the U.S. Embraer foresees a market for 500 of the new jets during the next 10 years.
Managers of the High Speed Research program have redefined and restructured a number of upcoming propulsion tests aimed at reducing the risks associated with developing an engine for a Mach 2.4 High-Speed Civil Transport, or HSCT.
Discussions underway among U.S. government and contractor officials could lead to new studies and flight tests aimed at mitigating strong wing downwash and vortices that can collapse parachutes of troops jumping from the Boeing C-17 transport. The problem occurs when in-trail elements of three aircraft fly over troops that had just jumped from lead C-17s. On training missions, trailing aircraft now maintain a spacing interval of almost 7 naut. mi., or 2.5 min., to avoid parachute interaction. Typical in-trail spacing for USAF C-141s, by comparison, is 2,000 ft.
After months of soul-searching and weeks of last-minute verification, Europe is poised to attempt the second launch of its Ariane 5 heavy booster, a flight with enormous implications for Europe's space program and European space contractors in the wake of the vehicle's failure on its first flight in June 1996. The European Space Agency and CNES French space agency have scheduled the second launch attempt for as early as Oct. 28.
United Airlines is evaluating an advanced weather depiction system installed in a DC-10-10 that has the potential to save airlines millions of dollars annually in fuel and time. Developed by NASA Langley Research Center scientists under the direction of Charles Scanlon, the Cockpit Weather Information (CWIN) project uses two Inmarsat satellites to continuously transmit data link images of national, regional and local weather conditions directly to a cockpit display.
