As Boeing explores interest in a 757 replacement (AW&ST Feb. 24, p. 28), an obvious solution presents itself—a 757 MAX. The 757 is known for its range, payload and hot-and-high takeoff capabilities. This rugged and reliable airframe is beloved by flight crews and maintenance personnel alike. Restarting production of the 757 with new-generation engines and some modest aerodynamic and systems refinements would produce an economical solution to the 757 replacement issue.
Qantas's urgent need to slash costs to mitigate spiraling losses has sparked one of the largest shakeups in the airline's history. While Qantas is hoping it can cut its way back to profitability, potential political and structural changes could play key roles in assisting the carrier's turnarounds.
Boeing's Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA) demonstrator, a modified Bombardier Challenger 604 business jet, has been flown to Boeing's Yuma, Ariz., facility to prepare for initial certification flight tests following extensive conversion work by Toronto-based Field Aviation. The aircraft forms a prototype platform for development of the MSA, which is designed for nations seeking a lower cost surveillance and patrol capability without the full anti-submarine and surface vessel warfare capacity of the P-8.
At least one more iteration of a budget shell game must play out before the Pentagon and industry can feel good about how Congress will fund military investments over the next five fiscal years. The telltale event will be how Capitol Hill receives the Pentagon's $26 billion wish list, which comes on top of its base budget request for 2015. The list includes attack helicopters and two more Joint Strike Fighters, top Defense Department officials said last week in rolling out the request (see page 30).
The drastic increase in required flight hours for first officers, demanded by Congress after the 2009 Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, N.Y., may prove counterproductive. The regulation has already generated pilot shortages at some regional airlines and the situation could soon become critical.
Following its recent decision to pursue large geared-turbofan designs for next-generation engines in the 2020s and beyond, Rolls-Royce has announced plans to expand its aerospace research and technology capabilities in Dahlewitz, Germany, with construction of a new testbed for power gearboxes.
Right now, the majority of aviation development in India is like the tango; two steps forward, one back, stop and gaze at your partner, wait for applause, then repeat.
Daniel F. Akerson, former chairman/CEO of General Motors, has been named to the board of directors of the Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md. He also was a managing director of The Carlyle Group, and is a director of the United States Naval Academy Foundation.
John S. Rego (see photo) has been appointed CFO of Virgin Galactic, Mojave, Calif. He was CFO of AppSense Inc. in New York and had been executive vice president/CFO/treasurer of the Vonage Holdings Corp.
The board of Finmeccanica has approved plans for a new organizational and operating model for its companies. Finmeccanica, which is saddled with high debts, is looking to divest its transportation units and make aerospace, defense and space its core focus. Companies affected by the changes are AgustaWestland, AleniaAermacchi, Selex ES, OTO Melara, WASS and SuperJet International. Other firms in the group, including DRS Technologies and FATA, will be managed separately.
India has put on hold all defense contracts with Rolls-Royce following allegations that the company paid bribes to win lucrative contracts to supply Hawk advanced trainer jet engines to state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), a defense ministry official says. Not only is the decision a serious blow to the aircraft engine-maker, but it also threatens to delay upcoming Indian air force purchases and impact other existing programs.
Tony Osborne's “Fueling Question” (AW&ST Feb. 24, p. 37) underscores that prudent routine mission planning should have had that helicopter safely back on the ground at Glasgow City Heliport within 30 min.—fuel still in the tanks—not flying around at night over a densely populated city with one low-fuel light blinking and the other steady on. If this was a seasoned crew, something else must have distracted them. That is where investigators should be looking.
The perception that the U.S. enjoys military superiority over all possible adversaries has existed for decades, despite the fact that Russia enjoys a technological edge in many important weapon categories. These systems are also widely exported. Our future military dominance depends heavily on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The SU-35 can already outperform it in almost every realm and the T-50 should be much more formidable.
When Star Alliance CEO Mark Schwab announced last December that Air India had been accepted as a future member of the group, some in the country thought this could signal the turning point that the beleaguered airline had been waiting for. However, the U.S. downgrade of India's aviation safety rating in January underscored just how bumpy the road to normalcy remains.
Art Lofton, Robyn De Wees, Calvin Pennamon, Gerard Spivey and Gregory West (see photos), all Northrop Grumman Corp. employees, received top awards at the annual Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) STEM Global Competitiveness Conference. An additional 15 Northrop Grumman employees were recognized as BEYA Modern-Day Technology Leaders. They were cited for dedication to community service, educational leadership, and technical and professional contributions.
Billy Martin has been appointed senior research scientist and director of the Electromagnetic Energy (EME) Lab at the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University. He was principal engineer and EME group supervisor at the Cessna Aircraft Co.
The caption with a graphic depicting satellites and debris in Earth orbit accompanying an article in the March 3 edition (page 22) on a new U.S. satellite system to monitor other spacecraft incorrectly described a dense ring of objects. The region described was low Earth orbit, not geosynchronous orbit.
Scheduling issues at Cape Canaveral, including launch of a classified U.S. government spacecraft known as Clio, may force NASA to delay its long-planned first flight of the Orion deep-space crew capsule from mid-September into October. “We'll probably move a little bit from the September time frame just because of the launch manifest, probably somewhere into October,” says William Gerstenmaier, associate NASA administrator for human exploration and operations.
The U.K. government has selected Honeywell's SmartPath ground-based augmentation system to complement a standard ground-based instrument landing system (ILS) at a new airport being built on St. Helena island. The British territory is in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,100 mi. from the African mainland and 700 mi. from the nearest diversion airport. St. Helena is in the process of building its first airport, slated to be operating in 2016 and opening the island to tourism. The facility will have a single 5,085-ft.-long, 150-ft.-wide runway.
Reader Ted Klapka's letter (AW&ST March 3, p. 8) regarding the recent Viewpoint “Protect Airlines From SAM Threats” (AW&ST Feb. 17, p. 58) is insular to the extreme. U.S. airlines (as well as those of other nations) fly all over the world, frequently in the skies of nations that harbor terrorists who would like nothing more than to stage an encore to 9-11. I will grant him that “no one gets out of this life alive,” but the vast majority of us would prefer it to be via natural causes.
