One example of Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) push toward new international joint ventures is Custodio, a Singapore-based cybersecurity research and development company being established in collaboration with the nation's Economic Development Board and announced in February at the Singapore Airshow.
Airbus Defense and Space has completed the first phase of its airdrop trials of its A400M Atlas airlifter. The aircraft dropped a range of different loads by parachute during the trials at the Fonsorbes range near Toulouse in 11 flights during a two week period. Crews dropped 26 platforms and containers weighing from 255 kg (560 lb.) to four metric tons using the ramp aerial-delivery system (RAS-wedge), and 11 bundles weighing 15-320 kg using the paratrooper doors.
Eddie Johnson's Viewpoint “NASA's Plan Shorts Safety” (AW&ST Feb. 3/10, p. 82) is on target in being concerned about the safety of the commercial crew vehicles now under development. The Orion procurement (in 2006) emphasized safety and required that responding contractors demonstrate compliance with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB).
At capacity-constrained airports around the world, high winds are a major cause of flight delays and cancellations, often as a result of the knock-on effects of reduced airport flow rates. Landing aircraft currently have to maintain set distances apart due to the wake vortices occurring from the wingtip, but research has shown that in strong headwinds, ground speeds on approach are reduced and the effect of the vortices is quickly dissipated, potentially allowing the distances separating the aircraft to be reduced.
Brian Clegg has been appointed vice president-global aerial operations for Erickson Air-Crane Inc., Portland, Ore. He succeeds H.E. “Mac” McClaren, who has become Washington-based vice president-government, defense and security programs. Clegg was vice president-flight operations for the CHC Helicopter Corp.
For offshore helicopter pilots, the approach to oil and gas platforms is one of the most work-intensive periods of the flight. During bad weather, pilots can struggle with high winds, while low visibility and clouds sometimes obscure heli-decks that often sit hundreds of feet above the sea level, and obstacles such as cranes and gas flares create challenges in the final moments before touchdown.
Matthijs de Haan (see photo) has become general manager of Terma the Netherlands in Leiden. He succeeds Richard Jones, who is retiring; de Haan was director of the Holland Space Cluster in Noordwijk.
New green propulsion technology developed by Swedish Space Corp. is expected to help Skybox Imaging sell black-and-white images at resolutions well below 1-meter ground-sample distance, positioning the Mountain View, Calif.-based startup to compete with established remote-sensing service providers in the U.S., Europe and Israel. Skybox Chief Executive Tom Ingersoll says the first two of a planned 24-satellite constellation of small, optical imaging spacecraft can already offer panchromatic products at 90-cm ground-sample distance.
Diana L. Sands has been named senior vice president of Chicago-based Boeing's Office of Internal Governance, effective April 1. She has been vice president-finance/corporate controller and is succeeding Wanda Denson-Low, who is retiring. Robert E. Verbeck, who has been vice president/chief financial officer of Boeing Defense, Space & Security in St. Louis, has been appointed to succeed Sands. And he will be followed by Leanne Caret, who has been vice president/general manager for vertical lift in Philadelphia.
Temperatures soar to beyond 1,000C in the turbine sections of helicopter engines. This is hardly a hospitable environment for a condenser microphone. But Berlin-based German Aerospace Center (DLR) researchers, because they needed to take sound measurements in just such inhospitable places for experiments useful in the decades-long pursuit of quieter helicopters, have designed a special housing and coiled sound canal probe for the job.
Rafi Maor returned to Israel Aerospace Industries as chairman in November 2013. He had worked on the Lavi fighter program and led IAI's unmanned aircraft systems division before leaving the company for the information and telecom industries. Maor gave his first media interview to Senior International Defense Editor Bill Sweetman at last month's Singapore Airshow. AW&ST: What is your view of how big the civil unmanned air system market will be, and how soon it will start to take off?
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.
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.
Travis Slocumb (see photo) has been named head of the Raytheon Co.'s Electronic Warfare Systems, El Segundo, Calif. He was vice president-strategy and business development for the company's Space and Airborne Systems.
The U.S. is close to completing the nationwide deployment of a satellite-based navigation network, which will be by far the largest such system in the world and a key foundation for the NextGen initiative.
March 25-30—FIDAE. Santiago, Chile. www.fidae.cl/portal_fidae.aspx March 29-April 1—Airports Council International's 2014 Air Cargo Conference. Orlando, Fla. www.aci-na.org/event/3204 March 30-April 10—ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-14). Dubai. www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Conferences/WTDC/WTDC14/Pages/item.aspx?ItemID=14 April 1-2—SpeedNews Second Annual Aerospace Manufacturing Conference. The Battle House Renaissance, Mobile, Ala.speednews.com/aerospace-manufacturing-conference
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.
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).
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.
Pratt & Whitney says flutter has been ruled out as an early cause of the F135 fan failure that developed in the first stage of the Joint Strike Fighter engine's three-stage unit during ground tests in Florida on Dec. 23. The fan crack occurred during accelerated mission tests on ground engine FX648 at Pratt's West Palm Beach facility as the engine reached 77% of its required life, says the F-35 program executive officer, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan. Pratt may have “underestimated the stress at low cycle fatigue,” of the fan, he adds.
NASA still wants to build the heavy-lift Space Launch System, and as long as Sen. Richard Shelby is alive, it will. The U.S. space agency needs the Alabama Republican, who is the ranking member of his party on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he needs the SLS to keep his constituents at the Marshall Space Flight Center happy. So the fairly level funding of $1.3 billion for the big rocket, plus some extra advanced-technology money, in the agency's fiscal 2015 budget request is no surprise.
