Last week, I received a note from a former colleague congratulating me on my appointment as the new editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology, effective Jan. 1. “As you well know, AW&ST is a force far beyond a normal magazine,” he wrote. “Enjoy the adventures to come and lead 'em to scoop the competition.”
Lockheed Martin delivered 30 F-35 aircraft in 2012, meeting a program goal just in time for its deadline of the New Year. The company had completed turnover of the first 20 of the single-engine, stealthy aircraft, but still had 10 remaining at the beginning of the month. The delivery flow was interrupted this year because of a 10-week machinists strike at the F-35 production plant in Fort Worth.
Can ad hoc design teams collaborating via the Internet produce a better infantry fighting vehicle quicker than traditional industry engineering organizations? Darpa aims to find out when it launches the first of three Fast, Adaptable Next-Generation (FANG) ground-vehicle design challenges in January 2013. Using new model-based design tools, virtual collaboration and foundry-style manufacturing, FANG aims to produce an amphibious combat vehicle in one-fifth the time of a conventional program.
Making repairs to composite parts that restore their aesthetic appearance as well as their mechanical performance is difficult. Concerns about undetected contaminants weakening bonded joints mean most repairs involve bolted-on patches. But techniques are emerging to enable aesthetic bonded repairs to aircraft in service and parts during manufacture. Aerostructures manufacturer GKN Aerospace is using laser ablation to cut the time and skill needed to prepare composite parts for repair.
The Quest Kodiak is a remarkable aircraft for several reasons, among them its super-rugged design, price point and intent. Equally impressive was the aircraft's lightning pace from concept, to design, fabrication, testing, certification and delivery. And this by an all-new company that had manufactured not so much as a paperclip previously, let alone a turbine-powered airplane.
The FAA's NextGen air traffic control modernization effort is a top priority, and 2013 will be a crucial year for its en-route automation modernization and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast programs. Deployment of both is to be largely completed by the end of the year. If that does not occur, there could be serious headaches for other NextGen initiatives.
The Persian Gulf area carriers have been among the winners of the seismic shift in global air transport. As they continue to grow, upgrading infrastructure will be key to sustaining the pace.
Graham Warwick (Washington), Larry Dickerson (Forecast International)
As war winds down and the focus shifts from Afghanistan to China, missile manufacturers will see a move away from today's heavy use of precision air-to-surface weapons toward an emphasis on long-range anti-ship and strike systems. Influenced by that trend, the world missile-systems market will see a steady increase in value over the next five years, but a drop in deliveries as production shifts to more expensive weapons. More than 194,000 missiles of all types are forecast for production between 2013 and 2017, valued at $61.9 billion.
Variable-area fan nozzles on the latest high-bypass engines could increase fuel efficiency and reduce airport noise. Pratt & Whitney is introducing the concept on its PW1100G for the Airbus A320NEO. but not on smaller versions of the geared turbofan. Current engines have fixed-area fan nozzles, designed as a compromise between climb and cruise. But the exit area needs to be larger for takeoff and smaller for cruise, so a variable nozzle optimizes the fan flow for each flight condition.
Australia's competition watchdog says a proposed Qantas-Emirates partnership should be allowed to proceed, although the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has also signaled its intention to impose capacity conditions on routes between Australia and New Zealand. The commission has issued a draft approval for the Qantas and Emirates plan to cooperate closely, particularly on routes from Australia to Europe via Dubai.
India is likely to buy two additional Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to strengthen its air defense, according to Defense Minister A.K. Anthony. The air force currently has three Israel Aerospace Industries/Elta Phalcon radar systems mounted on Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft, under a $1.1 billion deal with Israel and Russia signed in 2004. Anthony did not say whether India will proceed with a follow-on option for the Phalcon or release fresh tenders.
Todd Witchall (see photo) has been appointed VP-finance and CFO of Redmond, Wash.-based Crane Aerospace and Electronics. He was senior business operations manager at Lockheed Martin.
A Pinnacle Airlines contract with its pilots, if ratified in mid-January, will provide Delta Air Lines with its path to reducing the number of 50-seat jets operated by its regional airline partners to 125 or fewer. Doing so could reduce its maintenance costs.
This has been quite a year. Neil Armstrong has passed on, but Curiosity is alive on Mars. One of the most amazing sights that I have seen was in October 1957 when I witnessed the first visible pass of Sputnik over California. I was a medical intern at Los Angeles County Hospital at that time. I, along with numerous others, went to the athletic field at CalTech to observe this event. Someone called out “There it is!” And there it was. All of us gathered there knew in an instant that the world had changed.
One day in the distant future, air traffic will certainly stop growing. The current annual growth rate of 5% per year cannot be sustained forever. If it were, the world's population would eventually spend more time in the air than on the ground.
NASA 's fuel-depleted Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) A and B lunar mission probes slammed into a mountain near Goldschmidt crater at the Moon's North Pole late Dec. 17, ending a one-year mission. The carefully targeted impact of the two washing machine-sized spacecraft, renamed Ebb and Flow, occurred on schedule, with Ebb striking first at 5:28 p.m. EST, and Flow striking 32 sec. later. The spacecraft impacted the Moon at 3,800 mph.
It's a classic chicken or egg dilemma. Small satellites are not being built because there is no cheap way to launch them, and small launchers are not being built because there are no satellites to launch on them. So the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is attacking the problem from both directions simultaneously, with dual programs to develop $500,000 imaging satellites of less than 100 lb. and air-launched boosters to place them in low Earth orbit for $1 million a flight.
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Allan Stanton has become VP for international sales in the Middle East for Savannah, Ga.-based Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. He was sales director for Hawker Beechcraft in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
Constantine Karayannopoulos has been named interim president and CEO of Greenwood, Colo.-based Molycorp, succeeding Mark A. Smith, who has left the company. Karayannopoulos was president and CEO of Neo Material Technologies.
