Summer is near in the northern latitudes, which means the return of those warm-season staples: baseball, barbecues, bikinis and the blimps that draw eyeballs skyward. You can't not look at a blimp
Keri Jenkins (see photo) has joined Yingling Aviation of Wichita, as aircraft records control and document administrator. She worked for Cessna Aircraft in parts distribution and as a senior analyst on the company's Cescom system.
Michael Toscano, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, has been elected to the NextGen Institute Management Council, Arlington, Va.
In “Victory Lap”(AW&ST April 23/30, p. 58) you note that the space shuttle Discovery will “orbit the Sun once a day from . . . the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.” The rest of planet Earth takes 365 days to orbit the Sun! Enumclaw, Wash. (Our thanks to Salz and the other astute readers who good-naturedly noted an obvious editing error.—Ed.)
Ignoring last year's congressional directive to reduce spending, even for the Defense Department, the House Armed Services Committee meets this week to consider a bill that recommends restoring Air National Guard force structure and funding for the Global Hawk Block 30 surveillance UAVs while rejecting reductions in submarine production, military compensation savings and a new round of base closures.
Patricia MacMahon, sector VP and general manager-military aircraft systems at Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., has been named the 2012 recipient of the Navy League of the United States Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz Award. The award honors an industry leader for contributions to maritime strength and national security.
Alcoa's 50,000-ton press may not match the heft of a gargantuan 80,000-ton unit being built in China, but the metals manufacturer says its 12-story machine is the most capable in the world. A $100 million redesign and rebuild of the Cold War-era press at the company's Cleveland plant added a new hydraulic system that allows tighter tolerances during the forging of aluminum, titanium, inconel and steel parts, significantly reducing the amount of metal needed while cutting machining costs.
Annette Vitello (see photo) has been named director of operations at American Jet International of Houston. She has been director of operations with air carriers operating jets, turboprops and helicopters.
Automated layup is cutting the time required to produce composite structures. But production volumes forecast for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 are pressuring industry to accelerate the rate at which it can deposit carbon fiber on tools. Flexible, multi-head machines provide one answer. The U.K.'s National Composites Center is the first to operate an automated fiber-placement machine with two robotic heads working cooperatively. Built by France's Coriolis Composites, it is being used by GKN Aerospace on the U.K.'s Next-Generation Composite Wing project.
Gary Wood (see photo) has been named corporate sales and marketing representative for Flying Colors Corp., Peterborough, Ontario. He has held management roles with Cessna Aircraft, Cessna Pacific and Field Aviation.
International Editor Robert Wall . . . . . . notes that Londoners will soon be seeing military exercises related to safeguarding the Summer Olympic Games. As part of the layered security, Eurofighter Typhoons will be on patrol. And the U.K. Defense Ministry has now disclosed where ground-based air defenses might be placed. Deployment of the systems in heavily residential areas has raised some eyebrows, although the locations are largely in the East End (an area not spoiled by love and attention to urban planning).
Airbus is completing assembly of the first A350 static test airframe in Toulouse following delivery of the 65.5-ft.-long composite aft fuselage section from Hamburg. The section is being joined to the forward and center fuselage sections, which were combined in April. The aft fuselage unit was structurally completed in March with the integration of the rear fuselage barrel with the aft fuselage panels Assembly of the first flying A350, MSN1, is set to start “during summer” says Airbus.
It has been a long time coming, but US Airways has made its first move to take over American Airlines, and the reception, as expected, has been less than welcoming.
Automated non-destructive inspection of composite parts for delamination and other defects is a critical step that is becoming more challenging as structures become larger and more complex. Ultrasound inspection conventionally requires parts to be immersed in a water tank or sprayed with water jets to guide the pulses. Now non-contract laser ultrasound is allowing remote, robotic inspection of complete airframe sections. Airbus, with EADS Innovation Works and France's Ecole des Mines, is evaluating a laser ultrasound system using a composite forward-fuselage demonstrator.
Pilatus expects a difficult year after two years of record profit and turnover. Last year, strong military business helped Pilatus offset a further drop in sales of the PC-12 business aircraft. The company delivered 44 PC-12s last year and 16 PC-21s to the United Arab Emirates. Military business accounted for 60% of revenue. However, the backlog has now dipped to 63 PC-12 orders.
The U.K. saw defense exports drop in 2011, but growth in security-related shipments helped offset those declines to keep total defense and security exports flat at £8 billion ($13 billion) year-on-year. The security business grew to £2.6 billion from £2 billion in 2010, with defense down £400 million to £5.4 billion. The numbers do not reflect a recent deal between Saudi Arabia and the U.K. for 48 more Eurofighter Typhoons.
Additive manufacturing—producing parts layer by layer direct from digital models—is moving into aerospace. Three-dimensional printing is widely used for rapid prototyping with polymer materials, but technologies for additive manufacturing with aerospace metals are maturing.
The Airbus Military A400M has cleared an important certification milestone even as developers are exploring vibration believed to be linked to the engines. The European Aviation Safety Agency issued the restricted type certificate for the military airlifter. Airbus is pursuing both civil and military certification of the four-engine turboprop, which is due to be delivered to its launch operator, the French air force, next year. Full-type certification is due mid-year, Airbus says.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to conduct its second intercept attempt with a Raytheon SM-3 IB missile this week. The first attempt, in September, failed owing to a solid-rocket fuel burn through the missile casing, according to industry officials. This resulted from a specific flight profile, which they say will be avoided by a change to the missile's software. Two more SM-3 IB tests are slated for this year, and MDA is also planning to conduct a “fly-by” attempt with its Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system in December.
Northrop Grumman has received a $262 million U.S. Navy contract for development and initial production of the improved MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned aircraft, based on the Bell 407 light commercial helicopter.
Regarding “Promises to Keep” (AW&ST April 9, p. 44), both ideas—the continuing development of proprietary inflight entertainment (IFE) systems and the commercial airlines racing to install them in their fleets—are ridiculous. Most passengers own IFE devices such as laptops, MP3 players, smartphones and/or tablets. Paradoxically, airlines struggle to cut costs yet continue to pursue pricey IFE systems, which can increase fuel and maintenance outlays.
USAF Col. (ret.) Michael R. Gallagher (Hillsboro, Ore. )
Back-to-back articles (AW&ST April 16, pp. 25-26) outlined drag-reduction programs for the Lockheed Martin C-130 fleet and the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, respectively. While drag-reduction packages need to be tailored to specific airframes, the approach and general techniques are applicable across many airframe families. The Defense Department should have a single program office to manage all these programs to ensure there is a maximum crossover of lessons learned, testing protocols and evaluation parameters.
Jeff Curry (see photo) has become the managing director of Business Jet Access of Dallas. He was business unit manager at Pratt & Whitney's Grand Prairie, Texas, facility.
China plans to add three more satellites for its Compass positioning system this year, following the successful launch of two by a single Long March 3B rocket on April 30. These launches will contribute to a service covering part of Asia this year, with the objective of completing the 30-satellite system “around” 2020, says the government's China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp. The satellites lofted to orbit this week were the 12th and 13th of the Compass network.
