EADS North America is unveiling a mock-up militarized version of its EC145T2 aircraft at this week's Army Aviation Association of America show in Nashville, Tenn. The aircraft would mate a UH-72A Lakota fuselage with the fenestron anti-torque tail, providing improved weight, range and high-altitude performance (see p. 37). The concept, offered as a replacement for U.S. Army's Kiowa, is one of many across the service's aviation programs as it charts a path forward with constrained resources (see p. 62). Artist's concept by EADS.
Controllers deorbited a stranded Russian-owned communications satellite March 25, after Russian officials rejected a request to keep it operating, from a start-up company created to salvage the Astrium-built spacecraft for service to scientists in Antarctica. The Express-AM4 satellite crashed into the North Pacific after Astrium engineers fired its engines to slow it for the targeted reentry.
Burt Rutan has been named to receive the 2012 Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum's Lifetime Achievement Trophy. He designed and built the first aircraft to fly nonstop around the world without refueling and developed the first privately developed reusable suborbital spacecraft.
It it the most sophisticated piece of space hardware Europe has ever launched, a massive cargo vessel capable of docking automatically at the International Space Station with a precision of better than 6 cm (2.4 in.) and boosting the station to a higher orbit. But with three of the Automated Transfer Vehicle's (ATV) five missions now behind it, the European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for an opportunity to advance its already cutting-edge platform—along with a means to pay for it.
European Union anti-trust officials are examining competition concerns arising from United Technologies' proposed acquisition of Goodrich. In announcing its more detailed review, not atypical for a deal this size, the European Commission notes that its “preliminary investigation indicated potential competition concerns regarding the markets for engine controls and [aircraft] power generators, where the parties would have very high combined market shares.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines' (CAAP) failure to pass an FAA review and Indonesia's spate of drug cases involving local airline pilots, suggests neither country will escape aviation safety blacklists anytime soon.
The European Defense Agency has elicited member state support for the idea of pooling air-to-air refueling resources, although a concrete action plan remains to be defined. In a meeting of the steering group of member states for the Brussels-based organization, EDA secured a “political declaration” that countries have the “willingness to support further development of these capabilities and to better coordinate them,” according to an official statement after the gathering.
European Union officials are seeing some positive movement in the international conflict on the EU emissions trading system (ETS). But if recent comments by their opponents are more than saber-rattling, their optimism may very well be short-lived.
Whether Boeing should send a thank-you note to Pyongyang remains to be seen, but the company's beleaguered Sea-based X-band (SBX) radar is headed to the southern Pacific to monitor the expected North Korean launch of a long-range rocket, a U.S. intelligence source tells Aviation Week. The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has long used its unique radar—which is mounted on a mobile, ocean-going, semi-submersible platform—for targeting and discrimination data during U.S. missile defense tests in the Pacific.
The cost of the Pentagon's largest weapon system continues to grow, as a defense official contends that the increases are being brought under control. According to a Pentagon report delivered to Congress on March 29, the cost to deliver Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter rose 4.3% to $395.7 billion in the last year. That report was delivered the same day that the Government Accountability Office said cost growth on the JSF makes up more than half of the latest annual cost increases of the Pentagon's largest 96 programs.
India's budget for space projects will increase slightly more than 1% for the 2012-13 fiscal year, as the country's space agency prepares human spaceflight missions and readies its long-awaited Geostationary Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk. III, designed to make India self-reliant in boosting heavier communication satellites. Development work on GSLV Mk. III is progressing at the Indian Space Research Organization for a first test launch in 2012.
Amy Butler (Stratford, Conn.), Graham Warwick (Fort Eustis, Va.)
Although it has yet to field a fly-by-wire (FBW) helicopter, the capabilities enabled by advanced digital flight controls are central to the U.S. Army's rotorcraft plans. Improved safety, maneuverability, survivability and durability as well as an optionally piloted capability are key advantages, but the Army has yet to determine whether it can bring those into its existing helicopters or must wait for an all-new aircraft.
Defense companies will not get rich from Latin America's military procurements. But at a time of severe budget pressures in many markets, the small opportunities in this part of the world still draw ample interest. The fact that many of these nations lack cash—Colombia, Chile and Brazil are among the few where the military spending outlook appears attractive to outsiders—is no deterrent. Instead, defense exporters are looking at what lower-cost offerings they can ply here.
The adage goes that good people are hard to find, and many commercial maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities are reporting difficulties filling technician positions with skilled workers. Given the outlook for the aviation industry, they have legitimate reasons to worry.
Edison Spencer, a former CEO of Honeywell who led the company's push to become a leader in the avionics business, died March 25 at home in Wayzata, Minn., of progressive supranuclear palsy. He was 84. Spencer joined Honeywell as an aeronautical engineer and rose to become CEO in the early 1970s. Under his leadership, Honeywell moved out of the computer business and refocused on the automotive and aerospace sectors. Spencer engineered the 1986 acquisition of Sperry Aerospace, which made Honeywell a leading integrator of avionics systems. He retired two years later.
Randy Annett (see photo) has been promoted to assistant manager from assistant training director at FlightSafety International's Cessna Learning Center in Wichita.
Italy's Finmeccanica will establish a defense unit in 2013 set to combine all of its U.S. operations, including aeronautics, helicopters and defense electronics and U.S. subsidiaries. The new enterprise will be led by former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn. The move, unveiled last week by CEO Giuseppe Orsi, is part of several significant changes to the beleaguered giant's strategy, structure and businesses. The changes are necessary, Orsi says, to return Finmeccanica to profit as soon as this year.
Leonard Olson and George Burns have joined STS Engineering Solutions, Jensen Beach, Fla., along with the addition of the rest of the staff of The Future Jet Group, where Olson was president and Burns was VP-business development. At STS, Olson will be chief of engineering and verification and Burns director of business development.
It is not quite cloaks and daggers and poison pills, but Italy is taking measures to make sure its flagship aerospace and defense companies stay Italian as European neighbors size up the struggling country. To stave off intervention by the European Union, Italy is rolling out new rules governing attempts to acquire stakes in its strategic companies. The rules will affect the proposed sale of shares in propulsion company Avio, as well as any future attempts to gain control of defense giant Finmeccanica.
As a result of one high-profile accident—Air France Flight 447—France and its airline industry are grappling with the emotional aspects of flight safety. Divergent views of the event have sparked angry charges and countercharges, leaving little room for a constructive atmosphere in which to advance the air safety goals that are in everyone's interest.
The number of Russian-made civil aircraft flying is dwindling, even here in their home market. Russian airlines have been phasing out their Soviet-legacy fleets the past 5-6 years and replacing them with Western models. This shift decreases the demand for Russian-built aircraft spare parts and is forcing local parts providers to diversify their stock with foreign types.
