Engineers on NASA's multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV) want to fly an ascent-abort test before sending their capsule around the Moon on the first flight of the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) in 2017, according to Michael Coats, director of Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the Orion-based deep-space crew vehicle is managed.
Robert Wall wrote from the Dubai Air Show that Airbus expects to easily top its 2007 order record. COO-Customers John Leahy projects 1,650-1,700 gross orders this year. Aircraft Man adds:
Antoine Marez has been named director of strategic purchasing of Revima APU, Caudebec-en-Caux, France. He headed Pratt & Whitney Canada's Aftermarket Management Div. and was general manager of Chromalloy France. Honors and Elections
Air Berlin's ambitions were huge. The former German charter carrier wanted to take on the big guys. Now it appears the airline is up for sale. Several industry executives tell Aviation Week that Air Berlin has approached other airlines about becoming a strategic investor in it, Germany's second-largest airline. Etihad Airways, Hainan Airlines and Emirates are understood to be among the carriers that have been contacted. The response has apparently been lukewarm so far, and it is uncertain if a deal will be struck. Air Berlin declines to comment.
NASA is signaling more restrictive use of Space Act Agreements (SAA), development-oriented contracting vehicles the agency has employed since 2006 to hasten development of commercial cargo and crew transportation services to support post-shuttle activities aboard the International Space Station.
XCOR Aerospace and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) will give an adventurous—and lucky—scientist a suborbital research spaceflight on XCOR's Lynx Mark I spaceplane, once the Lynx is up and running. Worth $95,000, the prize will be awarded with a random drawing of registered participants in the 2012 Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Palo Alto, Calif., next February.
The Chinese call it “daxing tumu”—being keen on large-scale construction. It seems that wherever one looks in this country someone is building a mighty new bridge, office tower, airport, freeway or aircraft hangar, more physical capital for the roaring economy.
In the Nov. 7, issue, the article “Teaming Done Here” (p. 78) incorrectly identified the manufacturers of the Airbus A380 nacelle and the acoustic inlet for the Rolls-Royce XWB engine for the Airbus A350. Aircelle supplies the nacelle, and Airbus provides the inlet.
Fred Strader, the president and CEO of defense contractor Textron Systems, held out hope to the end that a congressional Super Committee would strike a bipartisan deal on how to cut $1.2 trillion from the U.S. budget deficit during the next 10 years. Under a law passed earlier this year, failure to agree to a plan by last week would trigger automatic cuts equal to that amount, with $600 billion coming from defense funding. “It's illogical that they would allow it to get to that point,” Strader says.
It may be premature to say the future of U.S. strike aviation will be the first casualty of the U.S. budget crisis, but there can be little doubt that it is in jeopardy—compliments of the congressional Super Committee's abject failure to agree on a plan for reducing the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion. Whether there are adequate alternatives to the F-35 is debatable if the program is delayed, reduced or killed.
Eliot (Lee) G. Sander has been appointed president/CEO of New York-based HAKS Group. He was CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York.
Michael W. McCormick, executive director and chief operating officer of the Global Business Travel Association, Alexandria, Va., has been named to the Aviation Security Advisory Committee of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.
Prospects are dimming that defense appropriations for fiscal 2012 will wrap up by a Dec. 16 deadline. The Pentagon—along with most of the federal government—is being funded through a continuing resolution at fiscal 2011 levels until then. “It's likely that the continuing resolution will be extended further, perhaps into January,” says Todd Harrison, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Now the leading cause of airliner hull losses and fatalities, loss of control is driving improvements in training to help pilots recognize and recover from aircraft upsets in flight.
Concepts for communicating the risks and managing the threat of asteroid impacts will be considered by the United Nations following an expert working group meeting in Colorado. The Near-Earth Object (NEO) media/risk meeting came within days of a 300-meter (984-ft.)-plus-dia. asteroid passing between the Earth and the Moon on Nov 8, and as NASA closed on additional congressional funding of more than $20 million for an ongoing survey mission aimed at finding objects posing a potential collision threat.
The third prototype of Sukhoi's T-50 fifth-generation fighter made its first flight Nov. 22 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in Russia's Far East. According to Sukhoi, the flight lasted a little more than 1 hr. and was in full accordance with the flight plan. An aircraft stability test was conducted, and the powerplant systems' performance was evaluated. After several factory trials, this prototype should join the other two T-50s for the flight-test program. The first two aircraft have conducted 100 flights since the start of the program in January 2010.
New members of the board of directors of the New York-based World Teleport Association are: Adrian Ballintine, CEO of Newsat of Australia; Tomaz Lovsin, managing director of STN of Slovenia; and Bill Tillson, president and chief operating officer for U.S.-based Encompass Digital Media.
General Electric's long-term plan to develop the H80 turboprop into a challenger to the Pratt & Whitney Canada's PT6 has taken another step forward with the first flight of an H80-powered Aircraft Industries L410-UVP-E20 commuter aircraft. The 40-min. flight took place in Kunovice, Czech Republic, on Nov 16. Certification for the H80-powered L410 is expected in the third quarter of 2012, paving the way for a new production-standard offering as well as an upgrade for operators of M601-powered L410s.
The Bank of Communications has joined the lineup of Chinese state companies that are signing contracts for Comac C919 airliners, announcing an “order” for 30 of the 158-seat aircraft. The deal was signed by the bank's leasing arm and follows contracts announced last month covering 20 C919s for Sichuan Airlines and 45 for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Comac now has contracts for 195 C919s. While Dow Jones quotes Comac as saying the orders are “intended and confirmed,” care must be taken in interpreting such announcements from China.
If it holds true that any landing you walk away from is a good landing, then the Soyuz 27 mission crew has little to complain about—even if their Soyuz TMA-02M capsule landed on its side. The spacecraft carrying American Mike Fossum, Russian Sergey Volkov and Japan's Satoshi Furukawa landed by parachute north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, at 8:26 a.m. local time on Nov. 22, to end their 167-day Expedition 29 duties aboard the International Space Station.
Your editorial “Supply Chain Mismanagement” (AW&ST Nov. 7, p. 86) touches only partly on the reasons for underperformance of the supply chain. The problem with a significant number of the medium and small suppliers is they lack the depth of engineering/management skills and experience of the primes. This situation will probably worsen due to the decreasing number of programs on which to gain experience, and the deteriorating performance of our educational system.
Ground workers prepare a LAN Airbus A320 for taxiing at Santiago, Chile. LAN and TAM plan to complete their merger to form the Latam Group in early 2012. Latam will be by far the biggest player in the region, which will have important implications for its competitors. Latam is also weighing its alliance options. Coverage of Latin American aviation begins on p. 48. Dietmar Plath photo.
The Il-96-300 is the first of this four-engine, medium/long-range, widebody commercial passenger and cargo transport aircraft family. It first flew in 1988, followed by certification in December 1992. The -300 is powered by the Aviadvigatel PS-90A engine, but may get the improved PS-90A2. The -400 is a stretched version that also comes as the -400T dedicated freighter. Both are powered by the uprated PS-90A1. The NK-93 propfan is also being considered for installation on the -400 and -400T.
