It's hard to know just how far electric flight might take us, but the light sport aircraft teams in the Green Flight Challenge are dreaming big. Jack Langelaan, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State University, led the winning team with a four-person Pipistrel Taurus G4. The Slovenian-made aircraft is essentially two two-place Taurus G2 motor gliders stuck together and resembles the Voyager that Burt Rutan designed to circumnavigate the globe nonstop in 1986.
While gloom prevails at many light-plane manufacturing sites, it is all sunshine and blue skies in Battle Creek, Mich. Probably best known as the hometown of Kellogg's breakfast cereals, it also happens to be home to Waco Classic Aircraft Corp., maker of the gorgeous YMF-5 biplane (above) and more.
Skyblue Technology Development Ltd., a company owned by the Chinese government, the Aeronautical University of Beijing and some private shareholders, provides communications hardware and services to the aviation community. That's good news for Flyht, a small tech firm in Calgary, Alberta, whose premier product is Afirs, short for “automated flight information reporting system.”
Competition concerns erupt among manufacturers, airlines and aftermarket service providers when talking about the increasing involvement of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in the aftermarket. This topic spurred much debate during Aviation Week's MRO Europe Conference in Madrid Sept. 27-29.
Finland's contribution to the IAC is a single poster presentation, delivered by Mikko Suominen, a journalist who writes for the science magazine Tähdet ja avaruus (Stars and Space). The “E-sail,” or electric solar sail, was conceived by Pekka Janhunen and his colleagues at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The idea would be to add the electrical charge of the solar wind to its photon pressure for propulsion. Long tethers would gather a positive charge from the solar wind that would be repelled by the same charge in the wind itself.
For conservative Republicans, the fight over defense spending is shaping up as a tailor-made presidential campaign issue. For the last several years, they have struggled to put the soft-on-defense label back on Democrats. It was a hard sell since President Barack Obama kept on Bush appointee Robert Gates as defense secretary, adopted a muscular posture in Afghanistan and ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan. But with at least $350 billion in cuts to defense coming and the possibility of another $600 billion more, Republicans are in a rhetorical arms buildup.
Just a day before the U.S. Transportation Department's inspector general issued a report finding the FAA to be at fault for serious cost overruns and schedule delays in deploying the NextGen air traffic modernization system, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt announced the agency will be realigning some functions that should positively impact deployment of systems critical to NextGen.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Washington)
While China is not a specific target of Washington's war planning, it does have the most impressive military force outside the U.S. As a result, Beijing's aircraft, sensors, ballistic missiles, spacecraft, and fleet and missile defenses have become the standard against which U.S. tactics and technology are measured. “We probably will fight their [equipment],” says USAF Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements. “China has the best capability, so we've taken their kill chains apart to the nth degree.”
A common thread seems to be linking China's aggressive military modernization, espionage in Russia and theft in Libya. Senior U.S. officials say some of Libya's top Russian-made SA-24 light, man-portable air defense systems (Manpads) are missing. Russian investigators, meanwhile, have charged a Chinese national with trying to buy classified data about the Russian-made, long-range, high-altitude, SA-20 heavy anti-aircraft system.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Washington)
If defense budget cuts stay at $450 billion or less, the U.S. Air Force can maintain all its missions and capabilities; however, the service can deliver them only at a reduced capacity, says Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements.
As Washington weighs cuts from $450 billion to as high as $1 trillion to defense spending in the coming years, the U.S. Marine Corps is not as focused on starting new projects as it is on trying to protect those aviation programs already in development and production. This is a contrast to its sister services, which face an uphill battle securing funds for such new projects as the Air Force Common Vertical Lift Support Program (CVLSP) Huey replacement as well as the Army Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) helicopter.
As Lockheed Martin's beleaguered F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) variant begins sea trials that could prove pivotal to its survival, Rolls-Royce is working to eke out cost savings from a newly completed factory dedicated to making the aircraft's complex lift-fan system.
While Alenia Aermacchi and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) vie for Israel's advanced trainer, a growing spat among the competitors and their national backers is beginning to mar what was widely seen as a rehearsal for the larger U.S. Air Force T-X competition. South Korea is threatening to suspend all defense contracts with Israel, claiming that the highly contested tender for Israel's advanced trainer was already decided in favor of Alenia Aermacchi's M-346 Master over KAI's T-50 Golden Eagle.
Governments and industry involved in the International Space Station are tempering their plans for human exploration to fit today's tough economic environment, including a look at recycling ISS components for use beyond low Earth orbit after 2020. ISS partner-agency chiefs who met here at the 62nd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) last week will take the first tentative steps toward joint exploration of the Solar System, based both on the ISS model for cooperation and perhaps on some station hardware as well.
Two main drivers in aerospace innovation are improved safety and lower fuel burn. Eurocopter is betting its work on a hybrid helicopter will deliver both. This “hybrid” approach couples turbine power with a secondary motor so it differs significantly from another hybrid prototype, the X3, where Eurocopter married a five-blade rotor with two propellers on short wings to provide high speed in competition with Sikorsky's X-2.
Since its creation two years go, Airbus Military has had one focus—fix the troubled A400M airlifter and KC-30 tanker/transport aircraft. But with light at the end of the tunnel for both, the EADS unit working on fixed-wing military aircraft is starting to look at how it will expand its product portfolio.
Five years of lost growth is bad news for any market. For Europe's business aviation sector, the areas reaching that level are actually the stronger performers, with other pockets still suffering from even weaker activity.
Deliveries of business jets should begin to rise again in 2012, ending a three-year slide that has decimated much of the industry. But any increase will be modest, and deliveries are unlikely to return to peak levels seen in 2008 until after 2017. That's the upshot of Honeywell's 2011 Business Aviation Outlook. Business jet manufacturers are expected to deliver just 600-650 aircraft this year, down from 732 in 2010, as the hangover from a dramatic decline in orders lingers. And next year's delivery total is projected to remain below 700.
When Brazil's flagship aerospace enterprise wins type certificates for its latest models of business jets, it will have fulfilled the goal it set for itself in 2000 with the announcement of its entry into that rarefied OEM club. At that time, the company declared that it would “become a major player in the business aviation market by 2015.” It made it to the majors early.
As Honda Aircraft begins its sixth year, it is advancing cautiously but relentlessly toward the 2012 scheduled certification of its $4.5 million HA-420 HondaJet.
If China needs it, China wants to make it. That rule applies to nuclear power plants, high-speed trains, aero engines, commercial aircraft and just about any other product. Now the rule applies to business jets, too. And as heavy Chinese demand for such aircraft becomes ever more likely, the country's fighter builder, Avic Aviation Techniques (AAT), is aiming at catapulting itself into the industry by building two bizjets with a foreign partner—one to a current design and one newly developed.
Hawker Beechcraft Corp. (HBC) is making another sizable investment in its super-midsize Hawker 4000 flagship with a block point upgrade (BPU) program that improves the functionality of the flight management and guidance systems, avionics displays and autothrottles. Originally slated for introduction in late 2009, the BPU will be incorporated in aircraft delivered later this year and offered to current Hawker 4000 operators at no cost.
Even though the small city-state of Singapore barely has any airspace, it is fast becoming a global player for primary and commercial pilot training. Government-linked Singapore Technologies Aerospace (ST Aero)—primarily a maintenance, repair and overhaul company working for defense and commercial customers—was tasked with spearheading the nation's push into commercial pilot training.
Oct. 16—Imperial War Museum Duxford (England) Autumn Air Show: Remembering the Korean War. See duxford.iwm.org.uk Oct. 17-20—Lockheed Martin Corp.'s 2011 Hercules Operators Conference. Renaissance Waverly Hotel, Atlanta. See www.lockheedmartinpackers.com Oct. 18-23—Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition. Seoul Airport. See www.seoulairshow.com
