The U.S. Marine Corps' plans to arm the AAI RQ-7B Shadow tactical unmanned aircraft with a 25-lb.-class precision munition have cleared NATO treaty compliance hurdles, and the service aims to conduct a field-user evaluation within 18-24 months. NATO approval was needed as the rail-launched Shadow falls under a treaty intended to prevent the proliferation of intermediate-range cruise missiles.
The U.S. Marine Corps has purchased two Insitu Integrator small unmanned aircraft systems for use in pre-deployment training for forces headed to Afghanistan. The U.S. Navy plans to buy two systems for special-warfare units.
AeroVironment has received a $65 million contract for the urgent delivery of 180 Puma AE small unmanned aircraft systems to the U.S. Army to meet a surge requirement to equip every maneuver unit in Afghanistan with the hand-launched UAV, previously used principally by route clearance patrols.
Thailand's newly appointed transport minister says he has no plans to replace Thai Airways International's president and supports in principle the airline's plans to establish a low-cost carrier in partnership with Singapore's Tiger Airways. The previous transport minister, Sophon Saram, opposed the Thai Tiger joint venture, but the new one, Sukampol Suwannathat, said in Bangkok that he anticipates the Thai Civil Aviation Department will approve the start-up.
The Airbus A340-300 is the top disassembly pick for GA Telesis because acquisition costs are low, parts have commonality with other A340s and the A330, and the CFM56 engine has a large operator base, says Stefan Kageman, GA Telesis VP of aircraft sales and marketing. In addition, because four engines power the aircraft instead of two, its maintenance costs are higher, which also means there is a demand for used components.
With a state unemployment rate of 9.2% and concern running deep about where Boeing might put jobs for its 737 reengining program, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D) spent part of Congress's August recess visiting five of the small aerospace suppliers scattered across her state of Washington. Murray was there to give a boost to the federal-state Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee, which is using veteran factory workers as mentors to develop a new generation of skilled manufacturing workers.
The down economy is producing new opportunities for SimCom, which is picking up 14 more simulators and associated courseware from FlightSafety International. SimCom executives decided when the downturn hit to continue to build the business through acquisition of equipment already on the market, even while they slowed down the purchase of new simulators, says founder and CEO Wally David. The company was able to pick up simulator and training programs from CAE and the former PrestoSim facility in Dallas.
The first Turkish Aerospace Industries-built T129, or P6, has joined the flight-test activity for the country's ATAK attack helicopter program. The Turkish army wants to field an initial batch of T129s—being codeveloped with AgustaWestland on the AW129 platform—by mid-2012. In order to maintain operational capabilities, the government has devised a plan focused initially on so-called early-delivery helicopters that will pave the way for the full-up ATAK's arrival in the second half of 2013. The program suffered a major setback last year when the first prototype crashed.
Three years of work with data generated by the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (Stereo) has given the space-weather field a tool for better accuracy in predicting the time and intensity for massive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) arriving at Earth. Launched in tandem into heliocentric orbits on Oct. 26, 2006, the two Stereo spacecraft have been returning 3-D imagery of the Sun's corona for more than four years (AW&ST April 30, 2007, p. 15).
Israeli physicist Eliyahu M. Goldratt, who died this past June at age 64, is best remembered for the Theory of Constraints, which focuses on the weakest links in an organization's production and management processes. Over the years, his pioneering studies have evolved and are often called critical paths or critical chains.
Now in its 60th year and with 40 learning centers on four continents instructing tens of thousands of pilots, mechanics, dispatchers and flight attendants annually, FlightSafety International is one of the best-known aviation training organizations there is. And, regardless of its schoolmarm reputation, the Berkshire Hathaway unit is an exemplar of vertical integration.
Pratt & Whitney Canada's PT6 has so dominated the turboprop market across so wide a power range for so long, it seems almost sovereign. The PT6 is ubiquitous and global, with around 40,000 produced in the past 40 years. Yes, Honeywell and Rolls-Royce offer alternatives, but for a variety of business and technical reasons, they failed to jostle, let alone unseat the king.
University students with an interest in robotics will be able to test their work in microgravity through a new competition that plans to use free-flying satellite testbeds inside the International Space Station to pick the winning entry. Dubbed Zero Robotics, the contest will run student-supplied software on the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (Spheres) hardware delivered to the ISS in 2003.
Outside the pressurized spaces on the ISS, the European Space Agency is planning to use the orbiting laboratory's unique look-down capabilities to study the transient luminous events (TLEs) that occur in the upper atmosphere when there are thunderstorms deeper down. The Danish Space Research Institute has made the little-studied mesosphere and lower thermosphere an area of focus. The Danes are developing an instrument called the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) that will be mounted on the Columbus External Platform Facility in 2014.
With retirement of the space shuttle fleet, William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations, will take over a new mission directorate at the space agency that combines space operations and exploration systems. To be called the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, the new organization will manage U.S. operations on the ISS and development of capabilities for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is telling federal agencies to craft fiscal 2013 budget proposals at both 5% and 10% below 2011 enacted discretionary appropriations—unless the White House already has told them otherwise.
Not surprisingly, with deficit-cutting fever à la the Budget Control Act sweeping the capital, talk of anything “next-generation” in aerospace or defense increasingly smacks of being hard to believe. So it came as no surprise when Michael Griffin, a former NASA administrator who helped design U.S. missile defenses at the end of the Cold War, served up a dose of reality last week to an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Conference in Huntsville, Ala. On a panel titled “Next Generation of Missile Defenses,” Army Lt. Gen.
Meanwhile, as debate continues in and around the Pentagon about potentially delaying the next-generation CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, or canceling the next ship in the class—to be dubbed the John F. Kennedy (CVN-79)—recent contract awards from the Navy may indicate otherwise. The armed service in late July awarded a $504 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract modification to continue engineering associated with the Ford's construction.
A massive narrowbody order by Qantas is destined to shake up the Asia-Pacific airline industry, even though none of these aircraft will operate under the famous flying kangaroo brand.
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is planning to establish a new full-service carrier and, in a separate development, to reposition its low-cost carrier, Firefly. Firefly Managing Director Eddy Leong is quoted in The Sun Daily newspaper as saying Firefly's Boeing 737s will be transferred to Sapphire, the short-haul, full-service carrier MAS is establishing, which will be managed by Firefly. He says Firefly will stop operating jets and become purely a full-service turboprop operator.
Amy Butler (Huntsville, Ala.), Robert Wall (Moscow)
European missile defense proponents have long feared they will face a so-called Hobson's choice—gain a missile shield by signing up to U.S. technology, or do without.
Two long-awaited intercept tests are slated for U.S. terminal and ship-based defenses in the coming months, but the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) campaign remains stalled for at least another year while engineers sort out a problem with the kill vehicle.
Russia's tactical missile industry is enjoying a revival in development funding. Still, that does not mean defense companies are being allowed unbridled leeway in their research that led to many breakout products during the Soviet era. Far from it. The situation has “become much better in the last three years” when conditions were quite severe, says one senior industry official. But additional support is still needed, he suggests.
Money alone cannot reinvigorate an air force after years of neglect—that is the painful lesson the Russian military is learning as it and the domestic industry work to modernize the country's air force. The influx of funding in the past two years has undoubtedly benefited industry, triggering a reversal of fortunes. But it also has brought to the forefront a raft of new problems, including how to meet the timetable for replenishing the air force fleet.
