The Boeing CH-47SD Super D Chinook made its first flight at the company's facilities in Philadelphia on Aug. 26, flying for 1.5 hours. A second flight was made later in the day. "The aircraft performed as advertised and met our expectations," said Jack Jordan, one of two Boeing test pilots on the flight. "The subsequent test flight program will enable us to ensure the SD digital cockpit management system works flawlessly so we can deliver a superior aircraft to our launch customer on time, on cost and within space."
Logicon, a unit of Northrop Grumman Corp., has won a contract worth up to $20 million to develop software for U.S. Army satellite communications planning and management.
Army and Ballistic Missile Defense Organization officials are still trying to work out problems with the Hera target for an upcoming flight test of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3). PAC-3 will be ready to move into low rate initial production after its next intercept success. Problems with the Hera delayed the flight twice this month. Now Army officials say the test should take place on or around Sept. 10.
Tecstar Inc. has been in space from the start. In 1958, the company, then known as Hoffman Electronics Corp., supplied the first photovoltaic solar cells used in space to power the U.S. satellite Vanguard I.
Israel and the U.S. plan to study development of a mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) that could be used in places like South Korea for defense against possible short range missile launches from North Korea. The U.S. and Israel are finalizing a fourth memorandum of understanding on THEL that allows for some studies on a mobile variant, Lt. Gen. John Costello, commanding general of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) and the Army Space Command, told The DAILY last Wednesday.
Space scientists at NASA can't understand why their programs face a $250 million cut when the House votes on the agency's fiscal 2000 appropriations bill, probably on Sept. 8. Ed Weiler, associate administrator for space science, says the proposed cut - eased from a $666 million cut recommended by the House Appropriations VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee - would come when both NASA space science and the overall federal budget are in great shape.
Political Correctness reigns at the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office. Prime contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing are forbidden to use terms such as "roll-out" to describe the introduction of their X aircraft or "fly-off" to explain the ground rules of the competition to design and build more than 3,000 fighters. Instead they must say it is a "transition to flight tests" and a "concept demonstration." The rules seem to come from higher authority. The Joint Chiefs of Staff cut "joint" from the fighter's Operational Requirement Document, making it just another ORD.
Range of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile defense system should be increased to provide more of an overlap with the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, according to Hans Mark, the Pentagon's director of defense research and engineering.
BOEING yesterday rolled out the 767-400ER. The airliner is sized between the 767-300 and the 777-200, seating 245 passengers in three classes and 304 in two classes. It has a range of 6,500 statute miles. Delta Airlines kicked off the program in 1997 with an order for 21.
The Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID) 1999 exercise, which ran last month, showcased information technology solutions for combined and coalition warfare, including the ability to send secure e-mails with formatted attachments to allied nations, said Lt. Gen. John Woodward, director of command and control, communications and computer systems for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Fast-growing LanChile will power seven firm Airbus A340-300 widebodies with 34,000-lbst. CFM56-5C4 turbofans in a $160 million engine order, CFM International reports. Deliveries start late next year, but the carrier holds options for seven more -300s. The airline intends to use the new long-range, four-engine aircraft to modernize its long-haul fleet and improve services on routes to North America, the South Pacific, and Europe.
GE Engine Services, which operates on-wing support centers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Xiamen, China, is considering opening a facility in Korea, signing a deal with Asiana Airlines to look at setting up a center at Seoul Kimpo airport. It would use Asiana's engineering center and support aircraft engines and other related equipment in an arrangement similar to those it offers at its eight on-wing support centers. GE's other six centers are at London Luton and London Heathrow, Cincinnati, New York Kennedy, Dallas/Fort Worth and Miami.
Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems and Aerostructures (ISA) Sector, El Segundo, Calif., won a $31.2 million contract to deliver 55 replacement wings for the U.S. Air Force's T-38 Talon supersonic trainer aircraft. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2001 and will continue at a minimum of one per month for 54 months after acceptance of the first article.
Boeing NetJets, the Boeing Business Jets/Executive Jet Aviation joint venture, chose GE Engine Services as the exclusive provider of engine maintenance and support for the Boeing NetJets fleet, in a long-term maintenance-cost-per-hour deal valued at about $70 million. So far BNJ has bought nine BBJs, but the fleet eventually could grow to as many as 29 aircraft, GE says.
Using older General Electric CF6-50 turbofans as guinea pigs, Germany's Lufthansa Technik (LHT) has come up with a new process to recontour worn compressor blades to prolong their life and enhance their performance. Developers claim their data show that the Advanced Recontouring Process, or ARP, results in greater blade efficiency, wider exhaust gas temperature margins, lower fuel consumption, reduced turbulence at the blades' leading edges - which minimizes erosion - and 25% longer blade life.
Nav Canada President John Crichton doesn't buy arguments that privatizing the U.S. air traffic control system wouldn't work as well as it has in nations with only a fraction of the air traffic, such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Montreal's Tektrend International is introducing a new, optical non-destructive testing method called Edge-of-Light under a license from developers at the Canadian National Research Council's Institute for Aerospace Research.
Operators of Rolls-Royce RB211-535E4/E4B-powered Boeing 757s can upgrade their electronic engine-control units with technology that its maker says improves reliability, cuts overhaul costs, and makes for smoother software upgrades. The new Lockheed Martin Control Systems (LMCS) units are already on 80 of the 450 or so 757s powered by the Rolls Royce E4 and E4Bs. After two years of on-wing feedback, LMCS says the units are working as advertised.
A technician apparently stepped on and bent a freon cooling line on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) payload while it was being removed from the Space Shuttle Endeavour this week, adding another complication to a fluid Shuttle schedule that has already forced a delay in the next flight to the International Space Station, an agency spokesperson said yesterday.
CFM International, the GE/SNECMA engine joint venture, started full-scale tests in France on an advanced swept wide chord fan blade developed under its TECH56 initiative. Installed on a modified CFM56-7 medium turbofan, the fan is undergoing instrumented performance and mechanical testing through the end of this month at SNECMA facilities in Villaroche, the company says.
An Aug. 8, 1999 article in The DAILY incorrectly listed the wattage used by a ground penetrating radar developed by Bakhtar Associates. The radar operates on 0.1 watts of power. A higher output could cause premature actuation of guided weapons.
NASA's Chandra Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) has already given scientists new questions to ponder with the "first light" images it produced, including what drives a jet of material streaming from a distant quasar that is at least twice as long as the Milky Way galaxy.
Boeing engineers are studying the feasibility of a commercial air-launched space maneuvering vehicle based on technology developed in the X-37 orbital testbed program the company is conducting with NASA, the head of the company's X-37 effort told reporters this week.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is preparing its best offer for the Predator RQ-1A retrofit program that will bring the U.S. Air Force reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) up to full compliance with military requirements set out by the Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board in 1997.
