Inspired by two Roman palaces, the National Building Museum was constructed in the 1880s with the dual purpose of housing the U.S. Pension Bureau and providing “a suitably grand space for Washington's social and political functions.” On March 7, nearly 300 aviation and aerospace luminaries from around the globe gathered in the cavernous building for Aviation Week's 56th annual Laureate Awards.
Beechcraft is showing little sign of backing down from its fight for the Light Air Support (LAS) contract, filing suit in the Court of Federal Claims to object to the U.S. Air Force’s decision to move ahead with work on the program during a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of the LAS contract award.
Each year, in addition to naming Laureates, Aviation Week honors outstanding cadets at U.S. military academies as Tomorrow's Leaders. The awards are sponsored by BAE Systems. This year, four cadets were named and recognized at the Laureates gala by Aviation Week President Greg Hamilton.
In the future, if a rogue nation is caught secretly testing a nuclear weapon, and is confronted with credible evidence about blast size, location, date and time of detonation, satellites and radio telescopes may get the credit. Researchers at Ohio State University and astronomers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have discovered that GPS and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) satellites, along with the Very Large Array (VLA) of 27 radio telescopes in New Mexico, can detect atmospheric disturbances caused by nuclear blasts.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a leading Republican on the panel are calling on President Obama to work with allies including Turkey to establish a “safe zone” in Syria. That includes the possibility of using Patriot missiles stationed in Turkey to shoot down aircraft or SCUD missiles in northern Syria, according to a March 21 letter from Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).
For the second time in just over a year, Lockheed Martin's premier aeronautics division in Fort Worth is getting a new boss. Larry Lawson is leaving as executive vice president for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics—which oversees the F-35, F-22, C-130J and C-5 reengining programs—after only a year (see article above). His predecessor, Ralph Heath, who held that position for seven years, left last April.
Obstacles challenge robots, but researchers at Harvard may overcome them by engineering robots to jump. Tests on silicone robots advance this capability. Robert Shepherd, a former postdoctoral researcher and now an assistant professor at Cornell, describes work that he and colleagues are conducting in the Feb. 6 Angewandte Chemie. The team uses controlled explosions generated by methane and oxygen to make a robot jump (see photo). The Y-shaped robot, with each limb about 6 in. long and less than 1 in. thick, leaps 12 in., at 13 fps.
The final chapter has apparently opened in the turf war among national security agencies over which should control the most prominent weapon system in use since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended his agency against allegations it allowed Chinese espionage in testimony before House lawmakers March 20, saying there has been no attempt at NASA to get around the requirements of laws restricting bilateral research arrangements with China.
Now that Congress has passed a spending bill to keep the government running in fiscal 2013, budget fights over programs such as Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk are about to be renewed. On March 21, the House approved a bill to keep funding the government for the rest of fiscal 2013. It provides a new level of spending for the departments of defense and homeland security as well as NASA; the rest of the federal government will continue to run on fiscal 2012 levels.
Beechcraft is showing little sign of backing down from its fight for the Light Air Support (LAS) contract, filing suit in the Court of Federal Claims to object to the U.S. Air Force’s decision to move ahead with work on the program during a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of the LAS contract award.
All U.S. Air Force flight testing at Edwards AFB, Calif., other than the continuing evaluation of the F-35, will stop by September as a result of cost cuts associated with sequestration, warns Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC).
Thanks to their long-term contracting nature, most of the aircraft carrier building and overhaul projects remain mostly protected from the severe impacts of sequestration, but continuing resolutions the Pentagon has been saddled with so far in fiscal 2013 have held up carrier work at the most inopportune time, a shipbuilding executive says.
NUKE BAN: Getting the strongly divided U.S. Senate to ratify the long-standing Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty “remains a top priority” for the Obama administration, according to a key State Department official, but it is not seen as imminent. “There are no set time frames to bring the treaty to a vote, and we are going to be patient, but we will also be persistent,” says Rose Gottemoeller, acting undersecretary for arms control and international security.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Despite having already set up one of the aerospace industry’s most advanced production systems for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Lockheed Martin is appealing for industry help as it looks for more improvements in anticipation of assembling up to 20 aircraft per month by 2017. “We need help with measuring gaps and mismatches on the aircraft. There are complicated joints, 10,000 points and 1,100 seams. Have you got any good ideas? We’ve got to do it fast and accurately,” says F-35 Fighter Production System Deputy Don Kinard.
Though last week’s White House decision to restructure the SM-3 Block IIB interceptor program shuts the door on Lockheed Martin’s aspirations to get into the large interceptor market, company officials are hopeful that new kill vehicle work may be on the horizon.
The FAA says it will identify technical, political, legal and operational methods to protect aviation users from intentional spoofing and jamming of GPS signals in a report to be issued in September. Results of the one-year study, initiated by the FAA in September 2012 and carried out by a government/industry team, are critical to the agency’s planned reliance on GPS as the navigation and surveillance backbone of the next-generation air transportation system (NextGen) program.
While the U.S. has been focused on the actual and potential changes in its aircraft carrier and amphibious fleets wrought by continuing resolutions (CRs) and sequestration, the Navy’s destroyer plans also are at risk. The Navy will probably be unable to buy and build the number of planned DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which anchor the nation’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans, due to the ongoing CR and sequestration, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Just how U.S. BMD plans will be affected later is unclear.
Heavy-lift helicopter specialist Erickson Air-Crane is acquiring operators in the U.S. and Brazil in a move to diversify from its niche in firefighting into a global aviation services business. The acquisition of Oregon-based Evergreen Helicopter (EHI) and Air Amazonia of Brazil for up to $350 million will double Erickson’s revenues and operating earnings. The deals will also take the Portland, Ore.-based company into new commercial and government markets, halving its dependence on seasonal firefighting revenues.
THE PENTAGON — The first-of-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1), the USS Freedom, briefly lost and then regained power March 16 while en route to its first Asian deployment to Singapore, confirms Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, the director of Navy staff and the head of the special LCS Council of service admirals.
