Manfred Bischoff, who heads Daimler's supervisory board, first told me about 25 years ago that the French government should abandon its stake in Aerospatiale Matra, the predecessor of EADS aerospace/defense group's French arm. Bischoff was then chief financial officer of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and, like most of his German colleagues, firmly believed the time was right to give the private sector some long-overdue freedom and suppress cumbersome political interference. Although he was convincing, he could not persuade his French counterparts to act accordingly.
Lawmakers came up with a budget penalty bad enough to prompt themselves to deal with taxes and entitlements. Until now, the consequences of the $85 billion budget penalty known as sequestration were largely an academic exercise, but the looming closure of FAA contract towers is already making that tangible (see p. 18).
A new NASA mission to bring an asteroid closer to Earth in time to meet President Obama's goal of landing humans on one by 2025 would do more than bring the mountain to Mohammed. It also would add relevance to some of lawmakers' favorite NASA programs—the Orion crew vehicle, heavy-lift Space Launch System and commercial human spacecraft. NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for the mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon.
No war can be won except by ground forces: Washington buzzes with that mantra, often from terminally degreed employees of academic institutions linked to the Army and Marines.
While most of the prime and top-tier suppliers that head to Mexico export assemblies and finished products back to their home factories or to customers, an increasing number of specialty suppliers are shipping within the country.
An article on page 28 of the print edition of the March 25 issue should have noted that the Pentagon is planning to select a non-deployed AN/TPY-2 radar for use in Japan to monitor North Korean ballistic missile launches, adding to the one already located in Shariki. Those deployed to Qatar, Turkey and Israel are not candidates for deployment in Japan. The article in the digital edition of the magazine was correct.
One of Mexico's smallest states in area and population, Queretaro had a well-established industrial base in food processing, electronics, metals and automotive products in its eponymous capital city when the persistence of state officials caught the attention of Bombardier Aerospace in 2005.
Chihuahua, the capital of Mexico's largest state (also called Chihuahua), is a pioneer in aerospace manufacturing and a locus especially for general and business aviation original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). But in the past few years, growth has come courtesy of larger aircraft.
To counter the mounting number of cyberattacks, a group of senators led by Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) are working on legislation urging the Pentagon to train members of the National Guard to respond to cyberthreats. The bill would establish Cyber Guard units in every state that could be activated by governors or the Defense Secretary and would draw on the private-sector information technology expertise of members of the National Guard. The bill is aimed at offsetting a shortage of cyberexperts across the government.
Open architecture is frequently a misnomer in avionics development, as proprietary elements often sneak in during design and prevent software from being truly reusable and portable between platforms.
Success in the U.S. Army's growing catalog of work in linking unmanned and manned aviation assets could lead it to reduce reliance on helicopters, potentially impacting the planned buys of Boeing Apache AH-64Es and future Armed Aerial Scouts (AAS).
After more than decade planning it, seven years trying to achieve it and one failed attempt to do it, U.K. government officials have finally sealed a deal to harmonize the country's multiple search and rescue (SAR) helicopter operations under one agency.
LANGKAWI, Malaysia — Indonesia, which will soon become a manufacturer and marketer of the Airbus Military C295, is considering off-loading its unwanted Indonesian air force Fokker F27s by offering the Dutch-made aircraft in conjunction with the sale of new C295s.
THE PENTAGON — While U.S. Navy and media reports continue to surface questioning the survivability and combat capability of the service’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) fleet, the service’s leading admiral now overseeing the program says the vessel’s survivability is a package deal that combines aspects of ship design, operations and even paint scheme.
