Engine manufacturers will be busy in 2013 as testing accelerates on the latest commercial turbofans and work advances on the next generation of military powerplants. Production will rise, but more significantly on the commercial side than the military. The pace is highest at CFM and Pratt & Whitney as they battle for the single-aisle airliner market with the Leap-1 and PW1000G, respectively. While the 2011 and 2012 order levels are unlikely to be sustained in 2013, it will see vital tests for both engines.
Key gains by NATO allies in the increasingly important military discipline of close air support (CAS) may be at risk, because equipment and budgetary decisions at national levels contradict alliance standards for training forward air controllers (FACs).
Active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars have transformed military aviation, providing significantly greater multi-mode capability and reliability. Now the technology is moving into the land and sea domains. Thales's APAR active phased-array radar is already operational on frigates with three European navies, and the DDG-1000, the U.S. Navy's first AESA-equipped warship, will launch in 2013 fitted with Raytheon's SPY-3 radar.
The Transportation Security Administration is commissioning a study about whether the X-ray body scanners used to screen passengers at airports emit too much radiation. The study also will evaluate whether the design and maintenance of machines that use X-ray technology could prevent over-exposure to harmful radiation. The safety of X-ray screening machines was called into question in a 2011 report by ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news group, which suggested that up to 100 U.S. airline passengers per year could contract cancer from airport screenings.
It has been called the most significant advance in jet engines since the turbofan: development of variable-cycle “third stream” engines with 25% lower specific fuel consumption than today's fighter powerplants. General Electric and Rolls-Royce will ground-test demonstrator engines in 2013, and GE and Pratt & Whitney are under contract to mature the technology and test new adaptive-fan engine designs in 2016. In addition to the high-pressure core and low-pressure bypass streams of a conventional turbofan, these variable-bypass engines have a third, outer flowpath.
Italy's defense budget is on the upswing again after deep cuts in 2012. However, the defense minister, the retired Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, has received a preliminary green light for a major restructuring and deep cuts to all three of the armed forces. The plan is subject to future political decisions, but appears to be unavoidable.
General Electric has confirmed it will purchase Italian aero engine specialist Avio SpA from Cinven, a European private equity firm, and government-owned defense group Finmeccanica for €3.3 billion ($4.36 billion).
Advances in rocket engine technology do not come along often, so it was noteworthy in October 2012 when Orbital Technologies flew a sounding rocket powered by its “vortex” engine, which injects fuel and liquid oxygen so the burning mixture does not touch the walls of the combustion chamber, allowing it to be thinner, lighter and cheaper. Oxidizer is injected at an angle that sets up a pair of coaxial vortices. Combustion occurs in the innermost swirl, the outer vortex protecting the chamber walls from the heat of combustion.
European government bickering scuttled a mega-merger of EADS and BAE Systems, and the Pentagon continues to hold firm against further consolidation among its top contractors. But consolidation amid second- and third-tier contractors is likely to accelerate as defense spending heads down in the U.S. and Europe.
The pace of advance in China's military modernization has reached the point where the question is more one of what surprises will be sprung on the world in 2013, rather than whether there will be any. The first-ever flight operations from a Chinese aircraft carrier took place in November, with what was by national standards a blaze of publicity. In September, outgoing Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao personally officiated at the carrier's commissioning.
NASA Space Launch System (SLS) advocate Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is leaving Capitol Hill, but the program should get a boost by meeting an early test. An engineering board has cleared the first element of the heavy-lift rocket for preliminary manufacturing, keeping the program on track for a first flight with the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle in 2017.
NASA wants $800 million in fiscal 2013 for its program to outsource the transport of crews to and from space, and says if it does not get the funding first commercial flights to the International Space Station will slip to 2018. With station funding set to expire in 2020, that could be a problem.
Although some questions about Britain's plans for its future national defense were answered in 2012, the year was defined by ongoing uncertainties, and 2013 looks likely to continue the trend.
As the U.S. military pulls out of Afghanistan and “resets” for the Pacific theater, will there be an accompanying shift in the Defense Department's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance forces? The year should see the beginning of a shift away from lower-tech systems geared to detect improvised explosive devices and toward future high-tech sensors.
Dozens of women are filling senior management positions across aerospace and defense, changing the face of an industry not known for diversity. Another glass ceiling will shatter on Jan. 1, when Marillyn Hewson (right) becomes CEO of Lockheed Martin and Phebe Novakovic fills the top spot at General Dynamics.
The U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system, which has not had a successful intercept since 2008, is expected to return to flight in early 2013 after a two-year hiatus. And the U.S. will continue to roll out its Phased Adaptive Approach to protecting Europe, including construction of the first Aegis shore-launch site in Romania and further flights of the improved SM-3 Block 1B interceptor.
Germany plans a 2013 defense budget of about €33.3 billion ($43.5 billion), a €1.4-billion increase from 2012. Military pay raises will account for most of this increase. The 2013 budget includes funding for these raises, to make it more attractive to serve in the all-volunteer Bundeswehr. Personnel strength will be reduced to 196,200 soldiers in 2013, on the way to a planned maximum of 185,000. These cuts are expected to reduce the defense budget to €33 billion in 2014, and to €32.5 billion in 2015 and again in 2016.
