As the U.S. cuts its Army forces and shifts its focus and resources into the Asia-Pacific region, Congress may start to put the service’s proposed Ground Combat Vehicle under greater scrutiny.
Washington – When it comes to the Air Force’s request to pare back the Air National Guard and mothball the Global Hawk Block 30, the response from Capitol Hill is a resounding, “no.” The House Appropriations defense subcommittee will consider legislation May 8 that blocks the Air Force request to revamp the National Guard and to mothball Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4B Global Hawk and Alenia’s C-27J Spartan.
Three Cobham business units are to provide critical components for six MD530F training helicopters bound for Shindand Air Base in Afghanistan, the company said today.
The aerospace and defence (A&D) industry experienced a record year in 2011 on the strength of a surging commercial aviation market, according to the Aerospace and Defence 2011 year in review and 2012 forecast report from PwC.
AEHF-2: The U.S. Air Force’s second Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) spacecraft was successfully placed in orbit May 4 by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Liftoff from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., took place at 2:42 p.m. EDT and the rocket’s Centaur upper stage deployed the spacecraft at 3:33 p.m.
RAIDER: Sikorsky is shifting the focus of its private-venture S-97 Raider high-speed helicopter prototype program from competing for the U.S. Army’s Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) requirement to demonstrating technology for the planned Future Vertical Lift (FVL) medium program to replace the company’s UH-60 Black Hawk beginning in 2030. For AAS, the Army plans to decide between an off-the-shelf helicopter and a life extension for the Bell OH-58B Kiowa Warrior. Funded by Sikorsky and its suppliers, the $200 million Raider program includes two prototypes, to fly in 2014.
An industry trade group is trying to spur the release of the FAA’s proposed rules for allowing small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to operate in civilian airspace, which had been anticipated in March. On April 26, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) confirmed that the rules had not received the “appropriate signatures” needed before they could be forwarded to OMB for release to the public, the letter says.
LONDON — The Dutch defense ministry is looking to move forward on a range of F-16 improvements to keep the remaining fleet operationally viable until it is replaced by the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter. With the F-35A schedule in flux, Dutch defense planners are not certain when the F-16 will be phased out, but are working on the assumption that all of the fighters will be retired in 2026.
EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — Pratt & Whitney warns that cutbacks in F-35 procurement and the termination of the F-22 will lead to at least three years of lower-volume production of fifth-generation combat engines, seriously challenging its cost-reduction goals for the Joint Strike Fighter engine. “The challenge is to get to more than 50 engines [per year], and then the volume is flat to down slightly through 2015,” says Pratt & Whitney Military Engines President Bennett Croswell. “That challenge is exacerbated by other systems coming down or going away.”
The U.S. Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office has unveiled details of its ORS-4 rail-launched satellite experiment. Dubbed “Super Stripey,” ORS-4 will combine the Scout launch missile rail system at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., and at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, with the Stripey target system at Sandia National Laboratory. Working with Aerojet, ORS is developing an expanded, three-stage, solid-rocket version of the original sounding rocket.
BERLIN — Commercial satellite imagery provider GeoEye is proposing to buy competitor DigitalGlobe in a $792 million deal that would create the largest fleet of high-resolution imaging satellites in the world. The two companies have been in merger talks for several months, but negotiations recently broke down, GeoEye CEO and President Matt O’Connell told investors and reporters during a May 4 teleconference call.
China specialists contend that conflict with the U.S. is inevitable and that space- and cyber-supremacy, at least for limited periods, will be deciding factors in a confrontation if a Chinese attack is unexpected, short in duration and quick in resolution.
LOST OSPREY: The investigation of the April 11 crash of a U.S. Marine Corps Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey in Morocco is still under way, “but we know an awful lot” thanks to the tiltrotor’s crash-survivable memory units, says Capt. Greg Masiello, V-22 joint program manager. “We are confident we know where this may go, and do not anticipate any changes to the V-22 as a result.” The two pilots were killed and two crew chiefs injured when the MV-22B from Marine Corps squadron VMM-61 crashed during a military exercise with Moroccan forces. A U.S.
Alcoa's 50,000-ton press may not match the heft of a gargantuan 80,000-ton unit being built in China, but the metals manufacturer says its 12-story machine is the most capable in the world. A $100 million redesign and rebuild of the Cold War-era press at the company's Cleveland plant added a new hydraulic system that allows tighter tolerances during the forging of aluminum, titanium, inconel and steel parts, significantly reducing the amount of metal needed while cutting machining costs.
Automated layup is cutting the time required to produce composite structures. But production volumes forecast for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 are pressuring industry to accelerate the rate at which it can deposit carbon fiber on tools. Flexible, multi-head machines provide one answer. The U.K.'s National Composites Center is the first to operate an automated fiber-placement machine with two robotic heads working cooperatively. Built by France's Coriolis Composites, it is being used by GKN Aerospace on the U.K.'s Next-Generation Composite Wing project.
Automated non-destructive inspection of composite parts for delamination and other defects is a critical step that is becoming more challenging as structures become larger and more complex. Ultrasound inspection conventionally requires parts to be immersed in a water tank or sprayed with water jets to guide the pulses. Now non-contract laser ultrasound is allowing remote, robotic inspection of complete airframe sections. Airbus, with EADS Innovation Works and France's Ecole des Mines, is evaluating a laser ultrasound system using a composite forward-fuselage demonstrator.
Additive manufacturing—producing parts layer by layer direct from digital models—is moving into aerospace. Three-dimensional printing is widely used for rapid prototyping with polymer materials, but technologies for additive manufacturing with aerospace metals are maturing.
Northrop Grumman has received a $262 million U.S. Navy contract for development and initial production of the improved MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned aircraft, based on the Bell 407 light commercial helicopter.
When intelligence-gathering matures from finding and following an individual or vehicle to monitoring entire groups to understand their intent, the narrow, “soda straw” field-of-view of conventional video sensors becomes a severe limitation.
Across composite and metallic aircraft structures, technology is being developed and deployed to minimize component lead times, reduce manufacturing costs and increase production rates. Automated processes that can take component geometry data directly from three-dimensional design databases are high on the most-desired list for aerospace manufacturers.
