Military planners have issued their requirements for Europe’s space situational awareness (SSA) system, and those elements should satisfy U.S. security concerns about the undertaking, European officials say.
The Austrian government is upgrading its fleet of 23 AgustaWestland AB‑212 utility helicopters to extend their service life by another 25 years. The government expects the €63-million ($84.4-million) project to start in June and be completed within four years. The fleet, based at Linz-Hoersching, will receive improved avionics as well as night-vision and self-protection capabilities. To minimize the operational impact, only six rotorcraft will be out of service at any point in time.
Early planning for improved fifth- and new sixth-generation aircraft indicates they could be designed with wide-area optical and electronic surveillance and nonexplosive weapons, and offer an intricate analysis of the enemy networks that might affect them. Also part of the formula will be communications—including command and control—that can function even when under network attack.
Boeing’s Defense, Space and Security unit, along with partners Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and Cobham Mission Systems, recently announced the delivery of a C-130H aerial refueling tanker to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force in late February at KHI Gifu Works. KHI modified the transport aircraft, incorporating Cobham air-to-air refueling pods and the Boeing design modifications affecting the structure, wiring and fuel system. Currently the tanker provides aerial refueling for the UH-60J search-and-rescue helicopter.
Early this year, some analysts were still predicting that Boeing Co. and Airbus would be forced to cut their production rates. With orders down sharply in 2009 and the airline industry awash in jets, it was only a matter of time, they said.
Rolls-Royce has marked two significant steps—completion of the first propeller and the testing of the first MT30 gas turbine—for the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales. The nearly 7-meter (22.9-ft.), 33-ton propeller has passed acceptance tests at the company’s facility in Kristinehamn, Sweden. Each of the two propellers will deliver about 50,000 hp., the highest-power Kamewa propeller ever developed by Rolls. The first of the four MT30s for the ships passed stringent tests and certification the U.K.
Following failed attempts to produce indigenous unmanned aircraft, Russia will launch an assembly line for Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI’s) Searcher Mk. II long-endurance reconnaissance UAV. The effort is being pursued under a joint venture between IAI and Russia’s State Technology Corp. Rostekhnologii and should lead to the production of several dozen Searchers for the Russian army. While the Searcher is based solely on Israeli technology, the deal will go ahead only after receiving U.S. approval.
Europe’s air transport industry will have lost well over $1 billion in the wake of the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, but the battle over how to deal with the losses has only just begun.
A U.S. Navy biofuel-powered flight from NAS Patuxent River, Md., on April 22 (aka Earth Day) used an unmodified Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet. The fighter was powered by a sustainable biofuel 50/50 blend of camelina and JP-5 aviation fuel. This flight bolsters the Navy’s strategy of halving its reliance on fossil fuels within the next decade. Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security unit’s biofuel testing includes demonstration flights of five commercial aircraft, four engine types and laboratory work with several fuel processors and engine manufacturers.
Delta TechOps and Global Avia Logistics, logistics provider for Russian carrier Nordwind Airlines, have signed a long-term strategic contract to provide maintenance support for Pratt & Whitney 2000-Series engines and GTCP 331-200 auxiliary power units in the carrier’s Boeing 757 fleet. Nordwind was founded in May 2008 as an international charter carrier licensed to transport passengers and cargo.
Having gleaned no practical direction from President Barack Obama’s April 15 speech on NASA’s future, I’ll throw out the following notional plan: •The primary goal is to open up the Moon to regular manned visits, both for scientific and commercial purposes. This is technically feasible with NASA conducting pioneering R&D as needed, and industry not far behind.
The Obama administration will pursue a three-phase overhaul of the export controls regime. The new approach will establish a single licensing agency, export control list, enforcement coordination agency and information technology system, Defense Secretary Robert Gates promised last week in speech to a Business Executives for National Security (BENS). “Tinkering around the edges of the current system will not do,” he says. Gates hopes aloud that necessary legislation can be passed by year-end.
The damage inflicted on Europe’s aviation sector by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano will be immense, with the final cost days and perhaps weeks from being tallied. But even before the dust settles—figuratively as well as literally—stakeholders in Europe’s aviation community need to step back and make another assessment: How well did they manage through this crisis? Our sense is that both regulators and airlines fell well short of optimum. In some cases, their actions were downright irresponsible.
Most F-35 cost growth stems from choices made at the program outset in 1995. The senior leaders were highly capable but boxed in by tremendous pressures, and had confidence that they could handle the problems of which they had been warned.
The U.K.’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has launched an investigation into allegations of price fixing between Virgin Atlantic Airways and Cathay Pacific Airways on the London to Hong Kong route. “The case concerns a number of alleged contacts between employees of the two airlines over a number of years, which it is alleged had the object of coordinating the parties’ respective pricing strategies regarding passenger fares through the exchange of commercially sensitive information on pricing and other commercial matters,” the OFT says in announcing the review.
Brazil’s GOL Airlines has become the launch customer for GE Aviation’s OnPoint Fuel & Carbon Services agreement, which relies on proprietary software and fuel consulting services to help carriers identify and track operational improvements that could reduce fuel spending by 5%. For operational evaluations, GOL and GE will quantify GOL’s current fuel and carbon reduction programs through data collection, and then create a customized response. Reductions in fuel consumption and carbon emissions are directly linked.
In a “flat world” where maintenance work flows across borders as easily as passengers and freight, airline overhaul shops are awaiting the outcome of a legislative fight in the U.S. Congress over safety inspections of foreign maintenance, repair and overhaul stations that could pose a threat to thousands of U.S. jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.
The flight test program required for certification of the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport’s Cobham 905 hose-and-drogue refueling system has been completed by Airbus Military. The conclusion of the tests clears the way for Spain’s national institute for aerospace technology (INTA) to certify the aircraft—for daylight refueling operations—during the summer, according to Airbus.
While I agree with the truism that weapons system acquisitions can certainly undergo much needed improvements, I do take issue with Michael Gallagher’s contention that it is wasteful to field “. . . generations of systems that have never been used in anger or their anticipated roles” (AW&ST March 29/April 5, p. 8). I would much rather possess weapons with overwhelming capabilities and force for “deterrence” than engage in conflicts arising from external perceptions of our internal weaknesses.
As Airbus moves the A350 from the drawing board into production, the aircraft maker is confronting a stark reality: It has little to no schedule margin left and much hard work to do. The A350-900, the lead version in the aircraft family, is running 3-6 months behind schedule, enough to force Airbus to push back start of final assembly and first flight. However, for now it is sticking to the plan to deliver the first A350 in mid-2013.
Manila-based Cebu Pacific, its eye on expansion across Asia, last week placed a firm order for seven Airbus A320s, which increased its A320-family backlog to 22. This marks the second time the Philippine carrier increased its initial 10-aircraft order; in June 2009, Cebu added five more to its buy. According to Airbus, the aircraft will be delivered between the last quarter of this year and 2014 and operated on the low-cost carrier’s domestic and regional route networks comprising 33 cities in the Philippines and 14 across Asia.
Embraer last week initiated the first metal cut for the Legacy 450/500 programs at its headquarters in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. The manufactured part, milled from a plate of aluminum alloy by a five-axis, high-speed machine, belongs to the Legacy 500 prototype and is part of the forward fuselage, on which the radome, radar and glide slope antenna are attached.
A few months ago I was listening to a television commentator go on and on about the need to cancel the F-22. The strongest argument she gave was that it far exceeded the capabilities of any threat out there, so to produce it was an unnecessarily high-cost overkill. And now I read in a letter that we should cancel the F-35 because, among other things, “there’s no current or emerging threat.” I thought the idea was to be better than anything out there. Combat is a terrible time to be playing catch-up.
U.S. Navy officials are kicking off an analysis of alternatives for a future anti-surface warfare weapon. USAF plans to contribute to the study, and Air Combat Command officials are hoping there is a place for the Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm). There have been plans to add a data link to Jassm for inflight updates to attack ship targets but the Navy has been cool on the missile, which has spiked in cost.
