In your excellent article “Help Wanted” (AW&ST Nov. 16, p. 42), it is reassuring to find a lot of very good minds focused on the issues and requirements of bringing large and important programs to successful conclusions. The bigger problems really lie elsewhere. Could America have put men on the Moon in 1969 in the same atmosphere of continual delay caused by today’s habitual contract decision appeals and industry lobbying?
Orbital Sciences Corp. lives in a comfort zone of pursuing the industry’s smallest-sized orders for geostationary spacecraft, but as it sees demand for more power it is positioning its Star bus to grow with the market. In the past five years, Orbital reports capturing about 50% of the market for 3-5 kw.-powered geostationary spacecraft for direct-to-home television broadcasting, cable program and business data distribution, and regional mobile communications services against competition from Astrium and Thales Alenia.
The new-generation fighter that China will field in 2017-19 will be an improved J-10, the Chinese air force says, seemingly ruling out a genuine competitor to the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35. The statement was published in English by the People’s Daily, so it can be taken as an announcement that China wants foreigners to notice. The deputy chief of the air force, He Weirong, said on television on Nov. 9 that the country could in 8-10 years deploy a fighter of “the fourth generation,” a classification that China has previously attached to technology of the F-22 standard.
With forest fire seasons growing in length and severity, additional quick response assets seem necessary. There are many UH-1 and AH-1 operational and core helicopters available on the open market and in U.S. military fleets. For the price of one commercial Firehawk (S‑70), 50-75 UH-1s and AH-1s could be fitted with bubble windows, long lines and water buckets, and made serviceable for standby duty. Strategic prepositioning could limit the rapidly spreading, out-of-control fires that occur more frequently.
The FAA has issued rulemaking designed to reduce the hazards of aircraft icing. Starting Jan. 30, all aircraft contaminated with “polished” (smooth) frost on wings and on stabilizing and control surfaces will be prohibited from takeoff, under a final rule published last week. Major and regional airlines are already prohibited from operating aircraft with polished frost. The changes will affect 57 operators and 188 aircraft.
John W. Brown has been named chief financial officer of Bye Aerospace Inc. of Denver. He was a founder of Sandia Capital Partners, Albuquerque, N.M., and was chief operating officer of PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities. Brown continues as president of Bye Energy Inc. Paul Schumacher has joined Bye’s Strategic Advisory Council. He is a retired vice president-manufacturing of the Raytheon Aircraft Co. and vice president-operations of the Lock- heed Martin Aeronautical Systems Co.
The Dubai Airshow and an order for 52 A320s from an undisclosed customer helped Airbus boost its full-year intake to 225 gross orders or 195 net aircraft additions. The aircraft maker did suffer a few cancellations, however, with elimination of one order each for the A319, A330-200 and A340-500, the latter belonging to India’s Kingfisher. The thin A340-500 backlog was aided, though, by an order for a VIP model last month. Other changes in the order book include cancellation of an A330-200F by Etihad, with two remaining in the backlog.
Douglas Barrie (London), Robert Wall (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
The new Japanese government is expected to end its period of reflection early next year and finally kick off what is shaping up to be a compressed competition to pick a replacement for its aging F-4s—if the target in-service date is to be met.
Raytheon received a $17-million contract modification to upgrade South Korea’s Patriot air and missile defense system. Prime-power equipment will be delivered as an alternative power source for Patriot system operations, as will communications equipment to enhance the system’s interoperability with air defense command centers. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command contract adds to Raytheon’s systems integrator work for South Korea’s Patriot SAM-X program, for which the company already received contracts worth $280 million.
In the case of the F-35, one need look no further than to the F-16 it is replacing and the success of its alternative engine program. Because of budget cuts to the F-16 program soon after the aircraft entered the fleet in the early 1970s, the U.S. Navy’s F-14 Tomcat was plagued with underpowered engines and the loss of numerous crew lives directly related to compressor stalls and throttle restrictions. It wasn’t until the General Electric F110 engine became available on the F-14A+ (F-14B) in 1987 that the Tomcat finally got the powerplants it needed.
The International Space Station modules will seem a little empty for most of this month, after the space shuttle Atlantis and Soyuz TMA-15 capsule took all but two of 12 space travelers back to Earth. NASA’s Jeff Williams, the Expedition 22 commander, and Russia’s Maxim Surayev are minding the store until Soyuz TMA-17 docks on the nadir port of the Zarya module on Dec. 22. Seven NASA astronauts rode Atlantis home on Nov. 27 after the orbiter spent 11 days in space getting the ISS ready for the day when shuttles will no longer be flying.
Max Kamenetsky, an engineer for Space Systems/Loral in Palo Alto, Calif., who works on enhanced payload features and total system solutions, has been honored by the Society of Satellite Professionals International for leadership in driving technical developments. The award recognizes young executives and leaders in the global satellite communications industry. Kamenetsky also was cited for his contribution to the development of a ground-based beam-forming system that is undergoing final testing.
Japanese controllers are checking out an optical reconnaissance satellite designed to monitor North Korea and other potential military threats after its launch on an H-IIA rocket Nov. 28. The $565-million optical information-gathering satellite (IGS) lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southeast Japan at 10:21 a.m. local time, and separated nominally 20 min. later. The new satellite was built to work in coordination with two other radar satellites and another optical IGS.
The British Royal Air Force last week finally received the first of eight Boeing Chinook helicopters intended to have entered service more than a decade ago. A botched procurement program meant the Chinook Mk3s could not be accepted into service. A further two of the helicopters will be handed over in the next few weeks, with all eight in service by the end of 2010. The Mk3 Chinooks originally were intended to be used to support Special Forces operations.
Bombardier says the software upgrade issues that prompted a suspension of flight testing of its 100-seat CRJ1000 regional jet in July will keep it grounded at least through this month. Deliveries will be pushed back from early 2010, which represents an earlier revision, to the second half of the year. Bombardier Aerospace President and Chief Operating Officer Guy Hachey said he was “very confident” that a solution has been found.
The ministry has begun the shutdown process for the Defense Support Group’s (DSG) large aircraft facility at St. Athan, Wales, in 2013. The DSG unit provides repair and overhaul for the RAF’s VC10 tanker transports, but the work will drop off sharply when the last major maintenance work on the aircraft type is completed at the end of next year. The VC10 and Tristar fleet is to be replaced by the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft, based on the Airbus A330-200. Initial cuts will see 200 jobs lost by the end of 2010, another 139 by mid-2013.
Margot Wasz, a senior scientist at The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif., has won the Resnik Challenger Medal from the Society of Woman Engineers . She was honored for her approach and timely resolution of multiple launch-vehicle battery issues that has had an impact on the ability of U.S. space programs to function properly. Wasz’s research has yielded accomplishments in long-term research, short-term applications and failure analysis. Judith Resnik was one of the NASA astronauts who perished in the space shuttle Challenger accident on Jan. 26, 1986.
Neilson A. Mackay (see photo) has become president/CEO of Atlanta-based EMS Technologies Inc. He was executive vice president/chief operating officer and succeeds Paul B. Domorski, who has resigned.
Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn says the budget horizon for the Pentagon is flat. At last week’s Credit Suisse/Aviation Week Aerospace & Defense Finance conference, Lynn said he “doesn’t expect any dramatic reductions” in the budget, but neither is growth likely. And there could very well be more defense program bloodletting.
Spirit AeroSystems has selected Hitco Carbon Composites of Gardena, Calif., under a long-term contract to build composite passenger floor and cargo header beams for the Boeing 787. Hitco has taken over work that Spirit performed in-house as part of its contract to build the Section 41 composite forward fuselage and nose for the new mid-sized jet. Hitco, which was honored as a Boeing Supplier of the Year in 2007, also makes composite trailing edge components for the 787’s horizontal stabilizer in a subcontract to Alenia Aeronautica.
On Dec. 1, a CFM56-7B—installed on a TUIfly Boeing 737NG in February 1999—passed 40,654 hr. on wing without a single removal—a record for the engine model. TUIfly, a German holiday airline, has achieved more than 14,000 cycles with the powerplant. It shows such good exhaust gas temperature margins that Friedrich Keppler, TUIfly’s flight operations director, says he expects the engine to remain on wing and in service until its mandatory life-limited part removal at about 48,500 hr.
G. Hardy Acree, who is director of airports for the Sacramento County (Calif.) Airport System, has been elected chairman of Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) for 2010. He succeeds John D. Clark, executive director/CEO of the Indianapolis Airport Authority.
With a launch order from Intelsat, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems is introducing its first new communications satellite in a decade. Although it uses technology adapted from a much larger bus, the 702B is being marketed as a new platform tailored for medium-power requirements. The company’s move comes as satellite manufacturers worldwide are benefitting from a big replacement market and continuing demand for new services, particularly direct-to-home television transmissions. Our coverage begins on p. 66. Photographed for Boeing by Bob Ferguson and Dana Reimer.
A round of subcontracts for new Airbus and Boeing commercial aircraft will advance the technology of rapidly expanding component makers in Southeast Asia, lining them up for work on the next generation of programs. The work will variously take the manufacturers into aluminum-lithium fabrication and the assembly of large, critical airframe parts. In one case, it will underpin a research and development effort aimed at out-of-autoclave curing of composite materials, widely regarded as an important future step in cutting airframe costs.
Major U.S. government initiatives are expected to level off in the coming decade, but Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Space Systems/Loral are counting on a steady stream of orders for new and replacement voice, data and broadcast satellites in the next 10 years.
