Carleton Bailie, pictured atop the 525-ft. Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, is celebrating 20 years as Aviation Week & Space Technology’s primary photographer at Cape Canaveral and KSC. He routinely works 20-hr. days. Bailie estimates that over the last two decades his cameras have recorded nearly 100,000 pictures, including the launch of Discovery Oct. 24 from VAB roof (see p. 28).
The Innovation America Foundation has extended the deadline for its Voices of Innovation contest. IAF’s mandate of motivating younger students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics has led it to join with Apple Inc. and the National Academy of Engineering, among other organizations, to challenge high school students to bring 21st century skills to the fore. Student teams are invited to submit 45-sec. videos that showcase the future of U.S. innovation to http://edcommunity.apple.com/innovation.
The ERJ 135/140/145 family is a series of twin-engine, 37-50 seat regional jets. The initial model was the 50-seat ERJ 145, which first flew in August 1995. Deliveries began in late 1996. The next model was the 37-seat ERJ 135, which made its initial flight in July 1998. Deliveries began in July 1999. The 44-passenger ERJ 140 first flew in June 2000, with initial deliveries in July 2001. A longer range version of the ERJ 145, called the ERJ 145XR, also has been developed. The Rolls-Royce AE 3007A is the engine used on these aircraft.
Air Force leaders have ramped up their lobbying on Capitol Hill, suggesting lawmakers help extend the F-22 Raptor production line with 20 more of the Lockheed Martin fighters than currently budgeted. Seeking to bolster the service’s position as lawmakers hammer out Fiscal 2008 defense legislation and the Bush administration mulls its Fiscal 2009 request, Secretary Michael Wynne and Gen. T.
EasyJet is acquiring the British Airways franchise-partner GB Airways from the Bland Group for £103.5 million ($212.3 million). British Airways will end its franchise agreement with GB Airways from March of 2008. Similarly BA is ending its franchise with Scottish operator Loganair, and replacing it with a code share. EasyJet’s purchase of GB Airways will bolster its presence at Gatwick airport. The latter airline’s Heathrow slots were not included in the deal, and are to be sold separately.
On Oct. 5, an Ariane 5 GS rocket flight fully validated the multiple in-orbit reignition capability needed to launch ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the agency says. A reignition experiment 54 min. after ejection of the second commercial payload showed performance of the Aestus upper-stage engine conforming to specifications, including settling in the storable-propellant tanks for reignition, along with operating parameters and procedures.
Globalstar is checking out its final four first-generation low-Earth orbit communications satellites after successful launch Oct. 20 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. A Starsem Soyuz rocket with a restartable Fregat upper stage lifted off at 4:12 p.m. EDT. The Fregat ignited twice to place the satellites in their proper orbits. Globalstar says it spent $120 million to build and launch the four spacecraft and four more launched in May. They were built by Space Systems/Loral, with Thales Alenia Space as a sub.
India’s Director General of Civil Aviation is calling for safety teams of airport operators, air traffic controllers and airlines to be established by year’s end to identify potential runway incursion danger areas and recommend ways to mitigate the risks. India’s domestic air traffic has doubled in the past three years. In the fiscal year that ended Mar. 31, the Ministry of Civil Aviation says, airlines carried 35 million passengers, up 40% annually, and 22.4 million international passengers, a 15% gain.
EADS is off to a difficult start in its new, more streamlined setup, as many of the group’s smaller investors demanded the resignation of Arnaud Lagardere last week from the board of directors.
If there is anything as clear as air travelers’ distaste for their treatment as customers in all but the priciest 21st-century airline service, it is the difficulty most carriers are having in doing significantly better than they are. The cost controls that have enabled carriers to recover from the losses of a few years ago were achieved, in no small part, by economies that led directly to the current, awful level of customer service. And as the annual International Air Transport report in this issue makes clear, prospects for change aren’t bright (see p. 48).
An unprecedented wave of building activity at the U.S. Air Force’s top-secret Groom Lake flight test facility almost certainly appears to herald a coming surge of work on a raft of new classified test programs. The latest construction effort includes the erection of the largest hangar ever built at the remote Nevada site since it was established for Lockheed U-2 flight test development under the CIA’s Aquatone program in 1955. In early October, the final touches to the exterior of the building were in process at a site southeast of the southern ramp area.
Graduates of ab-initio training programs probably will be safe to function in the modern airline environment—one in which you do what you are told, and are not required to think or make any real decisions. But we should not call these people pilots. “Cockpit managers” or “aircraft operators” would be more accurate. Stick-and-rudder skills are losing priority to button-pushing and knob-turning, and anyone coming from this type of program needs to know they are not pilots, and certainly not aviators.
Eurocopter plans to employ its new EC135 trainer in the second quarter of next year. The system itself was recently delivered to the company’s Donauwoerth facility in Germany, with a second in Dallas scheduled to go to American Eurocopter soon. The devices are designed to allow higher-fidelity training. The first clients have already committed to the program, Eurocopter says. The centerpiece of the new facilities are the six-axis, full-motion EC135 simulators, provided by Indra and CAE in cooperation with Eurocopter. The system delivers a field of view of 160 deg.
Finnair will net €1.4 million ($2.0 million) from its sale of FlyNordic to Norwegian Air Shuttle. Although the deal yields Finnair a capital gain of €18.8 million, the carrier is depreciating €3 million against six Boeing MD-80 jets used by FlyNordic but owned by Finnair Aircraft Finance. Finnair is amortizing €1.5 million in other costs. The income will be booked in the last quarter of 2007. In the wake of the deal, which was revealed in July, Finnair will hold 5% of Norwegian Air Shuttle, but that could nearly double under options that are part of the sale.
Peter Naz, who is flight safety officer for DHL, and Maimuna Taal, the former director-general of civil aviation for The Gambia, have won presidential citations from the Alexandria, Va.-based Flight Safety Foundation . EVA Airways Chairman Steve Lin accepted the Richard Teller Crane Founder’s Award for his airline, while the Flight Safety Foundation–Boeing Aviation Safety Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Airbus Senior Vice President John K. Lauber.
Elbit Systems aims to start flight trials next year on a laser-based infrared countermeasures system to protect military and civilian aircraft. It’s the same technology the Israeli government has just selected to install on its airliner fleet. The Israeli cabinet’s decision to install directed IR countermeasures on civil airliners marks an important step in the debate over whether to pursue such technologies. Other countries are still mulling fleet deployment and are focused mainly on test and development activities.
Hawker Beechcraft opened a light sheet metal assembly facility in Chihuahua, Mexico. The manufacturing operation will employ 250 workers, with room to expand up to 650. It will supply the company’s main aircraft facilities in Wichita, Kan.
Early settlers on the Moon could use their relative isolation to try new forms of governing themselves, much as European colonists in 17th century North America sought religious freedom. William Marshall, a researcher who works on small lunar missions at NASA Ames Research Center, says even a 100-person lunar base could be a sort of petri dish for new concepts designed to drive out some of the shortcomings of modern democracy.
Korea Aerospace Industries will begin marketing a utility helicopter starting in 2010 under joint development with Eurocopter, and aims to fly the first prototype in March of that year. A tight 73-month development schedule that calls for delivery of the first helicopter to the South Korean army by June 2012 is dictating use of the cabin cross-section of the Cougar, the Eurocopter model on which the Korean Utility Helicopter (KUH) is based. Changing the cross-section could have delayed the program by two years, Eurocopter says.
The Military Aircraft Update Status of Programs, prepared by Forecast International and published in the Oct. 8 issue (pp. 65-78), omitted the following description. The Fairchild Republic A-10 is a single-seat ground attack aircraft powered by a pair of General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofan engines rated 9,065 lb. thrust each. First flight of an A-10 prototype occurred in 1972. The production model was the A-10A. By 1984, 713 A-10As had been built for the U.S. Air Force.
The immediate future of the U.S., European, Japanese and Chinese space programs is on the line this week as critical human and robotic operations are underway in orbits of the Earth and Moon. As Japan continues its multi-spacecraft Selene mission in lunar orbits, China is poised to send its first spacecraft to the Moon on a mission aided by the European Space Agency (ESA). The space shuttle Discovery is docked at the International Space Station for the most ambitious construction mission yet at the orbital outpost.
The immediate future of the U.S., European, Japanese and Chinese space programs is on the line this week as critical human and robotic operations are underway in orbits of the Earth and Moon. As Japn continues its multi-spacecraft Selene mission in lunar orbits, China is poised to send its first spacecraft to the Moon on a mission aided by the European Space Agency (ESA). The space shuttle Discovery is docked at the International Space Station for the most ambitious contruction mission yet at the orbital outpost.
South Korea has developed a ground-attack cruise missile with a range of 1,000 km. (620 mi.), according to local press reports. The liquid-fueled weapon was reportedly tested last year and has an accuracy of “plus or minus 5 meters,” aided by terrain-contour matching. It will be deployed on the country’s Aegis air-defense destroyers and its development is being followed by that of a weapon with a range of 1,500 km.
Toronto-headquartered Magellan Aerospace and a former senior company executive are scheduled to face one another this week in a U.K. employment tribunal. A former senior VP, Brian Little, is alleging wrongful dismissal against the component manufacturing company.
This twin-engine turboprop aircraft family initially was known as the Dash 8 series. The Q100 is the original model and made its first flight in June 1983; first deliveries followed in October 1984. The Q100 carried 37-39 passengers and was equipped with 2,150-shp. Pratt & Whitney Canada PW121 engines. Current models include the 37-39-passenger Q200 (with 2,150-shp. PW123C/Ds), the 50-56-seat Q300 (with 2,500-shp. PW123Bs) and the 68-78-seat Q400 (with 4,850-shp. PW150As).
