The U.S. Navy has awarded Indra USA a $23-million contract to modernize Marine Corps AV-88 Harrier flight trainer simulators. The Spanish company’s U.S. arm will perform technology upgrades to incorporate industry innovations. A nearly complete rebuild will be undertaken to introduce night-flight and radar-night-flight training modes. Using an Indra USA-developed 3D viewer, instructors will be able to monitor the total tactical environment.
Senate passage of an appropriations bill that includes $17.5 billion for NASA doesn’t mean the agency will get the money. Congressional Democrats and the Republican White House are en route to a showdown over war funding that could send civil space and other domestic discretionary spending into another freeze, and NASA fears “devastating” consequences. Democratic leaders are lining up domestic spending measures as veto bait for President Bush, who has already said they are unacceptable because they bust his Fiscal 2008 budget by some $22 billion. The Dems want the money.
Excel-Jet Ltd. says it has initiated legal action against the FAA following the crash of the company’s Sport Jet prototype in 2006, killing both test pilots. The company alleges that air traffic control cleared the airplane for takeoff behind a large commercial jet “in violation of mandatory separation requirements.” The Sport Jet experienced a “violent uncommanded roll” after liftoff and crashed.
The International Air Transport Assn. is urging the U.S. Transportation Dept. to use standard global practices for managing congested airports, such as New York John F. Kennedy International, rather than resorting to congestion pricing schemes that it says have been rejected around the world. IATA publishes worldwide scheduling guidelines and is faciltating an annual meeting in Toronto next month where airline and airport officials from all over the world will discuss slot assignments for the coming year. This process works better than congestion pricing, IATA says.
A patchwork of agreements to share data and tasking rights for imaging intelligence between France, Italy and Germany is poised to go into effect with the commissioning of new X-band radar satellite networks.
New technologies to monitor the structural integrity of airframes and millimeter-wave digital receivers are just two of the latest Australian Defense Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) projects. The Defense Science and Technology Office has added a total of eight programs in its annual call for research ideas. BAE Systems Australia will lead the aircraft health monitoring effort that, long term, should lead to replacement of traditional inspection methods and increase aircraft availability. The next call for ideas is due in April.
Carl Ehrlich expresses doubt about the benefit of one-stop versus non-stop flight, given the extra fuel involved in making an en-route landing. Fuel flow varies with aircraft gross weight. The large fuel load required for a non-stop flight results in a higher aircraft gross weight than the smaller fuel loads for each of two shorter flight legs. Higher gross weight means more climb and cruise fuel.
Victor Cassano (see photo) has become head of the Engineering Dept. of Stowe Machine , Windsor, Conn. He was an engineering manager at Beacon Industries and at MTU Aero Engines North America.
Boeing researchers say they have demonstrated that the company’s Avenger mounted laser system can disable improvised explosive devices and unexploded ordnance. During tests at Redstone Arsenal, the 1-kw. solid-state laser destroyed five types of explosives.
NASA sees its plan to give away about half of its rack space on the International Space Station as an incentive to investment in private space-transportation vehicles to supply the ISS. “I think absolutely it’s looked at as an upside, the expanded market for these providers,” says Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program at Johnson Space Center, who oversees the agency’s Commercial Space Transportation System (COTS) program.
Martin Todd has been named public relations and communications manager of the Brussels-based AeroSpace and Defense Industries Assn. of Europe . He was with communications consultancy APCO Worldwide.
A United Launch Alliance Delta II sends the latest Global Positioning System satellite on the way to its slot in the GPS constellation Oct. 17 after a launch from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla. The GPS IIR-17M satellite is the fourth of eight in the series built for the Air Force by Lockheed Martin Navigation Systems. It boasts a more powerful antenna panel; two new military signals with upgraded encryption and anti-jamming capabilities, and another civil signal. Liftoff of the Delta II 7025-9.5 vehicle came at 8:23 a.m. EDT.
The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch on its eighth International Space Station assembly mission this week, after top NASA spaceflight managers decided concerns about the health of its thermal protection system didn’t warrant a delay. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center is set for 11:38 a.m. EDT Oct. 23, kicking off the planned 14-day mission to deliver Harmony, the station’s second pressurized node.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is seeking applications for commercial use of its Kibo section of the International Space Station, due to be launched in three shuttle missions starting in February. In doing so, it is trying to overcome corporate reluctance to commit spending on projects that would be done in a facility that has been delayed repeatedly and still isn’t in orbit.
A hyperspectral sensor, stereo radar imager and Franco-Italian high-energy X-ray mission will be among the priorities of a new three-year space plan to be implemented by Italian space agency ASI.
The European division of Airports Council International (ACI Europe) reports that of 102 European airports, Moscow Domodedovo International is one of the fastest growing facilities among airports handling 10-25 million passengers annually. Domodedovo ranks first with 22.9% growth as of August compared with a year earlier, followed by Berlin (16.7%) and Athens (11.9%). ACI Europe says, overall, Domodedovo is ranked 16th within the European division with traffic of more than 2.2 million passengers in August.
The Korean Helicopter Program will use the EADS Missile Launch Detection System (Milds) as part of its self-protection suite. The initial sets of the missile warner will be provided by the Defense Electronics division, although the integration will be conducted from 2008 by Korea’s LIGNex1, which is developing the overall self-protection suite. The order is only the latest in a string of export sales for Milds.
Production issues remain front-and-center concerns for Airbus for both the A380 and the twinjet wide-body A350, even as the aircraft maker celebrates the first customer delivery of the mega-transport to Singapore Airlines (SIA).
Robert Wall (Toulouse ), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
Delivery delays for the European A400M military airlifter could stretch to a year, with some customers predicting more potential problems than the airframer is acknowledging. Flight trials will not start until next July; and once they begin, many pitfalls loom—further complicating the efforts by Airbus Military to deliver the aircraft to customers. The project faces a tight flight test schedule in which managers will have to oversee an unusual dual test-site arrangement and—in a first for Airbus— certify a turboprop.
Israelis are used to being told that their aviation system is world-class because it relies predominantly on veterans of its renowned air force. So the emergence of serious questions about air safety has come as a rude awakening, and politicians and the public are demanding action from regulators. While government officials agree a shake-up is needed in the agency overseeing aviation safety, they are divided over whether regulatory shortcomings have degraded the quality of the air traffic control system.
Geoff Newman has become director of Asia-Pacific field marketing for United Technologies Corp. subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand , Windsor, Conn. He was a program management executive with the transportation business segment of UTC Power.
U.S. House Democrats let it be known they will be keeping a close eye on the FAA’s $1.8-billion Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) contract being administered by a team led by ITT in part because the innovative approach to letting the contactor build and own the ADS-B system worries them a bit. Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said at a hearing of the House aviation subcommittee on Oct.
Alaska Airlines has opened a new passenger check-in facility at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as part of an $18-million “Airport of the Future” project the carrier will implement throughout its system (AW&ST May 28, p. 60). The long, horizontal ticket counter has been eliminated in favor of a walk-through space filled with vertical lanes where kiosks and baggage drop-off positions are available. Away from the traffic flow, other personnel offer baggage services and a customer relations desk handles special cases.
