Aircraft operators can enhance windshield visibility for pilots during wet conditions with application of PPG Aerospace-Transparencies’ rain-repellent coating, according to the company. The surface seal coating quick application kit contains all materials needed to treat a one-glass windshield in a few minutes to provide water shedding for visibility without the need for wipers. This kit offers speed because no primer or heat treatment is involved; however, more frequent application is needed with the quick-coating process.
Smiths and General Electric have abandoned a plan to form a joint-venture airport security company, after eight months of discussions. They ascribe the failure to an inability to “agree a strategic vision for the combined business.”
Delivery of the first flight-test TP400 engine will now be nearly a solid year behind schedule at best, and the effects of this delay are starting to reverberate throughout the European A400M airlifter program. At least a half-dozen of the Airbus Military transports are expected to be handed over late. The Europrop TP400-D6 had originally been due in November 2006 at Marshall Aerospace, with flight testing to begin in early 2007. That U.K. facility is modifying a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules for the role.
Deposition Sciences Inc. offers coatings that operate in the 3-5-micron and the 8-12-micron infrared (IR) spectral regions. These specialized coatings for high performance in the IR spectrum are suited for many sophisticated military, aerospace and industrial tasks that require robust coating solutions, according to the company. DSI has developed a variety of coating types within these two wavelength regions, including antireflection, high reflectors, beam splitters, diachronic coatings and band-pass filters.
The General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is being readied for additional tests at GE’s Peebles, Ohio, facility after the conventional-takeoff-and-landing version’s engine ran at full power with after-burner for the first time at nearby Evendale. The use of the augmenter is a significant development milestone for the 40,000-lb.-thrust-plus F136, which continues to face funding hurdles on its way to projected first flight in the F-35 in 2010.
Airservices Australia has proposed forming an aviation industry Capacity Delay Forum with airlines, airport and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to identify and implement solutions to the delay problems in the nation that cost A$70 million (U.S. $60.9 million) per year. Airservices CEO Greg Russell says delay reduction could cut millions of tons of emissions while saving costs and helping aircraft meet schedules. He adds traffic must be managed in the Asia-Pacific region, where more passengers could be carried within three years than in North America.
Former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Paul G. Kaminski and Sun Yet Wong have become the 2007 Pioneers of National Reconnaissance by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Kaminski, who is chairman/CEO of Technovation Inc. and a member of the NRO Technical Advisory Board, was cited for pioneering the development of a major NRO satellite system and using aircraft to demonstrate the feasibility of operating reconnaissance sensors from space.
Created specifically for use with today’s regional, corporate and military aircraft, the TT-8’s low-profile design, standard all-wheel drive, hitch sight tunnels and standard power steering and braking make it highly suitable for airports of any size, according to the company. The TT-8 is available as the TT-8/2 (pictured), which comes standard with dual rear wheels for added stability. The vehicle is capable of pulling a wide range of aircraft including Gulfstreams, Bombardier Challengers and Embraer ERJ 145s. Aero Specialties Inc., 11175 W.
Four biometric identification devices have made it onto the Transportation Security Administration recommended products list. Information about the four will be posted on TSA’s web site for review by airports considering deploying biometric employee ID cards and sensors. Two of the devices are larger and smaller versions of the same fingerprint-sensor, the third is a combination card-reader and fingerprint-sensor, and the fourth is a personal identity verification station that includes a fingerprint-sensor, card-reader and a numeric keypad.
Donald J. Wetekam has been named president of AAR Aircraft Services-Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. He was deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics for the U.S. Air Force.
Avic I is negotiating with Airbus to build complete A320-family wings, saving the trouble of sending parts to Britain for assembly into wings that will then be returned to China for aircraft built in Tianjin. Avic I’s Xi’an Aircraft Corp. builds A320-family wing boxes.
ITT Corp. has agreed to pay $1.7 billion for all the outstanding shares of EDO Corp., a supplier of defense electronics systems. The acquisition, which is expected to close early next year, would end New York-based EDO’s storied 82-year run as a freestanding aviation and aerospace company. EDO was founded in 1925 as a seaplane components supplier by Earl Dodge Osborn, a one-time publisher and editor of Aviation magazine, which later became Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Nearly a year after winning FAA type certification, Eclipse Aviation CEO Vern Raburn casts blame in a lot of directions when asked why his company has been able to deliver barely 50 small jets—far short of the hundreds he had forecast. His suppliers let him down, he says, calling the performance of a recently discarded avionics system “just really, really, really bad.” Some of his managers fell down on the job, failing to grasp the complexities of mass producing airplanes. “They talked the talk, but they could not walk the walk. They had no concept of what it meant.”
Chelton Flight Systems has received FAA TSO and STC of a new combined digital air data and strap-down solid-state attitude/heading reference system. At one-tenth the size and one-eighth the weight of the devices it replaces, the ADAHRS is designed for both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft and provides precise digital output and referencing of position, rate, and vector and acceleration data, according to the company.
I must be missing something. Both Robin Stanier and Armand J. Chaput (AW&ST July 23 p, 8; June 18, p. 14) seem to be saying that breaking up a long single- stage flight into two shorter stages saves fuel, thereby cutting CO2 emissions.
Rocketplane Kistler is embarked on a last-ditch effort to raise funding to save its contract with NASA to demonstrate commercial transportation services to support the International Space Station (ISS), but the agency says a final termination decision is looming for early October.
With all the talk of the Boeing 787 being the first airliner to use major components fabricated from composites, several writers have offered comments on previous composite aircraft, claiming several firsts including the Beechcraft Starship and Windecker Eagle. The first all-composite modern aircraft was the Phonix sailplane of 1957. Designed and built by University of Stuttgart students, it sported a measured lift-to-drag ratio of 40:1, in an era of wood and metal sailplanes with L/Ds in the low 30s.
EADS, in announcing its new, 12-member executive committee, has gone against the wish of Thomas Enders to be the sole Airbus representative on the decision-making body. Enders will nominally be the lone Airbus representative, but COO Fabrice Bregier will sit beside him. To protect Bregier, whom French interests view as their rising star in the Franco-German company, EADS CEO Louis Gallois named him to the executive committee, but in the new role of overseeing EADS’s operational performance.
Applying Bird-Proof, a gel that birds evidently find noxious, is simple, requiring only a caulking gun, rubber gloves and a utility knife to cut a small opening at the end of the tube, according to the company. Each tube provides 10 ft. of coverage. There is no extra work required to smooth it out because Bird-Proof doesn’t dry like caulk does, and can last for up to a year or more in any weather.
It’s likely “but not inevitable” that Iran will develop its own nuclear weapons, says retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, the former head of U.S. Central Command, and the U.S. should “not preclude any option that we may have” to prevent it. But if the Iranians do succeed, Abizaid concedes there are ways to live with a nuclear Iran. “Let’s face it, we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union; we’ve lived with a nuclear China; we’re living with other nuclear powers as well,” Abizaid tells an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Whiting-Turner Contracting’s recent $134.4-million contract to design and build the Marine Corps Special Operations Command complex at MCB Camp Lejeune (N.C.) will include headquarters, an intelligence center, maintenance complex, aid station, supply/deployment/isolation facility and a special operations equipment site.
Philippine Airlines (PAL) will end nine years of receivership in October, two months ahead of schedule, says President Jaime Bautista. Shareholders have authorized a share issue to fund aircraft purchases. Bautista says $1.4 billion is needed for seven Airbus A320s to be delivered by 2008 and six Boeing 777s to arrive 2009-11. Debt has fallen to $869 million from a 1999 peak of $2.1 billion, and the company has made money in its last three fiscal years.
Flight monitoring for general aviation needs led to the creation of Alerts (Aircraft Logging and Event Recording for Training and Safety) System, the award-winning product submitted by Appareo Systems in the AW&ST Product Breakthrough Startup of Development-Stage Category.
