Regarding the spate of recent articles about Boeing looking to increase sales of their C-17 transport, has anyone thought to talk to UPS or Federal Express about purchasing a “civilian” version of the C-17 for use in air cargo operations? Any extra costs involved would surely be compensated by increased payload capacity compared with any cargo version of a civilian airliner.
German aerospace center DLR has signed a contract with European Satellite Navigation Industries (ESNI) to operate the four In-Orbit Validation satellites for the Galileo satnav system. The IOV spacecraft are to be deployed by 2010.
The Defense Dept. has been arguing for prompt global strike (PGS) capabilities like conventional-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Congress seems ready to fund significant R&D.
Turkey’s efforts to buy an attack helicopter have taken a important step forward with a tentative agreement involving AgustaWestland, the defense ministry, Turkish aerospace supplier Tusas and Aselsan. In March, Turkey selected the AgustaWestland A129. Previous attempts to acquire an attack helicopter failed because of the extensive industrial offset requirements demanded by Turkey. A formal signing of the contract is pending.
Bombardier has selected the Rockwell Collins HGS-6605 Head-Up Guidance system as an option for the Challenger 605, adding to the list of Bombardier aircraft using HGS systems from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based avionics company. Rockwell Collins head-up displays are already in use on the Challenger 604, the CRJ and Q-series turboprops. The HGS-6605 active-matrix liquid crystal display system offers a bright image and wide field of view, says Dennis W. Helgeson, vice president and general manager of business and regional systems at Rockwell Collins.
Rockwell Collins has developed a helmet-mounted navigation system for parachutists with a GPS-based, flight management system that feeds information into a head-up display. This will allow parachutists to guide themselves to a landing zone or an alternate location. The system has been checked out with 100 test jumps from altitudes up to 28,000 ft. and temperatures below minus 20F. Rockwell Collins also has developed the Polaris commercial family of GPS receivers for handheld use and installation in vehicles or ships.
Mooney Airplane Co. has delivered the 50th Acclaim and orders for the four-seat airplane are increasing (see photo). David Copeland, vice president of sales and marketing for the Kerrville, Tex.-based manufacturer, says sales of the M20 TN Acclaim remain strong and there is a large production backlog for it and the similar Ovation. Copeland says the Acclaim is the fastest single-engine, piston-powered airplane in production with a maximum speed of 237 kt. at 25,000 ft.
NASA is proposing to the Office of Management and Budget that the space shuttle program end six months early, in March 2010, as an “on paper” planning tool to ensure the project really will complete all its flights by Sept. 30, 2010. NASA managers say that even if the new plan has a March 2010 termination date, as agency documents show, the real intent of the strategy is only to provide more margin over the next three years so the project will have a greater chance of actually achieving the original end point set by President Bush.
Singapore Airlines will begin regular Airbus A380 operations on Oct. 28. The carrier will receive the aircraft Oct. 15 and perform ceremonial flights Oct. 25-26. The regular service with the single A380 that SIA will have this year will connect Singapore and Sydney, replacing one of three Boeing 747-400s on that route. Singapore’s A380s will have 471 seats, far fewer than the 525 that Airbus now says is standard for the aircraft but more than the 450 that rival Qantas is planning. Airbus originally classified the A380-800 as a 555-seater.
French armaments agency DGA has awarded laser specialist Cilas a contract to build a compact laser source mockup as part of a project to develop and produce a jamming laser for military transport self-protection applications. The mockup is to be delivered in two years.
Israel bombed locations in Syria last week that have been tentatively identified as storage sites for weapons awaiting delivery to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Also in Syria is the signals intelligence and command and control network that Syria and Hezbollah have set up to monitor Israeli communications and to provide themselves with surveillance-free communications. Lebanese officials criticized Hezbollah recently for setting up a private telephone network linking southern Lebanon to Hezbollah sites in Beruit that doesn’t use any of the national exchanges. U.S.
In their first regular defense appropriations bill since retaking control of the U.S. Congress, Democrats are on their way to funding most of the Bush administration’s request for missile defense efforts—although with an emphasis on near-term capabilities and wariness over initial spending on European bases. With Senate appropriators finalizing their recommendations last week, both chambers of Congress look set to allocate about $8.5 billion for missile defense for Fiscal 2008, around $300 million less than the White House requested.
The first NH90 helicopter built on an assembly line in Finland has been delivered to the Swedish defense armaments agency, FMV. The aircraft is the first of its type to begin military operations in Sweden, where it will be used for crew training. Sweden is acquiring 13 NH90s for troop transport and another five for antisubmarine warfare, and holds options for an additional seven aircraft. A second NH90 was delivered in June but remains in France to train Swedish military personnel. In addition to Finland, NH90s are assembled in Germany, France, Italy and Australia.
SES Global South America Holdings has concluded a five-year agreement to lease two standard Ku- and three extended K-band transponders on SES Americom’s AMC-6 satellite to Arsat, an Argentine satcom company created in 2006. Earlier this year, SES sold off holdings in Brazilian-based Star One, after unloading its shares in Nahuelsat, a struggling Argentine operator, so it could reorganize its effort to penetrate the Latin American market. An order for a new spacecraft by QuetzSat, a new SES affiliate in Mexico, is imminent.
The nearly decade-long battle to allow the Sport Pilot and the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) category to exist, fought mainly by the Experimental Aircraft Assn. (EAA), brought with it an open way to introduce affordable flying through real technical and legal innovation. The airframers coped quite well, using metal, fiberglass, foam and carbon/aramid composites. Unfortunately, U.S. aero engine makers only tentatively addressed the issue of new, quieter and thermally more efficient small piston engines.
Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the next-generation U.S. space-based missile-warning constellation, has mated the spacecraft bus and payload for the first geosynchronous satellite of the new Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs). System-level environmental testing of the bus and its Northrop Grumman payload is set to begin soon in preparation for a planned launch in 2009. The Sbirs staring and scanning sensors are obscured by the orange payload structure in this clean-room photo, pointed up toward the ceiling through what will be the nadir surface in orbit.
Retired senior Air Force officials criticize in no uncertain terms procedural mistakes that allowed six nuclear-armed cruise missiles to remain undetected on a B-52 flown from Minot AFB, N.D., to Barksdale AFB, La. The incident is an indication that the system for monitoring U.S. nuclear weapons has “fallen into utter disrepair,” a four-star general told Aviation Week & Space Technology during an informal conversation.
The Administration de l’Aeroport de Luxembourg has been working for many years with ATC supplier Comsoft GmbH. of Karlsruhe, Germany, and has just accepted a high-performance audio and data recording system from the company with two radar-monitoring displays to capture air traffic information at Luxembourg Airport. The system will begin operating in the next few months.
The U.K. should prepare to participate in human spaceflight, according to a report commissioned by the government’s British National Space Center. The Space Exploration Working Group report recommends that the U.K. establish “a detailed plan so a decision can be made on U.K. involvement in human spaceflight in the decade beginning 2010.”
Grace M. Puma (see photo) has been named senior vice president-strategic sourcing/chief procurement officer for United Airlines. She was vice president-global indirect materials and services procurement for Kraft Foods. Puma succeeds Garry Kelly, who will be retiring.
Boeing has completed assembly and flight hardware integration on the first of 12 GPS IIF satellites, which include an updated L-band payload and expanded civil user capacity (see p. 92). First launch is set for 2008.
The president of Northrop Grumman Space Technology says the first of two Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) satellites has completed environmental testing in the thermovac chamber. The second has been moved to the chamber and has begun environmental testing. The two satellites, which were designed under the earlier Space-Based Infrared System-Low and later completed as part of the STSS program, are set to launch in 2008.
Halfway through its $24-billion development contract, funding pressure on the Joint Strike Fighter is driving managers to propose eliminating two test aircraft from the flight-test program.
John B. Cudahy has returned to the Leesburg, Va.-based International Council of Air Shows as president/chief staff officer. He had been its president and was executive director of the American Medical Student Assn.
Boeing has signed contracts with Rolls-Royce and General Electric to support its GoldCare material management services for the 787. Rolls will provide under-wing rotable components through its Trent 1000 TotalCare life-cycle management program. Rolls reports that TotalCare has garnered more than an 80% acceptance rate from the 500-plus engines for which it has orders on the 787. Similarly, GE will care for the rotables under its OnPoint support program for GEnx engines.
