For the first time, a Boeing union has endorsed the company's plan to back away from guaranteed pensions but a minority group said it would rather strike instead, so the airplane maker has more uncertainty on its agenda.
Now entering the final stages of designing its Model 525 Relentless medium twin, Bell Helicopter is taking lessons not only from its own past, but from another major manufacturer. Build will start in the second quarter, aiming for a first flight in 2014.
Greg Hyslop (see photos) has been appointed VP and general manager of Chicago-based Boeing Research & Technology, succeeding Matt Ganz, who was recently named president of Boeing Germany and Northern Europe and VP-European Technology Strategy. Succeeding Hyslop as VP and general manager of Boeing Strategic Missile & Defense Systems is Jim Chilton, who was VP and program manager for Exploration Launch Systems.
In Washington nobody likes to talk about the “s-word” but as March 1, the deadline for the across-the-board budget cuts grows closer, conversations about sequestration are becoming all-consuming. “It is just occupying everyone's time,” says Pentagon industrial base chief Brett Lambert. Unless lawmakers pass a new agreement by the end of the month, $85 billion in across-the-board budget reductions will take place for fiscal 2013. It is the first increment in a 10-year, nearly $1 trillion package of spending cuts.
Aug. 10, 1628: Vasa, first of a new class of ships intended to change the balance of power in Nordic waters, left her Stockholm yard for the first time. As she left the lee of the city, she heeled sharply, flooded and sank. The shipwrights blamed the sailors for demanding too many guns. This is related to the news that full-scale development of the JAS 39E version of the Saab Gripen will cost 13.1 billion kronor ($2.1 billion) over five years. That is about 1 billion kronor less than Saab's last major effort, the JAS 39C/D.
L-3 Communications is exploring whether a German concept from World War II could boost the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability of small naval vessels. During the war, the Germans developed the Focke-Achgelis FA 330 Bachstelze (Wagtail), an unpowered autogyro capable of lifting a man. It was towed behind prowling U-boats and used to spot targets and possible threats. The pilot would bark sightings by telephone to the submarine.
NASA's open-ended space technology push is receiving a bureaucratic boost with the creation of a new Space Technology Mission Directorate at the agency's Washington headquarters, joining Aeronautics, Human Exploration and Operations and Science as associate-administrator-level organizations. The new Space Technology associate administrator will be Michael Gazarik (at left in this photo with Deputy Administrator Lori Garver at Aurora Flight Sciences), formerly director of the Space Technology Program in the Office of the Chief Technologist.
NASA scientists hope to study fragments of a large meteorite that detonated over Russia on Feb. 15, injuring more than 1,200 people and damaging 4,000 buildings around Chelyabinsk, close to the Ural Mountains. NASA says the meteorite is not related to asteroid 2012 DA14 that passed Earth within hours of the event at a distance of more than 17,000 mi. (27,360 km). “Early assessments of the Russia meteor indicate it was about one-third the size of 2012 DA14 and traveling in a different direction,” says the agency. The meteorite exploded at an estimated altitude of 12-15 mi.
Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to launch its first Antares rocket next month, paving the way for a second commercial cargo service to the International Space Station (ISS) by summer. The plan assumes a successful on-pad hot-fire test of the liquid-fueled Ukrainian-built rocket, but it will not be delayed by inconclusive results from a NASA probe into the cause of a fairing-separation problem that destroyed the $388 million Glory atmospheric-research mission in 2011.
Despite the financial and legal issues that have recently afflicted its parent, Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland is pushing ahead with development and flight-testing of three new rotary-wing aircraft at the same time.
Bombardier has delayed first delivery of its Learjet 85 business jet by six months, to summer 2014, citing technical challenges with its all-composite airframe, which the company says have now been overcome. The carbon-fiber airframe is manufactured at Bombardier's Queretaro, Mexico, plant for final assembly in Wichita.
I agree with reader Myron Kayton (AW&ST Jan. 28, p. 8). As a long time avid reader of Aviation Week, I too mourn the passing of technically rich papers. Please, let's see more about aircraft engineering and less about marketing. Nantes, France
As brand-new 787s continue to stack up at its Everett, Wash., facility and others remain idle around the world, Boeing's battery crisis is finally coming to a head as the FAA decides on whether to approve a company plan to return the airliner to the skies.
President Obama's crusade to increase a small sliver of taxes on the nation's wealthiest has long capitalized on a convenient symbol of privilege: the corporate jet. Those talking points are landing like stray arrows on the makers of business jets, and manufacturers are fuming.
While industry accepts that the light single-engine helicopter is very much in demand, it is often difficult for manufacturers to justify investment in such machines when medium and heavy helicopters yield greater profit margins. For companies like Eurocopter, which last year sold more than 200 examples of its Ecureuil family, the decision to spend money creating a new light helicopter is a tricky one, especially with no sign of demand for the existing aircraft abating soon.
I note with interest that recent Feedback submissions feature calls for more technical details in articles. Aviation Week is a news magazine, not a textbook. The concept of fly-by-wire, for example, is not news. How about putting such “how things work” pieces in a special section on your website. Footnotes could direct readers to the site when an article contains references to the concept in question. New York, N.Y.
The Pratt & Whitney PW1500G engine for Bombardier's CSeries has received Transport Canada type certification, marking the first time any production version of the geared turbofan has been certified, and clearing the way for flight tests of the new Canadian airliner later this year. Approval follows more than 4,000 hr. of trials, including 340 hr. of flight-testing on Pratt's Boeing 747SP flying testbed.
Robert Ball, executive director of the Lee County Port Authority, has been named 2012 Person of the Year by the Fort Myers, Fla.-based News-Press Media Group. The award is given to an individual who has had an “impact on the future of Southwest Florida.”
