For big production increases, including for the PW1000G, Pratt is investing in manufacturing initiatives such as “intelligent” or automated production cells and advanced materials.
As GE readies for a series of new campaigns culminating in flights of the GE9X in 2017, it is feeling the operational benefit of changes made to cope with a set of simultaneous test efforts, which hit an all-time record in 2015.
Rolls-Royce’s Trent 1000 TEN is designed to improve fuel burn by 2% over the current Package C production standard and is therefore crucial to the company’s long-term competitiveness battle against GE’s GEnx-1B, the alternate engine for the 787.
Rolls-Royce’s Advance engine demonstrator is a hybrid combining a Trent XWB-84 case, the fan system from a Trent 900 and the low-pressure turbine from a Trent 1000.
Governments are looking for ways to work around disruptions in service, increasingly caused by proliferating equipment that can jam and spoof GPS signals.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Aurora Flight Sciences bring computer science to bear on the problem of ensuring software-heavy unmanned aircraft behave as they are supposed to.
FAA tests UAS counters; ADS-B in a tube for BVLOS; persistent stare from a Cessna; ship landing system that can see; navigating undersea by acoustic GPS.
Darpa programs exploit moves to open up weapon-system architectures and enable faster, cheaper upgrades to the capabilities and technologies of today’s platforms.
Startup Echodyne develops a cellphone-sized detect-and-avoid radar compact and cheap enough to be carried by small UAS flying beyond visual line of sight of the operator.
