This week sees the Space Foundation’s annual National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, as well as the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference near Washington
Propulsion engineers at Aerojet Rocketdyne are banking on their company’s long experience building large rocket engines to see its AR1 kerosene engine as the logical replacement for the Russian RD-180 to launch future U.S. national security payloads.
Several representatives of leading-edge aviation and commercial space companies marched to Capitol Hill on April 4 to try to catch up lawmakers on what is needed in the next FAA reauthorization measure—assuming Congress can provide it.
Sikorsky is claiming that its CH-53K King Stallion would be a cost-effective option if it was selected to meet an upcoming German requirement for a heavy-lift helicopter.
Orbital ATK, United Launch Alliance and NASA are targeting April 18 for the launch of Orbital’s seventh NASA-contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station.
The two candidate sites just north of the planet’s equator are believed to be at a suitably low level so that there is sufficient atmosphere to help slow the landing module’s parachute descent.
The midlife upgrade being planned for the U.S. Navy MH-60 “Sierra” and “Romeo” Sea Hawk fleets will include new rotor blades and engine improvements to boost speed, range and lifting capacity.
Boeing Phantom Works sees its joint development of the TX next-generation training aircraft with Saab as how it would approach the development of future front-line fighters.
Jim Downey, co-founder of The EnCore Group, has received the third annual Gilbert W. Speed Award for outstanding leadership and collaboration across the global aerospace and defense supply chain. Downey founded C&D Aerospace in 1972, growing it to a 4,000-employee, $400 million enterprise before selling the business in 2005. In 2011, he launched the EnCore Group. EnCore employs more than 800 people in Southern California and Mexico.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN has $29.7m U.S Navy contract for depot maintenance services in support of 44 Navy and Marine Corps Reserve F-5N/F aircraft through March 2018. LEONARDO announced order from Pakistan for undisclosed number of additional AGUSTAWESTLAND AW139 intermediate twin engine helicopters; deliveries starting in early 2018.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. For a complete list of Aviation Week Network’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.)
Aviation Week has won top honors in the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards, the business-to-business media equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes. Aviation Week won “top brand/overall editorial excellence” in the largest category. And it won the “Grand Neal,” the recognition of the best among winners in all categories the Neal Awards cover—such as best series, best technical content and best website.
Andalusia may be best known to most North Americans as a prime Spanish vacation destination, but increasingly, economic development officials want to make it the same for U.S. and Canadian aerospace manufacturers, too.
EPI has in-service support agreement with Malaysian government for the AIRBUS A400M military transport aircraft’s TP400 turboprop engines through October 2017. NORTHROP GRUMMAN has $33.7m U.S. Army contract for continued software development, training, maintenance of the Counter-Rocket, Artillery Mortar command and control system through March 31, 2018.
Convincing Congress to retire an aircraft is rarely easy, but the U.S. Air Force may fare better in its attempt to retire the F-15 in favor of the F-16 than it did with earlier efforts to retire the U-2 or A-10, according to former Air Force Secretary Whit Peters. The A-10 battle, Peters says, was complicated by what he describes as an “historic feeling that the Air Force never really supported close air support.” Unlike those fights, the Air Force has been able to reduce numbers of aircraft such as the C-5, Peters says.
AVIATION WEEK NETWORK forecasts a total of 121 Western-designed C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance) aircraft will retire from 2017 to 2026.
