John Colucci has joined Avantair as executive vice president after spending 17 years at NetJets. His earlier career was spent at Gulfstream Aerospace as vice president of new business development and in sales positions at IBM.
I admire your recent series of articles about the space shuttle, however, in “Almost an Afterthought” (AW&ST Dec. 6, 2010, p. 50), you state that a Vandenberg-based shuttle (flying a polar orbit no doubt), after a 90-min., single-orbit flight, would need to return to a location 1,265 mi. away from where it was launched “to accommodate the Earth’s precession.” Precession would only change the requirement a tiny amount. Rotation seems the more likely explanation. (The reader is correct-Ed.)
Experts from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will certify any commercial crew transportation vehicle put forward by U.S. companies as safe to fly. Only then will the Japanese agency accept them as substitutes for the space shuttle in the complex barter deals that govern International Space Station operations.
European Space Agency engineers have upgraded the Large Space Simulator (LSS) at the European Space Research and Technology Center (Estec) to prepare the two BepiColombo spacecraft for their upcoming mission to the broiling environment at Mercury. Spacecraft orbiting there must endure temperatures on the order of 350C from the Sun itself, and heat reflected from the planet’s surface that is literally hot enough to fry eggs.
The Indian army wants to expand its aviation corps and has asked the government to give it full control over all tactical air assets in the battlefield, including transport, observation and attack flights.
China’s J-20 stealthy prototype “is at the heavy end of the fighter scale, leaving ample room for medium and light platforms” as follow-on stealth designs from Beijing’s aerospace industry, says Douglas Barrie, senior fellow at The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The J-20 and Russian T-50 stealth strike fighter projects may offer a challenge for U.S.
House lawmakers are talking again about capping the number of screeners the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can hire. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), who in the past helped set such a cap, is now chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The subject has already been discussed with Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), who chairs that panel’s homeland security subcommittee. The cap lapsed under the chairmanship of David Price (N.C.), now the top Democrat on the subcommittee.
As the U.S. Air Force’s first next-generation secure communications satellite continues its long journey to orbit after an onboard engine failure, Lockheed Martin is working to ensure that the suspected foreign object debris (FOD) failure that crippled the spacecraft will not occur in other A2100-based satellites.
“Shear Magic” (AW&ST Dec. 13, 2010, p. 22) accords the appropriate amount of praise to Space Exploration Technologies and CEO Elon Musk. The problem is that the general press more or less portrays him as the “Edison” of commercial space. In reality, SpaceX has been drawing on 40-50-year-old technologies with some clever modifications. There is little new here. Musk’s genius is his emulation of the Skunk Works/Phantom Works management systems—minimizing organizational structure, and hence cost—while direct-lining the decision path.
The FAA is dangling a carrot in front of airlines still resisting spending to equip their aircraft for satellite-based NextGen air traffic management. It is giving JetBlue Airways $4.2 million toward equipping up to 35 of its Airbus A320s with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) avionics. In return, JetBlue will give the FAA data on fuel and time-savings, which the FAA hopes will persuade all carriers to get busy with equipage. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt does not rule out similar help for other airlines, however.
Eric Frankl, executive director of Lexington (Ky.)Blue Grass Airport, has been selected 2010 Air Carrier Airport Manager of the year by the FAA Southern Region . Under his leadership, the airport completed more than $66 million worth of improvement projects, which helped bring a 19.3% increase in passenger growth last year.
Initial results from the European Space Agency’s Planck cosmic background explorer are providing valuable new insights into our galaxy. This suggests the mission will be successful in helping to resolve some of the mysteries of how stars, galaxies and other large stellar structures were born and evolved. The findings, released here last week along with 25 published papers, included 30 previously unknown galaxy superclusters and data that are likely to help confirm many leading theories about primordial structures and matter in the universe.
The U.S. Navy’s Fire Scout will deepen its operational experience considerably both on land and at sea this year as the unmanned rotorcraft begins anti-piracy missions in the Middle East and intelligence-collection for troops in Afghanistan.
After suffering through high-profile quality-control issues with contractors last year, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency appears to be turning the corner on that problem. Now the MDA must deal with unsuccessful testing of its Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Robert Wall (Aberdeen, Scotland)
Eurocopter will start development this year of an all-new replacement for its venerable 4-5 metric-ton Dauphin/Panther helicopter and is poised to launch a new hybrid rotorcraft as well.
George Trivino has become Latin America sales manager and Dale Hawkins sales manaer for StandardAero Business Aviation . Trivino was a field service engineer at Honeywell and had been an airframe and jet engine mechanic in the Colombian air force. Honors & Elections
Manufacturer L-3 Display Systems says the panoramic cockpit display in the F-35 contains a single 20 X 8-in. liquid-crystal display with independent left/right-side electronics for redundancy (Jan. 24/31, pp. 158-159).
Active competitions, development programs and recent orders will see the Indian armed forces introduce more than 700 helicopters this decade, making it one of the world’s key military rotorcraft markets. As India’s requirement for helicopters increases across the board, including for homeland security and disaster relief, fresh acquisition programs are almost certain to arise to meet needs for early entry into service.
NetJets pioneered the concept of fractional aircraft ownership, an arrangement that provides wealthy individuals and businesses that own a share in one aircraft access to a fleet of professionally owned and maintained business jets for a fixed number of hours per year.
Russian regulators on Feb. 3 formally issued the type certificate for Sukhoi’s Superjet 100 regional jet, clearing the way for the two lead customers to start operating the aircraft in Russia and 11 other former-Soviet republics. But despite more than 1,000 flights and 2,500 flight test hours, the certification work is far from complete, as acknowledged by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. officials.
Graham Warwick (Washington), Bill Sweetmen (Washington)
Helicopter pioneer Charles Kaman died Jan. 31 in Bloomfield, Conn., of complications from pneumonia. He was 91. Kaman was an inventor, a musician and a philanthropist who was known for his love of intermeshing rotors, guitars and German shepherds.
Feb. 13-17—21st Annual American Astronautical Society/American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics’ 2011 Space Flight Mechanics. Loews New Orleans Hotel. Also, Mar. 15-17—AAS Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences International Forum. University of Maryland, College Park. And, Mar. 30-31—49th Annual Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium. Greenbelt (Md.) Marriott. Call +1 (703) 866-0020, fax +1 (703) 866-3526 or see www.astronautical.org
Airbus has canceled 12 A330-200F orders over a long-standing dispute with Indian startup Flyington Freighters for the company’s failure to make pre-delivery payments. The move marked the first cancellations the European aircraft maker has had to log in 2011. But overall demand for the A330 is strong enough, Airbus says, to warrant a production rate hike to 10 aircraft per month, to be reached in the second quarter of 2013. The current rate is eight aircraft per month. Airbus, on Feb. 3, reported it booked 32 new orders and delivered 33 aircraft in January.
