Russian engineers are checking out the status of the KURS autonomous docking system on the International Space Station, after Expedition 23 Commander Oleg Kotov was forced to take manual control of the approaching Progress 37 cargo carrier on May 1 when the KURS failed. Control of the supply spacecraft automatically shifted to the manual TORU system. Kotov, a Soyuz pilot trained to operate TORU as a backup in just such a situation, used controls in the Zvezda service module to guide the Progress to the port on the Pirs docking compartment.
The first two of six Wedgetail Boeing 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft have been accepted by the Royal Australian Air Force at its Williamtown base in New South Wales. Acceptance means all maintenance, ground and flight operations are under RAAF control. Boeing is scheduled to deliver three more of the aircraft, based on a 737-700 airframe, by year-end, including one upgraded to the final AEW&C configuration with electronic support measures. The rest will be upgraded in early 2011.
Astronomers will compete for early places on NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) airborne observatory as the start of science missions nears, following completion of envelope expansion flights with the telescope cavity door open.
The Dutch accident investigation report into the Feb. 25, 2009, crash of a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 (TK1951) on approach to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has reaffirmed the initial conclusion that an altimeter fault led to the engine autothrottle reducing power to idle, from which crews were unable to recover. In releasing the report into the crash that killed five passengers and four crewmembers when the 737 landed 1.5 km.
Proposals are being sought for construction of a plant to produce 787 parts for interior modules to support Boeing’s North Charleston, S.C., factory when it opens in 2011. This new site, which ideally will be adjacent to the North Charleston factory, is an outgrowth of the decision last December to seek second sources for the 787 vertical stabilizer and other assemblies made by its Fabrication Div. at plants in the Puget Sound area around Seattle. Boeing wants to be able to blunt the effects of possible labor strikes. The Fabrication Div.
United Airlines’ confidence that it will regain the title of world’s largest airline after merging with Continental Airlines ignores a potentially damaging regulatory review by a contrarian U.S. Justice Department as well as some skepticism about the true value of the arrangement.
Numerous indicators suggest the executive aviation sector has begun emerging from a recession notable for its depth and suddenness, but the climb out is likely to be neither universal nor steady. And there’s a consensus that it will not be swift.
Bombardier has opened a business aircraft service center at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to service the 550-plus Learjets, Challengers and Global Expresses in Europe and the former Soviet states. The Montreal-based manufacturer expects that number to grow by another 200 in the next few years.
As NASA debates whether to send the space shuttle Atlantis on a final mission to the International Space Station (ISS), here is a simple and safe solution: Send Atlantis with a two-person crew, leave it docked to ISS and have the crew catch a ride back to Earth on a Soyuz (AW&ST April 26, p. 16).
The Israeli air force next year will start fielding Elbit Systems’ Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft for which it is the launch customer. Under a $50-million contract, Elbit will supply several Hermes 900 UAVs as well as some advanced models of the Hermes 450 (Zik), which has been the linchpin of the air force’s UAV fleet since 1999. The air force will have to wait several months for the new system, which is still in development tests.
Delta Air Lines and US Airways say they will take the U.S. government to court over the slot-divestiture conditions the FAA is imposing on their proposed swap—and in the process they might finally compel a court to clarify whether slots are airline or government property. Such a ruling could have wide-ranging implications. Slot ownership was a key point of contention in 2007, 2008 and 2009 when the FAA and U.S. Transportation Department proposed, and ultimately abandoned, a plan to auction off slots at the three major New York metropolitan area airports.
What do these crashes have in common: April 10 the Tu-154M at Smolensk, Russia, that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski; April 3, 1996, a U.S. Air Force T-43 near Dubrovnik, Croatia, that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown; and Korean Air Flight 801 on Guam on Aug. 6, 1997? Each was flying a non-precision approach, a form of dead reckoning. The danger of the non-precision approach is not precision, it is reliability. Make a mistake and your first indication of being off course may be a crash. It’s unsafe at the speed of a modern transport and unnecessary.
The chief of the National Guard Bureau says the Air National Guard and its local communities around the U.S. must prepare for what is likely to be a painful transformation. “We are transitioning to a new place,” USAF Gen. Craig McKinley says. “But it’s going to be painful for many of our units.” The ANG still operates at bases they started using at the end of World War II, and many are fighter units flying aircraft that are ending their operational lives.
French air accident investigation office BEA is revising its search plans for wreckage of Air France Flight 447 thanks to new evidence provided by the French navy. The French state secretary for transport, Dominique Bussereau, says he has been notified by his defense ministry counterpart, Herve Morin, that the military has found a signal from one of the beacons on one of the so-called black boxes belonging to the Airbus A330-200. The navy’s submarine Emeraude detected the signal in the first search phase, but analysis only now isolated the clue.
Rolls-Royce last week dedicated its Mechanical Test Operations Center (MTOC) in Dahlewitz, Germany. MTOC’s mission—to set industry benchmarks for testing and evaluating gas turbine components—will be met using a highly skilled staff of 70, capable of running a range of 40 different tests.
The SES-1 satellite is operating normally following its April 24 launch on an International Launch Services Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The rocket lifted off at 7:18 a.m. EDT, and the satellite separated from the Proton rocket’s Breeze M upper stage 8 hr., 58 min. later. Built by Orbital Sciences Corp. on its Star 2.4 bus, SES-1 will replace SES’s existing AMC-2 and AMC-4 spacecraft at the 101 deg. W. Long. orbital position. The satellite carries 24 C-band transponders and 24 Ku-band transponders and has a design life of 15 years.
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and staff of its School of Aerospace Engineering are developing advanced cathodes that have the potential of improving control of satellites and planetary probes. A key goal of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-sponsored project is to demonstrate the use of propellant-less cathodes in Hall Effect thrusters, thereby reducing the consumption of propellant in satellites.
Luis Liu has been promoted to director of quality and manufacturing engineering for Circor Aerospace Inc. ’s Southern California campuses from manufacturing engineering manager and technical site lead for the Citation campus.
Workers are getting started on the Terminal Hangar Facility at New Mexico’s Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic plans to begin sending tourists and scientists on suborbital rides as early as 2012. Work on the 10,000-ft. runway, where Virgin’s Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo is to glide to a landing, should be finished this summer, according to the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. The $200-million terminal, designed by Foster + Partners, is to be ready early next year. The 110,000-sq.-ft.
China Eastern Airlines is moving strongly into the territory of rival Air China by setting up a branch airline in Chengdu that it plans to equip with 30 aircraft by 2015. Routes to Southeast Asia, an express service to Shanghai and new direct flights to China’s well-developed cities feature in China Eastern’s plans for Chengdu, which will exploit the expansion of the city’s Shuangliu International Airport. The city, at the western edge of China’s heavily populated zone, is developing as the gateway for international air services to and from its region.
May 9-13—Aerospace Medical Association’s 81st Annual Scientific Meeting. Sheraton Phoenix Downtown. Call +1 (703) 739-2240, Ext. 106 or see www.asma.org May 10-13—Practical Aeronautics Short Course: “Introduction to Aeronautics—A Practical Perspective.” Ohio Aerospace Institute, Cleveland. See www.practicalaero.com May 11-12—The Shephard Group’s Electronic Warfare 2010 Conference. Estrel Convention Center, Berlin. See www.shephard.co.uk/events
The now-famous Eyjafjallajokull volcano did much more than paralyze the European airline industry and strand passengers around the world. The unprecedented event confirmed the European Union’s inability to create the long-overdue unified sky. Equally troubling, EU officials ignored the traveling public’s quest for timely and comprehensive information. The chaos triggered by the ash cloud revealed deep political fault lines as the economic impact mounted.
