How do you restart the presidential helicopter? By trying everything, apparently. In the last go-around, requirements grew topsy-turvy, costs spiraled and President Barack Obama derisively canceled the VH-71. So the Navy is cautious. It issued—then extended the deadline for—a request for information (RFI) from industry. Once all the details are in, by mid-June, the Navy will analyze the alternatives, which should result in a bid request in late summer.
Russia’s two engine manufacturers are to collaborate on the next stage of engine development for the Sukhoi T-50 fifth-generation fighter after years of going head-to-head as rivals.
The Transportation Department rejects airline requests for a stay of execution on the new ground delay limits, telling the carriers they should adjust their schedules if they are worried about their ability to comply. That means passengers could start finding out in May if airline warnings of a wave of domestic flight cancellations at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport will come to pass.
SAS Group is striving to right itself financially to be in a good position for what is likely to be the last major round of European airline consolidation in the foreseeable future.
USAF officials are looking at integrating the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) onto A-10 and F-16 aircraft to improve their ability for low-collateral-damage engagements of small targets. BAE is producing the weapon, which was designed for use on Army and Marine Corps helicopters. A 70-mm. rocket is coupled with a semi-active laser seeker for guidance.
While many business aircraft operators simply stayed on the ground when the volcanic cloud moved overhead, others flew roundabout routes, lower altitudes or simply flew visual flight rules (VFR) to get to, or at least nearer, their destinations. “If you were stuck in the U.K., you had no options,” says Anja Bonacci, a flight operations manager at Arinc. “In other areas, we did have more options, and a lot of people flew VFR until they could switch to IFR [instrument flight rules] and vice versa.”
With the size of the F-22 stealth fighter force capped, U.S. Air Force officials are going to muscle up the service’s air dominance force via Air National Guard F-15C Golden Eagles upgraded with advanced, long-range radars. Because of the larger size of the Boeing F-15s’ radar and the aircraft’s greater flight endurance, they also will serve as “stand-in” electronic warfare jamming and attack aircraft as part of the Air Force’s composite air dominance force that also includes stealthy Lockheed Martin F-22s stationed at Langley AFB, Va.
Military planners have issued their requirements for Europe’s space situational awareness (SSA) system, and those elements should satisfy U.S. security concerns about the undertaking, European officials say.
The Austrian government is upgrading its fleet of 23 AgustaWestland AB‑212 utility helicopters to extend their service life by another 25 years. The government expects the €63-million ($84.4-million) project to start in June and be completed within four years. The fleet, based at Linz-Hoersching, will receive improved avionics as well as night-vision and self-protection capabilities. To minimize the operational impact, only six rotorcraft will be out of service at any point in time.
Early planning for improved fifth- and new sixth-generation aircraft indicates they could be designed with wide-area optical and electronic surveillance and nonexplosive weapons, and offer an intricate analysis of the enemy networks that might affect them. Also part of the formula will be communications—including command and control—that can function even when under network attack.
Boeing’s Defense, Space and Security unit, along with partners Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and Cobham Mission Systems, recently announced the delivery of a C-130H aerial refueling tanker to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force in late February at KHI Gifu Works. KHI modified the transport aircraft, incorporating Cobham air-to-air refueling pods and the Boeing design modifications affecting the structure, wiring and fuel system. Currently the tanker provides aerial refueling for the UH-60J search-and-rescue helicopter.
Early this year, some analysts were still predicting that Boeing Co. and Airbus would be forced to cut their production rates. With orders down sharply in 2009 and the airline industry awash in jets, it was only a matter of time, they said.
Rolls-Royce has marked two significant steps—completion of the first propeller and the testing of the first MT30 gas turbine—for the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales. The nearly 7-meter (22.9-ft.), 33-ton propeller has passed acceptance tests at the company’s facility in Kristinehamn, Sweden. Each of the two propellers will deliver about 50,000 hp., the highest-power Kamewa propeller ever developed by Rolls. The first of the four MT30s for the ships passed stringent tests and certification the U.K.
Following failed attempts to produce indigenous unmanned aircraft, Russia will launch an assembly line for Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI’s) Searcher Mk. II long-endurance reconnaissance UAV. The effort is being pursued under a joint venture between IAI and Russia’s State Technology Corp. Rostekhnologii and should lead to the production of several dozen Searchers for the Russian army. While the Searcher is based solely on Israeli technology, the deal will go ahead only after receiving U.S. approval.
Europe’s air transport industry will have lost well over $1 billion in the wake of the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, but the battle over how to deal with the losses has only just begun.
A U.S. Navy biofuel-powered flight from NAS Patuxent River, Md., on April 22 (aka Earth Day) used an unmodified Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet. The fighter was powered by a sustainable biofuel 50/50 blend of camelina and JP-5 aviation fuel. This flight bolsters the Navy’s strategy of halving its reliance on fossil fuels within the next decade. Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security unit’s biofuel testing includes demonstration flights of five commercial aircraft, four engine types and laboratory work with several fuel processors and engine manufacturers.
Delta TechOps and Global Avia Logistics, logistics provider for Russian carrier Nordwind Airlines, have signed a long-term strategic contract to provide maintenance support for Pratt & Whitney 2000-Series engines and GTCP 331-200 auxiliary power units in the carrier’s Boeing 757 fleet. Nordwind was founded in May 2008 as an international charter carrier licensed to transport passengers and cargo.
Having gleaned no practical direction from President Barack Obama’s April 15 speech on NASA’s future, I’ll throw out the following notional plan: •The primary goal is to open up the Moon to regular manned visits, both for scientific and commercial purposes. This is technically feasible with NASA conducting pioneering R&D as needed, and industry not far behind.
The Obama administration will pursue a three-phase overhaul of the export controls regime. The new approach will establish a single licensing agency, export control list, enforcement coordination agency and information technology system, Defense Secretary Robert Gates promised last week in speech to a Business Executives for National Security (BENS). “Tinkering around the edges of the current system will not do,” he says. Gates hopes aloud that necessary legislation can be passed by year-end.
The damage inflicted on Europe’s aviation sector by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano will be immense, with the final cost days and perhaps weeks from being tallied. But even before the dust settles—figuratively as well as literally—stakeholders in Europe’s aviation community need to step back and make another assessment: How well did they manage through this crisis? Our sense is that both regulators and airlines fell well short of optimum. In some cases, their actions were downright irresponsible.
Most F-35 cost growth stems from choices made at the program outset in 1995. The senior leaders were highly capable but boxed in by tremendous pressures, and had confidence that they could handle the problems of which they had been warned.
The U.K.’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has launched an investigation into allegations of price fixing between Virgin Atlantic Airways and Cathay Pacific Airways on the London to Hong Kong route. “The case concerns a number of alleged contacts between employees of the two airlines over a number of years, which it is alleged had the object of coordinating the parties’ respective pricing strategies regarding passenger fares through the exchange of commercially sensitive information on pricing and other commercial matters,” the OFT says in announcing the review.
Brazil’s GOL Airlines has become the launch customer for GE Aviation’s OnPoint Fuel & Carbon Services agreement, which relies on proprietary software and fuel consulting services to help carriers identify and track operational improvements that could reduce fuel spending by 5%. For operational evaluations, GOL and GE will quantify GOL’s current fuel and carbon reduction programs through data collection, and then create a customized response. Reductions in fuel consumption and carbon emissions are directly linked.
In a “flat world” where maintenance work flows across borders as easily as passengers and freight, airline overhaul shops are awaiting the outcome of a legislative fight in the U.S. Congress over safety inspections of foreign maintenance, repair and overhaul stations that could pose a threat to thousands of U.S. jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.
