Lt. Gen. Hidetoshi Hirata is commander of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s Southwestern Composite Air Div. based in Okinawa. He met recently with AW&ST Senior Military Editor David A. Fulghum at the division’s headquarters near Naha to discuss such topics as the challenges of monitoring and policing a string of Japanese islands extending almost to China.
Agreement on a monitoring system for the sale of U.S.-made weapons systems and components to India has cleared the way for greater cooperation between the two countries and the potential for U.S. contractors to walk off with India’s biggest procurement prizes.
The private/public Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (Sesar) Joint Undertaking says 30 projects have been started since an agreement was reached with the 16 Sesar partners on June 12. The agreement covers 295 projects to be completed by 2016. Among projects begun over the past month are a Ground-Based Augmentation System for Cat. 2 and Cat.
Manufacturers of piston-engine aircraft and powerplant makers are showing interest in an experimental, non-petroleum biofuel that could possibly serve as a “drop-in” replacement for leaded avgas. Swift Enterprises Ltd., a West Lafayette, Ind.-based energy development company, has engineered a hydrocarbon-based fuel synthesized from biomass that has demonstrated detonation protection and energy output equal to or better than 100 octane low-lead (100LL) aviation gasoline. Until now, no research effort has arrived at such a product, petroleum-based or not.
Public relations consultant Kate Dougherty has been named to the board of directors of the Minneapolis-based Lindbergh Foundation . She was public relations director for Cirrus Design.
Modularity and autonomy are themes in the U.S. Air Force’s new long-term vision for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). UAS Flight Plan 2009-2047, unveiled July 23 at the Pentagon, lays out the doctrinal, organizational, personnel and technological steps required to institutionalize unmanned aircraft within the Air Force, and provides paths for the evolution of UAS capabilities in four classes: small man-portable, including nano and micro; medium “fighter-sized”; large “tanker-sized”; and special low-observable, hypersonic and ultra-long-endurance vehicles.
Martin Dugan has been named to the board of directors of Empire Airlines , Hayden, Idaho. He is a founding principal of Structured Finance International and was senior director for commercial aviation at CIT.
Michael Manella has become vice president/general counsel for McKechnie Aerospace , Irvine, Calif. He was assistant general counsel for Meggitt-USA Inc.
During his long Senate career, former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) fought for the F-35 alternate engine program and famously changed Washington’s thinking about the war in Iraq when, returning from a fact-finding trip, he said strategy there appeared to be going “sideways.” Now the retired lawmaker is sounding a warning about the national security threat posed by global warming.
U.S.-based AAR Corp. has signed a letter of intent with SuperJet International to provide aftermarket support for Sukhoi’s Superjet 100, which should be certified later this year. As part of the support network, AAR will provide heavy maintenance, modifications, refurbishments, and line and field service maintenance, repair and overhaul.
Prof. Robert Owen (AW&ST June 15, p. 14) cites a number of factors for the declining interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and careers. He then encourages us to continue refining our understanding of this problem.
Combatant commanders are having more of a say in this year’s Quadrennial Defense Review, says Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. Pacific Command. “[They] just didn’t have as significant a role in previous QDRs. [By contrast] I’ve been back [to Washington] three times for the singular purpose of participating in a two-day session chaired by the [Defense] secretary and the [Joint Chiefs of Staff] chairman. I can see changes as the QDR unfolds. [Changes in] day-to-day operations in the Pacific have not been significant.
Wall Street analysts have always had favorite aerospace CEOs. For several years it was Frank Lanza, who delivered stellar returns to shareholders as he built up L-3 Communications Holdings. Rockwell Collins Inc. CEO Clay Jones has long been held in high regard by investors. But this year it will be hard to top Precision Castparts Corp.’s (PCC) Mark Donegan— especially after the earnings performance the company delivered last week.
While a contract is imminent between the British Defense Ministry and Eurocopter covering a Puma life extension, a question mark hangs over a similar proposal for the Sea King Mk. 4.
As airlines find more to like in the technology that brings Internet connectivity into the cabin, they are still searching for ways to get reluctant passengers to pay for it. “Customers want to be connected and they want it to be free,” Doug Murri, senior manager of technologies for flight operations at Southwest Airlines, told a recent World Airline Entertainment Assn. (WAEA) workshop on connectivity issues.
The Pentagon has notified prospective bidders that the long-awaited draft request for proposals for the Air Force’s KC-135 replacement competition is now planned for release in mid-September—with a formal draft likely to follow in October. If this schedule holds, selection of the winning replacement refueling tanker design could occur in mid-2010. That is roughly a six-month slip from earlier plans for the program. A previous Air Force attempt at a KC-X competition included a purchase of 179 tankers worth an estimated $35 billion.
People flock to Oshkosh for three reasons: airplanes, airplanes, airplanes. Despite hard times, more than a half million from 70 nations will attend the show—their passion to explore new technology as strong as their desire to see industry recovery.
General aviation industry presents only “limited and mostly hypothetical threats to security” and does not require increased TSA regulatory oversight, says a May report from the Homeland Security Dept. Office of Inspector General. Since 9/11, GA aircraft have been viewed by government as vulnerable to terrorist use. Consequently, the TSA imposed stringent security restrictions on general aviation operations, from light aircraft to business jets.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (L'Aquila, Italy, and Paris)
Europe’s ability to secure approval of a Mars lander mission may be in doubt, despite the likelihood of a helping hand from NASA and the opening last week of a new European Space Agency center in the U.K. to support robotic exploration.
The Senate vote terminating funding for the F-22 Raptor “doesn’t change a thing” about the tactical advantages offered by the stealth fighter’s advanced systems, a senior Air Force intelligence officer tells Aviation Week, adding: “I think history will bear out the F-22 advocates’ position when all the dust settles.” The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter “is not an F-22 by a long shot,” he says.
More than four weeks after the 11th-hour cancellation of the maiden flight of the 787, Boeing’s leaders are not providing basic details about how the problem of a failed wing test will be corrected and when the new jet will fly.
Lockheed Martin nabbed the second of two $10-million awards for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile program. The project is designed to field a weapon for the U.S. Navy as soon as possible. The first award went to Lockheed’s missile facility in Orlando, Fla., with the second for its Grand Prairie, Tex., location. The initial, nine-month contracts will support preliminary design and risk reduction. Another, 27-month phase could follow for refinement of missile design and flight tests. Procurements could begin in Fiscal 2010.
Prof. Claudio Bruno University of Rome (Rome, Italy)
I have been in aerospace since 1968 as a graduate student at Princeton University and now I am teaching aerospace subjects in Rome. Better education and training, early selection of bright young people, inspiration and so on are all well and good, but the salaries of aerospace engineers do not compare to those in other professions, and their careers are subject to the vagaries of industrial politics, with the inevitable program cancellations, layoffs, etc.
Former Cessna Aircraft Co. Chairman and CEO Russ Meyer has been inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame . Other 2009 inductees are astronauts Eileen Collins and the late Edward White as well as the late actor Jimmy Stewart.
