Investors finally had a reason to smile in March, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index rebounded from 12-year lows, rising 8-9% during the month. But many defense contractors weren’t invited to the party. BAE Systems plc, General Dynamics Corp. and Raytheon Co. saw continued declines in their stock prices, while L-3 Communications Holdings shares were flat. The only exceptions were Lockheed Martin Corp., which mirrored the Dow’s rebound; and Northrop Grumman Corp., which saw a 17% gain fueled in part by bullish expectations for shipbuilding.
Certification trials of the Embraer 190 regional jet began last week for the steep approaches required for London City Airport. The aim is to have the clearance in place by year-end. Five Embraer 190s, as well as six Embraer 170s, are on order for BA CityFlyer, a British Airways subsidiary. The Embraer 170 has been certified for steep-approach operations, with first delivery of the aircraft to CityFlyer due in the second half of 2009.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the piggyback Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will launch on an Atlas V no earlier than June 2, to accommodate the delayed Atlas V launch of the U.S. Air Force Wideband Global Satcom (WGS 2) spacecraft. That launch, which was delayed by a liquid oxygen leak in its Centaur upper stage, was scheduled for 8:31 p.m. EDT on Apr. 3. The NASA lunar mission had been set for launch in a May 20-24 window, but managers ordered the delay to allow more time to process NASA’s launcher after the Air Force flight, the agency says.
The British Defense Ministry’s abortive Red Dragon project to develop a military aircraft maintenance hangar at its St. Athan site is being criticized by the National Audit Office. The overall development was undercut by a shift in the ministry’s approach to fast-jet support, which meant the hangar was no longer needed for the purpose it was built for in 2004. The Defense Ministry worked on the program with the Welsh authorities; however, potentially conflicting ambitions arose, according to the report. The site is now set to be a Defense Training Academy.
Airbus Germany has admitted that in an effort to discover whether employees were taking kickbacks from suppliers, it breached the workers’ privacy. The violation of employee rights took place in 2007 when Airbus cross-referenced employee bank details with those of suppliers. The actions were unearthed in a subsequent review by management launched in December and reported to the company’s works council last month. A similar scandal last week brought down the head of the German rail company, Deutsche Bahn.
Alenia Aeronautica has finished the first series of test flights of its Sky-Y UAV using Italian air space. Five flights of the medium-altitude long-endurance UAV demonstrator were carried out near Puglia, following approval by the civil aviation agency. The Sky-Y UAV has previously been test-flown in Sweden. The recent trials, held in March, continued to monitor the performance of the Selex Galileo EOST-45 electro-optical sensor, and the imagery transmission via a satellite link. The Sky-Y was first flown in mid-2007.
There are stirrings within the moribund market for A&D mergers and acquisitions. Alliant Techsystems is expanding its armament systems business by acquiring Eagle Industries, a supplier of operational nylon gear for military and law enforcement agencies. The price was not disclosed, but Alliant says Eagle will add $80 million to its fiscal 2010 revenues. And Triumph Group announced the purchase of Mexmil Co., a California-based manufacturer of thermal-acoustic insulation systems for commercial aircraft with operations in Mexico and China.
The “Big Five” U.S. space companies could lose up to 10,000 jobs over the next few years unless the government accelerates procurement of the first elements of the Constellation family’s Ares V and Altair programs, warns Boeing Space Exploration head Brewster Shaw. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ATK, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and United Launch Alliance “are at risk of laying off 8,000 to 10,000 people,” because of the looming gap between retirement of the shuttle and emergence of the follow-on Constellation family.
The French aerospace and defense industry is urging the government to come through on military spending commitments to help offset the drastic decline in commercial business.
Budget woes and old ways of doing business are increasingly tripping up Iraq’s attempts to rebuild its military as the nation struggles to recover from decades of combat and mismanagement, coalition officials are saying in Washington and Baghdad.
As a former USAF C-5 program manager, I propose that organizational reform should come before “acquisition reform.” The service has long struggled with the issue of transferring acquisition program management to commands, with no real single manager of the process. Many Defense Dept. acquisition problems can be overcome through a flatter organizational structure.
Apr. 15—Washington Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society Lecture by Gordon Leishman: “Helicopter-Thinking Forward, Looking Back.” Kim Engineering Building Rotunda, University of Maryland, College Park. Call +1 (703) 693-1564 or e-mail [email protected] Apr. 16-17—Technology Training Corp.’s Military Energy & Fuels Conference. Also, Apr. 30-May 1Information Operations Conference. Both at Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Alexandria, Va. Call +1 (310) 563-1210 or see www.ttcus.com
Steven H. McCoy (see photo) has become vice president-advanced concepts for the Northrop Grumman Corp. ’s Baltimore-based Electronics Systems Sector. He was director of airborne systems.
Terence W. Lyons has become president/CEO of AmSafe Global Holdings Inc. of Phoenix. He was chief financial officer and succeeds Kenneth J. Beckemeyer, who has resigned. Chris Muklevicz has been appointed vice president-sales for AmSafe’s aviation unit. He was vice president-sales and marketing for the Pacific Scientific Electro Kinetics Div. of the Danaher Corp.
The FedEx MD-11 crash at Tokyo Narita now makes it three times that an aircraft of the type has flipped over on landing. The others were the Mandarin Airlines crash at Hong Kong in 1999 and the FedEx crash at Newark, N.J., in 1997. The wing broke off below design or certification specifications. I wonder if the United Airlines DC-10 crash at Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989 was made worse by the same flaw.
In a $50-million, 4-year contract, Boeing has tapped Ball Aerospace & Technologies to build the instrument unit assembly (IUA), flight computer and command telemetry computer for Ares I, the shuttle-replacement crew launch vehicle. Ball says it will use its common computing architecture already proved on the Kepler and WorldvView-1 missions for the IUA to build three flight computers that operate synchronously—to assure fault-tolerant safety for astronauts—and two command telemetry computers for each launcher.
Boeing is working on a fix to a signal processing system on its first GPS IIF satellite. Launch has repeatedly slipped, but is now set for November, says Craig Cooning, vice president of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems. Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has completed 61 of 71 preliminary design reviews under the GPS III contract it won over Boeing nearly a year ago. A final system design review is slated for next month. The first GPS III is expected to launch in 2014. Eight satellites are included in the first block, with more expected with future enhancements.
Regarding the article “Flight Idle” (AW&ST Mar. 23, p. 32), on the woes of the A400M development schedule, EADS CEO Louis Gallois retorts, “We accepted a time schedule that was absolutely unachievable—delivery of the first aircraft in six and a half years from the time we signed the contract. No military aircraft in the world has ever been delivered in less than 12 years.”
A method of quickly simulating and testing components and software for “plug and play” tactical satellites that can be put together in a matter of days has been developed by Albuquerque, N.M.-based PnP Innovations. Based on the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Plug and Play Avionics (SPA) standards, the company’s structural panels contain embedded power and data routers as well as mounting positions for PnP sensors and processors.
Creditors are applying for Chinese private carrier East Star Airlines to be declared bankrupt, while Air China’s parent—China National Aviation Holdings Co.—has started preliminary talks to buy the business. East Star ceased operations Mar. 15 and has losses of 500 million yuan ($73 million). China National said it was likely to buy 90% of the carrier for 600 million yuan. East Star’s operator’s certificate would be a prize, as the Civil Aviation Administration of China will not entertain applications for new ones until next year.
Deirdre Hutton will succeed Roy McNulty as chair of the British Civil Aviation Authority in August. Hutton is chair of the British Food Standards Agency.
Lockheed Martin hopes a demonstration flight this summer will lift the concept of high-altitude airships as persistent surveillance platforms off the drawing board and into the stratosphere. Unmanned airships are attracting attention because of their capability to stay aloft for weeks, even months, at altitudes that greatly extend sensor and communications coverage. But questions remain about the ability of lighter-than-air aircraft to remain on station in high winds and through repeated day/night cycles.
The global airline industry is increasingly at risk of seeing its growth capped or billion-dollar increases in taxes imposed at this year’s inter-governmental meeting to define a post-Kyoto policy on climate change.
Our European allies seem unable to duplicate, in about 10 years’ work, the tactical capabilities that Douglas Aircraft created in less than four years a bit more than 50 years ago. I refer to the C-133, which had bulk capacity, payload and speed similar to the Airbus A400M specification, and the first Pratt & Whitney turboprop engine. After some early losses, corrected by training and a redesigned stall warning system, the 50 aircraft carried all manner of bulky objects to Vietnam in two days instead of four weeks by ship.
Lease Corp. International is providing the launch order for the Bombardier CSeries CS300 as part of its deal to take 20 of the new narrow-body series and options for 20 more. Deliveries of three CS100s will start in the second quarter of 2014, with 17 CS300 handovers to commence a year later. All 20 aircraft should be in hand within three years.
