J. Michael Loomis of Fort Wayne, Ind., has been elected president of the Washington-based National Transportation Safety Board Bar Assn. He succeeds Tony B. Jobe of Madisonville, La. Other new officers are: vice president, Mark T. McDermott of Washington; secretary, John S. Yodice of Washington; and treasurer, Christa Hinkley of Dallas. Regional vice presidents are: Gregory Miller of Anchorage, Alaska; Kent S. Jackson of Shawnee, Kan.; Jeffrey R. Small of Coraopolis, Pa.; Gregory J. Reigel of Hopkins, Minn.; Paul A. Lange of Stratford, Conn.; Robert F.
Designs to follow the stealthy F-35 are already being defined and to some extent described by Lockheed Martin’s competitors. Boeing was first out of the gate in February in discussing a follow-on fighter with wider-spectrum stealth. The company simultaneously floated to potential customers the idea of buying fewer Joint Strike Fighters and skipping to an even more advanced sixth-generation combat aircraft.
The final report on Adam Air Flight 574 cites deficiencies in airline oversight, maintenance and pilot training as factors in the crash that killed 102 people—and its findings are helping to reinforce a growing belief that Indonesian carriers are unfit to fly. Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee released its findings on Mar. 25. On Jan. 1, 2007, Flight 574 departed for Surabaya-Juanda Airport on Java from Sulawesi Island’s Manadao-Sam Ratulangi Airport.
The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is seeking more flexibility and discretion to better regulate airports and respond more quickly to market changes. Agency officials told the Competition Commission (which is in the midst of a market inquiry into CAA’s U.K. airports) that its regulatory framework has not changed in 20 years. There's a clear case for reform, but airport investments and service quality improvements will still need to be paid for, according to the CAA.
Robert Burkhardt, director of the Engineer Research and Development Center’s Topographic Engineering Center, Alexandria, Va., has become the Army ’s first geospatial information officer.
U.K. air traffic control authority NATS has awarded an £80-million ($160-million), five-year contract extension to Lockheed Martin UK for support of the London Area Control operation at Swanwick ATC Center. There is an option to the agreement that could extend it past 2013 for a second five-year period. Lockheed Martin will maintain and enhance the software system used to control traffic over England and Wales, extending the 30-year relationship between the two parties.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
Signs of growing dissatisfaction in Congress with Thales’s Chinese space links could upset the company’s carefully crafted strategy to increase penetration of the U.S. defense and aerospace market.
The U.S. Navy’s most recent estimate of a 69 F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet shortage will soon be abandoned and replaced by an almost 300% jump in that shortfall.
In April, NASA Ames’s Earth Science Project Office will begin a series of spring/summer flights and satellite observations in what the agency is billing as the largest airborne experiment ever conducted to investigate the impact of air pollution on the Arctic’s atmospheric chemistry and changing climate. The flights will originate in Fairbanks, Alaska, on a Beechcraft King Air B200 from NASA Langley, a Lockheed P-3 from NASA Wallops and Douglas DC-8 from NASA Dryden.
A Boeing A160T Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft carries a 1,000-lb. payload module during a test flight from Victorville, Calif. The pod could carry supplies, a miniature robotic vehicle or even be used to evacuate a wounded soldier, and represents an extended role for UAVs that Boeing hopes to demonstrate in coming months (see p. 48). Successful tests, however, also depend on a smooth return to flight following a crash last December which destroyed a prototype vehicle.
The only B-2 to have crashed did so after it “rotated early, rotated excessively, stalled and then dragged the left wing tip,” says Gen. John Corley, chief of Air Combat Command. At that point, the pilots ejected and the aircraft ran off the left side of the runway and burned still largely intact.
France has launched a fourth Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarine that is the first to carry new-generation M51 missiles. Christened “The Terrible,” the submarine is scheduled to enter service in 2010 and be equipped with 16 M51s. The new missile features 50% more throw weight than the M45 it replaces, carries up to six warheads and has a range of up to 8,000 km. The first M51 test firing from The Terrible is planned for next year.
The Pentagon offered no explanation for a shipping gaffe involving sending Taiwan four nuclear missile fuzes instead of replacement batteries for UH-1 helicopters in the fall of 2006, an error only discovered in late March. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne assured reporters that U.S. personnel “took action to first secure and then to regain custody of the items” as soon as it learned of the error. The revelation of the incident came not long after the news that a B-52 ferried nuclear weapons between Minot AFB, N.D.
In case you missed it, the first shot in the war over the U.S. military’s role in the 21st century was fired in March. A panel of seven not-very-senior members of the House Armed Services Committee issued a preliminary report suggesting that the U.S. defense establishment should re-think national security roles and missions. And Congress will need to reconsider how to oversee and pay for any changes, the panel says.
Michael Bruno (Washington), Amy Butler (Washington)
Boeing executives say a planned U.S. ballistic missile intercept test under the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program may be pushed to later this year. The news comes as congressional watchdogs have renewed criticism over the program’s testing regime. In the meantime, Boeing has locked in a sole-source extension of its GMD development through Fiscal 2013, including the integration of European interceptors and a new radar considered controversial on Capitol Hill and in Europe.
Almost everything seems to be going right for Spirit AeroSystems. The aerostructures designer and manufacturer recently secured two new substantial contracts and a promising agreement, after gaining a stronger global grip on its main work by acquiring the aerostructures business of BAE Systems. Spirit also made a judicious decision, according to analyst Howard A. Rubel of Jefferies & Co., when it remained unemotional in negotiations for a piece of EADS’s aerostructures business and steered clear of acquiring it.
John C. Blanton, who is chief consulting engineer for heat transfer at GE Energy in Greenville, S.C., has been named to receive the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Distinguished Service Award. Other recipients will be: Goddard Astronautics Award, Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; International Cooperation Award, Peter M.
The U.S. national innovation system needs a makeover. The Cold War approach to science and technology dates to the mid-1940s and involved a federal commitment to fund basic research and create a strong science and technology workforce. Significant funding for defense and the Apollo program ensured robust programs in applied research and system development. Unfortunately, several trends have undone that approach.
The British government has dropped a plan to purchase a medium-size commercial jet—dubbed Blairforce One by critics after former Prime Minister Tony Blair—as an official transport aircraft. The recommendation was originally made in 2006 as part of the Gershon review, which proposed replacing transport services now provided to the government and the royal family by RAF 32 Squadron and through charters with dedicated capability. While the intent is still to purchase a business jet platform recommended by the review, the acquisition of a larger aircraft has been shelved.
Boeing is poised to attempt a brace of world record endurance flights with its A160T Hummingbird unmanned air vehicle after installing new safeguards to prevent a flight control system failure which led to the loss of a prototype last December. The accident put a three-month hold on an already aggressive test and demonstration schedule earmarked for the A160T through the rest of 2008. Yet Boeing remains confident it can meet its schedules, as well as set records for rotary UAV payload and endurance that it claims others will find difficult to match.
Theodore L. Weise and Carol B. Hallett have been named to the board of directors of Pogo Jet Inc. , Chicopee, Mass. Weise is retired as president/CEO of Federal Express. Hallett is counselor to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She is a former president/CEO of the Air Transport Assn. of America and is on the boards of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc., Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co., Rolls-Royce-North America and Wackenhut Services Inc.
The fleet of 30 Boeing 747-400s operated by Qantas Airways will be monitored by Boeing’s Airplane Health Management (AHM) software system designed to improve management of unscheduled maintenance events. In real-time conditions, AHM collects data that can be accessed by airlines in flight to determine fuel consumption as well as identify potential systems problems so carriers can schedule repairs to eliminate or minimize delays. In addition, Qantas officials say AHM will be used for its future fleet of up to 65 Boeing 787s.
GE Honda Aero Engines is preparing for key blade-off tests of its HF120 business jet engine at Honda’s Wako research center near Tokyo. The 2,095.lb.-thrust rated engine is destined for Spectrum Aeronautical’s Freedom and Honda’s HondaJet business aircraft, and will begin formal certification later this year for entry into service in 2010.
