Airbus already has booked its first 2008 aircraft order. Irish lessor AWAS has agreed to buy 75 A320-family narrowbodies. The company signed the contract in December, but Airbus didn’t receive the deposit until January so the deal will not show up in the aircraft maker’s year-end tally. Airbus and Boeing are neck-and-neck for the 2007 order intake crown (see p. 40).
The National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca) has been hammering at what it calls inadequate controller staffing for several years, but now it is saying there is a “staffing emergency” in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Southern California. Natca says 10% of the nationwide controller work- force left last year. “A staffing emergency means that controllers do not have enough trained and experienced personnel on the ground to safely handle the volume of traffic in the air and at major airports,” Natca says.
China may be pursuing a tail and thrust-vector-control imaging infrared guided dogfight missile design to meet its requirement for a next-generation short-range air-to-air weapon. An image of the weapon, possibly designated the PL-ASR and also associated with the designation PL-10, has been circulating on Chinese military web sites. The PL-10 designation has been associated with development of a semi-active radar-guided medium range missile.
By year-end, Airbus plans to nail down the central supplier, industrial and design decisions for its A350XWB twin widebody. Not since the A300B, the first aircraft the European aircraft maker brought to market, has so much been riding on getting it right.
China’s demonstration of an anti-satellite (Asat) weapon last year highlighted the vulnerability of low-orbit military and intelligence satellites. It also renewed a long-standing debate about U.S. reliance on a relatively small number of “Battlestar Gallactica” satellites that can take as long as a decade to design and orbit and cost more than $1 billion each. Now Alliant Techsystems Inc.
As the head of science and technology for the director of national intelligence, Steve Nixon is at the apex of what he calls a “watershed” in the $43 billion-a-year U.S. intelligence community—which he says is providing more support for operations now than “any time in recent history” while grappling with the post-Cold War landscape. Key to his vision is a new Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Iarpa), which was officially funded for the first time in Fiscal 2008 for a classified sum and is now being staffed.
The end of 2007 saw Russia carry out a second test-launch of its RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile, which carries multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads, was fired from Plesetsk, to hit a target on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
ViaSat, Eutelsat and Loral/Telesat are teaming to launch a pair of ultrahigh-speed Ka-band satellites for North America and Europe that will provide more bandwidth than all existing two-way satellite services combined, the companies say.
Regarding the Air France A340 landing accident at Toronto in 2005, not all weather radars are as accurate as we may wish (AW&ST Dec. 24/31, 2007, p. 33). Automation is not the problem, but understanding of the acceptable and unacceptable is. The unacceptable must be rejected out of hand. The crew must decide and agree on what is acceptable, before events become critical. A good and brief interactive agreement on understanding and solving foreseen problems is essential.
The British government is denying any discussions between London and Washington over the possible siting of ballistic missile defense interceptors in the U.K.
Airbus faces a critical year as it moves to implement large swaths of its Power8 cost-efficiency program after spending more than a year preparing the far-reaching industrial transition.
MIT engineers have designed materials that can repel oils, a discovery with implications for aviation and space travel as well as hazardous waste cleanup. MIT says the materials might help protect parts of airplanes or rockets from being soaked in fuel, such as rubber gaskets and O-rings that might otherwise be damaged.
The 10-year shareholders agreement between Emirates and Sri Lankan Airlines that expires Mar. 31 will not be renewed, according to Emirates Managing Director Timothy Clark. On Apr. 1, the Sri Lankan government will assume management of Sri Lankan Airlines. Until it finds an investor, Emirates will retain its 43.6% equity in the company.
Telephonics Corp. received a $14.5 million contract to supply Mobile Surveillance Systems to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The system includes ground surveillance radar, EO/IR sensors, GPS location data and a common operating picture that allows agents to track and visually identify targets of interest prior to engaging.
A new feed-through connector for the Atlantis external tank (ET) engine cutoff sensor (ECO) system is to be installed on the Atlantis vehicle by early this week as shuttle managers look to launch the STS-122/1E International Space Station assembly mission during the first half of February. Whether they can hold to a Feb. 2-7 launch date target depends on results of NASA/Lockheed Martin testing at the Marshall Space Flight Center of the original suspect connector removed from the Atlantis stack (AW&ST Jan. 7, p. 28).
One of the hallmarks of civil and military aviation and aerospace is the determination of the men and women who epitomize the values and ideals of these fields. Year after year, these qualities result in important, far-reaching progress that will benefit people around the world.
Mauricio Botelho, chairman of Embraer, handed over the president and CEO jobs in 2007 after building the company into a major player in the commercial aviation world. He passes on a multibillion-dollar order backlog, and a strong product strategy in both the regional aircraft and business aviation markets. Under Botelho’s leadership, Embraer has also won the respect of many other aircraft makers.
Boeing has begun production of the engineering design models (EDM) of the Joint Tactical Radios System (JTRS) ground-mobile version. JTRS is an ambitious program to develop and produce software programmable radios for use on ground, air and maritime platforms. It will replace legacy radio systems, though the program’s size, scope and technological demands have contributed to cost overruns and delays. These first EDMs will undergo field and system regression testing this year, with formal certification and field testing late in the year.
The future of a detachable experiment pallet on Japan’s Kibo module for the International Space Station could be jeopardized by the scheduled 2010 retirement of the space shuttle. The pallet may never fulfill its originally intended function of transporting experiments to and from the space station. In fact, it may only take one ride up to the station and then stay there.
British Airways is inching forward on its strategy to start offering transatlantic service between New York and continental Europe, with a modest one-aircraft route to commence in June serving Paris or Brussels.
Attempts continue to recover the pan-African fixed satellite Rascom-QAF1, which is suffering from a severe helium leak following launch atop an Ariane 5 in late December. The leak left the spacecraft stranded in geostationary transfer orbit as Thales Alenia Space pondered what to do (AW&ST Jan. 7, p. 26). Thales said last week it hopes remaining helium will allow the perigee to be raised sufficiently so the satellite can be parked in a radiation-safe orbit while engineers assess the probability of reaching geostationary orbit.
Gulfstream G550, G500, G450 and G350 business jets have received FAA approval to fly Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approach procedures to airports. Gulfstream has been working with the FAA, NetJets and Honeywell’s aerospace business to obtain approval so aircraft with the Gulfstream PlaneView cockpit can fly these types of approaches.
Canadian aviation authorities are investigating what factors led to the Jan. 10 emergency landing of an Air Canada Airbus A319. Flight 190 was en route to Toronto from Victoria, British Columbia, with 83 passengers and five crew on board when it diverted to Calgary, Alberta. Ten people on board suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Jorn Bates has been appointed chief operating officer of Mesa Airlines . He was vice president-East Coast operations for the Mesa Air Group and president of its Freedom Airlines. Joe Serratelli has been named COO of Freedom Airlines. He was vice president-operations and productivity for Delta Air Lines’ Song. Mickey Moman has become vice president-safety and regulatory compliance for the Mesa Air Group. He was vice president-flight operations for Mesa Airlines. Moman has been succeeded by Eric Gust, who was airworthiness auditor.
