When the House proposed legislation last month requiring that a system be put in place within the next three years to screen for explosives all cargo loaded onto U.S. airliners, the head of the Transportation Security Administration said it would be too costly and impede the flow of commerce. The measure passed anyway and a similar one is under consideration in the Senate. TSA has estimated it would cost $3.5 billion over the next five years, requiring 8,000 additional screeners and a $1.6-billion investment in explosives detection machines.
China faces sharp criticism this week over its Jan. 11 test of an anti-satellite weapon, as a U.N. panel in Vienna buckles down to setting international guidelines for controlling manmade space debris. China's representatives already have faced pointed complaints from the U.S., France, Germany and Japan at the opening session of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. A technical subcommittee that has spent two years devising debris-mitigation standards--with Chinese participation--is set to begin work this week on a final draft. The U.S.
A 30% lowering of its landing fees over the past three years has been bringing some positive news to San Francisco International Airport. Southwest Airlines says it's ready to return to SFO after leaving in 2001. The move marks the carrier's third consecutive expansion into a United Airlines hub, having launched services at Denver last spring and Washington Dulles in the fall.
Airbus has significantly raised its forecast for Chinese commercial aircraft demand over the coming 20 years, boosting an outlook for narrowbodies that it raised only last year by 66%. The manufacturer sees China buying 2,050 narrowbodies by 2025, up from the 1,900 it forecast last year for the same period. Airbus also has increased its outlook for aircraft in the A380 class to 180 units. Last year it slashed that forecast to 113 from previous projections of around 200. Airbus also says China will buy 800 other twin-aisle aircraft.
Enough of the old pilots and young pilots screaming at each other. The FAA should sponsor a high-quality analysis to determine how much risk is expected to increase as a result of changing the pilot-age rule. Adequate data and analysis methods are available. The downside would be to put the decision about the age rule on a rational and transparent basis!
Frustrated with the spiraling cost of an $11-billion program to improve the C-5 transport, the U.S. Air Force's chief of staff says it's unlikely the service will upgrade its 60 C-5A models, leaving modifications only to 49 Bs and two Cs. This could ultimately prompt the Air Force to reverse its decision not to fund additional C-17 purchases and could possibly force officials to more closely consider cargo capacity for the KC-X tanker competition between Boeing's 767 and a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America A330 option.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley rebuts reports that he was unhappy with his service's choice last year of a Boeing Chinook-based design for the future Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter (CSAR-X) (AW&ST Feb. 5, p. 21). At the end of a press conference at the annual Air Force Assn. meeting in Orlando, Fla., this month, he tried to set the record straight. "That's a big helicopter," he remarked about Boeing's design. The winner wasn't his top choice, but "we'll make this work."
The U.S. has formally told Australia that current policy rules out selling them the Lockheed Martin F-22, helping the government there to fend off an increasingly noisy push to buy the Raptor instead of the same company's F-35 Lightning II to replace F/A-18A/Bs and F-111s. Rejecting the F-22, Defense Minister Brendan Nelson says it is primarily an air-to-air machine with inadequate strike capability unless it carries external weapons that greatly raise its radar reflections.
Progress on the British government's Defense Industrial Strategy is generally good, according to a report by the Parliament's Defense Committee. But there are significant problem areas. A lack of headway on consolidating the maritime manufacturing sector threatens to delay the next-generation aircraft carrier. A lack of clarity on the nature of technology access assurances over participation in the Joint Strike Fighter also concerns the committee.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
Five years after their spectacular implosion, low-Earth-orbit satellite-communications constellations are on the mend. The so-called big and little LEOs have emerged from a round of bankruptcies and takeovers triggered by the telecom collapse, terrestrial competition and overly-optimistic business plans into what one executive calls "a high-end niche market" that needs continuous voice and data connectivity.
The North American Trisonic Wind Tunnel, which North American Aviation opened in 1956 in the aerospace industrial sector of El Segundo south of Los Angeles International Airport, is nearing the end of its run. North American's successor, Rockwell, donated the tunnel and the 3.5 acres it sits on to the University of California at Los Angeles in 1998, which has been renting it out ever since. The current lease, to Triumph Aerospace Systems, expires in September. UCLA will sell the acreage.
The U.S. Defense Dept. says a Feb. 7 Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crash in Iraq resulted from enemy action in Al Anbar province. Five Marines and two sailors were killed. Seven U.S. helicopters have been shot down in Iraq since Jan. 2.
Megan Rosia has been named assistant FAA administrator for government and industry affairs, Melanie Alvord assistant administrator for communications and D. Kirk Shaffer associate administrator for airports. Rosia was managing director for government affairs/associate general counsel for Northwest Airlines. Alvord was assistant staff director for communications and administration for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Shaffer was general counsel to the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority.
The French defense ministry is starting to explore exoatmospheric missile defense options. The military is planning to award a small-scale architecture study to examine the needs for an independent intercept capability that could destroy missiles with a 3,000-km. range. The goal is to identify medium- and long-term needs, potential costs and possible fielding time lines.
A second accident, this time involving an F-16 at Luke AFB, Ariz., on Oct. 26 was attributed to mechanical failure. The accident board determined that a third-stage fan disk malfunction created a fracture in the airframe and penetrated the fuel tank, starting a fire that caused the engine to explode.
Telecom satellite operator Eutelsat posted solid growth once again in the first half of the 2006-07 fiscal year, driven by unflagging demand in satellite video demand.
The British government, Airbus and parent EADS are attempting to patch up their strategic relationship, whose starting point will be the outcome of the Airbus Power8 review. Airbus CEO Louis Gallois was due to meet with British Trade Minister Alistair Darling and Defense Procurement Minister Paul Drayson in London on Feb. 15.
Management at Comair, the wholly owned Delta Connection carrier, is grappling with myriad problems as its pilots' group in coming weeks mulls over a proposed letter of agreement. First, it needs a contract with the Air Line Pilots Assn., the last major piece of financial restructuring, to allow Comair to emerge from bankruptcy with Delta in the second quarter as is scheduled. If it doesn't get one by Mar. 4, Comair plans to impose terms of a bankruptcy court-approved contract.
The U.S. Navy has awarded a $186.5-million foreign military sales deal for upgrades and sustainment of seven P-3C patrol aircraft that will be operated by the Pakistani navy.
Although the agreement is still fresh, the planned merger between Telesat Canada and Loral Skynet is likely to lead to more business for satellite makers and launch providers, not less.
Israeli officials won't discuss the parameters of its Arrow ballistic missile defense weapon test last week other than to say the missile and target launch sites were farther from each other than in previous tests, it took place at night and the altitude of the interception was higher and at greater speed than before.
David Hughes (Maastricht, Netherlands; Brussels, and London)
The main issues facing Eurocontrol and the FAA in air traffic modernization are diverging, as European officials cope with an immediate need to cut the carbon footprint of aviation while the U.S. struggles with uncertainty on ATC leadership.
USMC is returning its MV-22s to service after a grounding earlier this month. The Pentagon grounded all USAF and USMC MV/CV-22s after discovering a fault caused by a chip in the flight control computer. They are being returned to service after inspection and replacement of problematic chips. Deployment of the first MV-22s to Iraq still is expected later this year.
NASA's Fiscal 2007 continuing resolution shifts $460 million in space shuttle and earmark funding over to exploration--"the best we could do," according to Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency. The continuing resolution, which keyed off Fiscal 2006 spending levels, allocates $3.4 billion to the exploration systems mission directorate.
