The Marine Corps is planning to quickly add a sophisticated countermeasures system to its CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters already in Iraq, while the service continues to plan for the first deployment of the new MV-22 tiltrotor to support operations there this fall. The heavy-lift helos are workhorses in Iraq, shuttling Marine Corps equipment around the theater as U.S. forces grapple with the technical challenge of countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted along roadways. However, helos are subjected to the threat from shoulder-fired missiles.
The Italian air force will use an interim simulation training capability for its Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft until the full mission simulator finally is available.
PRAGUE'S NEW INTEGRATED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER is being equipped with 2,048 X 2,048-pixel liquid crystal displays supplied by eg-electronic GmbH. of Germany. The screens provide high contrast and brightness for ATC applications. The German company is supplying the displays to ALES Automated Aviation Systems, a private engineering company certified by Civil Aviation Authority of the Czech Republic. The ATC project represents the largest investment to date in such facilities in the Czech Republic.
Patriot air defense missiles on fighter aircraft? Lockheed Martin is under contract to the Missile Defense Agency to continue an air-launched, hit-to-kill initiative for homeland defense that would enable fighters to carry and launch Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles to intercept enemy ballistic and cruise missiles. The $3-million risk reduction and assessment program will define the concept and expected performance--initially when fired from an F-15C at a ballistic missile.
Integrated flat-panel cockpits are now being developed on a large scale for retrofitting airline and business aircraft, and similar systems are being designed for general aviation piston-powered aircraft as avionics suppliers penetrate new market segments.
Turkish cargo operator MNG Airlines plans to buy two Airbus A330-200Fs and has an option for one more. It's the fourth carrier to commit to the freighter since its launch this month.
As India becomes aviation's hottest big growth market, international suppliers are setting up training schools for pilots to fill infrastructure bottlenecks in the fast-growing aerospace industry.
German aerospace center DLR has founded a new Space Transportation System Institute, to be sited in Bremen. Its focus will be on work concerning systems analysis and technology, and their applications for space systems.
Kenneth H. Guss has become president/general manager of the Fluid Controls Group of Meggitt Aerospace Equipment, Simi Valley, Calif. He was president of Chatsworth Products Inc.
The stealthy Raptor fighter and intelligence-gathering aircraft is ready for war, but probably not the war we've got, says Air Combat Command's chief, Gen. Ronald E. Keys. Essential electronic surveillance systems may be too sensitive--overwhelmed by the density of U.S. and allied emitters--to be useful in the electronically polluted environment of Baghdad, the main focus of the new U.S. military surge.
German accident investigators have determined that major structural elements of the horizontal stabilizer of the Grob Aerospace G180 SPn utility jet departed the aircraft before the second prototype crashed Nov. 29.
Pratt & Whitney received a Northrop Grumman award for JT8D-219s to re-engine the U.S. Air Force's Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint Stars) fleet. Pratt & Whitney was the only competitor for the work, which prompted delays as the Air Force sought additional competitors for the work. This summer, General Electric agreed to offer what company officials called a "generic CFM56" to provide the Air Force the competition it was seeking. Total program value is estimated at about $700 million.
Mike Golden has become assistant administrator of operational process and technology/chief technology officer of the Transportation Security Administration. He was Southwest Airlines' senior director of airport security technologies.
Malaysian Airline System will keep its order for six A380s, the government says. Struggling to right its poor financial performance, the carrier had seemed likely to cancel, since the aircraft may not fit well with its new, less aggressive business plans.
Safran Chairman/CEO Jean-Paul Bechat says talks to merge the company's Snecma liquid and ion propulsion engine businesses with those of EADS Astrium remain frozen due to continuing disagreement over valuation and EADS's problems at Airbus that have rendered the matter secondary. But Bechat says he still believes the merger, which would rationalize and consolidate Europe's space-engine industry, is a good idea.
lain Burns (see photo) has been named vice president-corporate communications for United Arab Emirates-based Etihad Airways. He held the same position at British Airways.
The flight characteristics of a unique testbed for the avionics of the F-35 Lightening II have earned a thumbs-up, setting the stage for a full year of evaluation of the new fighter's extensive sensor architecture.
Air China and South Korea's Asiana will code-share on 11 more routes as a step toward cooperating on all the services they operate between the two countries. Until now, they have been code-sharing only between Beijing and Busan, and Hangzhou and Seoul's Inchon airport. Air China plans to join Star Alliance next year. Asiana is already a member.
Qantas budget offshoot Jetstar is evidently lining up another affiliate, a running mate for Singapore-based Jetstar Asia. Qantas says it will buy into an Asian airline for something less than $100 million in the first half of this year, and Jetstar says it "may be involved." Jetstar's new long-haul services will be expanding with flights from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, beginning in September.
U.S. aerospace companies began rolling out their fourth-quarter and full-year earnings last week, highlighting another year of double-digit gains in profits and revenues. Among those scheduled to report this week are Boeing, Goodrich, L-3 Communications and Raytheon.
Nineteen board members and top executives of the ill-fated SAirGroup, the late Swissair's parent company, are the reluctant stars of Switzerland's so-called trial of the century. They are charged by Buelach (Zurich) court's prosecutors with breach of trust, false statements, defrauding creditors or, in other words, management failure.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is unveiling extraordinary new terrain and compositional detail about Mars. The Lockheed Martin spacecraft's Ball Aerospace/University of Arizona High Resolution Imaging Science (HiRise) instrument provides 9.8-in.-per-pixel resolution of the 4-mi.-wide Gratteri crater (facing page). Ground ice may have helped to "liquefy" impact ejecta which then flowed into an adjoining smaller and older crater (bottom left).
