Signing for Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry last week put the U.S. imprimatur to the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (AW&ST May 20, p. 23). But the compact is unlikely to be ratified by the Senate anytime soon, as a majority of senators have indicated their opposition or concern. A powerful lobby, the National Rifle Association, opposes any move to track or regulate small arms. The U.S.
A U.S. and Russian Soyuz crew docked with the International Space Station late Sept. 25, completing a third consecutive “express” four-orbit launch-to-rendezvous transit to restore the orbiting science lab to a crew of six. The Soyuz TMA-10M rocket lifted Expedition 37 Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, NASA flight engineer Michael Hopkins and Russian flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy. The crew launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 25 at 4:58 p.m. EDT (Sept. 26 at 2:58 a.m., local time).
Operators of 157 Boeing 737s and 777s will have five years to change out Honeywell-built pilot display systems that the FAA says could flicker or go blank in the presence of Wi-Fi devices. Problems were found during a 2011 Wi-Fi compatibility test in a 737 on the ground. The agency in a final airworthiness directive, says the affected displays “exhibited flickering and blanking” when exposed to Wi-Fi emissions at power levels below what the displays are required to tolerate.
Ron Cook (see photo) has been appointed corporate senior vice president for New York-based L-3 Communications and will continue to lead the company's London operations.
David Moorehouse (see photo) has been named president/general manager of TRAK Microwave, Tampa, Fla. He was general manager of Cobham subsidiary Nurad Technologies.
Bennie Johnson has been named managing director of flight crew management systems, Sunae Park managing director of airport services and Sandy Stelling managing director of customer research and development, all for Alaska Airlines. Johnson has been managing director of flight operations planning and resource management; Park director of inflight resource management; and Stelling director of operations.
While U.S. Navy aviation mishap numbers and rates have declined in recent years, the Navy is especially vigilant about potential UAV-related accidents, which are categorized separately. “The mishap rate through Sept. 19 . . . with four mishaps was the best rate in history through this date,” the Navy Safety Center says. But UAVs are not counted in that tally, because they have not posted enough historical flight hours. UAV accidents, including a December crash of an MQ-8B Fire Scout, cost the Navy a total of $67 million in 2012. The U.S.
Russell Ford has become CEO and Marc McGowan senior vice president of the business aviation sector of StandardAero, Tempe, Ariz. Ford has been president of the Carlton Forge Works and Dickson Test Group of the Forged Products Div. of the Precision Castparts Corp. McGowan succeeds Scott Taylor, who is retiring. McGowan was vice president-business development and strategy for business aviation.
When the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) members assemble for their annual meeting in Salzburg, Austria, this week, they should make sure not to miss a presentation scheduled for the last day. Doreen Welsh, one of the flight attendants on US Airways Flight 1549 that ditched into the Hudson River in New York following a devastating bird strike, will tell attendees about what probably were the most dramatic moments of her life and how she survived the incident.
In Bill Sweetman's recent column “Counter-Stealth” (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 16), he writes: “By 1995, everyone knew that shape was the major driver of RCS (radar cross section),” hence the Russian answer (a new radar) to our stealthy Joint Strike Fighter.
Sikorsky has begun assembly of the first of two S-97 Raider prototypes after delivery by Aurora Flight Sciences of the all-composite fuselage for the first of the high-speed, coaxial-rotor, light tactical helicopters. Assembly is underway in West Palm Beach, Fla. The first of the industry-funded Raiders is scheduled to fly at the end of 2014. The structure comprises a single integrated nose, cabin and tail cone. Sikorsky is aiming Raider at the U.S. Army's Armed Aerial Scout requirement.
A 1:11-scale model of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's D8 “double-bubble” airliner concept undergoes testing in NASA Langley Research Center's 14 X 22-ft. wind tunnel to measure the drag benefit from fuselage boundary-layer ingestion by very-high-bypass engines embedded in the tail. The 13.4 ft.-span model was made using additive manufacturing. NASA Langley photo by George Homich.
A series of U.S.-India military sales agreements worth billions of dollars are nearing completion, on the heels of a meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A $1.2 billion deal to buy six Lockheed-Martin C-130J Super Hercules aircraft (see photo) for the Indian air force (IAF), to bring its fleet to 12, has been inching forward all year. The Indian Defense Acquisition Council issued final clearance for the sale this month and the contract is expected to be signed by year-end.
An industry-government advisory group has prioritized capabilities in the FAA's NextGen program to help the agency realign its spending in an austere budget environment. The RTCA's NextGen Advisory Committee, chaired by Alaska Airlines CEO Bill Ayer, found that its priority list was similar to those compiled by earlier panels that had looked at streamlining and boosting the air traffic management overhaul effort. But this time the ramifications are more dire for programs further down the list.
There have been many times in my career when I have realized (in smack-on-side-of-head mode) that the answer to a question that nobody will answer today is in the notes from last month or a few years ago. This might sometimes be a good approach for the Pentagon to take. I wrote here two weeks ago (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 16) about Russia's impressive new radars, quite clearly designed to detect and defeat stealth aircraft. But short of a doomsday bomb, there is no ultimate weapon, and I noted that these big complexes—“Aegis on wheels”—are not invulnerable.
