Delays in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program may not have produced big sales for interim aircraft, but could provide a boost for electronic warfare suppliers as militaries endeavor to keep existing hardware operationally relevant.
Amy Butler (Langley AFB, Va.), Robert Wall (Langley AFB, Va.)
Collection of intelligence in Afghanistan has not been a trivial problem, with the need to track individuals in mountains and detect small improvised explosive devices, but it pales in comparison to the challenges involved in taking on a well-equipped, highly sophisticated adversary.
USAF Maj. Gen. (ret.) Mason Whitney has joined the board of directors of Denver-based Bye Aerospace. He is president of Mason C. Whitney, a homeland security and defense consulting company. Austin Blue, CEO of SciFly, has become a member of Bye's Strategic Advisory Council.
International Airlines Group plans to sell BMI Regional to Sector Aviation Holdings and shed the unit it never wanted to acquire from Lufthansa. IAG acquired the carrier as part of its purchase of the BMI British Midland mainline airline after Lufthansa failed in its efforts to divest the loss-making entity. IAG says it will receive £8 million ($12.8 million) for the carrier. Sector Aviation will take on all BMI Regional assets and liabilities, including 18 Embraer ERJ 135/145s.
Are higher fuel prices a blessing for aircraft manufacturers and, maybe, for airlines? They are if they prompt technology improvements that bring long-term savings.
DTI Editor Christine Mackenzie . . . . . .reports on our Defense Technology blog, Ares, about the discovery, retrieval efforts and ultimate destination of a “treasure trove of pristine Spitfires” that were uncovered in Myanamar, (the former Burma). The aircraft had been purposely entombed at an RAF base there post-WW II, and an English farmer is nearing the end of his 12-year, $210,000-and-counting quest to retrieve and return them to the U.K.
Rockwell Collins's Pro Line Fusion integrated avionics suite, in the latest embedded display system version now under development for turboprops and light jets, brings together synthetic vision and touchscreen displays in the company's bid to improve situational awareness and provide intuitive operation for pilots. The U.S. military, meanwhile, is looking at fusing database-generated synthetic vision with real-time sensor data to enable helicopter operations in degraded visual environments such as brownouts. Rockwell Collins photo.
Rolls-Royce has begun ground tests of its so-called Trent 1000 Package C program designed to power the Boeing 787-9 and cure fuel-burn shortfalls affecting earlier versions. The engine is now due for an eight-week test run, the engine maker says. Service entry is planned with Air New Zealand in 2014 at 74,000 lb. thrust.
Summer is near in the northern latitudes, which means the return of those warm-season staples: baseball, barbecues, bikinis and the blimps that draw eyeballs skyward. You can't not look at a blimp
Keri Jenkins (see photo) has joined Yingling Aviation of Wichita, as aircraft records control and document administrator. She worked for Cessna Aircraft in parts distribution and as a senior analyst on the company's Cescom system.
Michael Toscano, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, has been elected to the NextGen Institute Management Council, Arlington, Va.
In “Victory Lap”(AW&ST April 23/30, p. 58) you note that the space shuttle Discovery will “orbit the Sun once a day from . . . the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.” The rest of planet Earth takes 365 days to orbit the Sun! Enumclaw, Wash. (Our thanks to Salz and the other astute readers who good-naturedly noted an obvious editing error.—Ed.)
Ignoring last year's congressional directive to reduce spending, even for the Defense Department, the House Armed Services Committee meets this week to consider a bill that recommends restoring Air National Guard force structure and funding for the Global Hawk Block 30 surveillance UAVs while rejecting reductions in submarine production, military compensation savings and a new round of base closures.
Patricia MacMahon, sector VP and general manager-military aircraft systems at Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., has been named the 2012 recipient of the Navy League of the United States Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz Award. The award honors an industry leader for contributions to maritime strength and national security.
Alcoa's 50,000-ton press may not match the heft of a gargantuan 80,000-ton unit being built in China, but the metals manufacturer says its 12-story machine is the most capable in the world. A $100 million redesign and rebuild of the Cold War-era press at the company's Cleveland plant added a new hydraulic system that allows tighter tolerances during the forging of aluminum, titanium, inconel and steel parts, significantly reducing the amount of metal needed while cutting machining costs.
Annette Vitello (see photo) has been named director of operations at American Jet International of Houston. She has been director of operations with air carriers operating jets, turboprops and helicopters.
Automated layup is cutting the time required to produce composite structures. But production volumes forecast for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 are pressuring industry to accelerate the rate at which it can deposit carbon fiber on tools. Flexible, multi-head machines provide one answer. The U.K.'s National Composites Center is the first to operate an automated fiber-placement machine with two robotic heads working cooperatively. Built by France's Coriolis Composites, it is being used by GKN Aerospace on the U.K.'s Next-Generation Composite Wing project.
Gary Wood (see photo) has been named corporate sales and marketing representative for Flying Colors Corp., Peterborough, Ontario. He has held management roles with Cessna Aircraft, Cessna Pacific and Field Aviation.
International Editor Robert Wall . . . . . . notes that Londoners will soon be seeing military exercises related to safeguarding the Summer Olympic Games. As part of the layered security, Eurofighter Typhoons will be on patrol. And the U.K. Defense Ministry has now disclosed where ground-based air defenses might be placed. Deployment of the systems in heavily residential areas has raised some eyebrows, although the locations are largely in the East End (an area not spoiled by love and attention to urban planning).
Airbus is completing assembly of the first A350 static test airframe in Toulouse following delivery of the 65.5-ft.-long composite aft fuselage section from Hamburg. The section is being joined to the forward and center fuselage sections, which were combined in April. The aft fuselage unit was structurally completed in March with the integration of the rear fuselage barrel with the aft fuselage panels Assembly of the first flying A350, MSN1, is set to start “during summer” says Airbus.
It has been a long time coming, but US Airways has made its first move to take over American Airlines, and the reception, as expected, has been less than welcoming.
Automated non-destructive inspection of composite parts for delamination and other defects is a critical step that is becoming more challenging as structures become larger and more complex. Ultrasound inspection conventionally requires parts to be immersed in a water tank or sprayed with water jets to guide the pulses. Now non-contract laser ultrasound is allowing remote, robotic inspection of complete airframe sections. Airbus, with EADS Innovation Works and France's Ecole des Mines, is evaluating a laser ultrasound system using a composite forward-fuselage demonstrator.
