If propulsion and aeronautics were the building blocks for aviation at the dawn of the age of flight, in the second century of flight, it is more likely to be information technology and electronics that are key to advances.
When Boeing launched the 787 in 2004, it was more than two decades since the 767—the mid-market widebody it would replace—had entered service. In those 22 years, technology had advanced almost beyond recognition, and with it the expectations of airline customers.
Manufacturing, by necessity, has always been a core competency of aerospace. Simply consider the huge responsibility that makers of airframes, major subsystems and components have in the production of flight-critical hardware for everything from recreational aircraft to spacecraft. Then there are the lives of tens of millions of travelers annually whose lives depend on the care that has gone into the manufacture of the airliners on which they fly. While end-use customers may not always get the equipment they ordered on time, quality has always been a virtual given.
Kingfisher Airlines returned an Airbus A330-200 to a lessor in Britain and plans to curtail international services to arrest further losses. The airline, however, did not mention which international sectors it will cut or when—but the Mumbai-London Heathrow route no longer is available for online booking. Its New Delhi-London Heathrow options remain for now. Kingfisher uses A330s for flights from India to places such as London and Hong Kong, and narrowbody A320s for flights to cities in South Asia.
Steven Grundman has been named M.A. and George Lund Fellow for Emerging Defense Challenges by the Washington-based Atlantic Council. He is the principal of Grundman Advisory and was deputy undersecretary for industrial affairs in the U.S. Defense Department.
Power-saving integrated circuits that extend battery life in portable electronics, and are being applied to military radios and investigated for avionics, are the overall winner of Aviation Week's 2012 Innovation Challenge, organized to bring new technologies and processes to the attention of aerospace and defense leaders.
Japan and South Korea are both laying the groundwork for combat aircraft they would field in the 2030s. But, whereas Japanese defense officials are looking at a manned fighter that would leap in technology past the Lockheed Martin F-35, South Korea is working on a strike drone for the 2030s, and a technically less ambitious—but still enormously challenging—home-grown fighter for the 2020s.
“Spreading the Bet” (AW&ST Feb. 20, p. 42) was admirably comprehensive. However, the statement that aromatic materials are “complex hydrocarbons required in jet fuel to ensure engine seals work properly” is incorrect.
Defense Technology International Editor-in-Chief Bill Sweetman writes in the Ares blog about Canada wavering on its Joint Strike Fighter commitment. He dissects past actions and poses some queries, which elicited a heavy reader response, portions of which include: John S opining: Canada, being a CF-18 operator, would get much more bang for their Loonie if they purchased Super Hornets.
Troy E. Meink, director of the Signals Intelligence Systems Acquisition Directorate, and Larry D. Bell, director-Space Systems Program Office, both at the National Reconnaissance Office, have been selected to receive the Joseph V. Charyk Award given by the Washington-based National Space Club, for leadership within the signals field.
Bob Lynch and Elie Tabri (see photos) have joined Ottawa-based TrueNorth Avionics as sales directors for the Eastern and Western U.S., respectively. Lynch launched a software and design services company, and Tabri's 18-year career includes extensive work in the financial services industry.
No, you're not having a '70s flashback. What you're seeing is winged proof that certain airplanes never fade into the evanescence. And so, the failed Eclipse nears resuscitation, the Twin Otter line is on the move again in Vancouver, and new Brantlys hover pilot-less over China. Now, Jim Bede's Mighty Mouse of a jet also roars again.
Juha Jarvinen has been appointed managing director of Finnair Cargo and Finnair Cargo Terminal Operations, effective May 14, succeeding Antero J. Lahtinen, who will retire this year. Jarvinen is VP-international ground handling at SAS Scandinavian Airlines.
Aeroports de Paris (ADP) last week took a 38% stake in Turkey's TAV airport operator, marking a major strategic expansion for the French airport company. ADP paid $874 million, which is a 32% premium over TAV's last closing price. The French unit also spent $49 million for a 49% stake in TAV's construction unit. ADP and TAV have both been seeking overseas expansion opportunities. The deal adds to ADP interests in not just Turkey, but also Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Georgia and Macedonia, where TAV has been active.
Here we go again. We have bought a few C-27 aircraft and mothballed them (AW&ST Feb. 6, p. 31). The idea to buy them was to support forward units in places like Afghanistan and Iraq that could not be supported by C-130s because of short or nonexistent runways. Most of the current support of forward bases is done by CH-47s that are costly to operate and maintain. A C-27 can operate out of 2,000-ft. runways and haul loads needed to support a small forward base. The C-27 is most probably cheaper to operate than either a C-130 or a CH-47.
The U.S., EU and Japan have filed complaints with the World Trade Organization over what they say are restrictive export controls by China on rare earth minerals. China accounts for the vast majority of output of 17 of these minerals that are used to produce a wide array of high-tech products, from precision-guided munitions to iPhones. The U.S. and its allies complain that by curtailing exports Beijing has driven up prices of rare earth minerals shipped abroad while keeping them low for buyers in China. The move drew praise from Rep.
Florida's longtime Democratic senator and two recent tea party additions to the state's congressional delegation are teaming to have the Space Coast designated a special zone in need of extra government assistance. The would-be Shuttle Workforce Revitalization Act, cosponsored by Sens. Bill Nelson (D) and Marco Rubio (R), looks to designate Brevard County as a “historically underutilized business zone,” or HUBZone. The designation gives small businesses in areas deemed economically challenged preference when the government doles out contracts. Rubio and Rep.
The U.S. defense turn to Asia and the air campaign last year in Libya have European militaries pondering how to ensure they have an independent deep-strike capability. But addressing the multifaceted requirements will not be cheap, and the recognition that something needs to be done comes as no country is looking to spend more on defense.
For the last month, the theme of the editorial “Guard and Protect the Industrial Base” (AW&ST Jan. 23, p. 130) has had me pondering. For what event are we guarding our industry? Does it do any good to harken back to the last great demand on our industrial base—World War II—when the automobile industry provided the needed capacity? Are we girding the world's industry to repel invaders from outer space? Or, are we preparing for a miniature war where tiny specialized peepers, starers, shooters and attackers can do the job via cameras?
NASA should cut back on the breadth of its aeronautics research to free up funds within a flat budget to return to X-plane flight research, says the National Research Council (NRC). Aeronautics funding accounts for just 3% of the space agency's budget and is spread too thin and unable to advance projects to the flight stage, which is vital to convincing industry and regulators to adapt new technologies, the NRC says in a new report.
In the uncertain funded world of human spaceflight, the habit of die-hard propulsion engineers to never throw anything away is becoming increasingly useful as NASA looks for crew transports.
One might expect the job of securing the skies over this summer's Olympics in London to force British air defenses to adopt new or unusual capabilities. But as the recent Taurus Mountain 2 preparatory exercise demonstrated, the task offers U.K. forces a chance to return to core, pre-9/11 competencies after years of using their aircraft in nontraditional roles over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Italy's latest annual flight efficiency report shows its reshaped routes helped reduce CO2 emissions and fuel burn in 2011. Enav (Ente Nazionale Assistenza Volo), Italy's air traffic control company led by Massimo Garbini, introduced a number of changes to its route network to enable more direct and higher-altitude flights between most Italian airports. The rationalization allows a more efficient use of the airspace, which becomes particularly congested during the peak tourist season.
Under pressure from Gulf Coast politicos, the Air Force is reconsidering plans to move eight C-130s to Montana from the 136th Airlift Wing in Fort Worth. The governors of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas recently wrote Obama to protest, saying the Gulf Coast needs those Air National Guard aircraft for use in natural disasters that have hit the region hard in recent years. And lawmakers have been hammering Air Force brass at every turn. Last week, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) lit into USAF Chief of Staff Gen.
The world has changed in the slightly more than three years since the Kepler planet-finding spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit on a Delta II rocket. For starters, the Earth has 61 new cousins scattered around the universe, and another 2,321 new candidate-planets awaiting confirmation by astronomers as the real things.
