LONDON — Marenco Swisshelicopter is to unveil the first prototype of its SKYe SH09 single-engine light helicopter during a ceremony in Switzerland this week.
NEW DELHI — India’s ambitious Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) is shooting for a first flight test in 2014. Defense scientists are conducting a series of tests and have already achieved some milestones in terms of engine development. “We are working on a demonstrator vehicle in the hypersonic space which will hopefully lead us to design hypersonic vehicles and ways to manage the thermal environment,” says V.G. Sekaran, director general for missiles and strategic systems at the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
MOSCOW — MiG Corp. has delivered the first MiG-29K ship-based fighters to the Russian navy under a contract for 24 aircraft signed in February 2012, the Russian defense ministry announced Nov. 25. The first batch included two single-seat MiG-29Ks and a pair of MiG-29KUB two-seat variants. The deliveries will last until 2015.
Ahead of his Dec. 4 retirement, Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a U.S. Naval Academy audience last week that America must continue to invest in technologies that will be important this century — even as future sailors and Marines face more difficult circumstances than earlier graduates. “At times, you will be asked to lead our sailors and Marines with more limited resources than your predecessors enjoyed, and you will encounter situations in which you receive minimal guidance, and for which there is a very small margin for error,” he said.
EXPORT REFORM: The historic move to transfer key, export-controlled aerospace categories for aircraft and gas turbine engines from the U.S. Munitions List to the Commerce Control List has “created many new problems and challenges for exporters and their counsel,” according to partners in the law firm Barnes and Thornburg. They say that since the reforms took effect Oct.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has postponed the Falcon 9 v1.1’s first mission to geostationary transfer orbit until Nov. 28, as mission managers sort out a liquid-oxygen pressurization issue on the rocket’s first stage. The planned Nov. 25 mission was to carry the Orbital Sciences Corp.-built SES-8 satellite to a supersynchronous transfer orbit of 295 km x 80,000 km altitude and an inclination of 20.75 deg. for Luxembourg-based SES, the world’s second-largest commercial fleet operator by revenue.
The U.S. ranks as the leading supplier of defense aircraft for Asia-Pacific partners and allies, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics. The U.S. will have sold about $79.2 billion worth of defense aircraft and related equipment, including both development and production costs, between fiscal 2009-2023 to Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, the analysis shows.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has begun training on the first of its upgraded Eurocopter Puma Mk. 2s, extending the helicopter’s life out to 2025. So far, seven of the RAF’s fleet of 24 Puma Mk. 2s have been delivered to RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, as part of the £260 million ($420 million) Puma Life Extension Program (LEP) launched in September 2009. The rest of the helicopters are due to be handed over in the next two years, with the fleet expected to be fully operationally capable in 2015.
LONDON — The Peruvian defense ministry has ordered a pair of Alenia C-27J Spartan tactical airlifters as the country’s air force modernizes its air transport fleet. The deal, announced on Nov. 25, is valued at €100 million ($135 million) and includes what the company describes as a “substantial logistic support package” for the two aircraft.
Tensions are starting to build in the Asia-Pacific with China’s recent establishment of an “Air Defense Identification Zone” in the East China Sea. The zone, established Nov. 23, blankets most of the East China Sea, including a group of uninhabited islets whose ownership is disputed by China and Japan. The Chinese Defense Ministry says it will take “defensive emergency measures” against unidentified aircraft that fly into the area.
The U.S. Navy has capped off the initial engineering and manufacturing development test phase for the Raytheon-designed Joint Precision and Approach Landing System (JPALS) with another set of at-sea trials in which two F/A-18C Hornets from naval test squadron VX-23 executed more than 70 JPALS approaches and automated landings aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) over a two-week period.
Boeing, Rockwell Collins and Sierra Nevada have been selected to design systems enabling U.S. Army special operations helicopter pilots to land safely in poor visibility caused by rotor-blown dust, sand, rain and snow. The three companies have received contracts for Phase 1 of the Degraded Visual Environment Pilotage System (DVEPS) program. In the seven-month first phase, they will demonstrate their chosen anti-brownout sensors on the ground.
ARMY POND – FSB (joint venture), Norcross, Ga., was awarded a $13,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery contract for architect, engineer services to support the Air Force KC-46A aircraft within the continental U.S. Estimated completion date is Nov. 19, 2018. Bids were solicited via the Internet with 57 received. Funding and location will be determined with each order. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile, Ala., is the contracting agency (W91278-14-D-0001).
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) founder Elon Musk says he expects the company’s new Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket to force greater competition and innovation in the launch industry as it captures market share. Musk’s comments came the day before the Falcon 9 v1.1 was due to launch its first commercial payload to supersynchronous transfer orbit on Nov. 25 from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.
The Pentagon is eyeing the Arctic and promising to “preserve freedom of the seas throughout the region, to ensure that the Arctic Ocean will be as peacefully navigated as other oceans of the world,” according to the U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
The U.S. Army is keeping it simple in setting targets for its Joint Multi Role (JMR) advanced rotorcraft technology demonstration. Four teams have been awarded preliminary design contracts under JMR Phase 1, and the Army plans to select two contractors next year to fly competing air-vehicle demonstrators in 2017. A follow-on Phase 2 effort will demonstrate mission-equipment technology.
BEIJING — South Korea will buy 40 Lockheed Martin F-35As to satisfy a fighter requirement initially set at 60 aircraft, its joint chiefs of staff announced on Nov. 22. A further 20 fighters, not necessarily F-35s, may be ordered later, subject to security and fiscal circumstances. The decision almost certainly puts an end to Boeing’s hopes of selling more F-15s to South Korea. The other competitor, the Eurofighter consortium, led by EADS in South Korea, seems to have a remote chance of filling the later order.
STAYING RELEVANT: Making sure a Pentagon, NASA or FAA program keeps on its budget and delivery schedule is just one thing managers will have to do to stay alive as U.S. budgets start to account for the 2011 Budget Control Act’s long-term spending reductions, according to participants at Aviation Week’s recent Aerospace and Defense Programs conference. According to several panel discussions, executives and analysts believe making sure a given program is relevant — but not redundant — to the customer agency’s de-scoped mission also will be increasingly important.
LONDON — Eurocopter’s Brazilian subsidiary Helibras has flown its first locally assembled EC725 Caracal. The helicopter, BRA17, believed to be destined for the Brazilian navy, took to the air at the company’s facility in Itajuba, Minas Gerais, on Nov. 21 and represents the beginning of the third stage of the H-XBR program, which will see 50 EC725s enter service with the Brazilian air force, navy and army, as the country modernizes its helicopter forces.
Frozen igniter fluid lines were to blame for the failure of an upper-stage restart during the first Falcon 9 v1.1 launch on Sept. 29. Officials at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), manufacturer of the rocket, did not detect the problem during ground tests because “ambient air kept the lines warm,” says Emily Shanklin, a spokeswoman for the company. It is unclear whether thermal testing was conducted. “We’ve added insulation and made sure that cold oxygen can’t impinge on the lines” in future missions, she says.
DUBAI — The consortium of European aerospace manufacturers building the Eurofighter Typhoon has started trials to integrate MBDA’s Storm Shadow cruise missile onto the combat aircraft. Flight trials with the weapon are due to begin soon using Alenia Aermacchi’s flight-test aircraft IPA2. Ground tests to ensure the 1,230-kg weapon fits onto the second inner-most under wing pylon have already been carried out, according to Eurofighter officials, speaking at the Dubai air show on Nov. 20.
