Automotive-style robots are moving onto the aircraft assembly line to save time and cost. Bombardier plans to use six single-arm robots to join the cockpit and fuselage sections of its CSeries airliner, saving more than 40 hr. Each 12-ton robot will be able to drill a hole and insert a fastener in 32 sec. for aluminum-lithium structures and 53 sec. for composites.
Friction welding fuses metals without melting them and is used in aerospace to join engine disks (rotational welding) or fabricate aircraft and spacecraft structures (friction-stir welding). Now hybrid components produced by linear friction welding of dissimilar metals promise to overcome a key disadvantage of composites: carbon fiber cannot be attached directly to aluminum because of galvanic corrosion, forcing use of higher-cost titanium. But friction welding can allow titanium to be incorporated into the join between aluminum and composite structures.
Isogrids are among the lightest and strongest of structures, the lattice pattern of integral stiffening ribs providing extremely high strength-to-weight ratios. Lightweight isogrid panels machined from aluminum plate to produce thin-walled, self-stiffened and damage-tolerant structures are used in launch vehicles and aircraft doors. Advanced grid structures made from composites have been used for components such as payload shrouds, but require time-consuming and costly manual layup. Isogrid Composites Canada Inc.
Composites may be replacing metals in aircraft structures, but the use of titanium is increasing both to reduce weight and because of the incompatibility of aluminum and carbon fiber. Boeing's 787 is 50% composite by structural weight, whereas its earlier 777 is only 12%, but a 787 contains almost 90 tons of titanium compared with 55 tons in a larger 777. And titanium can be around 10 times as expensive as aluminum, so pressure is on to reduce costs.
As a former Darpa scientist and one of the world's foremost authorities on materials, Leo Christodoulou is accustomed to thinking out of the proverbial box when it comes to problem-solving. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, he applied his research expertise to developing revolutionary, new materials for the U.S. military.
Lockheed Martin has launched a small precision-guided weapon from an AAI RQ-7 Shadow 200 tactical unmanned aircraft under a company-funded R&D program. The 11-lb.-class, laser-guided Shadow Hawk glide weapon scored a direct hit on the target, the company says. The U.S. Army-funded test was conducted at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah.
The U.S. faces a dilemma over the possible sale of attack helicopters to Indonesia. Industry executives say Indonesia has issued a letter of request (LOR) to buy Boeing AH-64 Apaches. This LOR comes after the country's deputy defense minister, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, told state-run news agency Antara in February that Indonesia planned to order eight Apache attack helicopters.
Nanotechnology-enabled materials are moving into aerospace. New Hampshire-based Nanocomp Technologies is scaling up production of electrically and thermally conductive yarn, sheet and tape made from long carbon nanotubes (CNT). Spun yarn is being used to replace copper in data cables in aircraft and spacecraft, potentially halving the weight of wiring harnesses. Sheet material was used on NASA's Juno spacecraft, launched in August 2011, to provide electrostatic-discharge protection of attitude-control thruster and main-engine components.
F-22A costs have more than doubled and fielding has been delayed, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says, because each increment was managed under the same program, instead of as separate acquisitions that require their own justifications and milestones.
The U.S. Army is standing up an acquisition team to begin planning a program to replace its Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility and Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters from 2030 onward. Development of an initial capabilities document (ICD) for a medium rotorcraft to be produced under the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative — the first step in defining a new program — is being staffed, says Lt. Col. David Bristol, acquisition lead for the FVL medium.
NEW DELHI — India is expediting the purchase of 384 light helicopters to replace the current fleet of Cheetah and Chetak aircraft in the Indian army and air force. The Eurocopter AS 350 Fennec and Russian Kamov 226 Sergei are in the running for the requirement, a program expected to be worth more than $1.5 billion.
LONDON — Australia is delaying by two years the purchase of the bulk of its first tranche of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, deferring around A$1.6 billion in spending.
GENOA — Finmeccanica is showing the first positive signs from its ongoing restructuring, although its first-quarter 2012 results still lag behind the same period in 2011. Nonetheless, the results were generally above what the defense giant had been planning for, which allows Finmeccanica to confirm its full-year 2012 projections.
FORT WORTH — The U.S. Navy has completed an analysis of alternatives (AoA) for a new logistics aircraft, with the Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor a leading candidate to replace the Grumman C-2 Greyhound now used for carrier onboard delivery (COD). The AoA conclusions have not yet been signed off on by Navy leadership, but “the V-22 is a pretty fair competitor,” says Marine Corps Col. Greg Masiello, Osprey program manager, speaking at the American Helicopter Society International’s Forum 68 in Fort Worth.
The U.S. Navy will conduct its own analysis of the capabilities required of a successor to Sikorsky MH-60R/S Seahawk shipborne helicopters while trying to stay engaged with the Army-led Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort to develop a new medium utility rotorcraft to replace the UH-60 Black Hawk on which they are based. “Our main concern is operating in a maritime environment, which is not as much of a focus for the Army,” says Rear Adm. Paul Grosklags, Navy program executive officer for air anti-submarine warfare, assault and special missions.
AEHF SCRUB: The U.S. Air Force scrubbed an attempt to launch the second Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-2) secure communications satellite on May 3 due to a lack of helium flow from ground support equipment into the Interstage Adapter compartment on the Atlas V rocket. Launch provider United Launch Alliance and the Air Force plan another attempt to lift off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., on May 4 during a two-hour window that opens at 2:42 p.m. EDT.
The Airbus Military A400M has cleared an important certification milestone even as developers are exploring vibration believed to be linked to the transport’s engine.
LONDON — BAE Systems is turning to its civil airborne electronics business to provide growth as it wrestles with falling defense spending in key markets. The company is hoping to take advantage of the increase in commercial aircraft sales, CEO Ian King says. The hybrid vehicle business and expanding government cybersecurity activities into the commercial domain are other areas of interest.
BAE Systems is turning to its civil airborne electronics business to provide growth as it wrestles with falling defense spending in key markets. The company is hoping to take advantage of the increase in commercial aircraft sales, CEO Ian King says. The hybrid vehicle business and expanding government cybersecurity activities into the commercial domain are other areas of interest.
PROTECTING EUROPE: A cost estimate of the Obama administration’s phased adaptive approach (PAA) to missile defense was due in March but is not likely to be sent to Congress as required until the summer, according to Madelyn Creedon, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs. Typically, program cost estimates developed by the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation involve individual programs.
The updated version of the Spawar Acquisition Integrated Logistics Online Repository (Sailor) 2.1 is impressing U.S. Navy brass. The U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command’s (Spawar) Sailor program features a self-help website for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) systems that provides the fleet with the capability to complete training, troubleshoot software and equipment, and receive technical documentation and support online.
LANGLEY AFB, Va. — U.S. Air Force officials are narrowing their focus on new combinations of factors as they explore oxygen deprivation issues that have claimed the life of one F-22 Raptor pilot and have plagued the fleet for more than a year. The officials remain frustrated, however, that a “smoking gun” for the cause of pilot hypoxia is still elusive despite an extraordinary effort by the service to enlist help from scientists, doctors and fighter experts.
NEW DELHI — An Indian government panel is highlighting the lack of attack helicopters in the Indian army, contending that the country’s security is at risk. According to the report from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense, the army’s aviation unit faces a severe shortage, with a requirement of 18 Cheetah helos, one Chetak, 76 Advanced Light Helicopters and 60 ALHs with weapon systems.
