BEIJING — Avic says it will put its highest priority in coming years on aero-engine technology, a field of aerospace in which China has conspicuously lagged. The group has set a budget of 10 billion yuan ($1.56 billion) for aero-engine work for the next five years, says Avic President Lin Zuoming.
LONDON — Researchers at Germany’s DLR aerospace center hope to complete final ground tests of the Shefex 2 (Sharp-Edged Flight Experiment) hypersonics demonstrator in the next two to three weeks in preparation for a June launch. The mission initially was due to take place last year, but was delayed so different issues discovered during ground testing could be resolved. The new launch date being eyed is June 18.
SENDAI, Japan — Knocked out by the great tsunami on March 11 last year, the Sendai Maintenance Center of Japanese aerospace group Jamco is nearing full recovery.
HANDED OVER: Three months after its launch, the U.S. Air Force has accepted control of WGS-4 following Boeing’s in-orbit testing of the spacecraft, which is based on the 702HP commercial satellite bus. WGS-4 will be the first Block II in operation following USAF acceptance testing. Block II spacecraft feature three times faster data rate transmissions of airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance imagery as compared to Block I. WGS-5 is in production and due for launch in 2013. The WGS is the successor to the Defense Satellite Communications System.
UNMANNED PRESSURE: Military operations will be a significant contributor to the coming wave of unmanned aircraft in the national airspace system (NAS), according to John Langford, president and CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. Langford offers this measure of the pressure unmanned aircraft will bring to the NAS: Around 1999, there were about 100,000 unmanned flight hours yearly. It now approaches one million. Almost all those flight hours occurred outside U.S. airspace, in military vehicles on military missions.
Corporate raider Paul Bilzerian may have ended up in prison after his takeover and break-up of diversified manufacturer Singer in the late 1980s, but he set in motion a chain of events that shaped and reshaped the flight-simulation market—and which may only now reaching their conclusion. Always technology-driven and highly competitive, the simulation industry has been wracked by waves of consolidation that have seen the some players change hands several times.
LightSquared, a company that sought to build an advanced 4G telecommunications network, is considering bankruptcy, and several lawmakers are wondering why the Obama administration paid for testing of its system and gave it a waiver to operate in the first place. The tests on LightSquared's network resulted in the determination that it could interfere with GPS receivers.
As military procurements go, the U.S. Air Force's competition to supply 20 turboprop light-attack/advanced training aircraft to the Afghan air force is hardly on the cutting edge of technology. Yet a battle for the modest contract has become a political hot potato between the U.S. and one of the world's rising economic powers, Brazil. Last week, it served as a backdrop to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's visit to the White House.
When the business climate turns cold, companies can contract or invest. With the Pentagon staring at a potential $1 trillion budget reduction during the coming decade, defense company officials are beginning to pursue both options, sometimes simultaneously. Sean O'Keefe, chairman and CEO of EADS North America, says that in this climate the prudent course is to avoid making investments that could amount to nothing as lawmakers wrestle with what level of funding to provide to the military.
In a generally difficult economic climate, France's aerospace and defense equipment industry is coming off an excellent year in 2011, with a healthy backlog and a particularly strong performance in global export markets. The growth more than compensates for declining French defense equipment budgets, having helped mitigate the negative impact of Europe's financial crisis on the country's economy, and augurs well for· both prime contractors and suppliers in 2012.·
Budget cuts not only put pressure on the scope of defense research, but also emphasize the speed with which results can be fielded to improve today's weapon systems. The Office of Naval Research (ONR)—responsible for science and technology (S&T) across sea, air, land and space realms for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps—is looking to field technologies faster to meet the objectives of the Defense Department's new strategic guidance.
The beginning of a major downturn is not the best time to launch a new company. But the executives who run ITT Exelis didn't have much choice. The 20,000-employee defense and information technology operation was spun off last October as part of a breakup of multi-industry ITT Corp. designed to appease restless shareholders. And Exelis, which draws nearly 70% of its sales from defense, clearly was not the piece of ITT that investors saw as a growth play.
The ability of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor to fly farther, as well as faster, than helicopters has been a key factor in its fight for survival for more than a decade.
Aerospace executives' skepticism about the prospects for implementing the NextGen air traffic control system is fading. With Congress finally having passed an FAA reauthorization bill that allows for new methods of financing the overhaul of air traffic management—the primary hurdle to persuading the airline industry to invest in NextGen equipment—execs are increasingly pointing to the potential payoff. In fact, the campaign now has so much momentum that it will be difficult to block implementation, says Fedex President and CEO David Bronzcek.
Canada's government has stripped its Department of National Defense of the lead role in the country's planned acquisition of the Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, placed a cap on the program's cost and directed the DND to evaluate alternative ways to sustain Canada's fighter force, in the wake of a scathing report from the country's auditor-general, Michael Ferguson.
More than a decade after the bottom dropped out of the prospective U.S. commercial launch market, the U.S. Air Force is struggling to deal with the continued financial ramifications of that unrealized opportunity. Those challenges are compounded by NASA's decision to rely on Russian rockets for its cargo missions in the near future, so the burden of shepherding the bloated U.S. launch infrastructure has now fallen into the lap of the Air Force.
Winglets and a lift-distribution control system are next on the agenda as Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force pursue fuel-burn improvements on the large fleet of C-130s. Although principally aimed at the C-130J, with more than 250 now in operation, some of the features could also find use on older models. The effort fits in with a larger USAF effort to reduce fuel-burn fleetwide.
The race is on to become one of the six U.S. sites responsible for testing UAVs in civilian airspace. The contest represents a huge opportunity at the dawn of a new industry, and a call last week from the FAA attracted interest from businesses large and small, universities, airports, lawmakers and the U.S. Army. The FAA says it will choose the test sites by December and is currently looking for comments that will help it winnow the many contenders.
NEW DELHI — China’s growing military profile is a source of increasing worry in India, as evidenced by a recent report from the Indian defense ministry. “Rapid infrastructure development in Tibet and Xinjiang has considerably upgraded China’s military force projection capability against India and improved its overall strategic and operational flexibility,” the report says. “India remains conscious and watchful of the implications of China’s military profile in the immediate and extended neighborhood.
NEW DELHI — India’s defense ministry on April 10 dismissed reports of ammunition and other stocks running low, and stressed that the country is fully prepared in the event of war. “I can assure you India is well-prepared and in a stronger position as compared to the past,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony says. His comments come in the wake of a statement made by S.K. Singh, the departing Indian army vice chief, who said hardly any ammunition was left with the service’s armored regiments.
SELECTED ACQUISITIONS: The Pentagon’s 2011 year-end Selected Acquisition Report includes four programs with cost decreases resulting from partial or full cancelation. The RQ-4A/B Global Hawk program cost decreased because of a quantity reduction of 21 from the cancelation of Block 30. Three programs had cost decreases from cancelation: the BDMS Airborne Infrared Program, JTRS Ground Mobile Radio and the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System.
The beginning of a major downturn is not the best time to launch a new company. But the executives who run ITT Exelis didn’t have much choice. The 20,000-employee defense and information systems operation was spun off last October as part of a breakup of multi-industry ITT Corp. designed to appease restless shareholders. And Exelis, which draws nearly 70% of its sales from defense, clearly was not the piece of ITT that investors saw as a growth play.
