Free Republic

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 06, 2008 -- Boeing, through its commercial launch business, successfully launched the GeoEye-1 satellite today aboard a Delta II rocket procured from United Launch Alliance (ULA). Liftoff occurred at 11:50 a.m. Pacific time from launch pad SLC-2W at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The ULA Delta II rocket deployed the spacecraft approximately 58 minutes after liftoff. GeoEye-1 will have the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system, capable of collecting images with a ground resolution of 16 inches (.41 meters) in panchromatic (black-and-white) mode. Virginia-based GeoEye is the premier provider of geospatial information for the national...

A spokeswoman with the National Championship Air Races confirms to Channel 2 News that a pilot was killed in a plane wreck Saturday morning at Reno-Stead Airport...

Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has long had ties to Arizona. Now his running mate does, too — to Tucson. Tucson-based Global Aircraft Solutions Inc. was set on Thursday to deliver Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's new campaign plane, an Embraer 190 regional jet complete with the duo's campaign logo on the fuselage. The new jet seats about 100 people and was reconfigured with bigger first class seats, dividers and an area for the press, Global Aircraft president John Sawyer said. New York-based JetBlue Airways will operate the plane. The Secret Service inspected the plane at Tucson International Airport on Thursday...

China to provide Pakistan four AWACS aircrafts Updated at: 1510 PST, Friday, September 05, 2008 ISLAMABAD: Air Chief Marshall Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed on Friday said China would provide four AWACS aircrafts to Pakistan for the purpose of aerial surveillance, adding an agreement in this regard has been signed by the two countires. Talking to Geo News, he said talks were also underway to purchase FC-20 aircrafts from China and added 30 to 40 planes would be provided to Pakistan under the agreement signed by China and Pakistan. Air chief Marshall further said four such aircrafts were being also acquired from...

It has been 25 years since Korean Airlines Flight 007, carrying 269 passengers and crew, including Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia, was fired on by a Soviet fighter jet off the coast of Siberia. At the time, McDonald was chairman of the John Birch Society (a subsidiary of which publishes THE NEW AMERICAN). Although several speakers eulogized McDonald at a Washington, D.C., memorial service 10 days following the September 1, 1983 attack, the words most remembered by both this magazine’s editor, Gary Benoit, and this writer were delivered by the late Senator Jesse Helms, who passed away on July 4....

<p>Someday you may be invited to fly in the backseat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have -- John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity....</p>

Why Block the Boeing Tanker? by Jed Babbin Posted 08/22/2008 For all the Pentagon’s protestations -- and harsh words from the Government Accountability Office and Congress -- the promise of a real competition between Boeing and Northrop-Grumman/EADS for a new generation air refueling tanker is apparently being broken. The Pentagon, based on its public announcements and all other reports, is apparently in the process of rewriting the terms of the competition to eliminate any chance of buying the tanker the warfighters need. On June 18, the Government Accountability Office shot down the Air Force decision to award the contract to...

A computer failure in the system that processes flight plans has delayed flights nationwide, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed to FOX News. "The system that processes flight plans is backed up," said FAA senior spokeswoman Laura Brown. "Planes must file a flight plan to take off. Without that they sit on the ground." Brown said that there was no safety issue, but noted that all flights in Boston were grounded, and the FAA's website shows all flights bound for the East Coast grounded at their destination airports. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Tuesday that the delays were not terror-related."There...

Fox News Alert MAJOR problem with national air traffic...specifically flight plan system....All air traffic halted, nationally.

The nation's defense and space industry is facing a potential engineering crisis as retiring baby boomers leave the work force. Lured by the buzz of a Google or an Apple, many young engineers would rather go into commercial high-tech jobs than tap out computer code for the next rocket system, experts say. Helping cure cancer or solve global warming also has great appeal to the young, creating a surge in biomedical and environmental work. That could leave defense and space contractors in the lurch after the baby boomers' big exit. About 60 percent of the industry's work force could retire...

You KNEW This Was Coming... In an announcement likely to surprise absolutely no one, pilots for United Airlines are against the carrier's latest, desperate move to raise cash. In a statement issued Wednesday, the pilots say they "strongly oppose" the airline's plans to drastically change its onboard meal service by raising prices for food and drink on most flights and by discontinuing complimentary meal service on many flights to and from Europe, affecting both economy and business class passengers. As ANN reported, United claims rising fuel costs require these changes... but the pilots say the real reason may be to...

Announces Latest Missteps In Never-Ending Race To Bottom Of CSI Rankings Attention, US Airways: it appears you have some serious competition for the title of Stingiest Major US Carrier. Starting next month, United Airlines will stop handing out free pretzels and cookies to coach fliers across North America... and will even drop free meal service in business class on most flights. "In the wake of high fuel prices and a challenging economic environment, we must continue to examine every aspect of our business and find new ways to improve our day-to-day operations through efficiencies that still meet our customers' expectations,"...

Antonia Martinez Jimenez, 27, has told relatives that she normally sat at the back of the plane during take-off and landing, but on the ill-fated flight to Gran Canaria last Wednesday she was rostered to sit up front in seat 1E. All the other 17 survivors of the crash were sitting in the rows around her, and when the plane broke apart on impact, most were propelled out of the wreckage and away from the subsequent explosion that engulfed it. In a further stroke of good fortune, they landed in a stream where the water shielded them from the blistering...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Boeing Co. is considering bailing out of a politically charged competition for a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force, if it does not receive an additional four months from the Pentagon to assemble its offer. ADVERTISEMENT The aerospace manufacturer said Friday it also may file a protest on the final bids request -- expected to be released early next week by the Pentagon -- which could further delay an award. No final decision will be made until Boeing has a chance to review the final bids request, said company spokesman Daniel...

A mock-up of NASA's Orion space shuttle successor twisted, tumbled and fell from thousands of feet up after a parachute failed to inflate properly during a July 31 test. The programmer chute was designed to stabilize the mock-up before beginning a test of its parachute recovery system, but instead sent the capsule careening toward the desert floor at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona. "This is the most complicated parachute test NASA has run since the '60's," said Carol Evans, test manager for the parachute system at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "We are taking a close...

American, French and South Korean aircrews are getting a close look at one of the world's fabled aircraft - the Indian air force's Su-30MKI strike fighter. An Indian air force group of 50 pilots and weapon systems officers - flying eight Su-30MKIs, two Il-78 tankers and an Il-76 transport - are just finishing a month-long deployment to the United States with a training cycle at the latest, annual Red Flag aerial combat excercises based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. They were part of a contingent of 246 IAF personnel selected from 20 (fighter) Squadron, Poona; 78 (tanker) Squadron, Agra;...

Some 140 people were killed today when a packed passenger jet caught fire and overshot the runway as it tried to take off from Madrid airport, official sources said. The Spanair plane, with 173 passengers and crew aboard, crashed and broke apart as it tried to take off from Terminal 4 at the Barajas airport. It was heading for Las Palmas airport on the island of Gran Canaria. The Reuters news agency quoted sources in the emergency services as saying that all but about 25 of those aboard had been killed - far ahead of initial death tolls given by...

At least seven people have died in an accident suffered by a Spanair aircraft after taking off from T-4 at the Barajas airport in Madrid. [Excerpt; my translation from the Spanish.]

Damaged TAT Probes On Nine Jets While Conducting 'Security Checks' They're the government... and remember, they're here to help. A bumbling inspector with the Transportation Safety Administration apparently has some explaining to do, after nine American Eagle regional jets were grounded at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Tuesday. Citing sources within the aviation industry, ABC News reports an overzealous TSA employee attempted to gain access to the parked aircraft by climbing up the fuselage... reportedly using the Total Air Temperature (TAT) probes mounted to the planes' noses as handholds. "The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit...

Elements of Boeing's proposed upgrade package for transforming the C-17A into a more suitable theatre transport could be added piecemeal rather than in a single, $2 billion development package, a company executive says. That detail could be a key factor for the "C-17B" concept to gain joint US Air Force and US Army approval, and, thus, to preserve the life of the production line far into the next decade. Boeing has identified eight major upgrades required to make the C-17B a true tactical airlifter. The package includes higher thrust engines and double-slotted flaps for "extreme" short-field landings adding a centre...

Pilots Scott Kasprowicz and Steve Sheik (R) in an undated photo. (AgustaWestland/Douglas Sonders/Handout/Reuters) NEW YORK (Reuters) - Of all the around-the-world records in existence, traveling around the globe in a helicopter might seem to be one of the more obscure. Yet when American pilots Scott Kasprowicz and Steve Sheik returned to New York's LaGuardia Airport early on Monday, the two appeared to have smashed the previous round-the-world speed record for helicopters by about six days, according to representatives of the helicopter's manufacturer. < > From New York, the pilots charted a path that took them across the far North Atlantic,...

ROANOKE, Va. - A small plane that made an unauthorized takeoff and circled in western Virginia for four hours -- prompting the voluntary evacuation of a shopping center -- landed this afternoon without incident at Roanoke Regional Airport.

A real ride back in time. One of my fellow passengers flew these in WW2. Click on the link for a few more pictures.

THE Rudd Government has sought US export approval for a cutting-edge electronic-warfare aircraft, the Growler, which is capable of performing escort and radar-jamming missions. Designed for the US Navy, the Growler is a carrier-based electronic warfare version of the two-seat F/A-18F Super Hornet, 24 of which Australia has ordered at a cost of $6.7 billion. Details of the approach were confirmed yesterday by the aircraft's maker, Boeing. Canberra has not formally placed an order for the advanced military jet, but wanted clarification from Washington on whether the aircraft could be purchased at a future date... ...about six Growlers would be...

The US Department of Defense's goal to avoid further delays and award the KC-X tanker contract before year-end faces a key new challenge. Although Boeing had the option to boycott the revived competition, the company has instead chosen a strategy that may force the DoD to extend the deadline for revised proposals. Boeing has hinted that it may propose a larger aircraft than the 767-200ERX offered in the original competition, saying it is looking at "configuration options" for its latest bid. Boeing's options include new tanker versions of the 767-400ER and the 777-200LR. At the same time, Boeing officials also...

The P-8A, a Boeing 737-800 ERX that is the replacement for the P-3C, is becoming increasingly less cost effective and affordable. If any are built for the fleet, the total number is likely to be far below the official goal of 108 aircraft. The P-3 fleet is disintegrating from overuse at such a high rate that Navy squadrons no longer “own” their own airplanes – what was typically nine aircraft. Instead, all flyable P-3s now belong to the Wing and are “loaned” to squadron aircrews on a mission-by-mission basis. From 288 flyable P-3Cs in 2003, the Navy has less than...

U.S. analysts are beginning to address the question of why the Israeli Air Force was able to penetrate Syria’s Russian-made air defenses, while the Russian Air Force was not able to finesse Georgia’s Russian-made air defenses. That Russian-built and designed air defenses are exploitable was shown in the Israeli Air Force’s total shutdown of Syrian air defenses prior to bombing a suspected nuclear site last year (Aerospace DAILY, May 2). But Russia apparently didn’t have or didn’t use the digital keys to unlock the Georgians’ network. There are indications from U.S. analysts that the relative simplicity – meaning far less...

August 11, 2008: The U.S. Air Force is, for the first time, converting a fighter wing from manned (F-16) combat aircraft, to unmanned ones (the MQ-9 Reaper.) The conversion, for the 174th Fighter Wing, has been in the works for three years, and the last combat sorties in manned aircraft were flown last week, by members of the 174th serving in Iraq. The air force has already converted several combat wings to fly Predators which, while armed (with two 107 pound Hellfire missiles), are considered reconnaissance aircraft. The Reaper is considered a combat aircraft, optimized for seeking out and destroying...

India to join Air Force training exercises in Nev. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 3:31 a.m. ET LAS VEGAS (AP) -- India's military pilots are expected to participate for the first time in Air Force training exercises above the Nevada desert, marking another step in steadily improving U.S. relations with the Asian subcontinent nation since the Sept 11 terrorist attacks. South Korean and French pilots will also take part in the combat exercises that begin Monday and will put about 65 airplanes in the skies over two weeks, Air Force officials said. ''This particular Air Force exercise is important...

Word that Boeing is strongly considering a “no bid” position for the next round of the U.S. Air Force refueling tanker competition is spreading only two days after the Pentagon released the revised KC-X draft request for proposals (RFP). Multiple sources familiar with Boeing’s internal discussions say company officials are strongly considering the option of not submitting a proposal as the company’s Integrated Defense Systems sector tries to respond to the draft RFP within the government’s speedy timeline. Comments are due this week. The move would leave the Defense Dept. without a competition for the KC-135 tanker replacement. A demand...

The Air Force is preparing for the Atlas V launch in December of the first U.S. robotic military spaceplane mission into orbit. The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle flight will mark a fundamental technology milestone for the Air Force. It will carry on winged hypersonic space vehicle technology as the space shuttle is canceled. This work is designed to propel the Air Force mission more rapidly - to where the blue sky turns to black - using a reusable hypersonic craft serviced on the ground just like an airplane. In the future, this could lead to military spaceplane capability for the...

The Pentagon plans to take extra capabilities - including added fuel offload capacity - into account as it scores revised proposals from Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS that could lead to $35 billion in work replacing aging KC-135 tankers. The Defense Department will consider "value over threshold" when reviewing the revised offers, said Shay Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisitions policy, during an Aug. 6 briefing at the Pentagon. This could put Boeing's 767-200LRF-based proposal at a disadvantage as its cargo, passenger and fuel offload abilities are hampered by its size compared to the larger Airbus A330-200 design proposed by...

The debate over whether America’s Boeing or Europe’s Airbus should be given the contract to build America’s next generation of mid-air refueling tankers has focused on several important topics, including the embarrassing flaws a recent General Accountability Office report found in the Air Force procurement process, the reshuffling of Pentagon jobs in its wake, and the suitability of both aircraft for the mission, chronicled in an excellent series in HUMAN EVENTS. All of these are important topics, but Americans should also step back and ask some basic questions before outsourcing key defense systems to foreign firms. Specifically, we need to...

Deadline to submit bid is just two months away WASHINGTON – The Pentagon on Wednesday requested new bids on a $35 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers, but Boeing supporters on Capitol Hill complained that the revised criteria seem to favor the rival European airplane. [...] “It’s obviously stacked against Boeing,” said Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank that focuses on national security and defense issues. “It appears to favor a larger aircraft in a way the original did not. But the timeline doesn’t give Boeing an opportunity to prepare a bid for a...

JUNCTION CITY, Calif. (CBS) ― Nine people are missing and feared dead in a helicopter crash in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said Wednesday. The crash happened Tuesday night as the helicopter was transporting firefighters battling a wildfire north of Junction City. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the helicopter was carrying 11 firefighters and two crew members when it went down. Four people have been taken to the hospital with severe burns. Two of the survivors were in critical condition at the University of California Medical Center in Sacramento, Forest Service spokesman Mike Odle said Wednesday,...

A U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft fired the newest variant of Raytheon's Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile May 22 as part of developmental testing. The AIM-120D AMRAAM passed well within lethal range of the QF-4 target drone. The missile destroyed the target and met all primary test objectives. "There is no missile in development or in any air force's inventory that can even come close to matching what the AIM-120D can do." "The AIM-120D will enable our men and women in uniform to maintain air superiority, regardless of the threat."

A Canadian Forces AT-6B for the COIN Role in Afghanistan A Modest Proposal by Steve Daly, CD The Department of National Defence and the Air Force are examining the acquisition options for new aircraft to fulfil several roles including: helicopter escort (for Chinook medium lift transport helicopters), surveillance (in the form of a medium UAV), and the replacement for CT-114 Tutors flown by the Snowbirds Air Demonstration Squadron. The helicopter escort role is almost always envisioned as a job for another helicopter – our allies generally use Apache attack helicopters. This may be conventional wisdom but nothing says that a...

Improving Griffon Helicopter Hot-and-High Performance — Aerodynamic Testing and Evaluation — MERX ACAN Notice This ACAN requires a supplier – BLR or Boundary Layer Research, Inc. of Everett, WA – to mount their product on a Canadian Forces CH-146 Griffon utility helicopter. The firm will then be responsible for verifying its performance gain claims. Products to be tested are BLR’s Fastfin™ carbon fibre tailfin replacement and tailboom strake kits. Both kits are easy to install and work on simple principles. The original vertical tail fin also impedes lateral air flow. By reducing that fin size,[1] Fastfin allows the tail rotor...

WIMAUMA — In the middle of a grassy 40-acre airfield bordered by a cow pasture, an orange grove and a two-lane road in rural Hillsborough County, Steve Hall was steward recently to three small airplanes that will soon be delivered to airports in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. With a roster of a dozen pilots who have an unusual knack for navigating pint-sized, single-engine planes across the Atlantic Ocean, Hall's aircraft delivery business is booming these days. Customers around the world are snapping up small airplanes from the United States, thanks to the weak American dollar. And...

Investigators probing the 25 July fuselage rupture and rapid decompression involving a Qantas Boeing 747-400 are focusing their attention on what appears to have been an oxygen cylinder explosion. Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators say the aircraft's emergency oxygen system is being looked at most closely, because one of 13 cylinders in the area of the 747 where the fuselage rupture occurred was found missing after the aircraft's emergency landing in Manila. Investigations later determined that parts from the missing cylinder blasted into the passenger cabin. Qantas had already been ordered days earlier to inspect the oxygen system bottles on...

The Air Force is preparing to test an unmanned spacecraft in orbit, with a launch scheduled for December. The X-37B is designed to perform long-duration testing in low-Earth orbit of new technologies. The unmanned vehicle will carry experiments into space, then return with them to Earth. The vehicle... operates autonomously in orbit and for re-entry and landing. This first orbital flight test of the vehicle will be used to determine the capabilities of the craft, said an Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Brown. It is part of a former NASA program that was cut as the space agency focused...

08/01/2008 Ex-Boeing employee is charged in vandalism case By: Timothy Logue , tlogue@delcotimes.com A former Boeing Co. aircraft mechanic is facing up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines and restitution for severing a bundle of wires on a Chinook helicopter. Advertisement Matthew Kevin Montgomery of Trevose was formally charged Thursday with a felony count of willfully damaging property under contract to the federal government. Montgomery, 33, severed a "two-inch bundle of over 150 electrical wires running between the cockpit and body" of the $23.8 million helicopter, according to a federal charging document. Some of the wires were...

Rocket-powered homebuilt Velocity aircraft made a public debut at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2008, and the words "Rocket Racing League" were on everyone's lips throughout the afternoon. AVweb Video Editor Glenn Pew brought back a taste of the action...

Lawmakers ask US not to upgrade Pakistan F-16s now Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:43pm EDT By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) - Two senior U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday they had asked the Bush administration not to shift $226.5 million in U.S. counterterrorism aid to Pakistan to upgrade Pakistani F-16 fighters for the time being. The Democratic lawmakers, House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman of California and Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, said they feared the plan could hinder counterterrorism efforts and wanted more time to study it. First disclosed last week, the plan has...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - An F-15 jet has crashed in the Nevada desert during a combat training exercise. U.S Air Force officials say the plane went down on the Nevada Test and Training Range outside of Goldfield, Nev. at about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Two people were onboard the plane. Air Force spokesman Andrew Dumboski says their condition is unknown. The F-15D Eagle is assigned to the 65th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. Goldfield is about 180 miles north of the base.

On this day in 1967, one hundred and thirty-four men died and sixty-two were wounded in a fire on an aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal. Among the planes waited to take off, a missile misfired and hit another plane, sparking a massive inferno. As bombs and fuel exploded, Lt. Commander John McCain jumped out of his own plane and ran toward the flames -- yes, toward the flames -- attempting to rescue another pilot. An exploding bomb then injured McCain in the chest and legs. More information here. Video at link

Brigadier General Ahmad Miqani was quoted by press tv as saying on Monday that Iran's Air Force has achieved self-sufficiency in the repair, maintenance and overhaul of its equipment. He added that Iranian military experts are capable of overhauling F-5 two-seaters, F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, 707 and 747 aircrafts with only forty days of work. "We have upgraded our air force fleet, state-of-the-art radar-systems, and rocket launchers over the past few years," Brig. Gen. Miqani said, adding that the country would continue its efforts to reach the peak of its military capability. The Iranian Air Force chief announced that the...

July 29, 2008—Awarding contracts both to Boeing and Northrop Grumman and having each build new tanker aircraft for the Air Force at a rate of about 15 per year makes sense and should be considered as the way ahead to resolve the KC-X tanker program’s current legal impasse, former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Daily Report yesterday. “I think a split buy right now is something that we have to examine,” Wynne, who stepped down as USAF’s top civilian on June 20, said during a sit-down interview. “This is an opportunity to resolve a very tense political issue...

<p>HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - By day, the engineers work on NASA's new Ares moon rockets.</p> <p>By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design. These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle.</p>

QANTAS'S reputation as the world's safest airline took another blow last night with a passenger jet forced to make an emergency landing after an undercarriage door failed to close. The Boeing 767-338 flying from Melbourne to Adelaide was forced to turn around 20 minutes after it took off at 5.40pm and make an emergency landing at 6.15pm. The incident came only three days after a Qantas Boeing 747-400 was forced to make an emergency landing in Manila after a gaping hole was found its fuselage.