All news – Page 6319
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Intelligent hope
Intelligent spacecraft are still a few years away, but robots and automated systems can meanwhile play a large part in extending space exploration The spaceflight industry has just one year year left to emulate Arthur C Clarke's HAL, the spacecraft computer that became too intelligent in 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
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My view - Phil Condit, Chairman and Chief Executive, Boeing
The American people recently selected the three most significant aviation achievements of the 20th century. They chose the Wright brothers' first flight, Charles Lindbergh's crossing of the Atlantic, and the development of the Boeing 747. I think that is pretty good company. The 747 has helped make our world ...
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Perils of prediction
Predictions can prove embarrassing. And airlines are much more cautious these days If Flight International had polled airlines 30 years ago for their predictions on long-term developments within the industry, the answers would have been exciting, ambitious and possibly outrageous. They would also have born little or no relationship to ...
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Slow road to reusability
The shift to reusable launch vehicles will be far slower and more incremental than was once considered possible and desirable Over 30 years ago, in his film 2001: a space odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick gave us his vision of a future in which man could travel from the Earth to ...
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Built for speed
A resurgence in hypersonics research is being fuelled by growing interest in rapid-reaction strike missiles and reusable launch vehicles A black-coated vehicle the size and shape of a surfboard will carry the hopes for a rebirth of hypersonics technology when it flies later this year. If successful, NASA's X-43 ...
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My view - Micky Blackwell, Former President of Lockheed Martin's Aeronautical Sector
Dr Richard Whitcomb was already famous for the discovery of the "area rule" - the "coke bottle" fuselage shaping that allowed aircraft to go supersonic more efficiently - when I came to work for him at NASA. The discovery had won him the Collier Trophy, the USA's highest award for ...
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Research realities
The power of the marketplace rather than the promise of technological advances is tempering the ambition of designers As the 20th century closed, the airliner industry appeared to be dominated by derivatives, with few all-new designs on the drawing board or on the horizon. Researchers and engineers are not ...
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Clean and lean
Environmental issues and the demands of safety and reliability drive airliner design as much as technology Ever since the first powered machines flew at the start of the 20th century, aviation has been driven by the quest to improve aircraft efficiency. With extraordinary persistence, often surmounting seemingly impossible technical barriers, ...
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End of an era?
The traditional look for commercial aircraft may be ending. This century's airliners could look radically different Airbus Industrie's planned A3XX will be the ultimate expression of the classic airliner configuration, representing the end of the road for the layout of cylindrical fuselage, swept wing and podded engines so familiar ...
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Supersonic boom
The new century will see the first flight of a supersonic STOVL fighter, the JSF - but history is littered with other, failed, efforts It has been more than half a century since Chuck Yeager rocketed through the sound barrier and almost 40 years since the Hawker P1127, forerunner ...
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Rotorcraft revivals
As helicopters near the edge of their performance envelope, radical designs such as tiltrotor and tiltwing are coming into their own What goes around comes around and that is the case for the rotorcraft industry, which is seeing the re-emergence of radical concepts from the 1950s and 1960s. With ...
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The sky's...the limit
UAVs will not be able to fill their potential unless the regulations governing their use in civil airspace change Proponents of the unmanned air vehicle (UAV) are keen to describe a future in which pilotless aircraft deliver mail overnight, monitor political troublespots, patrol borders in search of drug smugglers ...
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Getting personal
A jet in every garage is still a dream, but entry-level business aircraft are becoming more affordable Over the years, a crop of start-up companies has sought to captivate the general aviation aircraft buyer with innovative personal jet designs. Few of those companies, however, have successfully crossed the threshold from ...
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Supersonic business
It is 7.00pm when the supersonic business jet returns to New York after another normal working day for its passengers. They had left just 12h earlier for a 2h meeting in Moscow and are returning in time to have dinner with their families. Tomorrow it will be Tokyo… Supersonic flight ...
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Our wacky world
Innovation is alive in Australia but some unusual designs have been confined to the drawing board Australia, the nation which brought you a flying farm-tractor called the Airtruk and a stagger-wing trainer called the Eagle, is at it again. Innovation is alive and well down under, despite market conditions ...
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Study claims NTSB is 'stretched to limit'
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is "stretched to the limit", says a study published by independent consultancy Rand. Rand was referring particularly to a shortage of personnel. NTSB chairman Jim Hall has accused the US Office of Management and Budget of risking "the safety of the American people" ...
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USAF launches uprated weather satellite
The US Air Force launched a Titan II booster from Vandenberg AFB, California, on 12 December, carrying a Defense Meteorological Satellite Programme (DMSP) Block 5D3 satellite into orbit. The satellite is the first of a new generation of Lockheed Martin-built craft with larger sensors, more power, longer battery life ...
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First Hughes 702 will be largest in orbit
Hughes Space and Communications' first HS-702 satellite was due to be launched on 21 December aboard an Ariane 4. The HS-702, which will be PanAmSat's Galaxy XI satellite, will be the largest commercial communications satellite deployed in orbit - equipped with 64 transponders (40 Ku-band and 24 C-band) and ...
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Indian rocket engine test scheduled
India will take a major step towards a fully autonomous space programme next month with the 1,200s static test-firing of a fully indigenous 7.5t (73.5kN)-thrust cryogenic engine designed to be used on later versions of the country's Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The first GSLV missions will use a ...
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IAI adds power to Shavit launcher
Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) is developing a more powerful version of its Shavit launcher to carry new Israeli intelligence satellites and to compete in the international launcher market. The current Shavit launcher was first used in 1988 to put the Offeq-1 satellite into orbit. The Offeq-3 now in orbit ...