Military products

Military products

Main article: Airbus Military

In January 1999 Airbus established a separate company, Airbus Military SAS, to undertake development and production of a turboprop-powered tactical transport aircraft (the Airbus Military A400M.) The A400M is being developed by several NATO members, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, as an alternative to the C-130 Hercules. Expansion in the military aircraft market will reduce, but not negate, Airbus' exposure to the effects of cyclical downturns in civil aviation.

On 25 February 2008 it was announced that Airbus had won an order for three air refuelling Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft (adapted from A330 passenger jets) from the United Arab Emirates [38].

On 1 March 2008 it was the announced that a consortium of Airbus and Northrop Grumman had won a $35bn contract to build the new in-flight refuelling aircraft KC-45A (US built version of the MRTT) for the USAF [39]. The decision, however, was subject to a formal complaint from Boeing[40].

  International manufacturing presence

The main Airbus factory in Toulouse is located next to Toulouse Blagnac International Airport. (43°36′44″N 1°21′47″E)

Main Airbus factory in Hamburg/Germany

The final assembly lines of Airbus are in Toulouse (France) (two assembly lines) and Hamburg (Germany) (one assembly line). A fourth final assembly line, for the Airbus A400M, is in Seville (Spain).

Airbus, however, has a number of other plants in different European locations, reflecting its foundation as a consortium. An original solution to the problem of moving aircraft parts between the different factories and the assembly plants is the use of "Beluga" specially enlarged jets, capable of carrying entire sections of fuselage of Airbus aircraft. This solution has also been investigated by Boeing, who retrofitted 3 of their 747 aircraft to transport the components of the 787. An exception to this scheme is the A380, whose fuselage and wings are too large[41] for sections to be carried by the Beluga. Large A380 parts are brought by ship to Bordeaux, and then transported to the Toulouse assembly plant by a specially enlarged road.

North America is an important region to Airbus in terms of both aircraft sales and suppliers. 2,000 of the total of approximately 5,300 Airbus jetliners sold by Airbus around the world, representing every aircraft in its product line from the 107-seat A318 to the 565-passenger A380, are ordered by North American customers. According to Airbus, US contractors, supporting an estimated 120,000 jobs, earned an estimated $5.5 billion (2003) worth of business. For example, one version of the A380 has 51% American content in terms of work share value.

EADS Airbus will be opening an assembly plant in Tianjin, China for its A320 series airliners, to be operational in 2009. AVIC I and AVIC II will be EADS' local partners for the site, to which sub-assemblies will be sent from plants around the world.[42]

A plant will be built in Mobile, Alabama for KC-45A, A330-200MRTT and A330-200F production.[citation needed]

Airbus

Type Subsidiary

Founded 1970 (Airbus Industrie)

2001 (Airbus SAS)

Headquarters Toulouse, France

Key people Thomas Enders, CEO

Harald Wilhelm, CFO

John Leahy, Chief Commercial Officer

Fabrice Brégier, COO

Industry Aerospace

Products Commercial airliners (list)

Revenue ▲ €25.2 billion (FY 2007)[1]

Net income ▼ (€904 million) (FY 2007)

Employees 57,000 [2]

Parent EADS

Subsidiaries Airbus Military

Website  airbus.com

Airbus SAS (pronounced /ˈɛərbʌs/ in English, /ɛʁbys/ in French, and /ˈɛːɐbʊs/ in German) is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Toulouse, France, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners.

Airbus began as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers. Consolidation of European defence and aerospace companies around the turn of the century allowed the establishment of a simplified joint stock company in 2001, owned by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). After a protracted sales process BAE sold its shareholding to EADS on 13 October 2006.[3]

Airbus employs around 57,000 people at sixteen sites in four European Union countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Final assembly production is at Toulouse (France), Hamburg (Germany), Seville (Spain) and, since 1999, Tianjin (China).[4] Airbus has subsidiaries in the United States, Japan and China.

Recent product development- BOEING

The Boeing 787 rollout on July 8, 2007

Boeing has recently achieved several consecutive launches, beginning with the formal launch of the 787 for delivery to All Nippon Airways and Air New Zealand. Rollout of the first 787 occurred on July 8, 2007.

Boeing also received the launch contract from the US Navy for the P-8 Multimission Maritime Aircraft, an anti-submarine warfare patrol aircraft. Several orders for the Wedgetail AEW&C airplanes are expected as well.

Boeing launched the 777 Freighter in May 2005 with an order from Air France. The freighter variant is based on the -200LR. Other customers include FedEx, Emirates Airline, and Air Atlanta Icelandic. Boeing has achieved above projected orders for its 787 Dreamliner, outselling the rival Airbus A350.

Boeing officially announced in November 2005 that it would produce a larger variant of the 747, the 747-8, in two models, commencing with the Freighter model for two cargo carriers with firm orders for the aircraft. The second model, dubbed the Intercontinental, would be produced for passenger airlines that Boeing expected would place orders in the near future. Both models of the 747-8 would feature a lengthened fuselage, new, advanced engines and wings, and the incorporation of other technologies developed for the 787.

Boeing has also introduced new extended range versions of the 737. These include the 737-700ER and 737-900ER. The 737-900ER is the latest and will extend the range of the 737-900 to a similar range as the successful 737-800 with the capability to fly more passengers, due to the addition of two extra emergency exits.

The record-breaking 777-200LR Worldliner, presented at the Paris Air Show 2005.

The 777-200LR Worldliner embarked on a well-received global demonstration tour in the second half of 2005, showing off its capacity to fly farther than any other commercial aircraft. On November 10, 2005, the 777-200LR set a world record for the longest non-stop flight. The plane, which departed from Hong Kong traveling to London, took a longer route, which included flying over the U.S. It flew 11,664 nautical miles (21,601km) during its 22-hour 42-minute flight. It was flown by Pakistan International Airlines pilots and PIA was the first airline to fly the 777-200LR Worldliner.

Realizing that increasing numbers of passengers have become reliant on their computers to stay in touch, Boeing introduced Connexion by Boeing, a satellite based Internet connectivity service that promised air travelers unprecedented access to the World Wide Web. The company debuted the product to journalists in 2005, receiving generally favorable reviews. However, facing competition from cheaper options, such as cellular networks, it proved too difficult to sell to most airlines. In August 2006, after a short and unsuccessful search for a buyer for the business, Boeing chose to discontinue the service.[17][18]

Titanium joint venture with Russia

On August 11, 2006, Boeing announced an agreement to form a joint-venture with the large Russian titanium producer, VSMPO-Avisma for the machining of titanium forgings.[19] On December 27, 2007 Boeing and VSMPO-Avisma created a joint venture Ural Boeing Manufacturing and signed a contract on titanium products deliveries until 2015, with Boeing planning to invest 27 billion dollars in Russia over the next 30 years.[20]

Future concepts

In May 2006, four concept designs being examined by Boeing were outlined in the The Seattle Times based on corporate internal documents.[21] The research aims in two directions: low-cost airplanes, and environmental-friendly planes. Codenamed after the well-known Muppets a design team known as the Green Team concentrated primarily on reducing fuel usage. All four designs illustrated rear-engine layouts.

"Fozzie" employs open rotors and would offer a lower cruising speed.

"Beaker" has very thin, long wings, with the ability to partially fold-up to facilitate easier taxiing.

"Kermit Kruiser" has forward swept wings over which are positioned its engines, with the aim of lowering noise below due to the reflection of the exhaust signature upward.

"Honeydew" with its delta wing design, resembles a marriage of the flying wing concept and the traditional tube fuselage.

As with most concepts, these designs are only in the exploratory stage intended to help Boeing evaluate the potentials of such radical technologies.[21]

Environment

Environmental record

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have listed Boeing as the thirteenth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States based on 2002 data.[22] According to the Center for Public Integrity, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has linked Boeing to more than twenty Superfund toxic waste sites.[23] In 2006, the UCLA Center for Environmental Risk Reduction released a study showing that Boeing's Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura, California had been contaminated with toxic and radioactive waste. The study found that air, soil, groundwater, and surface water at the site all contained radionuclides, toxic metals, and dioxins; air and water additionally contained perchlorate, TCE, and hydrazines, while water showed the presence of PCBs as well.[24]

Jet biofuels

Main articles: Global warming, Biofuel, and Algae fuel

The airline industry is responsible for about 11 percent of greenhouse gases emitted by the U.S. transportation sector.[25] Aviation's share of the greenhouse-gas pie is poised to grow, as air travel increases and ground vehicles use more alternative fuels like ethanol and biodiesel.[25] Boeing estimates that biofuels could reduce flight-related greenhouse-gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent.[25] The solution would be blending algae fuels with existing jet fuel.[25]

Boeing executives said the company is informally collaborating with leading Brazilian biofuels maker Tecbio, Aquaflow Bionomic of New Zealand and other fuel developers around the world. So far, Boeing has tested six fuels from these companies, and will probably have gone through 20 fuels "by the time we're done evaluating them."[25] Boeing is joining other aviation-related members in the Algal Biomass Organization (ABO).[26]

Political contributions

Boeing lobby expenditures in 2007 thus far total $4.14 million.[27] In 2006, total of $9.12 million was spent.

Divisions

The two largest divisions are Boeing Commercial Airplanes and the Integrated Defense Systems. Integrated Defense Systems is Boeing's space and defense division.[28]

Boeing Capital

Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems

Boeing Shared Services Group

Boeing Realty

Boeing Travel Management Company

Engineering, Operations & Technology

Phantom Works

Intellectual Property Management

Information Technology

Environment, Health, and Safety[28]

Boeing

The Boeing Company

Type Public (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661)

Founded Seattle, Washington (1916)

Headquarters Chicago, Illinois, US

Key people W. James McNerney, Jr., CEO

James A. Bell, CFO

J. Michael Luttig, General Counsel

Industry Aerospace and Defense

Products Commercial airliners

Military aircraft

Munitions

Space systems

Computer Services

Revenue ▲ US$60.91 billion (FY 2008)[1]

Net income ▲ $2.67 billion[1]

Employees 162,200 (12-31-2008)

Divisions Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Integrated Defense Systems

Others

Subsidiaries Aviall, Inc.

Jeppesen

Boeing Australia

Boeing Defence UK

Boeing Store

Website Boeing  

The Boeing Company is a major aerospace and defense corporation, originally founded by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Its international headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois, US since 2001. Boeing is the largest global aircraft manufacturer by revenue, orders and deliveries, and the second-largest aerospace and defense contractor in the world.[2] Boeing is the largest exporter in the United States. Its stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

NASA WORLDWIND

Overview

WorldWind was released for the first time in 2004 by NASA. The latest version (1.4) developed mainly by open source community members from WorldWind Central/Free Earth Foundation had its premiere on February 14, 2007.

Apart from the Earth there are several worlds in WorldWind: Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter (with the four Galilean moons of Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto) and SDSS (imagery of stars and galactics). All these worlds are available in the File menu.

Users interact with the selected planet by rotating it, tilting the view, and zooming in and out. Five million placenames, political boundaries, latitude/longitude lines, and other location criteria can be displayed. WorldWind provides the ability to browse maps and geospatial data on the internet using the OGC's WMS servers (version 1.4 also uses WFS for downloading placenames), import ESRI shapefiles and kml/kmz files. This is an example of how WorldWind allows anyone to deliver their data.

Other features of WorldWind include support for .X (DirectX 3D polygon mesh) models and advanced visual effects such as atmospheric scattering or sun shading.

The resolution inside the US is high enough to clearly discern individual buildings, houses, cars (USGS Digital Ortho layer) and even the shadows of people (metroplitan areas in USGS Urban Ortho layer). The resolution outside the US is at least 15 meters per pixel.

Microsoft has allowed WorldWind to incorporate Virtual Earth high resolution data for non-commercial use[1].

WorldWind uses digital elevation model (DEM) data collected by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. This means one can view topographic features such as the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions. In addition, WW has bathymetry data which allows users to see ocean features, such as trenches and ridges, in 3D.

Many people using the applications are adding their own data and making them available through various sources, such as the WorldWind Central or blogs mentioned in the link section below.

All images and movies created with WorldWind using Blue Marble, Landsat, or USGS public domain data can be freely modified, re-distributed, and used on web sites, even for commercial purposes.

  Add-ons and plugins

WorldWind can be expanded by using one of many add-ons - small extensions that add new functionality to the program.

Possible types of add-ons:

Point layers - simple XML files displaying placemarks (point of interest) as icons

Trail layers - paths (routes, boundaries)

Line features - XML with a list of points visualized as a line or wall

Polygon features - XML with a list of points visualized as a filled polygon (flat or extruded)

Model features - XML used to load 3D textured meshes

Place names - specific points (such as cities, hills and buildings) that are assigned text labels

Image layers - high resolution imagery for various places in the world

Scripts - files that control camera movement

Plugins are small programs written in C#, VB or J# which are loaded and compiled by WorldWind at startup. Plug-in developers can add features to WorldWind without changing the program's source code.

  WorldWind Java

The original recipe for WorldWind was restricted to Windows, relying on the .NET libraries and DirectX. A new version of WorldWind has been developed in Java with JOGL referred to as WorldWind Java. This new version has an API-centric architecture with functionalities 'off-loaded' to modular components, leaving the API at the core. This makes WorldWind itself a plugin so that it can be used as interchangeably as possible (i.e. via Python). This refactoring exercise allows WorldWind to be accessed via a browser as a Java Applet. A preview of the WorldWind Java SDK[2] was released on May 11, 2007 during Sun Microsystem's annual JavaOne conference.

  Forks and clones

WW2D is cross-platform, free and open-source application based on Java and OpenGL technologies and can be run on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86 and x86-64) and Solaris on SPARC. WW2D uses images from WorldWind's servers.

WW2D Plus One is an update to WW2D providing a 3D view.

Punt is a fork of the NASA WorldWind project, and was started by two members of the free software community who had made contributions to WorldWind. Punt was based on the code in WorldWind 1.3.2, but its initial release has features not found in WorldWind 1.3.2 or 1.3.3 (such as support for multiple languages). Currently, Punt is only available for Windows, but long term goals include a desire to move to a cross-platform solution.

Dapple is a fork of the NASA WorldWind project, it is an Open Source project created by developers at Geosoft. Dapple is aimed at geoscience professionals, and has features aimed at them, such as easy addition WMS servers and a simpler UI very similar to Google Earth's.

SERVIR-VIZ is a customized version of WorldWind developed by IAGT for the SERVIR project.

  Datasets available

Low resolution Blue Marble datasets are included with the initial download; as a user zooms in to certain areas, additional high resolution data is downloaded from the NASA servers. The size of all currently available data sets is about 4.6 terabytes.

  Earth

Animated data layers

Scientific Visualization Studio

MODIS

GLOBE[3]

NRL Real-Time Weather

Image/terrain datasets

Blue Marble Next Generation imagery

Landsat 7 imagery

NLT Landsat (Visible & Pseudo Color)

Geocover 1990 & 2000 (pseudo; 1990 layer was produced from Landsat 4 & 5 images)

OnEarth (visible & pseudo)

i-cubed (visible)

USGS imagery

Digital Ortho (DOQ - scanned black and white aerial images [1])

Urban Area Ortho (montaged color aerial photography of many major US metropolitan areas)

Topographic maps

Zoomit! imagery (community produced layer)

LINZ[4] (montaged color aerial photography of New Zealand)

GSWA[5] (Topographic and geological maps of Western Australia)

US imagery (montaged color aerial photography of many major US metropolitan areas)

SRTM (SRTM30Plus[6]/SRTMv2/USGS NED) terrain data (includes bathymetry)

  Extraterrestrial datasets

  Moon

Clementine (40xx - Colour, 30xx - Greyscale)

Hypsometric Map

  Mars

MOC (Mars Global Surveyor - Mars Orbiter Camera)

MOLA (MGS - Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter hypsometric map)

THEMIS (Mars Odyssey - Thermal Emission Imaging System)

MDIM (Viking - Mars Digital Image Model)

  Venus

Magellan Imaging Radar (Color/Greyscale)

Hypsometric Map

  Jupiter

Jupiter

Callisto

Europa

Ganymede

Io

  Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Survey Imagery

SDSS Server

WMAP Image Server

Footprint Imagery

SDSS Footprint

FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm [2]) Footprint

  Specifications

Baseline resolutions

500 m (Blue Marble Next Generation)

15 m (Landsat imagery; except for polar areas)

Typical high resolutions

U.S.

USGS Digital Ortho: 1 m (grayscale; near full coverage)

USGS Urban Area Ortho: 0.25 m [7]

Zoomit!: 0.15 m to 1 m [8]

New Zealand

Zoomit! (from LINZ data): 2.5 m (colour and grayscale)

Western Australia

Zoomit! (from GSWA): 250K surface geology mosaic, 250K topographic data, Magnetic Intensity, Bouger Gravity

South Africa

Zoomit!: Robben Island 0.5 m

Altitude resolution

U.S.: 30 m (1 arcsecond; USGS NED)

Global: 90 m (3 arcseconds; SRTM)

Oceans: 2 arcminutes and better

Age

Some USGS aerial images were taken in the early 1990s.

Landsat 7 images are all taken after 1999 (except for Geocover 1990).

NASA WORLD WIND

WorldWind is a free open source virtual globe developed by NASA and open source community for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows. The program overlays NASA and USGS satellite imagery, aerial photography, topographic maps and publicly available GIS data on 3D models of the Earth and other planets.

Aeronautics

Antonov An-225, the largest airplane ever built.

Space Shuttle Atlantis on a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

The Eurofighter Typhoon.

Aeronautics (from Greek aero which means air or sky and nautis which means sailor, i.e. sailor of the air or sky) is the science involved with the study, design, and manufacture of flight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft. While the term—literally meaning "sailing the air"—originally referred solely to the science of operating the aircraft, it has since been expanded to include technology, business and other aspects related to aircraft.[1] One of the significant parts in aeronautics is a branch of physical science called aerodynamics, which deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion, such as an aircraft. Aviation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with aeronautics, although "aeronautics" includes lighter-than-air craft such as airships, while "aviation" does not.[1]

Contents [hide]

1 Early aeronautics

2 References

3 See also

4 External links

  Early aeronautics

The first mention of aeronautics in history was in the writings ancient egyptians who described the flight of birds,it also finds mention in ancient China where people were flying kites thousands of years ago.The medieval Islamic scientists were not far behind, they understood the actual mechanism of flight of birds.Before scientific investigation of aeronautics started, people started thinking of ways to fly. In a Greek legend, Icarus and his father Daedalus built wings of feathers and wax and flew out of a prison. Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, and he fell in the sea and drowned. When people started to scientifically study how to fly, people began to understand the basics of air and aerodynamics. One of the earliest scientists to study aeronautics was Ibn Firnas who studied the dynamism of flying and carried out a number of experiments in 8th century in Cordoba, Al-Andalus.[2] Roger Bacon and Leonardo da Vinci were some of the first modern Europeans to study aeronautics. Leonardo studied the flight of birds in developing engineering schematics for some of the earliest flying machines in the late fifteenth century AD. His schematics, however, such as the ornithopter ultimately failed as practical aircraft. The flapping machines that he designed were either too small to generate sufficient lift, or too heavy for a human to operate. Although the ornithopter continues to be of interest to hobbyists, it was replaced by the glider in the 19th century.