Tag: Aerospace

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Lockheed Martin wins NASA’s nod for supersonic jet

Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator
An artist’s conception shows the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator at work. (NASA Illustration)

NASA says Lockheed Martin will be its partner in building a supersonic test plane that’s designed to muffle sonic booms and clear the way for a new boom in faster-than-sound passenger flights.

California-based Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. won the $247.5 million contract to build the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator, or LBFD, after putting in the sole bid for the project, NASA officials said today.

NASA’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, said boom-reducing aerodynamics will be a “game-changer” for civilian flight — a view that was voiced by other officials as well.

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Why Boeing’s market outlook is looking up

Boeing's Randy Tinseth
Randy Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ vice president of marketing, presents Boeing’s Current Market Outlook at the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance’s Commercial Aerospace Conference in Lynnwood, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LYNNWOOD, Wash. — You don’t need a crystal ball to tell that Boeing and commercial aviation are riding an updraft — but it’s handy to have someone around to explain the whys and wherefores.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ man for the job is Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing, who provides a 20-year forecast for the global economy, travel trends and the resulting demand for airplanes in an annually updated report called the Current Market Outlook.

Today Tinseth laid out the latest Current Market Outlook here at the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance’s Commercial Aerospace Conference.

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Boeing outperforms expectations, boosting stock

Boeing logo
Boeing, which has its corporate headquarters in Chicago, is reporting record results. (Boeing Photo)

The Boeing Co. today reported better-than-expected financial results for the fourth quarter of 2017 and a rosier-than-expected outlook for the year ahead, sending its share prices up 5 percent.

“Thanks to the dedicated efforts of employees throughout our company, Boeing delivered 2017 financial results that included record earnings, record cash flow, and record commercial aircraft deliveries,” Dennis Muilenburg, the company’s CEO, president and chairman, told journalists and analysts in a conference call.

Boeing’s performance was boosted by an upturn in the airline industry’s jet purchases as well as the recently enacted tax-cut bill, and the company projects a continuation of the positive trend in 2018.

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Bugged by budget cuts, state aerospace chief quits

John Thornquist
John Thornquist, the director of Washington state’s Office of Aerospace, visits Chinook Enterprises in Mount Vernon, Wash., in August 2016. (Chinook Enterprises Photo)

The head of Washington state’s Office of Aerospace, John Thornquist, says he’s returning to the private sector next month due to frustrations over state budget cuts.

“I’m not trying to leave in a huff,” said Thornquist, who was named to the post by Gov. Jay Inslee 19 months ago. “I loved the job that we were doing for aerospace, but things have moved on, and I’m moving on.”

Thornquist said he tendered his resignation a couple of weeks ago, and will be leaving his job in the Department of Commerce’s Office of Economic Development and Competitiveness, or OEDC, on Dec. 8 after tying up loose ends.

After a weekend off, he’ll start his new job as director of consulting services for Bellevue, Wash.-based Cascade Business Group. Thornquist said he’ll continue to focus on aerospace as well as the software and retail industries.

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Boeing HorizonX invests in Gamma Alloys

Gamma Alloys bars
Gamma Alloys’ nano-reinforced aluminum can be extruded into bars. (Gamma Alloys Photo)

Boeing’s latest venture-capital investment, in a company called Gamma Alloys, aims to give a boost to next-generation aluminum alloys that may show up one day in Boeing’s airplanes.

The investment by Boeing’s HorizonX venture arm, announced today, is the first to focus on advanced materials and machining development and applications.

Gamma Alloys, founded in 2008 with its headquarters in Valencia, Calif., is developing alloys that use alumina nanoparticles (Al2O3) to reinforce aluminum. Boeing says the alloys provide increased stiffness, improved wear resistance and greater strength than current materials across a wider range of temperatures.

Nano-reinforced alloys are particularly well-suited for applications in aerospace and automobile manufacturing.

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Virgin Orbit’s jet gets set to launch rockets

Cosmic Girl
Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747 jet, known as Cosmic Girl, comes home to Long Beach, Calif., after going through a series of upgrades and tests. (Virgin Orbit Photo)

Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet, christened “Cosmic Girl,” is back at its home base in Long Beach, Calif., for preparations that will lead to its use as a launch platform for small satellites.

The jet returned to Long Beach on July 31 after going through a series of inspections and modifications conducted in collaboration with L3 Platform Integration and VT Aerospace, two of Virgin Orbit’s partners.

In a news release, Virgin Orbit said the Federal Aviation Administration has issued Cosmic Girl an experimental airworthiness certificate, opening the way for flight tests to begin at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port.

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Boeing’s avionics unit reverses outsourcing

777X flight deck
Boeing’s wide-body 777X jet will have touchscreen controls on the flight deck. (Boeing Photo)

The Boeing Co. is creating an avionics unit that will build the kinds of electronics and aircraft control systems now being provided by outside suppliers.

The shift, unveiled in an internal statement sent to employees on July 31, runs counter to the historical trend of spreading out the work that goes into building the company’s multimillion-dollar jets.

But it’s consistent with Boeing’s decision to go after the market for servicing those jets after they’re sold. A similar motivation led to the creation of Boeing’s services unit last year.

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Aerospace jobs linked to education boost

Students working on aerospace project
Aaron Quach and Jonathan Thiem, students at Mountlake Terrace High School, work on a Boeing-backed class project that involves designing an efficient airplane wing. (Boeing Photo / Katie Lomax)

The state of the aerospace industry in Washington state is still great, but industry leaders say the educational system will have to be beefed up if it’s going to stay that way for the next generation.

That cautionary message emerged from today’s installment of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Congress’ Executive Speaker Series, focusing on the aerospace industry.

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Super-quiet supersonic jet design approved

Supersonic plane
The preliminary design for NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstration aircraft has been cleared for takeoff. (NASA / Lockheed Martin Illustration)

NASA says it’s cleared a significant milestone on the path to reviving supersonic passenger jet travel in the U.S. with the completion of the preliminary design review for its low-boom experimental airplane.

The Low-Boom Flight Demonstration X-plane, or LBFD, is designed to create a soft “thump” rather than the loud sonic boom typically associated with supersonic airplanes. The boom is what led federal authorities to ban supersonic passenger flight over land in 1973.

The initial design stage for the LBFD is known as Quiet Supersonic Technology, or QueSST. NASA’s plan, drawn up with Lockheed Martin as the lead contractor, calls for transforming QueSST into the LBFD and flying the plane over communities to collect the data that regulators would need to ease the ban.

The June 22 preliminary design review was a key step in the process.

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Boeing wins DARPA’s nod for space plane

Phanton Express XS-1 space plane
An artist’s conception shows Boeing’s Phantom Express XS-1 space plane in flight. (Boeing Illustration)

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says it has selected the Boeing Co. to develop and test its XS-1 hypersonic space plane, using a design now known as the Phantom Express.

Boeing won out over Northrop Grumman and Masten Space Systems to take the long-running XS-1 project beyond Phase 1 into Phase 2/3, culminating with test flights in 2020.

The reusable space plane would be designed to carry and deploy a small, expendable upper stage, then return to Earth for a runway landing. The upper stage would be capable of putting satellites weighing up to 3,000 pounds in low Earth orbit.

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