Cosmic Log
The mammoth plane that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems is testing at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port now bears the name of the billionaire and his air-launch venture.
In photos tweeted this week, Stratolaunch showed off the plane’s new livery — including a legend reading “Stratolaunch: A Paul G. Allen Company” on the side of one of the twin fuselages, and the logo of plane builder Scaled Composites on the tail.
The U.S. Air Force today awarded Boeing a $2.9 billion contract for 18 more KC-46A tanker aircraft and associated equipment, bringing the total number of tankers on contract to 52. The report comes as Boeing is preparing to make its first deliveries of the 767-based aircraft, which are being built at the company’s plant in Everett, Wash.
The online application window has just opened for the Brooke Owens Fellowship program, which offers paid internships for undergraduate women at 30 aerospace concerns, including Amazon Prime Air, Blue Origin and Stratolaunch in the Seattle area. Other host institutions range from NASA and SpaceX to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. This will be the third year for the “Brookies,” honoring the memory of Brooke Owens, who worked at NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration and died of cancer in 2016.
When Boeing’s customers said they wanted a stretched-out 737 MAX jet, there was one big problem: The 737’s landing gear was too short to handle it.
Fortunately, Boeing’s engineers came to the rescue, with a stretched-out landing gear to match the fuselage of what’s now known as the 737 MAX 10.
The way the engineers resolved the issue, well more than a year ago, is a testament to how Boeing uses technology to accommodate market demands, even if those demands seem unmeetable at first glance.
“We always like to look at how we can address market demand with the technology and engineering solutions that would be required,” Gary Hamatani, chief project engineer for Boeing’s 737 MAX program, told GeekWire this week.
Boeing HorizonX says it’s investing in Digital Alloys, a Massachusetts-based startup specializing in metal additive manufacturing, which adds to more than a dozen companies in Boeing’s tech venture capital portfolio.
The $12.9 million Series B financing round announced today was led by G20 Ventures. Other participants in the round include Lincoln Electric and Khosla Ventures, a prior investor. Boeing HorizonX didn’t announce how much it was putting in, but its investments are typically in the multimillion-dollar range.
Digital Alloys, which was spun out from NVBots last year, is virtually certain to see its metal 3-D printing technology used to build Boeing aerospace parts.
Hey, hey, hey … it’s Fat Albert, in the skies over Seattle: We’re not talking about the jumbo-sized character created by comedian Bill Cosby back in the day, but the C-130T transport plane that’s back in its place among the Navy’s Blue Angels for Seafair Weekend’s Boeing Air Show.
Fat Albert may not be as sleek as the six F/A-18 Hornets that will be executing fancy aerobatic moves over Lake Washington this weekend. But as far as Marine Maj. Mark Montgomery is concerned, that just means there’s more to love.
“These planes are kind of like a pickup truck,” said Montgomery, who pilots Fat Albert as it travels from air show to air show. “They do everything, and they’re very reliable.”
Boeing says it’ll be moving into a 100,000-square-foot research and lab space in Cambridge, Mass., that will focus on the design and development of autonomous aircraft.
Boeing’s Aerospace and Autonomy Center will house employees from Boeing and its recently acquired subsidiary, Aurora Flight Sciences, in a new 17-floor building in Cambridge. The agreement, announced today, makes Boeing the first major tenant of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kendall Square Initiative, which includes six sites slated for housing, retail, research and development, office space and academic facilities.
“Boeing is leading the development of new autonomous vehicles and future transportation systems that will bring flight closer to home,” Greg Hyslop, Boeing’s chief technology officer, said in a news release. “By investing in this new research facility, we are creating a hub where our engineers can collaborate with other Boeing engineers and research partners around the world and leverage the Cambridge innovation ecosystem.”
MIT said Boeing is expected to occupy the new space by the end of 2020. Employees from Aurora Flight Sciences’ existing R&D center in Kendall Square will move into the new center and operate it on Boeing’s behalf.
Second-quarter financial results that show higher revenue and earnings per share would typically please investors, but not for Boeing.
Instead, Boeing’s shares declined by as much as 3 percent after the results were announced. The price recovered to close at $355.92, representing a 0.6 percent loss on a trading day that was generally positive.
Investors were “rattled” by a $426 million charge against revenue due to cost overruns in Boeing’s KC-46 tanker program for the Air Force, Leeham News’ Dan Catchpole wrote. That assessment was seconded by other analysts.
Boeing declared victory in its multibillion-dollar sales competition with Airbus at this week’s Farnborough International Airshow — but the details are murkier than usual, in part due to international trade frictions.
Boeing chalked up 528 orders and commitments for airplanes during the show. Airbus’ corresponding tally came to 431, including up to 60 of the A220 jets formerly known as the Bombardier CSeries. Those single-aisle jets would go to a new airline called Moxy, with the first deliveries due in 2021.
To counter that Airbus-Bombardier partnership, Boeing struck a deal of its own earlier this month with Brazil’s Embraer to market small-size passenger jets.
Farnborough’s list-price sales total for Boeing added up to $98.4 billion on the commercial airplane side of its business, and $2.1 billion on the services side. Airbus’ corresponding number shaped up in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion, according to 24/7 Wall Street.
“Boeing led the way at Farnborough, demonstrating value for our customers, capturing important new business in products and services, and announcing the unique strength of our strategic partnership with Embraer,” Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a news release.
Boeing says it’s aiming to create a traffic management system for drones that makes use of artificial intelligence, blockchain technology — and one of the companies in its investment portfolio.
SparkCognition will be Boeing’s partner in the traffic management project. Last year, the Texas-based AI company benefited from a $32.5 million investment round that included funding from Boeing HorizonX Ventures.
Boeing is also creating a new business group, known as Boeing NeXt, to leverage the company’s research and development activities and investments in areas such as autonomous flight, smart cities, advanced propulsion and other parts of the wider transportation ecosystem.