Model Airplanes

Gen. Pawlikowski speaks with Richard Weeks, 561st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron F-15 flight chief, at Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

At a ceremony last June at the Women in Military Service Memorial, Ellen M. Pawlikowski ’78, was promoted to the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Air Force. Just the third woman in the branch’s history to receive a fourth star, Pawlikowski directs the 80,000-person Air Force Materiel Command, whose stated mission is to “equip the Air Force for world-dominant airpower.”  As she puts it, “We make sure everybody’s got food, but we’re also deciding on the look of the jet my granddaughter’s going to fly when she’s 25 years old.” Did Pawlikowski, a chemical engineer urged by NJIT professors to pursue thermodynamics research at Berkeley, ever imagine she would become a four-star general? “Absolutely not!” she replies. In the interview that follows, she touches on her unusual path to the Air Force, the highlights of a fast-moving career that led to work on nuclear weapon monitors, airborne lasers and chemical and biological weapons defense, what it’s like to manage town-sized Air Force bases and the experiences of women in the military.

How did you choose a career in the Air Force?

I had no military background whatsoever before I got into college. My only real exposure was living through the Vietnam War as a child. So I joined Air Force ROTC when I

Article source: http://www.njit.edu/features/alumni/general-ellen-pawlikowski.php

Speak to certain executives at the aerospace division of Honeywell and there is one word that dominates conversation: connectivity.

And, as they outline the potential for reliable, high-speed, in-flight broadband, there is an almost evangelical zeal in their delivery.

Carl Esposito, vice-president strategy, marketing and product management at the Phoenix, Arizona-based firm, falls into that category. He says Honeywell is building a strategy around the “connected aircraft”.

That strategy is underpinned by the launch this year of Inmarsat’s GX Aviation – known as Jet Connex for business aviation – Ka-band service, for which Honeywell provides its JetWave hardware.

GX promises global, high-speed coverage – other providers make similar claims – and Honeywell is keenly aware of the possibilities it offers above and beyond in-flight wi-fi for passengers.

“We are asking, how does connectivity really enable the rest of the airplane to communicate more effectively and efficiently than it has done before?” says Esposito.

He cites the example of a nose-mounted weather radar which is looking some 300nm (555km) in front of the aircraft. If data accumulated by several aircraft can be broadcast to a central location, aggregated and transmitted back, it will provide a richer, more comprehensive and broader “crowd-sourced” weather feed in real-time. This would give “truly revolutionary access to information”, says Esposito.

Clearly the aircraft being connected is not new in itself; Inmarsat boasts its Classic Aero service has been around for 20 years and the ACARS datalink has been operating since 1978. However what differs is the amount of data which can now

Article source: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ebace-honeywell-is-keeping-one-step-ahead-425423/

With help from Jennifer Scholtes, Lauren Gardner and Heather Caygle

APPROPRIATIONS CARRY ON: Will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell be able to adhere to his tight timeline for the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill and get it all wrapped up today? Or will proceedings carry over to next week? Either way, expect more roll-call votes on amendments today, as well as on cloture on the substitute to the bill.

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A few amendments of note: Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) wants TSA to use “all existing resources and technology” to increase the efficiency of the airport screening process. No word on whether Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s oppositional trucking measure will get any traction on the floor. And Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wants Congress to defund Amtrak … and the Federal Highway Administration … and rail and transit grants … and “national infrastructure investments” …

On the House side, the Appropriations subcommittee that sets DOT spending passed its bill by voice vote. Lauren Gardner’s dispatch: “The bill includes a handful of policy riders to relax

Article source: http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-transportation/2016/05/senate-thud-appropriations-may-carry-on-through-monday-214388

The U.S. Senate just confirmed what an Air Force general hinted at in February 2016 — and which should have been obvious for years to close observers of U.S. air power.

The Joint Strike Fighter program is not developing one, common warplane for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and the air arms of America’s closest allies.

No, the Joint Strike Fighter is actually three different plane designs sharing a basic cockpit, engine and software and a logistical network. The Air Force’s F-35A, the Marines’ F-35B and the Navy’s F-35C should, in all fairness, be the F-35, F-36 and F-37.

“Despite aspirations for a joint aircraft, the F-35A, F-35B and F-35C are essentially three distinct aircraft, with significantly different missions and capability requirements,” the Senate stated in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017.

Before the act becomes law, the Senate must reconcile its NDAA with the House of Representative’s own version of the same bill— and Pres. Barack Obama must sign it. The F-35 language could change or disappear in coming months.

The Senate’s assertion comes just three months after U.S. Air Force lieutenant general Christopher Bogdan, head of the JSF program office, told a seminar audience that the three F-35 models are only 20- to 25-percent common, mainly in their cockpits.

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It’s “almost like three separate production lines,” Bogdan said, according toAir Force magazine. A real joint fighter, the

Article source: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-f-35-stealth-fighters-dirty-little-secret-now-out-the-16211

17 May 2016 | The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pegs the social cost of carbon at roughly $40 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, meaning that each ton emitted today will generate that much damage in today’s dollars over time. The government of Sweden, however, puts the number at €100 per ton, and even charges a tax based on that amount.

Why are the numbers so different, and what goes

Article source: http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/in-putting-a-price-on-carbon-what-we-dont-know-could-kill-us/