Sanford N. McDonnell, who succeeded his uncle as chairman of the aerospace company McDonnell Douglas and, through the 1980s, modernized its management systems, remade the corporate culture and sharply increased earnings, died on Monday at his home in Clayton, Mo. He was 89. The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer,
Accidents
Defense Tech just published some new photos of that C-130H that collided with an RQ-7 Shadow over Afghanistan last year. According to their source, the aircraft lost all fuel out of the left wing — something you’d expect when a giant hole is punched in the wing. This
Military
The US Air Force intends to place six of the Global Hawk Block 30 remotely piloted aircraft that it doesn’t want to operate beyond Fiscal 2012 into non-recoverable storage and another 12 into recoverable storage, said Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz on Tuesday. It's possible
Training
Simlat has been selected by UAS Technologies as its primary training systems provider for the UAS20 advanced unmanned platform. This long-term contract includes integration of Simlat’s UAS flight and mission trainer with the UAS20 operational console, as well as customized platform and payload simulation for current and future
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals for technology supportive of Arctic situation awareness. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice,
Business
The Spanish Government approved last Friday, March 16th a plan to restructure the public sector, which affected 49 companies, including INSA (Ingeniería y Servicios Aerospaciales S.A.). The company that belongs to the Ministry of Defence, was founded in 1992. According to that plan, INSA’s activities, employees and assets
Aurora's Skate small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) was awarded first place in the 2012 Border Security Technology/Product Challenge at the recently held 2012 Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona. The top prize is awarded to a technology or product that best demonstrates innovation in the border security
Military
Iran claims to have produced a new indigenous unmanned aircraft, which it apparently, “possesses high capabilities and versatile features to meet its objectives.” Reza Danandeh Hakamabad, the aeronautics engineer in charge of the project, said on Friday that the new remote-controlled aircraft, called Shaparak (Butterfly), has a maximum operational
Commercial
In what could well have been an April 1 message, the world's largest BitTorrent site announced that intends to redefine "cloud computing" with a plan to move at least some of its servers onto unmanned aircraft miles above Sweden. In a recent blog post, The Pirate
Business
EADS company Cassidian confirms that it has halted work on the Talarion unmanned aircraft system programme, after failing to secure financial backing from potential future buyers. "Cassidian said several times during the last few months that we will only continue to invest in the Talarion programme if we would
Lighter Than Air
Mav6 reported making further progress last week by installing main assemblies on the M1400 airship hull. The M1400 has both internal and external fuel tanks. The external tanks do increase drag, but the designers want to take advantage of the full lift of the airship to carry as much fuel
Military
Israel Aerospace Industries has unveiled the prototype of its "Butterfly" unmanned aircraft system, as part of an effort to develop covert miniature equipment for use by Special Forces personnel. Shown for the first time on the opening day of the AUVSI Conference in Tel Aviv on 20 March,