Finmeccanica In The News

AgustaWestland Boss To Lead U.K. Ship Consortium

Defense News
By ANDREW CHUTER, LONDON

AgustaWestland helicopter boss Alan Johnston is set to become the chief executive of the British naval shipbuilding joint venture announced by BAE Systems and the VT Group in late July.

The appointment has yet to be officially announced, but a spokesman for the two naval shipbuilders confirmed the move Aug. 2.

“We will announce further details about the JV [joint venture] in due course,” said the spokesman.

Further managerial appointments are expected over the next few weeks. Sir John Parker, the ex-Harland & Wolff and British Shipbuilders senior director, is tipped to take the post of chairman.

Johnston has already resigned his position as the head of military programs and the managing director of U.K. operations at the Italian-owned helicopter manufacturer.

Graham Cole, AgustaWestland’s senior vice president for external affairs, will temporarily take over Johnston’s posts until a successor is named.

Johnston has wide experience in naval shipbuilding. He worked in the British and South African naval industries before joining what was then GKN Westland Helicopters in 1995. His final posting was submarine construction director at nuclear submarine builder VSEL in Barrow, subsequently acquired by BAE. The nuclear submarine operation is not part of the merger plan.

Guy Griffith, the former chief operating officer of MBDA and the man originally earmarked for the job as chief executive of the merged operation, is to stay at BAE, where he arrived earlier this year as the boss of the company’s Integrated System Technologies business. Industry insiders said he had been parked in the post whilst the merger details were resolved.

The two shipbuilding companies announced July 25 they would merge their surface-ship operations into a single, 50/50-owned company.

The deal, which remains subject to approval, brings together two BAE yards on the River Clyde in Scotland and the VT yard at Portsmouth in southern England in what will be Britain’s sole surface warship building company of any consequence.

Alenia Aeronautica: the first block 5 Typhoon delivered to the Italian Air Force

Avionews

Rome, Italy - Other Finmeccanica companies involved in the aircraft production are Selex Communications and Selex Sensors & Airborne Systems

(WAPA) - “The first of the five block 5 Eurofighter Typhoons for the Italian Air Force has entered into service.

The five block 5 Eurofighters, whose configuration represents a further progress in terms of functionality and operational capability, will complete, during 2007, the deliveries of the 29 aircraft of the tranche 1 production, envisaged for the Italian Air Force.

The Typhoon, in this new version, not only represents the final standard of the tranche 1, but also offers the same features of the initial configuration of the second production batch, whose deliveries are planned starting from 2008. Furthermore the block 5 configuration is the reference for the updating of all aircraft delivered to AMI to date. Currently two aircraft are undergoing retrofit at Alenia Aeronautica’s Caselle plant and the first aircraft will be delivered to AMI during the first quarter of 2008.

The block 5 Typhoons are the first to be equipped with ‘Pirate’, a search and track system made by a consortium of companies led by Galileo Avionica, a Finmeccanica company. The Pirate (Passive Infra-Red Airborne Tracking Equipment) combines the functions of the FLIR infra-red system (Forward Looking Infra-Red) and of the IRST system (Infra Red Search and Track), able to search, detect and track potential targets. The system operates in a passive mode, without emitting signals which might reveal the aircraft’s presence.

Also, the block 5 version includes the installation of a ILS (Instrumental Landing System) for all visibility conditions landings and an integrated training system in the aircraft cockpit (Enhanced Weapon Training Facilities), which allows the simulation of the presence of external loads on the aircraft both for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.

The new version also leads to an improvement of the aircraft manoeuvrability, thanks to the possibility of using 100% of the capabilities of the Typhoon’s digital flight control system and to the extension of the flight envelope up to 9 g at subsonic speed and up to 7 g for the supersonic speed.

Some of the main characteristics brought by block 5 standard includes a more evolved integration of the new-generation air-to-air ASRAAM missile; the capability of the aircraft radar to operate also in the air-to-ground function and the possibility – though not contemplated for the aircraft in service with ItAF – of using air-to-ground systems like GBU-10, GBU-16 and Paweway II, thus allowing the Typhoons to play, within the same mission, both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, and this is a unique characteristic of the Eurofighter within the world scenario for new-generation defence aircraft.

Other Finmeccanica companies involved in the block 5 aircraft production are Selex Communications and Selex Sensors & Airborne Systems”.

The “Marine One” will become an Air Force One in miniature

Washington, USA - Gears and super-technologies as security requirements

(WAPA) - In 2005 the consortium consisting of Lockheed Martin and AgustaWestland (a Finmeccanica company) awarded the tender for 23 VH-71 Kestrel special helicopters destined to US presidential fleet.

The “Marine One” looks like an Air Force One in miniature. The Pentagon and the White House have illustrated to the builders a series of requests: “Secret gadgets”, gears and state-of-the-art technologies to install aboard of helicopters, as video-surveillance, wide-band connections and several high-tech devices.

These requests have caused the slowdown of the programme and the increase of the realization costs. The total cost of the project is now more than USD 7 billion (as regards to previous USD 6.1 billion), and provoking at the same time some doubts on the real usefulness of these additional works.

According to Pentagon, the new gears are due to the requirements of security after the terrorist attempts of September 11th, 2001.

For the builders it is a race against time: the first five specimens, not equipped with the technologies requested by the Pentagon, must be delivered by October 2009. Only in 2015 these helicopters will be replaced with a new super-technological fleet. (Avionews)

Technical Card - VH-71 Kestrel
Marine One VH-71 Kestrel of Lockheed Martin-AgustaWestland consortium
Dimensions
Height:  6.65 m
Length:  22.81 m
Rotor diameter:  18.59 m

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Weights
Empty:  10,500 kg
Max T/O:  15,600 kg
Payload:  5,443 kg

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Performance
Max speed:  309 km/h
Range:  1389 km
Service ceiling:  4575 m

Finmeccanica: Selex Sistemi Integrati signs a contract with Trinidad and Tobago

Avionews

(WAPA) - Selex Sistemi Integrati, subsidiary of Finmecanica, has signed a contract with Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA) for the realization of a control centre for the air traffic management. The contract is valued at USD 18.5 million.

Within four months from the contract effectiveness is provided the supply of a temporary system.

The definitive centre will be equipped with 27 workstations for air traffic controllers and is destined to the airport of Trinidad, which will be integrated with data coming from the radars of Martinique, Guadalupe and Barbados, equipped with oceanic route control system.

The terms of the contract also provide for two radars and four workstations to be deployed in the control towers of the national airports, one simulator, radio systems for the communication between the area control centre and the airplanes, equipment for radar data presentation. Selex SI will also guarantee assistance for seven years.

Galileo Avionica: other successes for the industry Autonomous Star Tracker

Rome, Italy - On board NASA mission Phoenix
WAPA

“The launch of the mission Phoenix is scheduled for the first week of August from the American base of Cape Canaveral. In May 2008, the NASA probe will land near the southern pole of the planet. Phoenix has two main goals: 1) the assess and study of water presence, key aspect to unveil the history of the ancient climatic changes and 2) the search of traces that could lead to an environment with life.

Galileo Avionica, a Finmeccanica Company, is present on board Phoenix mission with 2 units of the Autonomous Star Tracker (A-STR), the outcome of over 20 years of experience of the company in the field of design and production of star sensors, both for space observation and for interplanetary probes.

Galileo Avionica Attitude Sensors are one of the most successful product line, for which the company is acknowledged as an European and global leader.

Up to today, Galileo Avionica has produced over 350 units of Stellar, Earth and Solar sensors both for institutional markets and also for ‘Open’ ones, with more than 50% of the revenues earned in the commercial sector.

The Autonomous Star Tracker of Galileo Avionica was developed to be used on board Rosetta mission, launched in January 2003 towards the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s. Later, the A-STR was adopted by the ESA (European Space Agency) also for the missions: Mars Express, Venus Express (in addition to the Herschel/Planck and to GAIA, which are still to be launched), the Cassini interplanetary probe of JPL and for many other NASA and commercial satellites.

The Star Tracker primary function is to measure, with very high position accuracy, the stellar maps present in its filed of view. Thanks to the stellar map stored in the A-STR software (over 3200 stars of magnitude up to 6.3 Mv), the star tracker delivers the attitude data (quaternions) of the probe during the entire mission life . If the probe was to lose its path, the A-STR would search automatically the new position and provide to the computer the information to place the probe back on its original path.

In the framework of the activities carried out for NASA, the autonomous star trackers A-STR have been already selected for many mission (Messenger, Stereo, Pluto Kuiper Belt, etc.) among which the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, also in orbit over Mars from August 2006, searching for water. The selection of the same stellar sensor for various missions reinforces Galileo Avionica worldwide leading position in this sector”. (Avionews)