December 24, 1990

December 24, 1990

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Visionaries Find Selling Their Concepts More Difficult in 1990s Environment

By BRECK W. HENDERSON10 min

AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Why Contempt for Politics Damages National Security

By PAUL MANN8 min

AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Defense Dept. Must Exploit Commercial Technology

By DAVID HUGHES7 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Visionaries Find Selling Their Concepts More Difficult in 1990s Environment

SAN FRANCISCO This is a story about ideas. A lot less substantial than the usual fare of AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY— we like to deal in hardware, programs, schedules and dollars—but ultimately, ideas are what make things fly. Often those ideas, which have been so important in the history of aviation, do not originate in the mainstream of science or aerospace.

By BRECK W. HENDERSON10 min

1415
AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Why Contempt for Politics Damages National Security

WASHINGTON The body politic, like the body human, is prey to a host of diseases. Today the American polity is ill with one of its chronic bouts of contempt for politics and politicians. Because this ailment is as familiar as the common cold, there is not much recognition of how destructive it can be.

By PAUL MANN8 min

2223
AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Defense Dept. Must Exploit Commercial Technology

BOSTON The U. S. Defense Dept. is no longer driving the research and development agenda, and it will have to learn to exploit advances in the commercial sector or consign itself to a state-of-the-art that will be, frankly, second-rate. There is, for instance, a competitive battle being waged in the laboratories of the United States, Japan and Europe over who will dominate the emerging field of photonics, which uses light waves—not electronic signals—to transmit and process data.

By DAVID HUGHES7 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Europeans Launch Cooperative R&d Effort to Bolster Industries, Gain Technology

WASHINGTON A group of 12 European nations has just agreed to cooperate in research and development for defense—an effort calculated to boost European technology and challenge the leadership of the American aerospace industry. The program is called European Cooperation for the Long Term in Defence (Euclid).

By BRUCE D. NORDWALL7 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Ames Enjoys 50 Years of Aerospace Leadership

SAN FRANCISCO A half-century ago, a group of young aeronautical scientists, eager to start probing the mysteries of flight at the nation’s newest flight research center, found themselves instead working as construction engineers to build in the farmlands south of San Francisco the facilities they later would occupy.

By RICHARD G. O’LONE7 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

U. S. Defense Industry Must Change Ways to Stay Out of Financial Emergency Room

NEW YORK If the U. S. defense industry were a hospital patient, it would be in the intensive care ward and its prognosis would be uncertain. Threatening the industry’s long-term viability is not its level of business activity, although defense budgets in the free world will continue falling. Rather, it is the industry’s precarious financial condition.

By ANTHONY L. VELOCCI7 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

U. S. Lags in Development of Powered-lift Aircraft

DALLAS The U. S. aerospace industry and government appear to continue to suffer from their long affliction of myopia when it comes to the relative importance of new aerospace developments. With the increasing internationalization of all industries—a trend which the aerospace industry has led since its early days—and the decreasing dominance of U. S. economic power, this short-sightedness is exacerbating existing problems and is likely to hamper the U. S.’s ability to maintain its superior position in some aerospace segments.

By DAVID A. BROWN7 min

2223
AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Atf Engine Selection Could Cause Erosion in Defense Industrial Base

NEW YORK Pratt & Whitney and General Electric are the only U. S. manufacturers capable of designing and producing engines for fighter and attack aircraft, but either company could be forced to leave the large military engine field unless actions are taken soon to strengthen this key sector of the defense industrial base.

By STANLEY W. KANDEBO7 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Beware of 'lessons’ From the Gulf in Reshaping the U. S. Military

WASHINGTON The military services are battening down the hatches to protect whatever they can from the next fiscal storm which threatens to alter the size and shape of U. S. forces radically, and in many cases, the rationale for their arguments is based on the “lessons” of Operation Desert Shield.

By JOHN D. MORROCCO6 min

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AEROSPACE PERSPECTIVES

Scientists’ and Engineers’ Dreams Taking to Skies as 'black’ Aircraft

LOS ANGELES Super-classified “black” aircraft development programs have served the U. S. and its allies well during the last 40-plus years, providing specialized vehicles such as the U-2/TR-1, SR-71 and F-117A. Still unproven, but also products of this special access shadow world, are the B-2 bomber and Navy A-12, among others.

By WILLIAM B. SCOTT6 min

December 171990 December 311990