WASHINGTON Advances in training technology planned for the Joint Strike Fighter could drastically change how the Pentagon educates pilots and maintainers. Training systems are frequently one of the most ignored aspects of any major weapons program, but for JSF it is a $750million initiative during the development and demonstration phase alone.

WASHINGTON US Airways, which shrank itself more, lost more of its passenger traffic and leveraged itself to greater heights than any other major U.S. airline after Sept. 11, is the first—and maybe not the last—to go into a reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

PARIS European aerospace/defense leaders expect their industry to weather the current economic downturn without noticeable damage. Although their expectations contrast markedly with their U.S. counterparts’, recent forecasts indicate that the European civil and military sectors are poised for growth.

LONDON The British Royal Air Force has carned out firing trials of the Storm Shadow land-attack cruise missile in the run-up to the missile entering service, with the air force also beginning to consider future options for development of what is a key weapon in its future precision strike inventory.

WASHINGTON Aproposal to trim costs of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft is in trouble because Air Force officials can’t agree on which of a laundry list of initiatives they want to adopt. A panel of experts, the Joint Affordability Team (JAT), laid out various options for the Air Force to reduce the unmanned surveillance aircraft’s average production price of $73.7 million to less than half.