Month: June 2007

CIA Plans Cutbacks, Limits on Contractor Staffing – washingtonpost.com

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This is what happens when you people think that the only legitimate role of government is to get money to your friends.

If you want something to be “privatized” then it should not get government money. Otherwise, it’s just graft.

CIA Plans Cutbacks, Limits on Contractor Staffing – washingtonpost.com

By Walter Pincus and Stephen Barr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 11, 2007; A02

Acting under pressure from Congress, the CIA has decided to trim its contractor staffing by 10 percent. It is the agency’s first effort since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to curb what critics have decried as the growing privatization of U.S. intelligence work, a circumstance that has sharply boosted some personnel costs.

Contractors currently make up about one-third of the CIA workforce, but CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said that their work has not been efficiently managed. Associate Deputy Director Michael Morell said in an interview that he does not think the CIA has become a revolving door, but ‘Director Hayden has said we don’t want to become the farm team for contractors.’

Morell said reviews are underway ‘to identify which of our jobs here at CIA should be done by staff and which of our jobs should be done by contractors or a ‘mix’ of contractors and staff.’ Effective June 1, the agency also began to bar contracting firms from hiring former CIA employees and then offering the employees’ services to the CIA within the first year and a half of their retirement from the agency — a practice known as ‘bidding back.’

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U.S. Supreme Court rules against Philip Morris – Jun. 11, 2007

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Good. Hope they fry.

U.S. Supreme Court rules against Philip Morris – Jun. 11, 2007

Justices unanimously reversed a ruling allowing the Altria Group unit to transfer a class-action lawsuit to federal court from state court.
June 11 2007: 11:59 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a class-action lawsuit against Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group, should not be decided in federal court, handing a defeat to the tobacco company.

The justices unanimously reversed a ruling that allowed Philip Morris to transfer the lawsuit to federal court from the Arkansas state court where it initially was filed.
Video More video
CNN’s Allan Chernoff reports on the controversy sparked over a smoking ban in apartment buildings. (April 24)
Play video

At issue is a suit filed against Philip Morris by two Arkansas women alleging that the company engaged in unfair business practices in marketing its low-tar Cambridge Lights and Marlboro Lights cigarette brands.”

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Three Cheers for the Rule of Law

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Mr. Bush, L’état, ce n’es jamais tu. (The State is never you) My apologies for the high school French, but the use of the familiar form is intentional, and an insult.

Court Says Military Cannot Hold ‘Enemy Combatant’ – New York Times

In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.”

When it Comes to Covering Bush’s Ass, CBN University is NOT Sufficient

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Snark of the day from Tom Schaller.

By way of background, Regent University, Monica Goodling’s alma mater, was founded by Pat Robertson as CBN (Christian Broadcast Network) University, and while its graduates seem to be good enough to run the DoJ and fire US Attorneys, it’s not good enough to cover GWB’s alcoholic ass.

TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect

SO HELP ME IVY. The Post reports that President Bush is beefing up his besieged White House legal team with some crack lawyers to defend the administration against a variety of congressional inquiries. As the Post’s Peter Baker notes, all eight [of the newly-hired attorneys] received degrees from Ivy League schools or from West Point.

So, when it comes to policy-making over at the so-called Justice Department, a Regent University law degree, like the one held by Monica ‘I may have crossed the line’ Goodling and a battalion of other fundies, suffices. But when it comes to protecting the president’s backside, apparently a divine legal degree is no substitute for an East Coast elite Ivy School pedigree.

–Tom Schaller

Greenspan Being Fingered As Allowing Subprime Meltdown

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Finally!!!! It’s about time that he gets credit for the mess that HE made.

Greenspan rejected proposal to tighten subprime lending – Jun. 9, 2007

Former Fed governor says Greenspan blocked proposal to crack down on subprime lending practices.
June 9 2007: 2:21 PM EDT

(CNNMoney.com) — Former Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich claims that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan blocked a proposal to crack down on subprime lending practices back in 2000, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Gramlich, who was Fed governor from 1997-2005, says he proposed the idea to Greenspan personally, The Journal reported. He suggested that the Fed send examiners into offices of lenders that were units of Fed-regulated bank holding companies. He claims Greenspan – well-known for his deregulatory practices – rejected the idea.

He was opposed to it, so I didn’t really pursue it,” says Gramlich, who is now a scholar at the Urban Institute.

Subprime lending practices – giving high-interest loans to individuals with poor credit history – became increasingly popular during the real estate boom of the last several years. But since 2006, subprime borrowers have been defaulting at alarming rates, putting downward pressure on the overall housing market.

The Democratic Congress is now pointing fingers at regulators – particularly the Fed – for failing to prevent the subprime fallout.

When asked about the proposal, Greenspan claimed he did not recall the specific conversation with Gramlich, but did confirm that he was opposed to the idea, for fear that “Fed-inspected” lenders might give borrowers a false sense of security.

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This is crap. Alan Greenspan was a close friend of Ayn Rand, and has always had a visceral opposition to any government programs.

Witness social security, where he was part of the panel that came up with the fix in the 1980s, and then immediately started to suggest that the program be dumped.

This is All About Racism

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Let’s be clear. This case was about stringing up a black man from the beginning, and the DA is stringing it out because it’s good politics there.

Tough on crime=Keeping the N%^$#@s down.

Appeal blocks release in teen sex case – CNN.com: “ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — Prosecutors filed a notice of appeal on Monday in the case of Genarlow Wilson, blocking him from being released from prison, his attorney B.J. Bernstein said.

Wilson is serving a 10-year prison sentence for a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old girl that occurred when he was 17.

Earlier in the day, a judge in Monroe County, Georgia, voided that sentence and said Wilson should be released.

The judge ruled Wilson could serve one year, less than he has already served, and that he would not be listed as a sex offender.

Deluge of peanuts brings back ‘Jericho’ TV show | CNET News.com

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I’ve not seen the show, but my dad was one of the thousands of people who wrote to NBC in 1967 to save Star Trek.

Deluge of peanuts brings back ‘Jericho’ TV show | CNET News.com

An online protest involving 20 tons of peanuts delivered to CBS Entertainment in New York and California has succeeded in bringing back the television show Jericho, which the network canceled last month.

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Peanuts…Heh.

Boeing Gives Future Away on 787

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Look at the line about “with Boeing 787-based carbon-fiber construction”. The MBA suits at Boeing thought that it was a great idea to outsource critical technologies to “risk sharing partners”.

It has funded competitors in its own market.

This is stupider than when Coke decided not to buy Pepsi in 1933.

State Subsidy Plan Lifts Mitsubishi’s RJ Hopes(Subscription Required)
Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/11/2007, page 43

Bradley Perrett
Beijing

Plan for state aid buoys Mitsubishi’s aspirations for a regional jet

Printed headline: RJ Funding

A key Japanese government department plans to allocate ¥40 billion ($330 million) in subsidies for a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries project for a large regional jet, greatly increasing the likelihood of the country finally establishing itself as a supplier of commercial aircraft.

With Boeing 787-based carbon-fiber construction and new engines, the proposed Mitsubishi aircraft could present a serious challenge to Embraer, Bombardier and two other companies developing such jets, Sukhoi and China’s Avic I.”

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It’s Official, Joe Lieberman is Insane

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Here we see a man so full of his own hubris and venom that he can say anything.

Lieberman Backs Limited U.S. Attacks on Iran – New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 10 — Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent who strongly supports the war in Iraq, said today that unless Iran stops training Iraqis to carry out anti-coalition attacks, the United States should launch cross-border attacks into Iran.

“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Mr. Lieberman said in an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

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Rovers, reactors and ‘green’ rockets all on NASA’s future-technology list

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Here is an interesting rundown on the technologies that NASA is looking at:

Rovers, reactors and ‘green’ rockets all on NASA’s future-technology list

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/04/2007, page 50
Frank Morring, Jr.
Washington

Some advanced technology for long-term human space exploration is already getting on-orbit checkout as NASA targets about $350 million from its tight exploration budget this year on the long-lead items that may enable a return to the Moon en route to Mars.

There is some neat stuff here, but also some scary stuff.

But the program also is funding advanced-technology research ranging from composite space radiators that might save weight on Orion to a 5-ton nuclear reactor that would generate power for the outpost NASA plans to build on the Moon as a proving ground for expeditions to Mars.

The reactor is one of the scary things. The tech is described below, and I’ll explain why it’s scary (it’s notbecause it’s a nuclear reactor) after that.

One such system is getting a workout on the Orbital Express mission being conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). Although the satellite-servicing testbed has had problems in orbit (AW&ST May 28, p. 22), they were unrelated to the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor provided by NASA.

Evolved over the past decade at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and previously space-tested on two space shuttle flights and the failed Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology mission in 2004, the sensor is designed for short-range rendezvous guidance between cooperating spacecraft.

I worked at the battery manufacturer for DART and did some (very) minor work on the batteries. It should be noted that the batteries worked just fine.

If it turns out that such a large piece of PICA can’t handle the lunar-reentry heat flux, which is four to five times greater than that experienced by a reentering space shuttle, NASA will turn to two more contracts for backup heat-shield material. Boeing’s Huntington Beach, Calif., facility will receive as much as $10 million to conduct early studies of a proprietary material known as the Boeing Phenolic Ablator (BPA). Textron Systems of Wilmington, Mass., won a contract worth as much as $24 million for preliminary work on two proprietary materials–Dual Layer, and a material called Avcoat that was used on the Apollo capsule.

“We’re trying to relearn how to make that material,” Moore says. “It’s been a generation, and a lot of the people have retired who have done the Apollo heat shield, so we have lost a lot of that expertise.”

They could also talk to the Russians.

Also under study are new fluids to carry the heat away from Orion electronics into the radiators–a mixture of propylene glycol and water is the baseline.

Don’t confuse Ethylene Glycol and Propylene Glycol. The former is normal poisonous anti-freeze, the the latter is an alternative anti-freeze that is in the “pet safe” stuff, which is so non-toxic that you see it added to salad dressing.

Other advanced technologies under study for Orion include lightweight parachute material that can also fit into a smaller volume, and an amine swing-bed for carbon dioxide and moisture removal from the crew compartment. A bed of very small plastic beads is coated with chemicals that absorb CO2 and water vapor, and then release it when vented to the space vacuum.


NASA is developing a prototype amine swing-bed system to remove carbon dioxide and moisture from the Orion crew compartment.Credit: NASA/JSC

I think that this is of more concern for the Mars missions than the moon missions, where the use of conventional CO2 sorbents might require too much weight and volume.

For crew safety, a team at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is working on a “green” Orion attitude-control thruster system. Instead of requiring storage of highly toxic hydrazine fuel near the crew compartment, the system would burn gaseous oxygen and methane.

I think that this might be more of an issue of ISP (fuel economy) than environmental friendliness. The room temp propellants typically have a lower ISP, but Methane is much easier to store than liquid hydrogen, having a higher boiling point.

The dual propellant thrusters are more difficult to control precisely, but much more efficient.

Advanced preparations for the shuttle-derived Ares I crew launch vehicle that will carry Orion to orbit are also underway, piggybacking at times on routine shuttle-program tests to gather data. A case in point was the May 24 static test of a four-segment shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) in Utah, which provided motor-signature data for a study at Ames Research Center on ways to detect impending failure in the five-segment RSRM that will serve as the Ares I first-stage.

Good move, but a better move is not to use solid rockets on man-rated systems. I continue to be dubious of solid rocket boosters on manned systems.

To help astronauts establish a lunar outpost and explore the surrounding terrain, the advanced-technology program is studying rovers, a nuclear power source and in situ resource utilization (ISRU) techniques. One promising activity at the Pasadena, Calif.-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory has field tested the All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (Athlete), a six-legged vehicle as tall as a man that can move heavy payloads such as habitats around the surface either on wheels or by “walking.” Another project at Houston-based Johnson Space Center, dubbed Scout, is an updated version of the unpressurized moon buggy that hauled Apollo astronauts around the lunar surface.


Two Athlete rovers undergo testing in California’s Dumont Dunes. Athlete can roll over rough terrain using its wheels or its six legs, transporting heavy payloads during construction of the planned lunar outpost.Credit: JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

I think that this just looks cool, so here is the picture.

A big objective of the lunar outpost will be to test exploration technologies and techniques that can enable subsequent human exploration on Mars. Engineers at JSC are working on a variety of ISRU techniques to extract oxygen from the lunar regolith, as much for the experience as the resource.

Along the same lines, NASA and the Energy Dept. are working under a scaled-back version of the old Project Prometheus to advance some of the technologies that would be needed for a five-metric-ton, 40-kw. fission reactor that would take over from the solar power plant scheduled to provide initial power for the outpost. It would be fueled with uranium dioxide and cooled with a sodium/potassium liquid alloy.

This scares the hell out of me. Based on discussions with a Naval Nuke over a decade ago, metal cooled reactors are VERY twitchy things, with reaction times so fast that you can’t operate them manually.

They are much more compact though, hence their use in the Soviet’s Alpha class boats, where they worked (though their nuclear personnel glowed in the dark), and the unsuccessful use in the USN’s original Seawolf, which was our 2nd nuclear boat.

They replaced it with a pressurized water reactor a few years after it was installed.

Cable Box Interoperability Standards To Go Into Effect, July 1

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This is a major profit center, and one of the reasons that I’m still doing analogue basic cable.

Rent or Own? The New Cable-TV Dilemma – WSJ.com

Soon, Subscribers Will Have
Option to Buy Set-Top Boxes;
Pros and Cons of Cablecards
By COREY BOLES

A generation ago, federal regulators opened the way for consumers to buy telephones rather than rent them from the phone company. Now, the government has its sights on the television set-top boxes that consumers rent from cable or satellite companies.

Beginning July 1, the Federal Communications Commission has ordered cable companies to supply only set-top boxes that can accept a so-called cablecard that slides into the set-top box and determines a customer’s level of access to cable service. The change is meant to give consumers nationwide the option of buying their own set-top boxes — or TVs that can use the cablecard — rather than renting one.

That new freedom may soon trigger an old question: Is it better to own or rent? On average, cable companies charge $5 a month for a regular set-top box and $7 for one with a built-in digital video recorder, or DVR. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association estimates those costs will increase to $8 and $10, respectively, for a set-top box with a slot for a cablecard.

A standard box with no recording capability, meanwhile, would likely retail for around $130 — the cost of renting for a little more than a year, according to Ian Olgeirson, a Denver-based cable analyst with SNL Kagan, a market-research company. The price of a DVR that can use a cablecard is expected to be much higher. TiVo Inc. sells a version for $700 but plans a less-expensive model.

Shocker of the Day: Windows Vista Sucks Wet Farts From Dead Pigeons

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I am so not shocked.

First, speech recognition, a google video of Vista’s Speech Recognition:

Then there is the fact that it screws up its IPv6.

Vista not playing well with IPv6
Microsoft acknowledges some “compatibility issues,” but calls operating system its best ever

By Carolyn Duffy Marsan, Network World, 06/07/07

Early adopters of Microsoft’s new Vista operating system are reporting problems with its implementation of IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s primary protocol.

IPv6 supports a 128-bit addressing scheme, which lets it support an order-of-magnitude more devices that are directly connected to the Internet than its predecessor, IPv4. IPv6 also has autoconfiguration, end-to-end security and other enhancements.

Vista supports IPv6 by default. Vista runs a single-stack, dual-IP-layer architecture, which means it is IPv4- and IPv6-capable out of the box. It supports tunneling of IPv6 traffic over an IPv4 backbone and includes IPSec that works for both IPv4 and IPv6.

Network management software vendors and users are reporting problems with Vista’s IPv6 implementation.

“Vista is showing some serious deficiencies around IPv6 and IPv4 insofar as their compliance or the transparency of their compliance around IP behaviors,” says Loki Jorgenson, chief scientist for Apparent Networks, a provider of network assessment and optimization tools.

“For example, Vista doesn’t expose any of the [Internet Control Message Protocol] errors to applications running on Vista,” Jorgenson says. “The application can’t get access to that message, and subsequently all it sees is that the network connection is not working. This is a big challenge for us around Vista. It’s not clear at all why IPv6 isn’t properly supported in this regard.”

Duane Murphy, president of Managed Information Services in Long Beach, Calif., says he has experienced problems with Vista’s IPv6 implementation on the networks he runs for law firms. Murphy used Network Instruments’ Observer 12 application, which supports IPv6, to isolate Vista’s IPv6 problems.

“We are seeing a number of applications that are IP-based that do not like the addressing scheme of IPv6,” Murphy says. “We will send a print job to an IP-based printer, and the print job becomes corrupted. We’re seeing this with Window’s Vista machines. When IPv6 is installed, this happens without fail. As soon as we remove IPv6, all of our printer functions return to normal.”

Murphy says the printing problem has cropped up on 45 Dell Latitudes and Dimensions running Vista Business or Vista Ultimate.

“We’re also seeing loss of network connections on IP when you have both IPv6 and IPv4 loaded on the same machine with an IPv4-based network,” Murphy says. “As soon as we remove IPv6, we suddenly have connectivity to the rest of the local workstations.”

Murphy says he believes the problems stem from Vista’s IPv6 implementation.

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??

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Ummm…Are these guys on the payroll of Leno’s or Letterman’s gag writers, or what?

I saw the Get Smart movie the Nude Bomb, and the script writers for that miscarriage of spy spoofage were more credible than the DoD.

cbs5.com – Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A ‘Gay Bomb’

Hank Plante
Reporting

(CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called “Gay Bomb.”

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley’s Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, “One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,” Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

“The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay,” explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

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Your tax dollars at work.

Wyoming Senator Replacement Law May Be Unconstitutional

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This is rather interesting, read the full article.

FindLaw’s Writ – Amar: The Wyoming Governor’s and the U.S. Senate’s Unnoticed Options, Under the Seventeenth Amendment, for Filling the Senate Vacancy Created By Senator Thomas’s Death

By VIKRAM DAVID AMAR
—-
Friday, Jun. 08, 2007

This week’s unfortunate death of Republican United States Senator Craig Thomas from Wyoming raises complex, if largely unnoticed, constitutional questions.

The consensus among the pundits is that Thomas’s departure from the closely divided Senate will have no short-term effect on the partisan balance there because although the Wyoming Governor is a Democrat, state law provides that when picking a temporary replacement to serve until an election can be held in 2008, the Governor must choose from among three candidates put up by the leadership of the state GOP – the party represented by the fallen incumbent.

This description of Wyoming law is accurate: The state elections code indeed directs that, in the event of a Senate vacancy among the Wyoming Senate contingent, the central party committee of the party represented by the prior incumbent is to submit three names of qualified persons to the Governor, who “shall” then choose one of the three to serve in the Senate until a popular election is held.

What is dubious, however, is whether this Wyoming statutory scheme is valid under the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps, in the spirit of bipartisanship or out of a desire to respect voter wishes, a Democratic Wyoming Governor should consider, and maybe even tap, a Republican temporary replacement for Thomas. But whether the Governor can legally be forced to pick one of the three persons served up by state GOP leaders is an entirely different matter.

The Key Provision: Section 2 of the Seventeenth Amendment

The key provision to consider is Section 2 of the Seventeenth Amendment, an alteration of the Constitution added in 1913 to guarantee direct popular election (as distinguished from state legislative selection) of U.S. Senators. Section 2 says:

“When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”

There is a very strong textual argument that the Seventeenth Amendment prevents the Wyoming legislature from dictating the Governor’s choices in making a temporary appointment: The Amendment’s language differentiates between a state “legislature” and a state “executive” authority, and allows a state legislature not to make or constrain any temporary appointments itself, but rather only to “empower the [state] executive to make [the] appointment.”

In other words, the Amendment, by its terms, creates potential appointment power only in Governors; it does not authorize legislatures to participate in such appointment decisions, beyond simply determining whether the Governors should be allowed to make temporary appointments or not.

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Practice What You Preach, You Gravy Sucking Pig!!!

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Here we have a women who has made her career on shallow personality news and who is now in a position to do something about it.

Her response is to bring vapid personality chit-chat to Edward R. Murrow’s chair.

Katie Couric Seven for ’07: Simple Lessons for a Complicated Time

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Pursuing something you love should be the first thing on your post-graduate to do list. But too often, that’s not what drives young people as they look at their life goals. According to a recent survey, many say their top two priorities are number 1, being rich, and number 2, being famous. Believe me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be …

So quit and do the news industry a favor. Not only don’t you deserve to sit in Edward R. Murrow’s chair, you don’t deserve to sit in Geraldo’s chair.

You are a rich shallow person elevated well past your level of competence. Get out.

But thanks to self-made You Tube productions, and so-called reality shows like The Apprentice and Survivor, … fame, even the fleeting sanjaya-type, seems easier to attain, and more seductive, than ever.

The proliferation of celebrity magazines makes Lindsey Lohan’s latest stint in rehab seem more important than what’s happening in Darfur.

The kind of fluff that accosts us on the newsstand may seem like harmless fun, but it should also come with a warning label that says it can rot your mind and distort your values.

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Cthulhu on a Croissant! What’s next? Rush Limbaugh lecturing people on the dangers of drug abuse????

Ummmm…Bad Example….

Tom Delay lecturing people on ethics….

Oops….

Robert Bork lecturing people on frivolous law suits???

OK…It may take a while for me to find a non-hypocrite winger.

Hypocrite!

CFM International’s Future Tech plans/

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An interesting article on the conflicts between fuel economy and noise, and the technologies involved.

CFMI Trying To Anticipate New Climate Challenges (Subscription Required)
Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/04/2007, page 52

Michael Mecham
Evendale, Ohio

. . . and some new ones, as CFMI tackles fuel costs and environmental concerns

Printed headline: Some Old Plans . . .

It came as no surprise to CFM International that prospective customers of next-generation single-aisle aircraft rank reduced fuel consumption as their highest priority. But they also are awakening to a broadening of the clean planet debate that is likely to lead to a series of new regulations, such as carbon trading, from governments eager to respond to the growing clamor to do something about global warming.

Recently, CFMI, the 50-50 partnership between General Electric and Snecma, surveyed lessors, banks, legacy and low-cost carriers (LCCs) about their priorities for the LEAP56 (Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion) initiative for 18,000-33,000-lb.-thrust-class engines the company launched in 2005 to power a successor to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families.

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CFMI likes what open rotors, whether in pusher (right) or puller configurations, can do to lower fuel burn. But noise and installation issues will make them a challenge. Credit: CFM CONCEPTS

But another bit of feedback is a sign of the times. “Focus on CO2,” the LCCs advised. European political leaders have been the most pronounced adherents of the global warming message, which is to decrease levels of carbon dioxide from man-made sources. But the idea that increased regulation is necessary is gaining acceptance elsewhere.

“In the last six months, we have been impressed by how much the debate has picked up in the U.S.,” says CFMI President and CEO Eric Bachelet.

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We can thank Al Gore for this.

Since CO2 emissions are directly related to fuel burn, reducing specific fuel consumption (SFC) is the most effective way to address the issue. The LEAP initiative is based on dropping SFC 10-15%, maintenance costs by about 15% and noise by 10-15 dB. to meet requirements expected in the next round of noise regulations, Stage 4, says Planaud. Additionally, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions will need to exceed by 60% the Committee of Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) 6 standards that come into effect next year.

Rig tests of the compressor, combustor and high- and low-pressure turbines in the initiative will begin this year at Snecma’s facilities in Villaroche, France, and GE’s at Peebles, Ohio. The tests are aimed at an engine launch in 2011, which is enough lead time for Airbus and Boeing to introduce a successor to their A320 and 737 programs, respectively, by mid-decade.

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Started in 2005, LEAP56 includes composite fan case and fan blades, titanium aluminide 3D airfoils in the low-pressure turbine, ceramic matrix composite high-pressure turbine nozzles and a second-generation twin-annular pre-mixing swirler (TAPS) combustor. Clapper calls the combined technologies a “step change” for CFMI.

Composite fan blades are one of the most intense technology development efforts. GE introduced them on the GE90 and has extended the concept with composite fan cases for the GEnx. Those composites are laid in plies pre-impregnated with resin, a laborious process that GE tried without much success to automate. Besides saving weight and cutting SFC, composite blades are slashing maintenance costs. Only three blades have had to be replaced on GE90s since the engine entered service in 1995. Composite blades are so durable that GE is aiming for their certification on the GEnx with no service life limits (AW&ST Apr. 16, p. 60).

Using 18 wide-chord composite blades, rather than the customary 22 or more on older designs, combined with a composite fan case will save 400 lb. on LEAP engines, says Planaud.

However, the company anticipates LEAP56 production rates comparable to CFM56 engines, which have been as high as 2,000 a year, about five times higher than the GE90/GEnx series. As a result, the CFMI partners have been looking for composite manufacturing techniques that can be automated. Most promising is a process called Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) in which bands of dry preform are woven rather than laid on top of each other to create the composite structure.

The strength of small composite blades is an issue. The big GE90 wide-chord fan blades–as much as 115 in. long–have proven adept at dissipating the shock of bird and other foreign object strikes. But the smaller LEAP56 blades have less surface area to absorb such shocks. Tests on a CFM56-5C using 70-in. RTM blades will be done this year.

While noise, NOx, carbon particulate and carbon dioxide emissions are a growing political issue, the size of their fuel bill remains the biggest sore point for airlines.

All the world’s airlines combined spent $43 billion on fuel in 2001–13% of their direct operating costs (DOC)–when Jet A cost $0.66 per gallon. At current rates of $2.03 per gallon, the bill for all airlines combined will hit $117 billion this year, or 26% of DOC, says Clapper.

To tackle this problem, CFMI assigned a team to use a combination of computer studies and the company’s experience in maintenance to consider alternative engine designs. Most were rejected.

Among them were the geared turbofan (GTF) that Pratt & Whitney is developing. Its large-diameter, slower fan is expected to benefit fuel burn, but also will increase weight and drag, the CFMI team concluded. And the GTF was seen as driving up maintenance costs. Similarly, a two-stage turbine will be more efficient, but its higher operating temperatures are a worry sign for maintenance.

So the company ended up with a single-stage turbine, but with a higher pressure ratio for improved combustor efficiency than current models. “It’s a simple, rugged design with fewer parts and higher reliability,” says Clapper.

Looking beyond LEAP56, Snecma has been pursing an alternative strategy that holds some promise: a counterrotating fan to boost bypass.

More radically, CFMI has dusted off the unducted fan concept first proposed in the late 1980s as a weight-savings approach to lowering fuel costs in response to the industry’s first oil shock. That idea faded in the early 1990s when fuel prices receded. But with fuel high again, and likely to stay that way because worldwide energy demands have increased so much, CFMI is taking a second look at unducted fans, which it’s renamed “open rotors.”

Last October, Rolls-Royce noted that it is exploring unducted fans, too. Pratt says mounting and noise issues are too great a hurdle and is sticking with its geared turbofan (AW&ST May 28, p. 65).

Without the weight and drag of an engine nacelle, CFMI calculates that a counter-rotating open rotor will save 10% in SFC beyond the improvements it foresees from LEAP56. Fans in both tractor (puller) and pusher configurations are under study. Using twin rows of blades improves their efficiency and allows slower speeds to reduce noise, Klapproth says.

An ultra-high bypass ratio, on the order of 35:1, is possible–four times the 9:1 ratio expected from LEAP56 and seven times the current CFM56 ratio of 5:1. Pressure ratios would be about 15:1, similar to LEAP56, but well ahead of the CFM56’s 11:1.

But the open rotors are noisy, about 10% noisier than the LEAP engine, meaning cabins will need additional insulation. At its best, the engine is unlikely to meet the 20-dB. effective perceived noise reduction that the company foresees by 2020, Clapper acknowledges.

The largest CFM56 produced now, the -5C for the A340-300, has a 72-in. fan diameter. An equivalent-sized engine with an open rotor will require a 12-14-ft.-dia. rotor, posing significant challenges for mounting and certification.

Regardless of how well open rotor technology works, it’s unlikely to appear until late in the next decade “at the earliest,” says Clapper.

The noise issue alone could doom it. While engine makers are confident they can continue to lower fuel burn, which directly reduces CO2 emissions, and reduce NOx/carbon particulate pollution, they are increasingly worried about their ability to do so while simultaneously reducing noise because the technologies to do the former work against the latter.

Noise tends to be a local issue, emissions more national and international. So there’s the possibility of an interesting debate taking place. It may be decided pragmatically. The pain of higher fuel bills may be so great that it will drive compromises that will still benefit the environmental camp, but work against those fighting to reduce engine noise.

My guess is that this will be changed with new forms of zoning that get residences away from airports. In a battle between global warming, and local noise, the localities lose.

Torah! Torah! Torah!

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This week’s parsha (Torah Reading) was Sheloch. It was the report of the spies back from Israel, where they say that it will be too hard to retake the land.

I was reading the English translation, along with the footnotes (Jewish Prayer books frequently have footnotes now, and Chumashim, the bound copies of the Torah and Haftorah readings for each week have had them for over 1000 years.

In any case, I came across the following passage (Numbers XV: 39)

And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may see it and remember all the commandments of the Eternal, and do them: and that Ye search not after your own heart, and after your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:

Note that this is the translation from my wife’s Chumash from about 35 years ago, what I read in synagogue was from a more modern translation.

In any case, there was Rashi’s Commentary below (Rashi was a Rabbi from over 1000 years ago who took the commentaries, which had been passed on verbally, and wrote them down.)

Here is the commentary on the portion which I have emphasized:

(The translation therefore is: AND YE SHALL NOT SEARCH AFTER YOUR OWN HEART). The heart and the eyes are the “spies” of the body – they act as agents for sinning: the eye sees, the heart covets, and the body commits the sin.

In the artscroll (not in front of me) it further makes it clear that one is to follow God with one’s intellect and faith, because the heart cannot be relied upon, because it leads one astray.

While I did not find this odd, I think that this is the exact opposite of what I understand of most Christian perspectives are on this.

This attitude is reflected in the idea that one should not study mysticism until one is firmly grounded in Torah, which is why the concept of a relatively untrained person “dabbling” in Kaballah (Like the singer Modonna) is viewed with alarm.

No one is concerned about any forces being unleashed (or at least very few are), but the potential for being led down the wrong path is great when one follows one’s heart.

F/A-18E/F To Get New Air Combat Sensor

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I think that this is a reaction to something that was perceived as lacking with current US fighter sensor suites.

F/A-18E/F To Get New Air Combat Sensor (Subscription Required)

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/04/2007, page 30

Andy Nativi
St. Louis

Enhanced electronic warfare systems drive U.S. Navy to improve F/A-18E/F sensor suite

Printed headline: Bug Eyes

The U.S. Navy wants to upgrade its F/A-18E/Fs with an infrared search-and-track system out of concern that increasingly sophisticated electronic jamming systems could thwart the fighter’s radar system, leaving pilots “blinded” in air-to-air combat.

While the Russians have had these for decades, and they are part of the standard fit on both the Typhoon and Rafale, I believe that there have been only two combat aircraft so equipped in the US inventory, the F-106, and the F-14.

This is a recognition of the fact that our potential adversaries are aware of this.

Although the service has been upgrading the fighter’s radar, and the latest version (the APG-79 with active electronically scanned array) should have enhanced ability to nullify hostile jamming, Navy officials are worried about the proliferation of X-band electronic countermeasures systems, which could degrade radar performance. In particular, China’s expansive spending on electronic warfare equipment is being carefully monitored. The service fears this build-up could compromise their own freedom to operate in the Pacific.

Boeing would modify an external fuel tank to fit the F/A-18E/F with a centerline-mounted IRST. Lockheed Martin would provide the critical optics.Credit: BOEING CONCEPTS>

More than China, see below.

The addition of an infrared search-and-track system (IRST)–already standard on many Russian and western European fighters–would provide “spectral diversity” to the Navy. ……

As I’ve said, we are late to this game.


Boeing would modify an external fuel tank to fit the F/A-18E/F with a centerline-mounted IRST. Lockheed Martin would provide the critical optics.Credit: BOEING CONCEPTS

F/A-18 prime contractor Boeing has chosen Lockheed Martin to provide the sensor. A first prototype is set to be tested on a Super Hornet early next year through a company-funded risk reduction and capabilities demo effort. Enhanced versions of the AAS-42 electronics and optical units used on the F-14 (already available on South Korea’s F-15K) will be repackaged in a modified 480-gal. fuel tank. The equipment will also feature an off-the-shelf thermal control unit.

The fact that the South Koreans requested it for the F-15K implies that they are concerned about this very issue with North Korea.

My guess is that someone had done some analysis, and determined that if you put out a lot of power without a lot of sophistication, you can muddy the radar picture.

Boeing opted for a podded solution to save money. “Originally, we considered integrating the IRST into the aircraft fuselage, on the upper nose, or on the gunbay doors, but these solutions required significant structural, electrical and cooling system modifications and, in both cases, called for relocating existing antennas,” says Chris D. Wedewer, Boeing’s F/A-18E/F IRST program manager. “We also investigated the possibility of putting an IRST pod on the right fuselage station, opposite the fuselage-mounted Raytheon [Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared] targeting pod, but this option came with too many operational limitations in terms of field of view,” in particular when weapons are being carried, he adds.

Those limitations drove the decision to place the sensor on the centerline weapon station, traditionally the spot for the fuel tank. Since a fuel tank has already been cleared for that station, using such a device to house the IRST was seen as the next logical step. The IRST will also function as a fuel tank, with a part of a pod still able to accommodate 330 gal., Wedewer notes.

It is a fairly neat package for what I think is perceived as an immediate need.

….

Things I Never Thought I’d Say, Non-Bush Edition

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At my daughter’s IEP (Individual Education Program) meeting, my wife PLAYED THE GOOD COP, and our lawyer played the bad cop.

I never figured that she’d play the GOOD cop in a meeting with school administrators.

My wife is a dear sweet lady. She is also a Special Ed consultant with a practice, SEDRA where she supplies Educational Evaluations, Classroom Observations, Advocacy, IEP Process Workshops, In-School Tutoring for Individuals with Special Needs, and Service Referral.

She spent half of her childhood in the Bronx, and one of her clients affectionately referred to her as a “Pit bull”.

Both of our children are on IEPs, but did not need a lawyer for our eldest, a turning 10 years old in a week girl, Natalie, for the past 3 years. We found Mark Martin for her.

Natalie has a visual perception and motor planning disorder, that results in dyslexia and dysgraphia (her hand writing is worse than mine, which means that her handwriting is the worst ever).

Our lawyer for our son, 7 and a half year old Charlie, Wayne Steedman said that it would be best if we went with another lawyer for Natalie, because having to focus on more than one child at a time tends to diffuse the lawyer’s effort.

Well, lawyers are sharks or piranhas. Wayne is more of a shark. Mark is more of a piranha.

Both are far more pleasant than one would imagine when they are YOUR carnivorous fish.

The shark glides, silently and unnoticed, until it strikes, while the piranha is a flurry of teeth, reducing a cow to bones in under a minute (why is it that they always use a cow as the unit of measure of ferocious appetites?)

While Natalie’s school, Timber Grove Elementary is a good school, it has a profoundly negative attitude towards special ed kids.

I think that it’s primarily a function of the Principal, who has been nicknamed “The Scorpion”.

There are a disproportionate number of children, who are either at special schools run by the county, or in private placements paid for by the county who are in this school’s zone.

This seems to be particularly noteworthy with regards to the male special ed students.

Considering all the costs involved in private placements, I wonder if the principal has a picture of the superintendent getting freaky with a goat.

At Natalie’s meeting, the occupational therapist (kind of a misnomer, it’s about things like writing, tying shoes, and other fine motor operations) had a report suggesting that Natalie’s services be pulled. The first time any of our side saw it was at the meeting.

I was conferencing in via phone, but even I could tell that Mark Martin, esq., was not amused.

I think that the OT might end up with a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder after Mark was through with her.

It put the fear of god into the rest of IEP team, so while we do not have OT goals yet, we will be doing a follow-up meeting to take care of that, it looks like Natalie will get the services she needs.