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NASA officials are announcing the availability of eight disruptive NASA materials and coatings technologies ready for commercialization. NASA officials are looking for companies interested in using the organization’s high-temperature materials and coatings, including those designed to withstand high temperatures, to improve existing products or introduce new ones.

The search for ever-lower emission technology for future generations of aircraft engines is actively progressing on both sides of the Atlantic. Tucked away on a modest-size stand at this year’s Farnborough International Airshow was a highly varied collection of unconventional engine technology displays – a clear indication of radical innovation already being investigated as a part of Ultimate, the European Horizon 2020 research and innovation project.

US Army officials and engineers continue work to modernize the defense organization’s fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with a more modern digital cockpit, conducting a Limited User Test with two prototype aircraft at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. They selected for a Limited User Evaluation (LUE) a Crew Mission Station (CMS) aligned with The Open Group Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) technical standard that combines Core Avionics & Industrial Inc.’s (CoreAVI’s) compositor and graphics suite, Avalex smart display, Intel hardware, Wind River operating system, and Presagis server.

Aerospace engineers at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, working on the NASA X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft in collaboration with Lockheed Martin engineers sought a safety-critical compute application programming interface (API) that supports safety certifications and powerful graphics and compute capabilities. They chose the VkCore SC safety-critical Vulkan driver from Core Avionics & Industrial Inc. (CoreAVI) in Tampa, Fla., for deployment into the X-59 in concert with the VxWorks 7 real-time operating system (RTOS) from Wind River, a provider of embedded software for intelligent connected systems and part of Intel Corp., in Alameda, Calif.

The AS2 industry team – comprising Aerion in Reno, Nevada; Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, Maryland; GE Aviation in Evendale, Ohio; and Honeywell in Morris Plains, New Jersey – has finished the conceptual design phase and launched the preliminary design phase, slated to conclude in June 2020, of the Aerion A2 supersonic business jet.

This critical milestone comes after a rigorous review, called “Key Decision Point-C (KDP-C),” that confirmed NASA’s continued support of the X-59 in terms of funding. It establishes an achievable development timeline for NASA’s first piloted full-size X-plane in more than three decades.

NASA officials and engineers are prepping to fly the agency’s F/A-18 research aircraft over Galveston, Texas, using a “quiet thump” technique designed to reduce loud sonic booms typically associated with supersonic flight. This week’s test flight sets off a series of quiet supersonic research flights off the coast of Texas to test ways to measure supersonic aircraft sound levels and the community’s response to the supersonic acoustic experience.

The latest engine developer to go this route is Evendale-Ohio-based GE Aviation with the decision to implement Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPEREINCE platform – a collaborative digital environment where engineers conduct and manage product design, analyses, and manufacturing data.

Officials at an as-yet-unnamed airline in the U.S. is assessing a new hydrophobic coating developed by GKN Aerospace materials science and engineering specialists in Garden Grove, Calif., for cockpit windows on its commercial passenger aircraft. GKN Aerospace debuted the new materials science technology, which Airbus engineers are also flight-trialing on the airframe manufacturer’s flight-test aircraft, during Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, England, in July 2018.

Demand for high-performance plastics (HPPs) is up across the aerospace industry, driven by such key trends as growing performance requirements, increased use of additive manufacturing or 3D printing, supply chain globalization, and tightening environmental regulations. Growing passenger traffic coupled with the need to reduce emissions – being accomplished through lightweighting, engine downsizing, and vehicle electrification – present opportunities for HPPs, research analysts at Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio, Texas, explain.

SAE International in Warrendale, Pa., has published AS13006: Process Control Methods, a new standard with guidance material to support specific aerospace engine applications, with a focus on the practical application of control methods for many different situations, to improve process control, process capability, and product quality, benefiting both the organization applying it and its customers.

Boeing officials are expanding the company’s use of Siemens’ Mentor Graphics software as part of its Second Century Enterprise Systems (2CES) initiative, an effort to transform the company and aerospace industry to meet future challenges and achieve maximum value from end-to-end integration of supply chain, manufacturing, engineering, product support, and more. Boeing is harnessing a set of Siemens technologies to enable the next generation of design and manufacturing through increased automation and digitalization.

AGI and ANSYS are streamlining processes and interfaces by incorporating highly accurate, ANSYS-generated engineering physics component models within complete, large-scale mission simulation scenarios in AGI's multi-domain mission analysis software, Systems Tool Kit (STK).

UAV Turbines, Inc. has developed a new microturbine, turboprop engine designed for defense and commercial Group 3 and 4 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or “drone” applications. UAV Turbines’ Monarch RP is designed to operate reliably, quietly, and powerfully on various qualities of heavy fuel and outperform conventional reciprocating engines.

According to the presentation, the cargo variant of the Blue Moon lander can carry 3.6 metric tons to the lunar surface. Another lander variant could potentially stretch to be capable of carrying a 6.5-metric-ton, human-rated ascent stage.

Aireon LLC, a global aircraft tracking and surveillance company in McLean, Va., is inviting aircraft operators, regulators, search-and-rescue organizations, and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) to pre-register for Aireon Aircraft Locating and Emergency Response Tracking (ALERT). Aireon ALERT, operated by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), is being touted as the aviation industry’s first and only free, global, real-time emergency aircraft location service, which is slated to begin service in Q1 2019.

Rolls-Royce holds that hands-on, practical training will always be the main focus for maintainers; however, VR technology will help bolster training activities especially with the amount of new aircraft that will be needed to accommodate the additional air passengers (which is expected to almost double by 2036).

Originally proposed at the 2018 Internationale Luft- und Raumfahrtausstellung (ILA) Berlin Air Show, the systems-of-systems FCAS architecture includes new sixth-generation Next Generation Fighter (NGF) that will serve as a hub or nucleus for multiple cloud-linked UAV or “remote carrier” wingmen.

Although Northrop Grumman officials acknowledged during a post-test press conference that the incident needs to be “looked into,” they stated that the thrust profile could be “very normal, nominal.” A following statement labeled the test a success and announced that OmegA is on track for its first test launch in 2021 and operational service in 2022.

Officials at SAE International in Warrendale, Pa., and Airlines for America (A4A) in Washington are recognizing Karsten Kaiser of Lufthansa Technik and Michael Ernst of subsidiary 3D.aero for furthering the science and efficacy of nondestructive testing (NDT), having presented them with the 16th annual Nondestructive Testing (NDT) Innovation Award at A4A’s annual NDT Forum last week in Seattle.