Air Force awards space situational awareness contract

Pacific Defense Solutions, LLC, Kihei, Hawaii is being awarded a $9.7 million cost plus fixed fee contract for space situational awareness research and development. The location of the performance is Kihei. The work is expected to be completed by Feb. 8, 2016. The contract was awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

Army buys 68 Air Vehicles from AAI Corp.

The U.S. Army intends to procure 68 Air Vehicles and three sets of Mobile Maintenance Facility spares for the Shadow Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), according to contract documents posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website on Wednesday. “This is a planned sole source requirement to AAI Corp., the original equipment manufacturer of the Shadow 200 RQ-7B UAS,” the Army said. AAI Corp. is headquartered in Hunt Valley, Md.

Kaiser appointed to Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett announced on Monday that he has appointed Annmarie Kaiser, currently his secretary of Legislative Affairs, to serve as a member of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. The board oversees the 11 casinos now operating statewide.

The seven-member Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board was established through the passage of Act 71 of 2004, also known as the Race Horse Development and Gaming Act. The board oversaw the creation of a casino industry offering both slot machine and table gaming. The 11 casinos now in operation in Pennsylvania offer both slot machine and table game gambling, employ more than 16,000 people, and collectively have generated more than $6.5 billion in tax and license fee revenue since the first casino opened in November 2006.

NTSB responds to fatal parasailing accident in Florida

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is sending an investigator to Pompano Beach, Fla. to investigate a fatal parasailing accident that occurred on Wednesday.

 

At about 3:15 p.m. EDT, a female passenger, parasailing in tandem with another individual, fell from her harness approximately 150-200 feet into water. The woman was fatally injured. The other passenger was unharmed. The parasailing trip was being operated by Waveblast Water Sports. The NTSB has investigated a number of parasailing accidents, and will examine the circumstances of this accident for any recurring safety issues.

 

NTSB investigator Larry Bowling will join the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the U.S. Coast Guard investigating the accident, the board said on Friday.

NTSB: Not much to say on Lufthansa/Colgan collision at Dulles

On Friday, at about 3:15 p.m. EDT, Lufthansa flight 417, an Airbus A330, collided with Colgan Air flight 3912, a Bombardier DHC-8-400, on the ground at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va. The two aircraft collided while the Airbus was taxiing for takeoff.

“At the time of the accident, the DHC-8 (tail number N341NG) was stationary and waiting for ramp workers to assist with parking at gate A1C,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a preliminary report filed on Monday. “There were no injuries to any of the passengers or crewmembers on either airplane. The DHC-8 received substantial damage to its rudder and vertical stabilizer and the Airbus (tail number D-AIKE) sustained minor damage to its right wingtip.”

The NTSB continues to investigate the accident.

Navy contract RFP for first unmanned flight aboard aircraft carrier

The U.S. Navy's Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike program will release a request for proposal "soon" for the first operational unmanned vehicle that will launch and recover from an aircraft carrier. [Source: Federal Business Opportunities]

Extreme heat waves linked to climate change, NASA says

The Northern Hemisphere over the past 30 years has seen an increase in the amount of land area experiencing what NASA scientists define as "extremely hot" summer temperatures, according to a new analysis led by James Hansen at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Hansen and colleagues looked at statistics and linked this increase in extreme heat waves to climate change.

These "extremely hot" temperatures covered less than one percent of the Northern Hemisphere land surface during the time period 1951 to 1980. Since 2006 these extreme temperatures have covered about 10 percent of this land area. These regions of "extremely hot" temperatures are shown on the map as brown in the YouTube video below.

The YouTube video shows how temperatures by region differed from the 1951-1980 seasonal average for June, July and August. White areas are considered "normal" temperatures, while blues and purples represent colder than usual temperatures. The range of hotter than normal temperatures is defined by the scientists as "hot" (orange), "very hot" (red) and "extremely hot" (brown).

Notice how the areas covered by "extremely hot" temperatures increases from the 1980s to the present. The massive heat waves of Western Europe in 2003, Russia in 2010 and Texas, Oklahoma and Mexico in 2011 particularly stand out.