The Mil & Aero Blog

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

Very soon, the staff of Military & Aerospace Electronics will launch The Mil & Aero Command Post, an online community devoted to you -- our colleagues in the mil-aero market. We invite you to join us and (hopefully thousands of) your peers in the online community right here, at http://www.milaero.com/.

I know... I've thought all the same things at one point or another. I don't have time. It won't be any fun. I expressed the same sentiments, and I'll admit it -- I was wrong.

It takes little time to connect with friends and colleagues in an online community. I joined such online community sites as LinkedIn, Facebook, and others. I took part in and contributed to the community, at first, for just a few minutes a couple times a week. After fleshing out my online profile, my own page, it didn't take long til I was getting messages, questions, postings, and just a friendly "hello" from old friends and colleagues in the industry.

Through online communities, I have reconnected with old acquaintances, learned new technologies, gained new insights, gotten questions answered, and had enlighting exchanges. All the while, I was also networking and, I would hope, helping contribute to, advance, or leave my mark on the community or the industry as a whole.

I hope you'll give it a try, and join the community at The Mil & Aero Command Post. You'll definitely find me there. C'mon in and say "hi."

Posted by John McHale

I had a nice lunch last week in Tempe, Ariz., with R. Dale Lillard, Lee Mathieson, and John Redding of Lansdale Semiconductor where we discussed the troubling issue of counterfeit parts finding their way into critical military systems.

Lillard, president of Lansdale, said the problem is that the counterfeits are so easily available and cheap. He says these parts will most likely fail and could end up costing lives.

He gave me an example of a component Lansdale produces called the MC3356. "We are the only true manufacturer, having purchased the tooling from Motorola," Lillard says.

He said that if you do a Google search on the part "any potential customers would find five pages of other suppliers selling who knows what on Google before we show up." Lansdale does have a paid "advertisement on all our parts in hopes they find us. Google doesn't seem to care."

Lillard said without the paid advertisement -- which appears on the right of the first search page -- his website would not come up till after five or seven pages.

When I did the search it took me 10 pages to find a Lansdale link - Lillard wasn't kidding. Some of the sites that came up were the China IC Mart and IC-Town. The China IC Mart was on the first page of the search

Mathieson, operations manager at Lansdale, says the scary thing says is that these parts may work at first and seem just fine but they are not fully qualified and tested and when it comes down to it not the real MC3356, just a counterfeit.

Buy at your own risk.

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

Bombardier Aerospace of Belfast in Northern Ireland has released its annual forecasts for the business and commercial aircraft markets. The new forecasts offer predictions of a 10-year period in the business aircraft market, and a 20-year run in the commercial aircraft market.

The global aircraft market is robust, yet concern exists over waning U.S. consumption. These concerns are founded on the weakened U.S. dollar, economic downturn, and continued plight of airline companies (as evidenced by posted losses, bankruptcies, consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, and operations closing their doors). In contrast, the European jet market is described as having continued vigor, and causing Bombardier to revise its deliveries forecast upward from 2007 levels (from 9,950 in 2007 to 13,200 in 2008).

"As we transition to a more international customer base that features less emphasis on the U.S., as well as a structural shift towards larger and more cost-effective aircraft, Bombardier's key product families -- business jets and regional aircraft -- are expected to continue to generate strong interest across all markets," says Mairead Lavery, vice president, strategy and business development, Bombardier Aerospace. "With its comprehensive portfolio of business and commercial aircraft that encompass state-of-the-art technologies and innovative design solutions, and its focus on customer services, Bombardier is well positioned for the future."

In the 10-year period from 2008 to 2017, Bombardier's Business Aircraft Market Forecast predicts that business aircraft manufacturers will deliver a total of 1,320 business jets annually -- a substantial increase from the industry average of more than 620 business jet deliveries annually during the 1998 to 2007 period. The total forecasted 13,200 deliveries over the 10-year period represent revenues of approximately $300 billion for the industry, say company representatives.

Despite strong concerns over a possible downturn in the U.S. and world economies that could create a decrease in overall orders over the next two years, Bombardier officials believe industry deliveries should continue to increase until 2017. Demand for business jets is growing within the company's international base of customers. In fact, international business represented 67 percent of Bombardier orders for 2007.

According to Bombardier's Commercial Aircraft Market Forecast, demand for 20- to 149-seat commercial aircraft is expected to reach approximately 12,900 new aircraft in the 20-year period from 2008 to 2027, totaling approximately $528 billion.

The forecast reflects the shift in demand to larger commercial aircraft. In the 20- to 59-seat aircraft segment: the forecast expects a demand of approximately 500 aircraft. In the 60- to 99-seat aircraft segment: demand is expected to reach approximately 6,100 aircraft. In the 100- to 149-seat aircraft segment: the forecast predicts a demand for approximately 6,300 aircraft.

The trend towards larger aircraft, coupled with sustained higher fuel prices, will reinforce operators' requirement for modern aircraft with low operating costs, says the Bombardier forecast.

Posted by John McHale

The impact of Apple's purchase of chip provider, P.A. Semi last week was the hot topic among attendees and sponsors at the Critical Embedded Systems Media Fest held in Scottsdale this week.

P.A. Semi makes a high-performance processor - the PWRFficient - which has the low power attributes needed for rugged military embedded applications, and seen as the low-power alternative to the PowerPC and Intel chips.

Many companies have designed product lines around the P.A. Semi device, and are concerned that Apple might not see the need to continue producing it because of the low volume market it represents.

One of those companies, Extreme Engineering is taking a positive look. Extreme's vice president of sales and marketing, Brett Farnum, says he believes that Apple will do the right thing and off load the technology to a third party manufacturer and that it will continue to be supplied.

During his opening remarks, Ray Alderman, executive director of VITA – the standards organization that runs the event – said that the federal government is looking to get involved to ensure continued supply of the P.A. Semi technology because it supports mission critical military applications.

However, some of the other attendees are not as optimistic about the continuation of the part. Peter Cavill, managing director of GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, said during his keynote address that he hopes the chip will still be available but is doubtful. Cavill also said that without the low power chip, the industry will be forced to design systems with less thermally efficient processors such as the Intel devices and that this may inspire new unique cooling solutions to solve the thermal management challenges that accompany the high-performance commercial processors.

Right now it's a wait and see and embedded vendors are coming with alternative plans for their customers in case the P.A. Semi technology does disappear.

The Critical Embedded Systems conference itself was smaller than it had been in the past when it was called the Bus and Board conference. There seemed to be a third of the attendance than when it was in its heyday.

Notable absences were the RTC Group publications – COTS Journal and RTC Magazine – and past sponsor Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing.

However, despite those factors I still felt it was an effective event. It's not a news making conference, but one of the best networking events for embedded media and vendors. I enjoy meeting with embedded defense suppliers and the market outlook presentations.

In fact I thought this year's keynotes were the best I've seen in the decade I've attend the event. Doug Patterson, vice president of sales and marketing at Aitech and Peter Cavill gave informative presentations on COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) procurement and defense market analysis without turning their presentations into blatant commercials.

I enjoy coming to this event and networking with familiar and new faces in the industry. I find much more value in face-to-face meetings than conference calls or email threads. Maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned.

I hope the Critical Embedded Systems Conference continues in some form.

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

A week ago today, we, the editors with Military & Aerospace Electronics, began complementing our up-to-the-minute industry news stories with informative videos. Peruse the Web site, and you will find embedded in news items more than 18 videos total -- and that number will continue to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming weeks and months.

We invite you to share professional videos that would be of interest to the military and aerospace community with us. Show us your latest technology demonstration or installation, for example.

Among the videos you will currently find on www.milaero.com are: a demonstration of the iRobot PackBot's capabilities, the innovative Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle at work, U.S. Marine Corps personnel setting up a remote satellite terminal, the U.S. Coast Guard HC-130H aircraft deployed for a search and rescue mission, and even comprehensive information about the Military & Aerospace Electronics franchise, which includes a monthly trade publication, digital media such as weekly and monthly eNewsletters, conferences and expos, and more.

We will soon launch the Mil & Aero Command Post, an online community environment in which to share your experiences, opinions, technologies and trends, and more. Would you like to share your amateur videos -- such as videos of your recent deployment, technology you trust and rely on in the field, and more -- with the rest of the community via the Command Post? We hope so.

If you have any questions or if you are interested in authoring videos for potential use on www.milaero.com, please feel free to contact me (Courtney@pennwell.com) or Military & Aerospace Electronics' resident video guru, chief editor John Keller (jkeller@pennwell.com).