tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1909776554950676442008-05-14T22:40:51.224-04:00Pennwell Blogs Administratorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15757232455847950283noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-23020409194632439342008-05-14T22:29:00.003-04:002008-05-14T22:40:51.289-04:00

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

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-86971642960206526802008-05-14T09:59:00.002-04:002008-05-14T10:07:47.622-04:00

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

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-85395725187841035852008-05-07T21:41:00.003-04:002008-05-07T21:45:07.730-04:00

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.

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-37379999609581958202008-05-07T16:14:00.002-04:002008-05-07T16:21:07.996-04:00

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

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-69142418857273121252008-05-01T12:39:00.010-04:002008-05-01T13:16:39.965-04:00

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

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-62789224115147952712008-04-29T15:35:00.001-04:002008-04-29T15:39:20.972-04:00

Posted by John McHale At the GovSec show in Washington last week many of the exhibitors felt the market to be strong and growing but not a boom like it was perceived to be when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was formed shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. We thought it might be stronger market as well when we launched Homeland Security Solutions magazine and a show of the

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-5883596223631897092008-04-23T22:15:00.005-04:002008-04-23T22:42:16.551-04:00

Posted by Courtney E. Howard Video, while not a new medium, is new to many first responder and military personnel. Video, especially via the Internet, is increasingly being used in military and homeland security environments. We too, the editors of Military & Aerospace Electronics, are using video more and more. We're always working diligently to deliver the community the most comprehensive

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-60624782986046805222008-04-22T16:23:00.002-04:002008-04-22T16:30:36.760-04:00

Posted by John McHale I just finished another Spring Golf Trip, lost another couple dozen lost balls, donated another $100 to a low-handicapper's kid's college fund … and I still want more. It's a stupid, expensive, frustrating game and as rusty and jerky as my swing can be I'd much rather be flailing away at a Titleist right now than writing this blog. I and 11 friends played eight rounds

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-71673738426905005182008-04-17T10:51:00.004-04:002008-04-17T11:21:11.152-04:00

Posted by Courtney E. Howard At the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in San Jose this week, three trends stood out above all others. The first is multi-core. Embedded systems are increasingly taking advantage of multi-core processors, reaping the benefits of increased processing power in a small package. This increase in electronics and power density brings many benefits, but also greater

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-28734941603603634472008-04-16T10:15:00.002-04:002008-04-16T10:29:14.584-04:00

Posted by John Keller From time to time, organizations need to restate their primary missions -- not only to reinforce their overall goals, but also to chart how their courses might be evolving. So it is with Military & Aerospace Electronics, whose mission is to uncover trends and enabling technology in defense, space, and commercial aviation applications. It's true that Military & Aerospace

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-33737083281850468292008-04-15T08:48:00.002-04:002008-04-15T08:54:04.765-04:00

Posted by John McHale I got hit yesterday with a virus my IT guy hadn't seen before. Called the Xpantivirus, it fools you into thinking it's an antivirus software application that caught some spyware on your system and wants you to download the solution. It had me till the download part. I thought that looks weird, called my IT guy and he said I dodged a bullet by not downloading. If I had it

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-69768664827782903282008-04-11T10:08:00.002-04:002008-04-11T10:20:13.650-04:00

Posted by John Keller You know those coincidental, small-world experiences that you'd never, ever imaging having? Well, I had one of those this week when I visited an electro-optics surveillance company in Westborough, Mass., called RemoteReality Corp. I'd been invited to interview the company's new CEO, retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Dennis V. McGinn, who before separating from the Navy had been

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-18246995280961318842008-04-09T20:53:00.003-04:002008-04-09T21:04:17.559-04:00

Posted by Courtney E. Howard Face-to-face interaction is invaluable in virtually any industry, but building strong relationships is particularly important in the mil-aero market. Privacy, discretion, and trust are part and parcel of many industry dealings -- in which the who, what, when, why, and how of many contract wins must be kept under lock and key for a time. With a recession looming and

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-19460594020308280052008-04-09T09:54:00.003-04:002008-04-09T09:56:54.399-04:00

Posted by John Keller Here's a heads-up that you're likely to start reading about a fundamental advancement in power transistor technology from a company called HVVi Semiconductors Inc. in Phoenix. HVVi is getting ready to announce a technology its leaders call high-voltage vertical field effect transistors -- otherwise known as HVVFETs -- for military power-intensive applications like

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-8036357984222892562008-04-08T10:56:00.003-04:002008-04-08T11:02:51.099-04:00

Posted by John McHale Last week a friend in the industry clued me into a link that not only lets you learn about a new weapon platform but play with it in a simulation. The platform is the new Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) mobile artillery system. The NLOS canon is the first vehicle to be rolled out of the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems program. According to the web site HowStuffWorks.com, the

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-74403503476865275172008-04-07T11:11:00.001-04:002008-04-07T11:13:40.928-04:00

Posted by John Keller Plenty of things are happening these days to put a chill on the defense technology market. We have an election coming up with vastly uncertain prospects; military forces are still operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet a substantial force draw down is due very soon; and many ordinary citizens are getting sick of the Iraq war and are hungry for peace. There's a sense that

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-9666883579658687522008-04-03T18:06:00.004-04:002008-04-04T09:55:27.467-04:00

Posted by Courtney E. Howard For many, the new fiscal year started this week. The dawn of a new fiscal year, not to mention the replenished funds that accompany it, is often welcomed -- nay, eagerly awaited. This year is different, however; virtually every economic outlook delivered by financial pundits is peppered with the R word (recession). There is an upside! While many organizations (

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-4382930655219263412008-04-01T17:58:00.002-04:002008-04-01T18:08:02.781-04:00

Posted by John McHale Covering the military has its perks - none bigger than getting to spend time and talk with the outstanding men and women who are sacrificing a great deal for their country. The added bonus within our niche at Military & Aerospace Electronics is that we also get to explore the amazing technology that is being deployed and developed such as laser weapons and new aircraft

JMchalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556947971594707399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-42195057688680017292008-03-29T22:29:00.006-04:002008-04-02T11:25:32.665-04:00

Posted by Courtney E. Howard Now that I am all settled in at my new office in Liberty Lake, Wa., having made the trek from the Military & Aerospace Electronics home base in southern N.H., I am looking to get out and visit with area businesses in the military and aerospace market. I am in the perfect place to do so, in fact. Technology firms, prime contractors, subcontractors, systems

Courtneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04141051408421200821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-17468126304564555952008-03-26T10:51:00.003-04:002008-03-26T11:01:08.654-04:00

Posted by John Keller Last month I posted a blog item headlined Autonomous arms race: gentlemen, start your robots, in which I took a university professor in Sheffield, England, named Noel Sharkey to task for views on military robotic technology he presented in a keynote address to the Royal United Services Institute. The gist was I believe robots are, and will be, valuable tools for military

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-29745396859156428922008-03-18T19:10:00.008-04:002008-03-18T20:44:21.641-04:00

Posted by John Keller ORLANDO, Fla. -- I think it's obvious that laser crosslinks represent the future of military tactical networking on land, at sea, and in the air. Laser communications are fast, difficult to detect or intercept, and represent bandwidth broad enough to handle the demands of image-intensive real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Laser communications,

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-57140915039170554202008-03-13T13:46:00.001-04:002008-03-13T13:48:38.008-04:00

Posted by John Keller Component suppliers who even suspect that their products might be designed into military systems need to take steps to protect themselves from potential violations of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). If they don't, they risk serious trouble. I'm not talking about just fines; I'm talking about losing your company. The bottom line is protecting yourself.

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-74171173894589537132008-03-11T15:34:00.001-04:002008-03-11T15:36:43.742-04:00

Posted by John Keller SAN DIEGO -- Military radio designers need to give more thought to how they blend RF and microwave components with digital circuitry in new generations of software-defined radio, says one of the Pentagon's top communications executives. The problem revolves around radio designs that tightly couple the RF section and digital sections. This can slow down design and

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-48803993970732720372008-03-10T20:25:00.004-04:002008-03-11T15:38:16.874-04:00

Posted by John Keller For more than a year now we've been hearing about the latest flavor of VME embedded computing. The newest incarnation is called VPX, and relies on a variety of high-speed serial fabric networking approaches, rather than the traditional parallel VME databus. Until now, VPX, formerly known as VITA-46, largely has been a technology in search of an application. It had been

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190977655495067644.post-28093473354684398812008-03-06T14:59:00.005-05:002008-03-06T15:16:32.994-05:00

Posted by John Keller I must correct a mistake I made in a blog entry earlier this week entitled Back to the jungle: would U.S. intervene if war comes to South America? In this blog I stated that Panama Canal operations are managed by a company with close ties to the Chinese government. This is an error, which Teresa Arosemena, international communications manager for the Panama Canal Authority

John Kellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18244595171505977859noreply@blogger.com