Singapore Airlines to retire Airbus fleet early

Singapore Airlines is dropping its current fleet of Airbus planes sooner than planned, as the fear of flying due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome continues to take its toll on travel demand, according to The Straits Times.

The national carrier, whose fleet is made up mostly of Boeing airplanes, said in April it will phase out all of its 12 Airbus aircraft by June, five months earlier than originally announced.

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Northrop Grumman hopes to build 32 Fire Scout VTUAVs

Northrop Grumman in April said it wants to build 32 Fire Scout Vertical Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles by the end of 2005 and is pitching to other services the resurrected platform it began developing for the U.S. Navy, according to Helicopter News.

Since the time Fire Scout received $4 million this year in the Navy's budget request, the service has asked for an additional $35 million in its unfunded priority list for the program. If the company can get another $15 million, it will be able to produce eight air vehicles in 2004, Tim Beard, company director of unmanned systems business development, told reporters recently at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space 2003 symposium in Washington, according to the report.

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IN BRIEF

NASA scientists battle crime

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement officers, whose investigations are normally down-to-Earth, recently have been seeking the help of two NASA scientists who study the Sun and storms such as hurricanes.

Why are specialists from such different worlds working together?

The NASA researchers—using their expertise and equipment for analyzing satellite video—have created a new crimefighting software tool called VISAR. Short for Video Image Stabilization and Registration, VISAR transforms dark, jittery images captured by security systems and video cameras in police cars into clear, stable images that can reveal clues about crimes, NASA said.

This new technology is expected to benefit medical research and improve home entertainment, too.

NASA has selected VISAR as its Commercial Invention of the Year for 2002.

Network-centric warfare in Iraq

Among the lessons learned by coalition forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom is a realization of how network-centric warfare works and the impacts this realization may have on materiel and force organization, Arthur Cebrowksi, director of United States Department of Defense's office of force transformation, said in a report by Defense Daily.

"You are looking at the implementation of network-centric warfare, which is a growing implementation and will go on for a very long time," Cebrowski told reporters attending a Defense Writers' Group breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C.

"We are looking at a shift in sources of power. I think, when the lessons learned [from Operation Iraqi Freedom] come out, one of the things we are probably going to see is a new air-land dynamic ... . We will have discovered a new 'sweet spot' in the relationship between land and air warfare, and a tighter integration between those. The things that compel that are good sensors, networked with good intelligence, disseminated through a robust network of systems, which then increases speed."

Cebrowski added that the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the military services are likely to study networked capabilities from Operation Iraqi Freedom, not as a template for future action, but as a model of some capabilities that may be desirable to implement in the future, according to Defense Daily.