Adrian is Auckland bureau chief for Aviation Week, based in New Zealand. He covers commercial aviation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Adrian was previously based in Aviation Week’s Washington office for nine years, writing for a range of the group’s publications and covering many aspects of the commercial aviation industry. He has won Australasian and international awards for his aviation writing.
Prior to joining Aviation Week in 2002, Adrian covered aviation industry and policy issues for two other publishing companies in Washington. He has also worked for newspapers in Texas and New Zealand, covering a wide range of topics. Adrian graduated from Auckland University with a degree in history and English in 1992.
The U.K. and Spanish air traffic control organizations yesterday signed a deal creating a joint-venture company that will develop a new version of Spain's ATC system for use by both nations. The Spanish ATC system is known as SACTA, and the new company will be called SACTA ATM. The company is jointly owned by the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and Spain's Aena. The two organizations believe this is the first time two ATC providers have collaborated in a commercial joint venture like this.
Airbus is preparing to flight-test winglets for its A320 family to determine whether it will offer winglets for its single-aisle range. Two different types of winglet will be flight-tested on Airbus's A320 development aircraft in March. One of the winglet sets will be made by Wichita, Kan., company Winglet Technology. JetBlue will provide one of the aircraft for the flight tests.
Raytheon yesterday introduced a new ATC automation system, which the company is already marketing to several national ATC providers. The AutoTrac III system can be used to control both enroute and terminal traffic, and it can run a single tower or be used for a national, multi-center ATC system. Raytheon is using AutoTrac III as the base technology for its proposals to provide ATC systems to Singapore and Taiwan, and will also use it in some big Eastern European proposals next year.
