Capt. Jeff Martin has been named Southwest Airlines ’ first vice president of the Operations Coordination Center. He was assistant director of operations. Honors and Elections
Soot from hydrocarbon-fueled rockets flying tourists on suborbital junkets may contribute to significant warming at the Earth’s poles, if the business plans behind the nascent space-tourism industry are accurate.
Prospects are increasing that India will sustain four offerings in its $12-billion Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program but soon eliminate the MiG-35 and F-16IN from the field.
NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden has received an honorary doctor of science degree, conferred by Air University , in recognition of his contributions in education, government, public service and community affairs.
Dale Hawkins has been appointed to the newly created position of airframe sales manager at StandardAero ’s Business Aviation Sector. He comes from Kal-Aero/Duncan Aviation, where was a technician, team leader, department manager and airframe service sales representative. George Trivino has joined the company as regional sales manager for Latin America.
Cautious by its own admission, the airplane builder from Wichita is nonetheless in the early days of employing a novice workforce to make composite fuselage panels in a new factory it has built amid the farms of this rural North Carolina region.
Investors have made a lot of money and lost large sums betting on specialty metals companies Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) and Ladish Co. Inc.Shares in ATI, a leading producer of titanium and nickel-based super alloys, rocketed from $2.10 in 2003 to nearly $120 four years later—and then plummeted to $15 when the global economic downturn hit. Similarly Ladish, which specializes in forging, casting and machining parts for jet engines, airframes and helicopters, saw its stock rise from about $5 in 2003 to $60 in 2007—and then fall back to where it started.
Northrop Grumman plans to perform the first high-speed taxi of its X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS-D) demonstrator by the first week of December as a prelude to first flight by year-end at Edwards AFB, Calif. The taxi test will take the stealthy, single-engine UCAS to 120 kt., according to company officials.
The prospects of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that the U.S. and Russian presidents signed April 8 going into force this year dimmed last week when White House attempts to reassure Republicans in the Senate fell through. Under the American system, the president may sign a treaty, but it must then be ratified by a two-thirds vote in the Senate (see p. 19).
Israel’s defense establishment is pressing the government to accept a U.S. offer of 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in return for a renewal of the moratorium on West Bank settlement-building.
Lightsquared is preparing to launch its second spacecraft in a bid to become the first U.S. hybrid mobile satellite service to enter operation, following launch of its first satellite. SkyTerra-1 was lofted into orbit Nov. 14 by an International Launch Services Proton-M booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Built by Boeing using its 702 HP bus, the 5.3-metric-ton bird is equipped with a 22-meter (72-ft.) L-band reflector that will be the largest ever orbited for commercial purposes.
Boeing is starting flight tests of aerodynamic and performance improvements to the 737 using a United Airlines -800. Testing and certification of the package, aimed at reducing fuel consumption by 2%, will continue through April 2011. The changes are expected to be phased into production from mid-2011 through early 2012.
Jimmy Johnston has joined Primus International as chief people officer. He was leader of global human resources management teams for GKN Aerospace. Pat Thurman has been named senior vice president of Primus’ Composites Group. She was vice president/general manager for several businesses of TECT Aerospace.
Two Boeing 787s were ferried back to Seattle from remote sites on Nov. 16 after being grounded in the wake of the Nov. 9 inflight electrical fire on test aircraft ZA002. Boeing says an investigation of the fire in the P100 power distribution panel in the aft electronic equipment bay shows the fire itself burned for less than 30 sec., while the entire incident lasted for less than 90 sec.
The U.K. Royal Air Force took delivery of its seventh, and possibly final, C-17 at Boeing’s Long Beach, Calif., facility on Nov 16. Following the ceremony, the aircraft flew to the U.S. Air Force’s San Antonio Air Logistics Center at Kelly AFB, Texas, for installation of the Northrop Grumman Large Aircraft IR Countermeasures system, and is expected to arrive in the U.K. before year-end.
A chain of related announcements have served to focus attention on the capability and future of the Hawker 400. One of the more popular light jets, the aircraft began life in the late 1970s as the Mitsubishi MU-300 Diamond and was renamed the Beechjet 400 after Beech Aircraft acquired the program the following decade. It then became the Hawker 400 after the merger with that marque.
Final approval of the space segment of Eumetsat’s Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) weather satellite system should be forthcoming by all the Eumetsat states next month, following Germany’s approval of the plan. MTG, which will comprise four imaging satellites and two sounding spacecraft, is expected to begin replacing Eumetsat’s existing geostationary Meteosat network in 2018. Seventeen nations, representing 75% of the satellite system’s total cost, are now ready to green-light development.
Vermont Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie’s Viewpoint on the F-35 engine competition is right on (AW&ST Oct. 11, p. 66). A weapon system program of the size and scope of the F-35 should not be restricted to one engine program. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s emphasis on reducing cost and improving acquisition efficiency is appropriate, but his opposition to a competitive engine for the F-35 is penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking.
Defense systems engineering has slid backward in recent years. Cookbook processes numb the mind with checklists that have no relation to achieving what former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin calls “elegant design.”
Orbital Sciences Corp. will mount an early test flight of its planned Taurus II liquid-fueled launch vehicle to “buy down risk” before launching to the International Space Station, provided Congress makes extra funds available. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s chairman and chief executive, says the early test would enable his company to send as much as a half-ton of cargo to the ISS on the demonstration flight it must make under its Commercial Orbital Tansportation System (COTS) partnership agreement with NASA.
The chill that has left business and general aviation shivering for the past couple of years seems to be easing, at least in sunny Torrance, Calif., home of Robinson Helicopter Co. President and CEO Kurt Robinson says that whereas some customers last year were unable to obtain financing and defaulted on orders, “All that’s gone now. We’re back to regular production, which is great.”
As India’s homegrown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA Tejas) nears critical initial operational clearance next month, Indian air force officials say the aircraft will fail to meet performance requirements laid down by the service for the limited-profile Mk.1 platform.
U.S. aerospace and defense program management has come down to three things: execution, execution and execution. Two years into the worst programmatic bloodletting in generations, and with as many or more years of the same to come, program managers and corporate bosses are recognizing that their business lines will depend on excellent execution of contracts already won. Whether they can adopt that focus quickly and deeply enough in their enterprises, however, remains to be seen.
Russian ground forces are preparing to field new unmanned aircraft, plugging a capability gap in their arsenal that was highlighted during the 2008 conflict in Georgia. The Russian military has opted for three unmanned systems to be evaluated for a trial period, after a downselect from a larger set of candidates. Shortlisted are the Orlan-10, built by St. Petersburg-based Special Technology Center (STC); the Zala-421-04M Lastochka, designed by a Zala Aero/Vega Concern team; and Eleron-10, developed by Enics from Kazan.
Festooned with more than 2,000 sensors, Pratt & Whitney’s first PW1524G geared turbofan engine is in the midst of its initial development test program at the company’s West Palm Beach, Fla., site. Destined to enter service in 2013 on the Bombardier CSeries family of airliners, the engine is the first of a series of low-noise, low-fuel-burn geared turbofans Pratt is developing for regional and mainline jets including, it hopes, re-engined versions of the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737.
