Jean-Michel Clairis-Gauthier has become vice president of Phoenix-based ACSS ’s Customer Group. He has been an airline marketing and sales executive with stakeholder company Thales Avionics.
Sept. 27-29—Applied Technology Institute’s Short Course: “Tactical Missile Design Integration.” Holiday Inn Laurel (Md.) West. See www.aticourses.com Sept. 27-Oct. 1—61st International Astronautical Congress. Prague Conference Center. Call +42 (2) 2491-8288, fax +42 (2) 8400-1448 or see www.iac2010.cz/en/ Sept. 28-29—Society of Experimental Test Pilots’/Society of Flight Test Engineers’ Fourth Annual European Flight Test Safety Workshop. Royal Aeronautical Society, London. See www.aerosociety.com/conference
Boeing signaled completion of the first forward fuselage for its 747-8 Intercontinental passenger aircraft by lifting the 89-ft., 2-in. section to an assembly tool where it will undergo sealing and testing before the beginning of systems installation.
Three of NASA’s four orbiting “great observatories” continue to operate, scanning the heavens without Earth’s atmosphere to obscure their views and producing images whose beauty is matched only by their value to science.
Sept. 28-30—MRO Europe. London. Sept. 29-30—MRO Military Europe. London. Nov. 1-3—A&D Programs Conference. Phoenix. Nov. 2-3—A&D Supply Chain Conference. Phoenix. Nov. 2-4—MRO Asia Conference and Exhibition. Singapore. You can now register ONLINEfor Aviation Week Events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/events or call Lydia Janow at+1 (212) 904-3225/+1 (800) 240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada Only)
Electric aircraft have hit the news, with Cessna and Sikorsky to fly demonstrators soon, but scaling up the technology to produce a commercial aircraft with low or no emissions remains an enormous, if tantalizing, challenge.
Japan’s IHI Aerospace is cooperating with the U.S. Air Force as it investigates the failure of its first Advanced Extremely High-Frequency (AEHF) satellite to reach orbit after an Aug. 14 launch, according to U.S. government sources. IHI made the satellite’s model BT-4 liquid apogee engine (LAE). The engine failed during two firing attempts to raise the spacecraft’s orbit shortly after launch. Air Force officials are now in a new effort to get the satellite into geosynchronous orbit after declaring the LAE useless.
French defense officials say France’s third Harfang medium-altitude long-endurance UAV, which was returned to Israel early this year to repair damage suffered in a crash landing, is back in action in Afghanistan.
Eurocopter and South Africa’s Advanced Technologies & Engineering are jointly developing a new weapon system designed for light and medium helicopters. Flight trials using an EC635 and the Stand-Alone Weapon System were recently conducted in South Africa. The weapon system includes various sensor options and a mission and fire-control computer.
In 2009, Delta Air Lines gutted its hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport after its merger with Northwest Airlines. Today the airport is a shadow of its former self, with one terminal shuttered and flights down 45% from pre-merger levels.
Airbus has awarded CAC Commercial Aircraft Co. the work package for A350XWB spoilers and droop panels. The deal brings to 5% the amount of A350 airframe work that Airbus has placed in China, meeting a commitment made early in the program.
Commercial aircraft often are retired at 28-30 years of age, but the recent economic trough has pushed that age down to as young as 7-8 years, which is helping aircraft leasing and parts reclamation companies to grow. The recession has accelerated a trend that has emerged in the last decade—airlines sell off inventories and buy parts more on a just-in-time basis. This trend, along with the number of aircraft phased out or discontinued in recent years, has expanded the market for used surplus parts for both rotable and expendable or on-condition parts.
Jamie Smith and Joe Higgins have been named service center coordinator and service team manager, respectively, at the General Dynamics Aviation Services facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. Smith was a completion team manager for Midcoast Aviation, Savannah, Ga., while Higgins was the avionics/electrical lead at the West Palm Beach facility.
The New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia clears the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but challenges remain. Three Republicans joined 11 Democrats in endorsing the April treaty, while four Republicans voted against it. Ratification requires two-thirds, or 67 senators, not a simple majority. The full Senate’s vote may come until next year. Many Republicans have reservations about the treaty, but Democrats and the administration sound confident.
Boeing’s win of an $89-million contract to develop a solar-/electric-powered prototype for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Vulture five-year endurance unmanned aerial system is a boon for the company’s burgeoning unmanned business. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) selected the Boeing/Qinetiq Solar Eagle design (see photo) over an offering from Lockheed Martin. An Aurora Flight Sciences’ option was eliminated earlier in the competion.
NASA is in final negotiations with up to four candidates to develop concept technologies for the next generation of environmentally friendly airliners, and is poised to award contracts.
Whether intentionally or not, the Navy and the media have mostly missed the point on the story of the MQ-8 Fire Scout that lost its communications link and flew off instead of returning to base as planned (AW&ST Sept. 6, p. 14) It was widely reported that the Fire Scout flew “into restricted airspace” near Washington, most likely part of the Washington Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA).
GE Aviation is to begin testing a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) low-pressure turbine blade in a GE F414 engine next month that represents the first use of that low-weight, temperature-resistent material in a rotating engine part. GE has made CMC engine liners, shrouds, nozzles and vanes in demonstration engines in the past, but all are stationary parts so they face lower stress levels.
The National Transportation Safety Board is questioning the professionalism of a controller and his manager, saying a “non-pertinent” call by the controller played a central role in the Aug. 8, 2009, midair collision over the Hudson River near Hoboken, N.J. Those concerns were raised during a 5-hr. board meeting held Sept. 14 to discuss the circumstances surrounding the Hudson midair collision that killed the pilot and two passengers onboard the Piper PA-32R-300 aircraft, N71MC, and all six people onboard the Eurocopter AS350BA helicopter, N401LH.
The Missile Defense Agency is planning a shootdown attempt by the Boeing 747-400F-based Airborne Laser against a solid-fuel target by the end of this month. The likely target is a Terrier Black Brant unguided sounding rocket, which was the first target engaged in February by ABL and mimics the early flight phases of a short-range ballistic missile.
Delta Air Lines’ plan to reduce Comair’s regional jet fleet to 44 aircraft by the end of 2012 is raising questions about the future of air service at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), which serves the Ohio Valley.
The Inside Track column (AW&ST Aug. 23/30, p. 18) is on the mark regarding an additive manufacturing process being “an offshoot of stereo lithography from the 1980s.”
Mark Leary (see photo) has been appointed chief information security officer of TASC Inc. , Chantilly, Va. He was deputy chief information security officer at the Northrop Grumman Corp.
Charles Yawn has become Savannah-based senior sales manager for product support sales for the Eastern U.S. for the General Dynamics subsidiary Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. Nick Chantorn has been named senior scheduler for Gulfstream Product Support at Long Beach, Calif. He was an owner services representative for NetJets Inc.
Andy Johnson (see photo) has been promoted to manager of the FlightSafety International Learning Center in Orlando, Fla., from assistant manager of the company’s Cessna Learning Center in Wichita, Kan.
