Speaking of Farnborough no-shows, Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens is hoping to give his company a trim off the top, offering voluntary separation packages to executives. The company will not say how many execs it wants to leave, but their departure date is Feb. 1, 2011. This comes on the heels of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s call to thin the military’s general officer ranks and top civilian staff in the Defense Department.
Consolidation may be the prevailing trend in the airline industry, but Aviation Week’s latest Top-Performing Airlines study provides a timely reminder that bigger is not always better.
July 19-25—Farnborough International Airshow. Call +44 (125) 253-2800, fax +44 (125) 237-6015 or see www.farnborough.com July 26-29—Practical Aeronautics Short Course “Introduction to Aeronautics: A Practical Perspective.” Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. See www.practicalaero.com July 26-Aug. 1—2010 Experimental Aircraft Association Airventure. EAA Aviation Center, Oshkosh, Wis. Call +1 (920) 426-4800 or see www.airventure.org
For the first time since 2001, NASA will fly a six-week field campaign to gather data on how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. Beginning Aug. 15, the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission will use the agency’s DC-8 research aircraft operating out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood (Fla.) International Airport, a WB-57 flying from Ellington Field in Houston and a Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California.
An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-800 is about to touch down at San Francisco International Airport. Alaska is the highest-ranked mainline carrier in this year’s Aviation Week Top-Performing Airlines study. Allegiant Air was named the top carrier in the low-cost category, with Australia’s Regional Express Holdings the best of the regional airlines. The full TPA report begins on p. 48. Joseph Pries photo.
It will be at least a month before verification of revised sequencing software for the Orbital Sciences Minotaur IV rocket will be in place and a new launch date can be set for the Boeing Space-Based Space Surveillance system from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The SBSS mission was set for July 8 but scrubbed when “rigorous and significant testing to ferret out remote failure modes” at Orbital’s Chandler, Ariz., facility turned up an anomaly that posed a one-in-1,000 chance that a timing issue would prompt a launch failure, says Orbital’s Minotaur chief engineer, Tim Kettner.
Though launched barely a year ago, Europe’s Herschel orbital infrared observatory is already challenging old ideas about the birth of stars and opening new roads for IR missions, notably the NASA-led James Webb Space Telescope. Among the findings are a new phase of water never before observed in space and super-distant galaxies that until now were indistinguishable from the cosmic infrared background that permeates deep space.
USN Rear Adm. David L. Philman has been named director of warfare integration/senior national representative in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington. He was director of the Air Warfare Div. in that office. Rear Adm. (lower half) Jerry K. Burroughs has become program executive officer for command, control, communications and intelligence for the San Diego-based Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. He was its chief engineer.
Lockheed Martin confirms it has signed a joint-venture agreement with Tata Group to make aircraft components and defense products in India. India’s Economic Times first reported the agreement, saying Lockheed Martin would invest 428 million rupees ($9.1 million) in the proposed venture and privately held industrial conglomerate Tata 1.22 billion rupees. Lockheed is bidding to sell the F-16 to the Indian air force, which has a 126-aircraft requirement.
James Reichart has been promoted to vice president-sales, distribution and loyalty programs of Republic Airways Holdings from director of advertising for subsidiary Midwest Airlines.
Mahindra Aerospace, aiming to become the Embraer of India, will move rapidly to build large aerostructures thanks to an agreement to buy equipment from Boeing’s Australian operation. The Indian company, a subsidiary of conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra, is catapulting itself into the industry with a range of Australian acquisitions that are accelerating its development, perhaps by a decade or more.
I must respond to Michael Gallagher’s letter “Two JSF Engines Are A Waste” (AW&ST June 14/21, p. 10). Years ago it was the U.S. Air Force that was in deep trouble with a significant part of the fighter force grounded due to problems with the F-15 and F-16 engines. The alternate engine debate was mute after that near disaster—at least until many forgot the history involved.
As Defense Secretary Robert Gates continues his mission in Washington to curb defense spending, the nation’s only wing flying U-2s and Global Hawks is proposing some new measures to save money in operating these sophisticated intelligence-collecting aircraft.
Boeing plans to unveil its Phantom Eye liquid hydrogen-powered unmanned aerial vehicle July 12 to company officials only. Boeing is developing the demonstrator with a hope of eventually building a vehicle capable of 10 days of high-altitude endurance with a 1,000-lb. payload, and in an effort to reinvigorate the company’s sluggish attempt to get an unmanned systems business off the ground. Officials will also try with Phantom Eye to beat the endurance record set by the Boeing Condor by flying 96-100 hr. First flight is slated for the first quarter of 2011.
More questions than answers are arising from the U.S. Navy/Air Force memorandum of agreement to coordinate efforts on their respective high-altitude reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Signed June 12 by the services’ chiefs of staffs, the agreement aims to produce operational and financial efficiencies in the Air Force Global Hawk and Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) programs, both of which are in development, though the USAF Global Hawk has a head start of many years on its younger cousin.
Regarding Clayton Esterson’s letter on the CB-17 “Rallying for the C-17” (AW&ST June 28, p. 10), if the “auxiliary technologies needed to penetrate highly defended airspace” are so simple, it would make more sense to apply them to the existing fleet of B-1Bs. Unfortunately, the ability to penetrate and survive modern defense systems requires considerable sophistication and attention to detail. Survivability must be an inherent feature of a design rather than an adjunct a la electronic countermeasures.
International operations by Iran’s airlines are being strictly curtailed by safety concerns and political tensions. The European Commission last week tightened its ban on the country’s main airline, Iran Air, when it updated its blacklist of foreign carriers. Two thirds of Iran Air’s fleet can no longer be used for European services. The ban includes the carrier’s six Airbus A320s, nine Boeing 747s and four Boeing 727s. Iran Air can continue serving destinations in the European Union using its 14 Airbus A300s of various variants and two A310s.
Google’s deal to acquire ITA Software for $700 million creates the potential for the search engine giant to shake up airline travel distribution, although Google has not detailed its plans. That leaves airlines, online travel agencies and other players to wonder whether this should be viewed as an opportunity, a source of angst or both.
Stuart Ratcliffe has become vice president-global ATM advisory services within the Commercial Products and Solutions Group of Metron Aviation , Dulles, Va. He was manager of the Central Airspace Management Unit of South Africa’s Air Traffic and Navigation Services. Former FAA Administrator Jane Garvey has joined the board of directors.
James W. Wade (see photo) has been named vice president-mission assurance of the Raytheon Co. , Waltham, Mass. He was head of the Safety and Mission Assurance Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory.
The European Space Agency’s industrial policy committee (IPC) has approved the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) program, paving the way for the space segment of the €3.3-billion ($4.2-billion) system to be put to contract. The IPC move had been expected following a June 21-22 vote by Eumetsat, which will own and operate the six-satellite network, to go ahead with the project.
Astrophysicists are poring over new data from Europe’s Planck cosmic background explorer for clues to the period in the early universe known as inflation, when the Big Bang theoretically was followed by a period of extremely rapid expansion. The European Space Agency has released the first all-sky image of the universe produced by the spacecraft since its launch last May in a double mission with the Herschel Space Observatory (see p. 44).
