Donald M. Kerr is among the members of the new Government Advisory Board of Iridium Communications Inc. , McLean, Va. He is a research professor in George Mason University’s Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering and was principal deputy director of U.S. national intelligence, director of the National Reconnaissance Office and deputy director for science and technology at the CIA. Other members are: USN Vice Adm. (ret.) Conrad C. Lautenbacher, who is vice president-science programs for the CSC Corp.
A. Thomas Young has been named non-executive chairman of the Science Applications Interational Corp. , McLean, Va. He was independent lead director and succeeds Ken Dahlberg, who has retired. Young was retired executive vice president of the Lockheed Martin Corp.
Tom Davis’s letter questioning the efficacy of jamming in reducing casualties to American forces (AW&ST July 5, p. 8) fails to take into consideration the benefit of having an umbrella of jamming protection in the presence of an enemy dedicated to using the electromagnetic spectrum to do our forces harm. As an example, during Operation Allied Force in 1999, U.S. and coalition aircraft flew more than 27,000 combat sorties against robust Serbian air defenses with dedicated EA-6B jamming on every mission. Two aircraft were lost, no aircrew.
USN Vice Adm. David J. Venlet has been appointed director of the Joint Strike Fighter program in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was commander of Naval Air Systems Command. Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox has been nominated for promotion to vice admiral and assignment as commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command/commander of the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.He has been commander of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, Fallon, Nev. Rear Adm. (lower half) Donald E. Gaddis has been named Pentagon-based program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs.
Ed Muniz (see photo, p. 18), who is CEO of MEI Technologies in Houston, has received Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2010 for Houston and the Gulf Coast Area for Entrepreneurial Excellence in Technology.
Bombardier will move production tooling for the all-composite Learjet 85 business jet to its Queretaro, Mexico, plant this month following completion of a test fuselage to validate the manufacturing tools, processes and quality. The Learjet 85 is Bombardier’s first all-composite aircraft. A second test fuselage, or manufacturing validation unit, will be produced at Queretaro before manufacture of test aircraft begins. They will be assembled and flown at Bomdardier’s Wichita, Kan., plant. The Learjet 85 is planned to enter service in 2013.
Qantas Airways and Boeing have brought forward delivery of 787s to the Australian airline by two years to 2012. The carrier will allocate the first aircraft to its Jetstar low-cost subsidiary. The first 787s delivered to the group will be 787-8s, of which 15 are on order. Eight will arrive starting in mid-2012 and the other seven, along with 35 787-9s, will enter service beginning in 2014. Allocation of 15 787s to Jetstar will allow that airline to transfer its Airbus A330-200s to the Qantas mainline operation, so it can retire its Boeing 767-300s.
Saturn looms in the distance beyond the asteroid Lutetia in this image collected by Europe’s Rosetta comet probe as it hurtled past the 130-km.-long (81-mi.) space rock at 15 kps. on July 10.
Joseph C. Anselmo’s commentary on “Aerospace’s Role in Chinese Power Play” (AW&ST July 5, p. 12) overstates China’s “assumed” commitment to quality. Experience with China’s certified material test reports show a system of fraudulent reporting in stating adherence to international quality standards. As the Western world’s quality systems are increasingly audited by third-party accreditation, China’s authoritarian policies leave little room for outside scrutiny.
Some revised thinking about the nature of its own forecasting methods and revisions to take other travel factors into account have crept into Boeing’s annual update of its commercial jet market outlook. But its basic trend line remains solidly planted in a belief that airplane fleet growth will continue to outpace national economies, leading to demand for 30,900 new aircraft worth $3.6 trillion in the 20 years ending in 2029.
After a decade of upheaval, the U.K. finally appeared to be ushering in a period of rotary stability with the conclusion of its Future Helicopter Strategy—made public in December 2009—but six months later a core element of the military’s program was again under scrutiny. As of early July, the £6-billion ($9-billion) search-and-rescue helicopter (SAR-H) private finance initiative program remained caught up in the finance ministry’s review of projects awarded in the dog days of the previous Labour Government.
Just before Northrop Grumman announced it will consider selling off its shipbuilding business, Wes Bush, the company’s new CEO, spoke with AW&ST Senior Technology Editor Graham Warwick and Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo about his focus on improving the U.S. defense giant’s lagging performance of recent years.
Moscow continues to pursue a comparatively aggressive schedule for its fifth-generation fighter, with a pre-production batch of the Sukhoi T-50 planned to enter manufacturing in 2012. The defense ministry, however, appears to be moderating previous claims that the aircraft would enter service in 2015, with senior officials now suggesting delivery of the first operational standard of the aircraft would begin in 2016. It remains to be seen if, even with a year’s slip, the revised schedule can be met.
James P. Woidke has been appointed chief operating officer of Sifco Industries Inc. of Cleveland. He was general manager of the company’s Aerospace Component Manufacturing Group.
Avoiding the pitfalls of the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35 programs is the highest priority for the U.S. Air Force and Navy as they think about the next generation of tactical aircraft to enter service after 2025. Overambitious requirements, immature technology, program complexity, development delays, escalating costs, procurement cuts—all are to be avoided as the services draw up their requirements for what are likely to be stealthy, supersonic, agile and networked—in other words, expensive—systems.
Congress and the White House are working on a compromise blueprint for NASA that would maintain a skeletal space shuttle capability, begin heavy-lift booster development, fund an Orion-type capsule for deep space human travel and test alternative contracting arrangements to sire a commercial U.S. human space transportation industry.
Despite the flight-test and production challenges still facing Boeing’s 787 program, the focus is increasingly shifting to service and support as the aircraft approaches the start of its long-awaited airline life.
Canada was expected to announce its commitment to purchase 65 Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters on July 16. Ottawa would be the second of the eight international development partners to commit formally to procurement of the JSF, after Australia. The Canadian JSFs would replace Boeing CF-18A/Bs, which are scheduled to be retired beginning in 2018.
EADS celebrates its 10th year of existence at this year’s Farnborough air show. Through the period, the company has been hit by political and programmatic turmoil. Chief Executive Louis Gallois, whose challenge has been to bring some stability to the European aerospace and defense giant, sat down with International Editor Robert Wall in the company’s Paris co-headquarters to discuss past, current and future concerns.
Rolls-Royce will double down on its commercial engine research and technology programs, after deciding to give a cold shoulder to potential narrowbody reengining efforts. Although the company was in talks about offering an engine for a refreshed Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, there has been little enthusiasm for such an endeavor among Rolls-Royce executives. Now Mark King, president of civil aerospace, says: “We remain unconvinced that this is the right answer for the industry. The right answer is a new airplane, and we don’t want to delay a new airplane.”
The Japanese government is under pressure from the country’s largest business association to ease its restrictions on arms exports so the country can join international projects. Nippon Keidanren argues that the country is becoming technologically isolated as the complexity and cost of defense equipment force other countries to increasingly collaborate on development. The F-X requirement for about 50 fighters to replace F-4EJ Phantoms is behind the issue.
