Boeing’s selection of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings to fly the four-airplane large cargo freighter (LCF) fleet, which hauls wing and fuselage sections of the 787, has prompted a “bad faith” and breach of contract lawsuit by Evergreen International Airlines, an Atlas Air competitor (AW&ST March 15, p. 13). Evergreen had two roles in the LCF program: It tripled the volume of four 747-400s in an extensive modification program to be able to haul 787 wing and fuselage assemblies, and it provided logistics and wet-lease crews to operate the aircraft.
Elizabeth D. Iversen (see photos) has been named sector vice president/general manager of the Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Navigation Systems Div. of the Northrop Grumman Corp. She has been vice president-mission assurance for the Baltimore-based Electronic Systems Sector and is swapping positions with James M. Myers.
Signature Flight Support’s FBO at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is launching an information and direct assistance campaign to draw more business aircraft to the facility. The airport, which is close to downtown Washington and the Pentagon, was closed to general aviation traffic following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
William R. (Bob) Laidlaw, whose half-century-plus aerospace career included roles as combat pilot, researcher, past president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, engineering executive and founder of two companies, died April 2 from bladder cancer. He was 83 and lived in Nevada City, Calif. Laidlaw received Aviation Week’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 Laureates ceremonies.
Rotorcraft were the root of some surprises in the Pentagon’s latest slew of selected acquisition reports, covering periods through December 2009. For instance, federal money for Army Apache Block III helicopters arrived so late in the budget process that it forced the program into a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy cost-reporting statute, triggering a mandatory review of alternatives. The unit cost for the program increased by 25.5-31.2%, depending on the metric, but Army officials tell us they strongly support the program.
A data analysis confirms that the Boeing 787’s composite wing can withstand a load 1.5 times greater than the most extreme forces the airplane is expected to experience in commercial service. The March 28 test was conducted on the ZY997 static test article at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., factory and involved simultaneous downward pressure on the fuselage while the wings were bent upward.
USAF Maj. Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general with assignment as vice commander of Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. She has been the command’s director of intelligence and requirements. Wolfenbarger will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Dwyer L. Dennis, who was special assistant to the commander. Maj. Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski has been appointed commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB. She was deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office.
Long confined mainly to the realm of technology and navigation payloads, hosted payload arrangements could soon become a commonplace solution to multiple requirements, U.S. government and industry officials say. The idea of government payloads piggybacking on commercial spacecraft has been around for a while. The concept has been used to deploy payloads for the U.S. Wide Area Augmentation System and Europe’s Egnos GPS augmentation network, for instance, and to demonstrate new Internet protocol router and infrared surveillance technologies for the Pentagon.
Philippe Duhamel (see photo) has been appointed CEO for French operations for ThalesRaytheonSystems . He succeeds Herve Multon, who is now vice president/deputy to the senior vice president-strategy for Thales. Duhamel was managing director of the ground radar unit for Thales Air Systems.
There may not be a Spanish word for chutzpah, but the behavior is recognizable in any language. MexicoNow, a business magazine, is sponsoring an April 22 conference on that country’s growing aerospace industry, which it says now includes more than 300 companies. But the conference is being held in Wichita, Kan., where 14,000 aviation manufacturing workers are off the payrolls as a result of the recession and the daunting fall-off in aircraft sales.
Malaysian budget airline AirAsia has received the official nod to take a 30% stake in VietJet, a private Vietnamese airline due to begin operating in May. The development marks a milestone for AirAsia, which has joint-venture carriers in Thailand and Indonesia, but is a disappointment for Vietnam Airlines, which already faces local competition from Qantas’s Jetstar Pacific affiliate.
Sustained Afghanistan operations are highlighting European military equipment shortfalls, such as the strain the Netherlands is reporting on its helicopter fleet. The German parliament’s military ombudsman, Reinhold Robbe, documented numerous equipment shortages among German forces as well, including in critical night-vision equipment and armored vehicles. The German government has moved in the past two weeks to alleviate some problems by placing orders for more than 80 armored vehicles due for delivery this year.
Shanghai-based Spring Airlines has given Singapore Technologies Aerospace a $105-million contract for component maintenance. This will expand the support the Singaporean company provides to the carrier’s fleet to as many as 78 Airbus A320s from 15.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes reports delivering 108 aircraft in the first quarter of 2010, down 13 from the same period in 2009. Last year, the company was still delivering 747-400s, which accounts for four airplanes. But output in each of its main programs—the 737 and 777—was off this year. From January to March 2010, Boeing delivered 86 737s (91 in 2009) and 19 777s (23 in 2009). It also delivered three 767s in each year. Assuming about 460 deliveries this year, the first-quarter pace is slightly behind.
The total number of U.S. civil aviation accidents and fatalities in 2009 decreased compared to 2008, according to the NTSB preliminary statistics for 2009 released last week. The safety board recorded a total of 1,551 accidents and 534 fatalities in 2009 compared to 1,658 accidents and 566 deaths in 2008. Only one fatal accident involving a scheduled Part 121 operator occurred last year: the Feb. 12, 2009, crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y. that killed 50 people.
NASA’s plan for divvying up the work under its Fiscal 2011 budget request appears to have been drafted with at least an eye to the politics of getting it through Congress, and perhaps even to the congressional elections this fall. Alabama—home of Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, one of the most vocal opponents of the Obama administration space policy—does pretty well, as do potential battleground states Florida and Ohio (see p. 35). Administrator Charles Bolden says consultation with Congress on work-package details will come later.
The U.S. Navy’s first Boeing 737-based P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will begin operational test and evaluation at NAS Patuxent River, Md., following a ferry flight from Boeing Field in Seattle. T1, the first P-8, will be flown by the Poseidon integrated test team (ITT) comprising Navy Air Test and Evaluation Sqdns. VX-1 and VX-20 as well as Boeing. The aircraft is assigned to airworthiness testing while T2, which is expected to arrive from Seattle in the next month, will be used for mission systems tests.
Italian workshare demands are adding to the Pentagon’s list of headaches regarding the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, just as the U.S. is trying to come to terms with a major program restructuring aimed at dealing with development delays and cost overruns.
Justin Firestone (see photo) has been appointed Hong Kong-based president of Asia-Pacific sales and Richard W. Emery, 2nd, president of Americas jet sales for the Hawker Beechcraft Corp. , Wichita, Kan. Firestone was founder/CEO of Asia Jet, while Emery was Central U.S. vice president-sales. Keith Nadolski has become president for turboprop and piston sales in the Americas. He was vice president for aircraft sales for Eastern North America.
Andy Nativi (Genoa), Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
India and the United Arab Emirates are emerging as potential launch partners on the MBDA Marte extended-range (ER) version of the antiship missile, as the European missile manufacturer looks to refine its business model in the export arena. India is interested in the Marte ER to meet a requirement for a helicopter-launched antiship missile. In the Marte ER development, the missile’s solid-propellant sustainer motor would be replaced with a small turbojet, taking its range beyond 100 km. (62.5 mi.).
The Solar Impulse venture on April 7 completed the formal first flight of the solar-powered HB-SIA in preparation for a 36-hr. through-the-night flight this summer. The 87-min. flight took place at the Payerne air base in Switzerland, with the aircraft reaching close to 4,000 ft. in altitude.
London could yet order at least a handful of Tranche 3B Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, if a deal to sell the aircraft to Oman is in place by early 2011. Oman and the U.K. have been discussing Typhoon purchases for more than two years. Industry officials suggest that if the timescale for Oman’s delivery aspirations are to be met, the fighters will likely be drawn from Tranche 2 aircraft now in production for the Royal Air Force.
Luis Planas (see photo) has become vice president-quality at Dassault Falcon ’s Little Rock, Ark., facility. Mike Marcum has been appointed Midwest U.S. field technical representative and Falcon 900 specialist.
Stephen Gibson has become commercial director of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. , Guildford, England. He was head of commercial management of contracts for European Satellite Navigation Industries GmbH.
The civil aircraft projects of China and Japan will be heavily supported by Western first-tier suppliers who can offer much of the integration expertise that the upstart manufacturers lack. While this lack of experience in bringing together a whole aircraft is often seen as a key obstacle for companies such as Mitsubishi Aircraft, Comac and the ambitious subsidiaries of the Avic group, to a large extent they can simply contract such Western manufacturers as Goodrich and Honeywell to take on some of the integration load.
