Florida-based Quasar Aerospace Industries has formed a joint venture with Australia’s Tigerfish Aviation to develop and certificate a retractable float system designed for retrofit to a wide range of aircraft. Quasar says a Dornier 228NG has been selected as the proof-of-concept aircraft, and four companies have received requests for proposals to perform the engineering and certification work, which it estimates will cost around $5 million. .
David Owen has become U.K.-based vice president-European sales and business development for Vermont Composites Inc. He was a regional sales manager for Hexcel.
Greg Churchill has been appointed executive vice president-international and service solutions for Rockwell Collins , Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was executive vice president/chief operating officer for Government Systems. Churchill has been succeeded by Kelly Ortberg, who was executive vice president/chief operating officer for Commercial Systems. And following Ortberg is Kent Statler, who was executive vice president for Rockwell Collins Services.
American Airlines parent AMR Corp. says it is in advanced talks with China Eastern Airlines to join the Oneworld alliance. The Dallas-based carrier is pushing an alliance strategy, Chief Financial Officer Tom Horton told a New York travel conference.
Poland will buy five more Mil Mi-17 helicopters under a $106-million contract with Metalexport to support its operations in Afghanistan. The helos are due for delivery this summer
January’s results brought more evidence from the Assn. of Asia-Pacific Airlines that airlines are climbing out of recession. The 14.9 million international passengers that the 17 AAPA members carried was up 8.1% over the previous year, while revenues climbed 7%. A 0.7% reduction in capacity also helped with load factors, which rose 5.6 percentage points to 78.6%. January also brought growth in airfreight, which jumped 33.1% in freight tonne kilometers over 2008 levels. Load factors rose 12.6 percentage points to 66.4%.
The F-35 manufacturer hopes to “buy back” up to 90 stealthy fighters that were lost in the recent program restructuring, but a likely cost-overrun declaration this month will be a major hurdle for the company to surmount.
Your editorial “A Cloudy Vision” (AW&ST Feb. 8, p. 50) confirms that the U.S. space program is out of control and has no central management authority. NASA, which was established to be that central management/control authority has never established itself as a managerial authority. Instead of managing our space program, NASA has become a participant ; thus, our space program has become the most misdirected and wastefully expensive federal project I have experienced in almost 40 years of reading AW&ST.
The Indian navy has inducted the first four of 16 Mikoyan MiG-29K multi-role naval fighters and is establishing shore-based training while it pushes Russia to speed up arrival of the aircraft carrier they were bought for. The fighters were purchased in 2004 as part of a $1.5-billion deal that included the Kiev-class Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. Their Feb. 19 induction ceremony marked the first new aircraft in the navy’s inventory in two decades.
Andres (Sandy) Sandoval has been appointed vice president-flight operations and Marc Gross vice president-system operations, planning and control for JetBlue Airways . Sandoval was the airline’s chief pilot at New York John F. Kennedy International Airport. Gross was director of system operations control and central load control for Northwest Airlines.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London)
While Moscow’s T-50 stealth fighter prototype remains the center of attention, the Russian air force recorded a second milestone event. The first delivery has been completed of a sophisticated trainer that will form the core of a new program to prepare pilots for advanced combat aircraft designs.
French space agency CNES last month selected Thales Alenia Space to build and integrate the Jason-3 altimetry satellite. The go-ahead came when Eumetsat, which will operate the satellite with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, agreed to increase its financial contribution. CNES is acting as procurement agent and contributing a Proteus bus for the mission, along with engineering support. The spacecraft, to be launched in mid-2013, is designed to supply vital ocean altimetry data for operational weather and climate forecasting.
Hugh McElroy, who has been a member of the board of directors of the Frontiers of Flight Museum , has been elected chairman. Dan Hamilton, who has been executive director, also will be president. McElroy succeeds U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), while Hamilton follows Jan Collmer. They will be directors emeritus. McElroy is president of the BAA Aviation Engine Reapir and Overhaul Group.
The FAA rule-making process does not set Olympic speed records when it comes to implementing NTSB recommendations. And the two agencies, the Hatfields and McCoys of aviation, were sparring publicly over the process last week at back-to-back congressional hearings. At a House aviation subcommittee hearing on aircraft icing, NTSB Chairman Debbie Hersman noted that two of the four “open” (meaning the FAA response was so far unacceptable) recommendations related to icing on its Most Wanted List were issued back in 1997.
European Space Agency Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain has asked for clarification on the bid selection for Europe’s Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) weather constellation. The agency’s tender-evaluation board recently issued a recommendation for prime contractor, and ESA is expected to announce the winning bidder after a special Mar. 15 council meeting at which MTG operator Eumetsat is to approve the program proposal. ESA did not name the contractor or elaborate on the reasons for the clarification.
The space shuttle Endeavour glides to a safe landing at Kennedy Space Center on its first opportunity on Feb. 21. STS-130 mission commander George Zamka and pilot Terry Virts guided Endeavour onto Runway 15 after a virtually flawless two-week mission to deliver the Tranquility node and its seven-window cupola to the International Space Station (AW&ST Feb. 22, p. 33). With the new node in place, managers consider the ISS 98% complete by volume, with 90% of its planned mass in orbit.
Aerojet has delivered a Pathfinder engine to NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for testing as part of the development of the AJ26 for the first stage of Orbital Sciences’ Taurus II medium-class launcher. The Pathfinder will be used to verify test stand interfaces and engine handling processes, and to test configuration for the liquid-fueled AJ26 prior to hot-fire tests planned for April.
With no apparent vision for the U.S. manned space program, we are setting the stage for a costly funeral for the “International” Space Station (ISS). Without the U.S. leadership of the past, the station would not exist and now in the very near future, we won’t even be able to access it without paying monopoly pricing to Russia for ferry flights. Congress needs to step in to save elements of the Constellation Program that guarantee the U.S. independent access to manned spaceflight and the ISS, which the U.S. taxpayers primarily funded.
Israel’s latest addition to its intelligence-collecting arsenal, the Eitan unmanned aircraft, will not become formally operational until next year, but Israeli military officials suggest they are ready to press the long-range UAV into duty earl ier if needed.
German aerospace center DLR has issued awards for detailed Phase B definition of a demonstrator intended to validate the ability of robotic systems to perform in-orbit inspection, maintenance and reorbit or deorbit space payloads. The German Orbital Servicing Mission will comprise a target spacecraft and service satellite. OHB System will handle overall system management and affiliate Kayser-Threde the robotic system and berthing, docking and maintenance aspects of the mission.
Hawker Beechcraft has made its first delivery of a Hawker 4000 business jet to China, following certification by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
R ehearsing installations of its new-look Boeing 787-inspired “Sky” interior for the next phase of the 737 upgrade program, the Boeing Co. hopes to avoid disruption of the moving production line and potential chaos when the first units are introduced.
