The Middle East’s low-fare airline sector has been the biggest growth industry in commercial air transport recently and indications are that the field will continue its upward trend as fresh competitors emerge. “The market is growing [but] the environment is not an easy one,” says Adel Ali, chief executive of Air Arabia, the region’s largest low-fare carrier.
Ed Lukas and Bernie Adamache from Air Canada Jazz are among the 2009 winners of the Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) “Better Way” Award from the FAA and the Air Transport Assn. of America . The award recognizes a team of government and airline industry individuals who worked to advance inspection and testing of aircraft structure, components or systems.
Controllers in Toulouse and in Redu, Belgium, are checking out the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite and Project for Onboard Autonomy (Proba-2), respectively, after a successful launch Nov. 1 from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Rockot vehicle. Liftoff came at 8:50 p.m. EST, and SMOS separated 70 min. later.
Despite the glowing words in “The Innovation Imperative” (AW&ST Oct. 26/Nov. 2, pp. 50, 52-53), the “Icons of Innovation” timeline shows conclusively that except for a few miltary aircraft and the dead-end Concorde, there has been no real innovation in aeronautics for 50 years, only refinement and upscaling. This is particularly evident in the air transport category. To address a problem, you have to recognize that it exists.
Robert Mullins, who is director of operations, strategy and development at the Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Linthicum, Md.-based Space & Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems Div., has been named executive in residence and Harris Center Fellow at his alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College , Lancaster, Pa., for the 2009-10 year.
The U.S. Air Force has begun certification testing of a synthetic jet fuel derived from waste animal and vegetable oils, while the U.S. Navy has tested a biofuel derived from the camelina plant in an F404 jet engine. The Air Force Research Laboratory says the performance of Syntroleum’s R-8 renewable fuel in initial tests is indistinguishable from its S-8 natural-gas-derived synthetic jet fuel, flown in a B-52 in 2006. Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture between Syntroleum and Tyson Foods, plans to begin fuel production in 2010.
The Bolivian government has concluded a memorandum of understanding with China Great Wall Industry Corp. and the International Telecommunication Union to prepare the way for construction and deployment of a Bolivian telecom satellite, Tupac Katari.
A plan by ICO Global to introduce hybrid mobile satellite service in the U.S. and Canada looks likely to proceed following confirmation of a reorganization plan for its North American unit that gives direct broadcasting giant EchoStar a role, if one smaller than anticipated.
Heavy interest has allowed troubled ProtoStar to sell its ProtoStar-1 spacecraft to Intelsat for $210 million—twice what had been expected—and to prolong the bidding for ProtoStar-2 until the end of the year. The Bermuda-based startup, formed to serve the Asia-Pacific market, was forced to auction the two units after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in July. Intelsat will rename ProtoStar-1 Intelsat 25 and shift it to a slot over the Atlantic Ocean.
If the results from the Lcross lunar impact turn out to be less definitive than hoped—given the lack of a demonstrable ejecta plume—and if it is important for future manned lunar exploration to determine if ice resides in polar lunar craters, I suggest a more direct approach: a dedicated polar lunar lander (AW&ST Oct. 19, p. 36). If NASA could soft-land five Surveyor spacecraft on the lunar surface beginning in 1966, surely it will not be too challenging to replicate the feat now.
Middle East carriers remain committed to growth despite global economic turmoil, but that is not to say that business plans for these airlines—which have spurred much of the Airbus and Boeing order intakes in the past decade—have not taken a big hit. That mood should be reflected in lower order activity at the Dubai Airshow, Nov. 15-19, even if some deals are on the horizon.
Patrick J. Finneran, Jr., (see photo) has been named president/CEO of the Sabreliner Corp. of St. Louis. He was a vice president of Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems. D.C. Iain Glendinning has become chief information officer, but remains head of the company’s Independence, Kan., operation.
Jim Thompson has been appointed general manager and Buddy Tobin senior project manager for King Aerospace Commercial Corp. , Addison, Tex. Thompson was a project manager for King. Tobin was president of BaySys West.
Kenneth E. Gazzola, Former Executive Vice President and Publisher AviationWeek Group (McLean, Va. )
I applaud Aviation Week & Space Technology for the integrity of your Oct. 19 editorial “Come to Wichita, Mr. President” (p. 78). In football, President Barack Obama’s comments would have resulted in a penalty for “piling on.” The depressed economy has delivered enough of a blow to business aviation without the president adding negative attention to the whole industry, due to the inexcusable blunders of a few CEOs.
Six NASA astronauts will use the next-to-last mission of the space shuttle Atlantis to begin preparing the International Space Station for the day when there will be no shuttles to keep the station supplied.
Stanley O. Kennedy, Jr., has been named vice president/general manager of the Space Products Group of Comtech AeroAstro , Littleton, Colo. He was vice president of CAA’s Advanced Products Group.
K. Radhakrishnan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, will succeed G. Madhavan Nair as the top Indian space official. A 38-year veteran of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Radhakrishnan was named chairman of the Space Commission, secretary of the Space Dept. and chairman of ISRO on Oct. 31. Radhakrishnan started his career in 1971 as an avionics engineer at Vikram Sarabhai and has been particularly active in remote-sensing.
Jack LoSecco has been appointed product and service area director for the Syracuse (N.Y.) Research Corp. He was director of the ITT Cyber Assurance Dept., Rome, N.Y.
All Nippon Airways aims to double its planned cost cuts by finding another ¥100 billion ($1.1 billion) in annual savings by reducing head count and consolidating group airlines. ANA also will shift 20% of its 6,000 administrative workers to roles closer to the front lines. A plan to hire 3,300 people to exploit expansion of Tokyo’s airports has been scrapped.
By the middle of next year, Etihad Crystal Cargo is slated to take delivery of the first Airbus A330-200F freighter, which completed its first flight Nov. 5 from Toulouse.
Qian Xuesen, a U.S.-trained rocket scientist who became the father of the Chinese space program, died on Oct. 31 in Beijing. He was 98. For his role in establishing China’s increasingly influential space sector, Aviation Week & Space Technology named Qian as its Person of the Year for 2007 (AW&ST Jan. 7, 2008, p. 56).
Use of business jets has risen 18% since bottoming out in March, another sign that the beleaguered industry is stabilizing. An analysis by UBS Investment Research finds that bizjet takeoffs and landings rose in five of the past six months. But flight activity was still 9% lower in September than a year earlier and 27% off its peak in mid-2007.
Engineers are poring over a treasure trove of flight data following NASA’s successful launch of its Ares I-X testbed from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., but financial data are much more likely to determine the ultimate fate of the Ares I crew launch vehicle. Two days after the flight test, NASA’s Constellation Program recommended dropping a planned follow-on “Ares I-Y” demonstration in 2014 because it does not have the funding necessary to get an upper-stage engine ready in time.
Your editorial “Come to Wichita, Mr. President” was disingenuous to the president. Detroit had been losing market share for years and through indifference or ineptness, ignored that it messed up. Now Detroit wants corporate welfare, but to “live high on the hog” on taxpayers’ money.
Piyasvasti Amranand (see photo) has become president of Thai Airways International . He was chairman of the advisory panel to the CEO of the Kasikornbank Bank and had been the country’s energy minister.
