American Airlines is evaluating procedures aimed at reducing fuel consumption and emissions during a two-month, in-service period beginning this month. The trial, which began June 11, is part of the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions (Aire) being conducted jointly by the FAA, European Commission and several airlines. Air France was scheduled to make the first transatlantic flight under Aire on June 9, but has postponed participation because of the Flight 447 crash (AW&ST June 8, p. 24).
Terry Reidel has been named chairman of the board of directors of Com Dev. International Ltd. , Cambridge, Ontario. He was vice chairman and succeeds Keith Ainsworth, who will remain a director. Reidel will be followed by Peter Scovell.
Patricia J. Herchenroeder has been promoted to vice president from director of the Threat and Weapons Systems Engineering Div. of Telephonics subsidiary SEG Inc. , Columbia, Md.
There is growing anxiety within aviation circles that a failure to pinpoint the cause of the crash of Air France Flight 447 could leave a shadow hanging over the Airbus A330 and, possibly, the airline.
Katherine L. Adams has become senior vice president/general counsel of Honeywell International , Morris Township, N.J. She succeeds Peter Kreindler, who will be retiring. Adams was general counsel of the company’s Specialty Materials business.
The fifth-generation TB700N, marketed as the TBM850, boasts a 315-KTAS maximum cruise speed that enables it to fly 1,000+ naut. mi. with four passengers and land within about 10 min. of the Embraer Phenom 100, the fastest aircraft in the very light jet (VLJ) class.
George Nelson, Jr., has become vice president of the National Aviation Academy ’s Clearwater, Fla., and New England locations. He was director of education. Nelson has been succeeded by Douglas Ecks, who was director of education for the Clearwater site. Ecks has been followed by Darryl Grosso, who was assistant director of education for the Aviation Maintenance Technology Program. Tammy J. Dever has been named director of career services.
W. James McNerney, Jr. AGE: 59 EDUCATION: B.A. from Yale University and M.B.A. from Harvard University CAREER: Began in 1975 in brand management at Procter & Gamble Held a variety of senior management posts at General Electric, including president of aircraft engines unit Became chairman and CEO of 3M in 2001 Tapped for Boeing’s top job in June 2005. Oversees more than 160,000 employees.
I wish you had asked Air Line Pilots Assn. President John Prater what ALPA had learned post-deregulation (AW&ST Apr. 20, p. 48). Perhaps he would have answered that we learned: •If you bid your services too high, you create a market opening for a low-cost competitor whose ability to profitably offer lower prices drives your company into the loss column.
David Justin, who is senior vice president of GlobeCast, is one of three new members of the board of directors of the New York-based World Teleport Assn. The others are: Serge Van Herck, CEO of Newtec; and Norberto Vitale, CEO of Teleport Internacional Buenos Aires.
The first signs of a positive response to efforts by the general and business aviation community to recapture a favorable opinion among U.S. lawmakers are now being felt, say GA association leaders.
Bobby Lo has been appointed manager for design engineering for Circor Aerospace Inc. , Corona, Calif. He was engineering manager at ITT Aerospace Controls, Valencia, Calif. Brian Rosengrant has been named engineering manager for Circor Aerospace/Aerodyne Controls. He was senior program manager at the Telephonics Corp.
David King has been appointed executive vice president named of Dynetics , Huntsville, Ala. He had retired as director of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, also in Huntsville. King succeeds Herbert M. Barnard, who will be retiring in July.
The U.S. Air Force’s first MC-12W lands at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, at 6:20 p.m. local time June 10 after its first combat sortie there. The service began developing the so-called Project Liberty aircraft last year after calls from U.S. Central Command for more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support. This is the first of 37 MC-12Ws expected. The first seven are built on the Hawker Beechcraft King Air 350 platform, with the remainder based on the 350ER.
Barring last-minute hold-ups, Boeing’s long-delayed 787 flight-test program is poised to begin within weeks, possibly before the end of the Paris air show itself.
The hard work is now beginning for Airbus and its partners to turn the A350XWB twin-widebody conception into a reality. The design was formally frozen in December but another review is scheduled for midyear, after which engineers will exit this so-called central plateau stage and head to their respective companies to work on detailed design of the aircraft components. It effectively kick-starts a new phase in the A350 program and sets the stage for parts manufacturing to begin on a large scale.
The Airborne Laser (ABL) missile defense program may have been drastically cut, but it’s far from dead, says the head of the Missile Defense Agency. In fact, MDA plans to explore putting ABL technology on an aircraft smaller than its current jumbo jet platform, says Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly. The high-powered laser, designed to destroy an attacking missile shortly after launch, flies on a modified Boeing 747-400 freighter now.
Pilots caught in the time warp of being older than 60 but younger than the FAA’s new mandatory retirement age of 65 are suing to get back in the air. But it’s unclear if they’ll find relief in court. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asked why they are suing in San Francisco rather than in Washington. One unstated answer is the perception that the FAA has a home court advantage in the nation’s capital.
Comments from retired airline pilots in recent issues reveal a number of underlying factors were out of kilter on Colgan Air Flight 3407, including one to which our compulsively politically correct culture turns a blind eye.
Jeff Hartlove, who is Airborne Laser (ABL) deputy program manager for the Northrop Grumman Corp., has received a U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Technology Pioneer Award as one of six government and industry team members recognized for developing and integrating technologies that would enable ABL to engage in boost-phase ballistic missile defense. Hartlove was honored for his role in activating, testing and tuning the megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser.
NASA is set to launch its long-awaited Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter June 17, carrying a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) similar to one that already is returning tantalizing data from its perch on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The LRO and its piggyback Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (Lcross) impactor are ready to go on an Atlas V as early as 3:51 p.m. EDT, with subsequent windows at 4:01 p.m. and 4:11 p.m. EDT on June 17, and more opportunities on the 18th.
The first Boeing 787 is undergoing a last phase of intensive ground simulation, or “gauntlet,” work before it starts taxi tests and revs up for the long-anticipated first flight.
A cockpit windshield heater was the cause of a small fire on a Jetstar Airbus A330-200 that resulted in the crew declaring Mayday and making an emergency landing at Guam on June 11. Qantas, which owns Jetstar, states than an electrical connector of the heating element malfunctioned, producing sparks and smoke. A Jetstar representative says small flames accompanied the smoke, on the right side of the cockpit near the windshield. The pilots extinguished the fire.
Anthony Albanese has been promoted to vice president from assistant vice president of the Systems Technology Business Area of the Syracuse (N.Y.) Research Corp. (SRC) . Joanne Shumaker has been named Hanover, Md.-based federal market account director. She was president of SciTech Services Inc. Tom Wilson has been named vice president/chief strategy officer of subsidiary SRCTec. He was SRC’s vice president-systems technology.
