Carrie Sinclair has been appointed manager of media relations for Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace . She was manager of communications for the Air Transport and Regional Div.
Adi Dar (see photos) has been named general manager of Elbit Systems Electro-Optics Ltd. (Elop) , Haifa, Israel. He succeeds Haim Rousso, who has become Elbit Systems Ltd.’s executive vice president-engineering and technology excellence. Dar was vice president-business development.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (ret.) Charles S. Mahan, Jr., has been appointed to the board of directors of Spectrum Control Inc. , Fairview, Pa. He was the Army’s chief of logistics.
Dennis Corrigan has become vice president-revenue management for JetBlue Airways . He was managing director of revenue management operations for United Airlines. Corrigan succeeds Richard Zeni, who is now vice president-change management for the Passenger Service System.
In his letter “How ALPA Benefits Pilots” (AW&ST May 25, p. 8), Capt. David Skilling claimed early release of the Colgan Air Flight 3407 cockpit transcript “titillates the public” while potentially hindering communication essential to aviation safety investigations. Then Skilling danced on the graves of the two Colgan pilots to make a political statement celebrating the repeal of the FAA’s Age 60 Rule. He distorted ALPA’s record and ignored the debate that ALPA chaired in advance of the Age 65 legislation.
Apache Aerospace and Advanced Ceramics Manufacturing offer a new generation of monolithic cutting tools based on high-strength ceramics to machine aerospace materials. Unlike metal-bonded carbides, monolithic ceramics retain hardness as cutting temperatures rise, so are wear-resistant. Ceramic formulations now exist which have a low coefficient of friction that helps reduce heat generation.
The U.S. Air Force is dividing responsibility for modernizing and sustaining its A-10 attack aircraft over the next 10 years among three “associate prime contactors”: Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed has been the prime since 1997 but in 2007, Boeing won the contract to rewing the aircraft. Now all three companies will compete for individual task orders under the overall Lifecycle Program Support contract, which is worth up to $1.6 billion over the initial four years.
Rolls-Royce has opened a $1-million 14,000-sq.-ft. facility and an 11,000-sq.-ft. overhaul shop at Indianapolis International Airport that will expand its On-Wing Care engine services network. The facilities can accommodate up to 100 engine service calls annually and is the sixth such operation launched in the city by Rolls-Royce. It will service the AE3007, AE2100, Tay, BR700, RB211 and Trent-series powerplants.
Paul Goode writes in his letter “Who’s at the Helm?” that “To answer reader David Birken’s query as to why we have not gone back to the Moon or on to Mars, it’s clear that in 1969 NASA was run by scientists; today, politicians call the shots” (AW&ST June 1, p. 8; May 11, p. 10).
Deanna Lund has been promoted to corporate executive vice president/chief financial officer from senior vice president/CFO of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc. of San Diego.
EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois last week sat down with AW&ST International Editor Robert Wall at EADS’s co-headquarters in Ottobrunn, outside Munich. Gallois addressed a range of issues affecting the aerospace industry, but in the wake of the crash of Air France Flight 447, he also expressed his grief over the tragedy and extended condolences to the victims’ families. International Civil Aviation Organization rules bar the aircraft maker from talking about technical aspects of the ongoing investigation.
Carl A. Alleyne has become vice president-engineering of GeoEye Inc. , Dulles, Va. He was senior director/deputy vice president of engineering for the Intelligence and Information Systems Div. of the Raytheon Co.
Nook Industries small-diameter ball screw assemblies are used in guided missiles, unmanned vehicles and aerospace applications. They offer engineers a globally accepted metric product for compact, portable and lightweight applications requiring high accuracy, repeatability and durability, according to the company. Ball screws offer an efficient means of converting rotary motion to linear motion; smaller package applications typically require lower load capacity and higher precision. The small-dia.
U.S. Air Force (ret.) Gen. Bruce Carlson’s combat training as an OV-10 forward air controller and F-4 fighter pilot might come in handy if he is chosen to head the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). He’ll need to get used to heavy flak leading the NRO, which has come under scrutiny for cost overruns and delays in delivering critical intelligence satellites. Industry and government sources say Carlson is the top candidate for the job.
St.-John Williamson has been named vice president-business development and sales for Aero Vodochody , Odolena Voda, Czech Republic. Johann Heitzmann and Simon Luxmoore have joined the company’s Strategic Advisory Board. Williamson was senior vice president-customer business for Europe for Rolls-Royce. Heitzmann, an independent consultant, was an executive at Daimler Chrysler Aerospace and EADS. Luxmoore was senior vice president of Messier-Dowty International.
By year-end, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will have logged around 200 flights, not a lot for an aircraft that first flew in December 2006. And it’s not for lack of activity—the assembly line and run stations here are full of aircraft—but getting them in the air and keeping them there have proved problematic.
John Rood has been named Arlington, Va.-based vice president/deputy for U.S. business development for the Raytheon Co. He was acting U.S. undersecretary of State for arms control and international security.
Michael Mecham (DallasFort Worth International Airport)
At 16-17 cents each, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for passenger luggage do not seem like much of a deal compared to the 2 cents that airlines typically spend for the standard bar-code paper strip that identifies a bag’s owner and its destination.
Citing the global recession, higher jet fuel prices and the impact of the swine flu on demand in Mexico and Asia, Delta Air Lines says it will increase its capacity cuts for international routes this September to 15%, which is five percentage points higher than it announced three months ago. The reductions include a 20% cut in capacity on transatlantic routes, which Delta says have shown the most weakness. Specific routes in the service “suspension,” include Atlanta-Seoul, Atlanta-Shanghai, Cincinnati-Frankfurt, Cincinnati-London Gatwick and New York Kennedy-Edinburgh.
Alenia Aeronautica will play a major role in helping the United Arab Emirates grow its unmanned aircraft ambitions after concluding two years of secretive talks to establish a joint venture with Abu Dhabi Autonomous Systems Investments (Adasi).
The Japanese Defense Ministry probably will delay its order for fighters under the F-X program until at least the fiscal year beginning Apr. 1, 2011, because of a lack of information on the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35. The delay minimizes one of the chief advantages of competitors to the F-35—its earlier availability—and gives the U.S. more time to change its mind on its ban of exports of the F-22, the aircraft that Japan really wants. Under the F-X requirement, the ministry wants to buy 50 fighters to take over the air-to-air role from McDonnell Douglas F-4EJ Phantoms.
EADS Astrium is starting work on two high-resolution wide-swath optical imaging satellites to replace its workhorse Spot 5, even though it has not yet nailed down any government support to help finance the project. Together with two very-high-resolution (VHR) Pleiades spacecraft, the first of which recently ended integration testing, and a second radar imager, Tandem-X, completed last week, the new Spot satellites will give Astrium a fleet of imagers and portfolio of geoinformation services unparalleled in the industry.
Sens. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation to loosen federally imposed restrictions on Reagan Washington National limiting most nonstop service to markets within 1,250 mi. of the airport. The lawmakers, who hope to attach the measure to the FAA reauthorization bill, note it is supported by US Airways, which has a big presence at both National and Las Vegas’s McCarran Airport. Under their proposal, airlines that use a National slot to serve large hub airports would be able to fly to any airport.
