This is a tough time for U.S. regional airlines. The major carriers, upon whom regionals rely for business, have slashed domestic capacity—first to cope with last year’s skyrocketing fuel prices, and then with the long and deep recession.
High above Boeing’s 787 factory floor is a room filled with mechanical engineers, quality-control specialists, procurement officers and a dozen other technologists, each with desktop computers, triple wide-screen monitors and cordless phone connections.
Language in the pending FAA Reauthorization bill would require drug- and alcohol-testing of workers at aircraft repair stations outside the U.S., as well as two unannounced FAA inspections per year. Not only is random drug-testing illegal in some countries, says Steve Kolski, executive vice president for operations and corporate affairs at AirTran, but if the legislation passes, it “will lead to reciprocal protectionism and retaliation.” The measure also could jeopardize the bilateral aviation safety agreement between the U.S. and the European Union.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is, belatedly, getting behind the Eurofighter Typhoon program, following lobbying from partner nations and several British government departments with industry support. There have been concerns that Treasury opposition would block the U.K. from proceeding with even an element of its notional 88-aircraft purchase from the Tranche 3 production run. National leaders from the other partner nations pressed Brown to move forward with the Tranche 3 order.
Reader Mark Fay should step back from his populist rage and review the history of aviation safety (AW&ST Apr. 27, p. 8). While his quest for justice can be respected, he does not appear to understand either the evolution of standards, training, procedures or even basic human behavior. Until aviation safety programs were able to peer inside the cockpits and put together the complete mishap chain, improvements to standards, training and procedures were hit or miss.
Mark Schwab has been appointed senior vice president-alliances (international) and regulatory affairs and James Mueller vice president-Pacific for United Airlines parent UAL Corp. Schwab succeeds Mike Whitaker, who has been named group CEO for InterGlobe’s Travel, Technology and General Aviation Services in New Delhi. Schwab was country manager for Mexico and the U.K. for United. Mueller held a similar position with Northwest Airlines. R. Douglas Rose has become vice president-human resources for UAL’s Total Rewards.
The Pentagon is taking some risk in the crucial area of overhead nonimaging infrared sensors, which provide the first warning of ballistic-missile attack. Gen. Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command, says the fledgling Infrared Augmentation Satellite program was terminated during the Fiscal 2010 budget discussions. U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. Kevin Chilton pushed for the program to provide space-based missile warning in case the beleaguered Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) suffers more delays.
President Barack Obama’s decision to review NASA’s human-spaceflight planning bears an ominous, here-we-go-again resemblance to attempts by previous presidents to reverse predecessors’ out-of-favor policies. But Obama’s selection of former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine to head the review offers hope that the resemblance is superficial.
Regarding your coverage of the recent Melbourne Airbus overrun (AW&ST May 4, p. 22), please remind me why aircrews are required to manually calculate and then enter aircraft weight into flight control systems that are otherwise largely sensor and algorithm-driven? Wouldn’t it be better to equip aircraft to directly report this value to their control systems?
USAF Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Raaberg has been appointed special assistant to the commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley AFB, Va. He was deputy combined forces air component commander for U.S. Central Command/deputy commander of Air Force Forces/vice commander of ACC’s 9th Air Expeditionary Task Force, Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Raaberg has been succeeded by Maj. Gen. Stephen L. Hoog, who has been commander of ACC’s U.S. Air Force Warfare Center, Nellis AFB, Nev. Hoog, in turn, has been succeeded by Brig. Gen. Stanley T.
Jose Leon has been promoted to president/chief operating officer of the AeroThrust Corp. of Miami from president of subsidiary AeroThrust Capital. Honors and Elections
With testing underway on a new core engine and composite fan blades, CFM International says it is on the threshold of introducing an engine that will do for 100-200-passenger regional aircraft what is already working for long-haul transports that are setting sales records.
Astronomers using two instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope have refined the value for the Hubble Constant to within an error margin of less than 5%, pointing the way to a better understanding of the force astrophysicists call “dark energy.” A team headed by Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Johns Hopkins University used the orbiting observatory’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer and its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to make extremely precise measurements across vast distances, giving a much more exact value for the rate
Eurocopter will supply French helicopter operator Heli-Union with what it says will be the first simulator ever built specifically to serve the Dauphin AS365 N3. Built with Thales, the simulator will enter operation at Heli-Union’s training center in Angouleme, in western France, in 2011. It will be dual qualified as a Level 3 flight training device and Level B full flight simulator, capable of providing 3,000 hr. of training a year.
Intelsat reported a 10% rise in revenues for the first quarter, compared to the same period in 2008, but the net loss widened to $557.6 million from $412.6 million, reflecting a $499-million orbital asset impairment. The company suffered a power failure on its Galaxy 26 and has a number of Boeing 601 spacecraft that have experienced xenon-ion propulsion problems (AW&ST Feb. 23, p. 27). Intelsat raised its capital expenditures forecast for the full year to $625-675 million, from $525-575 million, to further boost an accelerated satellite replacement program.
Devices to launch and control cyber, electronic and information attacks are being tested and refined by the U.S. military and industry in preparation for moving out of the laboratory and into the warfighter’s backback. It’s a part of a technology race that is already well underway. The Russian attack on Georgia last year showed weaknesses in some combat areas, but not in cyberwarfare, say U.S. analysts.
Lufthansa Private Jet plans to expand into aircraft management in order to provide more spare capacity to support its business jet operation. LPJ has a core fleet of seven Cessna Citations for its bizjet service, which is intended to fly first-class passengers between destinations in Europe or to its main European airline hubs (AW&ST May 11, p. 54).
The European Commission has approved the planned takeover of BMI by Lufthansa without conditions. The EC said in a statement that it does not see any significant impact on competition when the two carriers combine.
Your article “Traffic Cop” (AW&ST Apr. 20, p. 55) is laudable in that it covers a topic of significant importance, but I believe it is incorrect or misleading on several points. From an accuracy standpoint, the commercial operator data is an order of magnitude better than that which the U.S. military provides and also does not have the cross-tagging issue occasionally found in military data. More importantly, those “barely a dozen operators” provide positional data on 130 of the 250 or so active commercial satellites in geostationary orbit.
Tweaks to the Standard Missile-3 and Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense interceptors, as well as air-launched weapons already in the U.S. arsenal, could show promise for the Missile Defense Agency’s hopes to field ascent-phase missile defenses.
Rob Peckham has been appointed vice president-business development for the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) , Hawthorne, Calif. He was president/general manager of Sea Launch.
Peter Bunce, president of the General Aviation Manufacturers Assn., told European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (Ebace) attendees that the failure of the U.S. government to implement the Bilateral Safety Agreement with the European Union could cost jobs in the U.S. The sticking point seems to be the “outsourcing” of maintenance work by U.S. aircraft operators to foreign repair stations. But, Bunce notes, there are three times as many European Aviation Safety Agency-certified repair stations in the U.S.
May 25-29—International Quality & Productivity Center’s Network-Centric Warfare Europe 2009. Congress-Centrum OST Koelnmesse, Cologne, Germany. See www.ncweurope.co.uk May 26-29—American Astronautical Society’s International Space Conference of Pacific Basin Societies. Holiday Inn Select Downtown, Montreal. See www.astronautical.org May 27Aerospace Components Manufacturers Inc. Trade Show. Marriott Hotel, Windsor, Conn. See www.aerospacecomponents.org
Europe’s pioneering Herschel and Planck telescopes, 20 years in the making, are finally en route to their orbital position 1.2 million km. (750,000 mi.) from Earth, following a high-stakes dual liftoff last week.
