Robert Wall (Paris), Michael Mecham (San Francisco)
Reality is starting to catch up with Airbus and Boeing, as airlines defer deliveries, putting pressure on both aircraft makers to adjust production plans. What’s clear is that neither has gone far enough.
The three-stage ballistic missile North Korea launched Apr. 5 went higher and farther than originally believed. The Taepodong-2 missile traveled 3,230 km. before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The rocket’s flight path indicated it was carrying a satellite and separated in its final two stages, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said last week. “The performance of this vehicle was far better than we realized,” says Charles P. Vick, a senior technical analyst with Globalsecurity.org.
Use of Boeing/Insitu’s Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle, flown from the USS Bainbridge to monitor Somali pirates’ treatment of a hostage U.S. ship captain on board the pictured lifeboat, showed both strengths and weakness.
After devoting several years to market analysis, equipment evaluation, pricing structures, service areas and operational planning, former American Airlines Chairman and CEO Robert Crandall has decided to ground Pogo, his startup very-light-jet charter operation, before it ever left the ground. He says he is returning what remains of the seed money to investors. “I feel badly about it,” he said Apr. 15. “It’s just one of those ideas that didn’t work out.”
SkyTeam and Vietnam Airlines have signed a preliminary agreement that starts the process for the carrier to join the alliance in 2010. Hanoi also gave the carrier permission to buy 10 Airbus A321s.
William R. Johnson, who is chairman/president/CEO of the Pittsburgh-based H.J. Heinz Co., has been named to the board of directors of UPS . He succeeds Ben Verwaayen, who is CEO of Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent.
Moustafa T. Chahine, a senior research associate at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is among the new members elected to the Washington-based National Academy of Engineering . He was cited for leadership in determining the structure and composition of the Earth’s atmosphere from space observations. Also elected was Claire L.
Safran has seen a slight growth in first-quarter revenue, but its vital aerospace propulsion business was down 4.4% partly due to last year’s strike at Boeing. Adjusted for scope and exchange rates, the decline in aerospace propulsion figures was even greater at 7.7%, but it remains Safran’s largest unit, at €1.3 billion ($1.72 billion) in sales. Services helped offset some of the decline in engine sales.
The U.S. Army is short of meeting its annual requirement to train helicopter pilots by about 300, says Gen. Martin Dempsey, who oversees the service’s Training and Doctrine Command. With high demand for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan, this shortage is frustrating commanders abroad who have enough airframes to accomplish their missions, but lack the crews to fly them. Crew training has been hindered by insufficient funding in personnel accounts.
The Northrop Grumman-led Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) team has wrapped up full-scale ground operations drills. In this dry run, the team assembled a full-scale, flight-similar booster using inert rocket motors and flight-qualified structures to validate all interfaces with the booster, ground support equipment and facility structures. The Missile Defense Agency is funding KEI’s development; Raytheon is the team lead for interceptor development; and Orbital Sciences heads booster integration and preparation of range ops.
You repeatedly say biofuels’ big CO2 benefit results from the fact that they absorbed CO2 while growing and will produce a 40-60% savings over petroleum when measured through the full harvesting, refining and burning cycle. Look at the big picture! What do you think the biomass absorbed before being buried and converted into petroleum? CO2 credit trading is just another regulatory invention that should be scrutinized just like stock derivative trading.
Italian defense export license applications are on the rise, indicating continued growth in overseas sales that were already up 39% last year to €1.77 billion ($2.33 billion). Italian companies last year also filed for 1,880 licenses representing €3 billion in orders, a 28.5% increase over the prior year, not including multinational programs such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and NH90 helicopter.
Michael P. Jackson has been named to the board of directors of AirTran Holdings Inc. He is president/founder of Firebreak Partners and was deputy U.S. Homeland Security secretary.
Technology has matured to commercial availability, data standards are close to approval, and by year’s end Airbus and Boeing could be instructing suppliers to put radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on aircraft parts.
One year after establishing an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) task force, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is continuing his push by outlining up to six new platforms that will be funded in his Fiscal 2010 budget proposal.
The mandatory greening of the globe has opened the door for new ways of providing essential services. And, in the case of change, “check your approach” is a particularly apt slogan when it comes to airport lighting. With the date drawing near to turn out the incandescent bulb—mandated to begin in the U.S. in 2012 and be completed by 2014 (2010 in Australia)—lighting providers are queuing up with alternatives.
USANG Col. (ret.) James W. O’Brien has been appointed CEO of Tactical Air Defense Services Inc. , West Palm Beach, Fla. He was commanding officer of the Townsend Bombing Range.
Yves Prete has become vice president-MRO Div., Jean Massot vice president-sales and marketing, Michel Brioude vice president-Spare Parts Div., Lydie Guerville vice president-improvement initatives and Jean-Jacques Orsini vice president-quality, all for the merged France-based Snecma and Snecma Services. Prete was head of Sichuan Snecma Aeroengine Maintenance in China, while Massot was senior vice president and Brioude director of commercial engines for Snecma Services.
Japan’s SkyPerfectJSAT Corp. has ordered its seventh Lockheed Martin A2100 communications satellite for the JCSAT program, and its second since December. Launch of JCSAT-13 is set for 2013. A launcher provider hasn’t been named. To be located at 124-deg. E. Long., it will use the A2100AX platform and have an all Ku-band payload of 44 fixed high-power communications channels. Up- and downlinks are to provide coverage over Japan, Asia and Oceania. Two steerable antennas will be used for emerging markets.
USAF Maj. Gen. Mark R. Zamzow has been named special assistant to the commander of the Third Air Force, United States Air Forces in Europe, RAF Mildenhall, U.K. He has been deputy chief of staff for strategic communications for Multi-National Force-Iraq, United States Central Command in Baghdad. Maj. Gen. David E. Clary has been appointed special assistant to the commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley AFB, Va.
Mounting deferrals of A380s are further undermining Airbus’s efforts to achieve profitability for the program, and could push the financial break-even point for the aircraft past 2020.
Your Market Focus column (AW&ST Mar. 23, p. 12) refers to a “free market” in executive compensation. How many capable people are there who could do a better job (or at least no worse) than Boeing CEO James McNerney and others for far less compensation? Until shareholders compel the incestuous network of directors running large U.S. (and U.K.) companies to answer this question by regular, genuine “market testing,” the free market to which you refer will continue to be a figment of our collective imagination.
