Jay L. Haberland has been appointed to the board of directors of Ducommun Inc. of Los Angeles. He is retired as vice president-business controls for the United Technologies Corp. and had been vice president/chief financial officer of UTC subsidiary Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
Aziz Erdinc (see photo) has become vice president-business development and marketing for Asco Industries Management of Brussels. He was a sales contract lead negotiator for Airbus.
Aerospace and defense companies are beginning to disclose their executive compensation for 2008, and though the industry’s investors have lost a lot of money some of its top executives aren’t faring too poorly.
John D. Clark, 3rd, who is executive director/CEO of the Jacksonville (Fla.) Aviation Authority, has been elected chairman for 2009 of Washington-based Airports Council International-North America .
A state-of-the-art instrument to measure the effects of atmospheric aerosols—both natural and man-made—on the Earth’s climate is ready for installation on the NASA satellite that will take it to orbit this fall. Raytheon finished thermal vacuum testing on the Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS) and delivered it on Mar. 9 to Orbital Sciences Corp., which will integrate it into the Glory satellite at its facility in Dulles, Va.
Southwest Airlines Chairman Emeritus Herb Kelleher has been inducted into the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine at the Wright Brothers National Memorial by the First Flight Society of Kitty Hawk, N.C. The society honors people whose accomplishments have advanced aviation and commemorates achievements in the airline industry.
Aircraft manufacturers and central bankers acknowledge the economy “is bad and seems to be getting worse,” but they are trying to persuade aircraft lessors and traders that the worst for airlines will be over by next year—to little effect, it seems.
Japan is preparing a 10-year Cabinet-level space plan that will build on the long-duration station on the International Space Station that is just beginning for veteran Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. The key to Japan’s plans for the human portion of its space program centers on the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), an autonomous cargo carrier scheduled to make its first flight to the ISS in September on an H-IIB rocket.
The military is picking over the wreckage of an Iranian unmanned aircraft it shot down in Iraq last month. “We’re in the process of exploiting the debris that we’ve recovered,” a Pentagon representative says. “I don’t know if it was a drone that was capable of sending signals back, or whether it was merely recording and then going to return [to base with] its video or data” to be examined by the Iranians. Coalition aircraft shot down the Iranian-made Ababil 3 UAV about 60 mi. northeast of Baghdad. The Feb.
Boeing is looking at modifying one of NASA’s cranked-arrow-wing F-16XLs into a low-sonic-boom research aircraft. The proposal has emerged as a relatively low-cost way to test public acceptance of shaped sonic booms. While previous flight tests have shown that shockwave signature can be controlled by aircraft shaping, they did not succeed in reducing the sonic boom, since modifications were limited to the nose of the aircraft to reshape the front shock.
The global economic crisis is making cantankerous bedfellows of airlines and air traffic control providers. Arguments over ATC charges are growing more heated, but the two industries realize they must work together to urge reform of ATC funding restrictions that are frustrating service users and providers equally.
Qinetiq is now building a revised configuration of its Zephyr high-altitude long-endurance UAV. It will likely fly for the first time early in 2010. Zephyr 7, as the latest variant is known, has several design modifications intended to improve the UAV’s aerodynamic performance and potentially further increased endurance. Changes are thought to include a greater wingspan and modified wingtip design, as well as a reconfigured tail.
Plunging business jet sales and a slowdown in French combat aircraft deliveries are creating a double whammy for Dassault Aviation. The company announced an 8% drop in revenues for 2008, to €3.75 billion ($4.9 billion), and an equivalent decline in orders to €5.8 billion. Although Chairman/CEO Charles Edelstenne says that is a bit better than expected—a 10% sales decrease had been projected, mostly due to unfavorable exchange rates—he predicts a few hard years ahead.
Arianespace has postponed launch of the European Space Agency’s Herschel-Planck science mission because of the need to carry out additional checks on the ground segment following recent software updates. The delay—Arianespace’s second of the year—is expected to be “a couple of weeks.” A new date for the flight, which had been set for Apr. 16, is to be announced at the end of March. Meanwhile, International Launch Services slipped by two days its first mission of the year to Mar. 30 for unspecified reasons. The mission will carry aloft Eutelsat’s W2A. On Mar.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Bill Sweetman (St.Louis)
Plans for a new U.S. Air Force tanker and the latest version of a bomber to supplement the stealthy B-2 force are still being financially well supported in negotiations over the 2010 defense budget. But senior civilian acquisition officials believe that few other big-ticket earmarks will be tolerated.
Armenian flag carrier Armavia increased its Airbus A320-family fleet to five aircraft with the delivery last week of a new A319 at Airbus’s Hamburg facility. The carrier now operates three A319s and two A320s. The aircraft, powered by CFM International CFM56 engines, can seat 134 passengers in two-class layout. Armavia plans to operate it to destinations including Moscow, Paris, Amsterdam and Dubai. Armavia, founded in 1996, has been run by private entity Mika Trading Company since 2005.
Ralph Richardi has been named to the board of directors of Toronto-based GuestLogix Inc. He is a former senior vice president-customer services at American Airlines.
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V program has added four science and communications programs, all managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, to its manifest from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral AFS in the coming decade, including two with multiple payloads. First off in the $600-million contract is the piggyback mission of two Radiation Belt Storm Probes in fourth-quarter 2011. The mission is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program, which studies the Sun.
Gary L. Fishman has been appointed to the board of directors of Gulfstream International Group Inc. , Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He is retired vice president-sales operations of the Ingenix Div. of the UnitedHealth Group and a former senior executive at Northwest Airlines. Fishman succeeds Douglas Hailey, who has resigned.
London last week signed for three Lockheed Martin F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft to allow it to participate fully in the operational test and evaluation phase of the program. John Hutton, the British Defense Secretary, announced the decision during a visit to Washington. “By purchasing three aircraft for testing, we will secure access to the development of the program. Working alongside their U.S. colleagues, our pilots will gain an unrivaled understanding of this awesome aircraft and its capabilities.” The three U.K.
