John Rahilly has been appointed director of business development for the Americas for International Water-Guard Industries Inc. , Burnaby, British Columbia. He was principal of consulting firm Rahilly Aviation Associates.
Xi’an Aircraft has begun building a factory at Tianjin, China, that will complete wings for A320 family assembled at another plant in the city. Xi’an is already building wing boxes for the A320 family. The new plant will fit the wing boxes with equipment so they do not need to be sent to Britain and back before delivery to the Chinese final assembly line.
Boeing’s F-15 SE “Silent Eagle,” featuring 15-deg. canted vertical fins and internal weapons carriage in conformal fuel tanks, is intended to provide some stealth capability for the international market. It’s set to begin flight tests by year-end, though with the standard, vertical F-15E stabilizers. The model is designed on test aircraft E1—a U.S. Air Force asset leased to Boeing. USAF markings on the wheel well were digitally removed in this Boeing photo.
The four Eurofighter nations will likely halve their next order for the Typhoon combat aircraft. Expected to be included in the U.K. numbers will be Royal Air Force aircraft diverted to meet a Saudi Arabian order as part of its commitment—a precedent that other partners will also be able to follow.
Astronaut crews and ground controllers are setting up the International Space Station for full-power operations following a last-minute solar-array delivery by the space shuttle Discovery. Looking ahead, the combined crews of Discovery and the ISS will test the replacement for a failed urine-recycling unit and bring home water samples needed to clear the station for a six-person crew due to arrive in May.
Chris Garcia has been named senior vice president-business development for the Anark Corp. , Boulder, Colo. He was vice president-research and development at the Dassault Systems SolidWorks Corp.
Christophe Chollet has become director of sales for Field Aviation , Mississauga, Ontario. He was sales and marketing director for Hutchinson Aerospace.
Aviation Week’s Ares on Defense blog (AviationWeek.com/ares) won the 2009 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best blog from American Business Media. The Neal Awards are the trade press equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes. Key staff contributors to Ares, which offers original reporting, photos, video and links to web sites, include Douglas Barrie, Amy Butler, Bettina A. Chavanne, David A. Fulghum, Paul McLeary, Sean Meade, Guy Norris, Bill Sweetman, Robert Wall and Graham Warwick. In addition, readers often add comments.
David Oblinger (see photo) has become general manager of Flight Display Systems , Alpharetta, Ga. He was director of operations and resources for the Silgan Plastics Corp.
More bad news for the business jet industry: A new UBS forecast sees deliveries plunging 45% during the next two years, bottoming out at 550-600 in 2010. That would exceed the 29% drop the industry saw in its last downturn, in 2002-03. UBS analyst David E. Strauss estimates that takeoffs and landings of business jets declined 28% in January from a year earlier, while the number of used aircraft for sale is up 69% from a year ago. “We believe the current market is characterized by too much supply, plummeting pricing and tight financing,” he says.
Curt Schacker has been appointed vice president-professional services for Real-Time Innovations , Sunnyvale, Calif. He was head of business operations for Toroki Communications.
Five European countries held an exercise Mar. 6-20 near Gap, in the French Alps, to improve interoperability and training levels for helicopters deployed overseas. The exercise, being run under the auspices of the European Defense Agency at the urging of France and the U.K., was to involve 10 helicopters from Belgium, France, Hungary, Spain and the Czech Republic. Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden were also to participate in the operation, which included mobilizing 150 troops.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says a congressional mandate to physically screen 50% of all cargo on passenger flights by February 2009 has been met and industry is well on its way to meeting another deadline spelled out in a 2007 law: screening all cargo transported on passenger aircraft by 2010. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says TSA is so far unable to verify that the required screening level has been met.
France’s armaments agency DGA says a €2.3-billion ($2.9-billion) government economic stimulus package approved late last year (AW&ST Dec. 22/29, 2008, p. 19) will help boost military hardware procurement to the highest level in decades. DGA Chief Executive Laurent Collet-Billon says purchase authorizations will rise to €20.3 billion this year, more than double the €9.2 billion allocated in 2008.
Julio Navarro (see photo), a Boeing technical fellow who works in the Phased Array Antenna Group in the company’s Phantom Works, Renton, Wash., has received the 2008 Hispanic in Technology Corporate Award from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers . The award recognizes contributions in the fields of engineering or science, with sustained contributions in design, production management, education or research.
Ron Allgood has been named manager of supply chain, Carlos Flores market manager, Brian Schmalz director of business development and strategic planning and Eric Clower director of operations, all for the Nordam Group , Tulsa, Okla. Flores was chief of staff to the Nordam chairman, while Clower was engineering manager. Schmalz was director of fleet planning for Northwest Airlines.
Copenhagen-based Star Air has awarded a $55-million contract to Delta TechOps to overhaul and repair 22 General Electric CF6-80A2/C2s that power Star Air’s fleet of 11 Boeing 767-200SF cargo aircraft. The eight-year contract, which was announced on Mar. 17, converts a time-and-material agreement that became effective in February 2004 to a power-by-the-hour arrangement. It also supplements an 11-year time-and-material pact for auxiliary power units signed in March 2005, and a 10-year power-by-the-hour agreement signed in September 2004 for components.
Boeing reports the P-8A on which India’s P-8I is based completed loads calibration testing two weeks ahead of schedule. The test, a prerequisite in the U.S. Navy flight-clearance process, involved application of up to 80% of the highest expected flight loads to the fuselage, horizontal stabilizers, vertical fin and wing structures. Airworthiness testing of the T-1 test aircraft will begin later this year. The Navy has ordered 108 P-8As.
Frank Jackman (Washington), Michael Mecham (Phoenix)
Operators of Boeing aircraft converted to freighters soon will have to pay the OEM an annual fee of anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 per aircraft to access technical support, Boeing has confirmed. The size of the fee, the payment of which allows an operator to submit support requests but does not cover the cost of the support or service provided, will be determined primarily by where the aircraft was converted. The largest fees will be charged to operators of aircraft converted under non-Boeing-licensed supplemental type certificates.
Mergers and acquisitions have slowed to a trickle in the aerospace and defense sector, and a revival of activity is being held at bay by the industry’s cloudy future.
Stephen D. Yslas (see photo) has been appointed corporate vice president/general counsel of the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. He was corporate vice president/secretary/deputy general counsel and succeeds W. Burks Terry, who has retired. Yslas has been succeeded by Joseph F. Coyne, Jr. (see photo), who was a partner with the law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. Nigel Essenhigh (see photo) has been named non-executive chairman for Northrop Grumman in the U.K. He succeeds Graham Thornton, who has retired.
Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has been named to receive the National Space Trophy from the Houston-based Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation .
Though the spigot of funds flowing out of the Pentagon is drying up, there still could be opportunities to develop new technologies, says Keith Sanders, deputy director of air warfare for the Pentagon acquisition chief. One emerging need is for a system capable of detecting hostile fire for low-flying aircraft, he says. Upgrades of this sort could see funding in the near future, while ambitious efforts for new start programs are unlikely to gain support in the Pentagon.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), is the 2009 Space Laureate for his work in the dawn of commercial space transportation.
Countless people helped shape U.S. aviation policy following World War II, but no one had a more profound influence than Alan S. Boyd, the first Transportation secretary. For nearly half a century, no fewer than six U.S. presidents turned to him for his advice and assistance. For his enduring public service, Aviation Week bestowed on Boyd its 2009 Philip J. Klass Award for Lifetime Achievement.
