Delta Air Lines has awarded Pratt & Whitney contracts worth more than $1 billion that are designed to help Delta lower total costs and maintain engines more efficiently, according to Delta Air Lines’s Jason Adams, general manager-supply chain. A new 10-year, $1-billion contract covers material and parts repair for Delta’s fleet of about 80 PW4000 engines as well as for Delta TechOps’s PW4000 customers, with Delta continuing to maintain the engines. The airline also awarded a $50-million, five-year contract to Pratt to supply JT8D-219 parts.
Craig W. Anderson (see photo) has been named senior director of quality and product integrity for the Sabreliner Corp. ’s Southeast Missouri operations.
The third production VH-71 presidential helicopter made its first flight Jan. 12 at Yeovil, England. It’s the seventh presidential helicopter built for the program by AgustaWestland.
Ralph L. Phillips (see photos) has become president of Smiths Interconnect , Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was president of affiliate Tecom Industries and has been succeeded by Arsen Melconian. He was Tecom’s vice president-engineering/chief technology officer.
Paul Theofan has been appointed president/managing executive of GE Aviation Czech , which includes subsidiary Walter Aircraft Engines. He was vice president-marketing and sales of subsidiary Unison Industries.
Safeguarding cash is the primary marching order for EADS as it tries to navigate through the global economic turmoil going into a year where Airbus expects orders to fall sharply and come in below delivery levels for the first time since 2004.
Gwynne Shotwell has been appointed president of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif. She was vice president-business development.
David D. McBride (see photo) has been named deputy director of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center , Edwards AFB, Calif. He succeeds Steven G. Schmidt, who is now director of the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility, Palmdale, Calif. McBride was associate director for programs.
EADS and Airbus are not only seeking years more time to complete A400M development, but additional financial support as well. Industry likely has one final opportunity to rescue the program before the patience of at least some partner nations is exhausted. Senior Airbus executives warn that they are unwilling to carry on with the A400M as presently structured.
The Royal Australian Air Force has moved a step closer to fielding an operational Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning & Control (Boeing 737-700) aircraft. One of the projected fleet of six aircraft conducted the design’s first aerial refueling at Edwards AFB, Calif., on Jan. 7 and received 14,000 lb. of fuel during two connections from a KC-10 tanker. On Jan. 10, the aircraft duplicated the feat with a KC-135 tanker. The Wedgetail was described by the test pilot Ron Johnston as “stable with excellent flying qualities and engine response behind the tanker.”
BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce are both picking up work on renewable energy sources from the U.K.’s Energy Technologies Institute. BAE Systems, and its naval joint venture with VT, BVT Surface Fleet, will work on Project Deepwater Turbine. Rolls-Royce will be involved with the testing of tidal turbines at the European Marine Energy Center.
The underground smuggling complex linking Egypt and the Gaza Strip—heavily used by Hamas— will continue to be pounded from the air by Israel and may be swept by ground forces to destroy additional tunnels and storage sites. But Israeli officials say privately that they will not be involved in prolonged ground combat in Gaza’s built-up urban centers, and they could be out of the area in as little as two weeks.
Slumping demand for commercial aircraft is forcing aerospace companies to lay off thousands of domestic workers and could add fuel to the debate over transferring jobs to low-wage countries. But the offshoring of aerospace jobs from the U.S. and Western Europe will continue in coming years for several key reasons, say partners at global business consultancy Bain & Company. Talent shortage.
On the verge of his planned departure from NASA, Administrator Michael Griffin is characteristically blunt when asked about what was perhaps the most controversial decision of his tenure—basing NASA’s next-generation Ares launch systems on heritage space shuttle hardware rather than on U.S. Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles or new rockets.
Airbus is kicking off the industrialization phase for the A350XWB, hoping to speed construction of its new twin-engine, wide-body transport. But the European airframer also aims to adjust the core program. Several important changes were identified during the recent “maingate five” review, which froze the design of the initial aircraft, the A350-900, and cleared the way to start building components. “We found some issues,” says Fabrice Bregier, Airbus’s chief operating officer.
Mike Turner (see photo) has been promoted to marketing and corporate communications director from corporate communications manager for StandardAero , Tempe, Ariz.
Mats Lonnqvist has been named chief financial officer/deputy president of the SAS Group . He succeeds Gunilla Berg, who has resigned. Lonnqvist was CFO of Eniro, Esselte and Biacore.
Mobility and mining systems are high on Canada’s list as it begins developing technologies to support international lunar exploration missions. Both are seen as key to concepts for using resources available on the Moon to support future habitats there.
Ivan Lauthier (see photo) has been named vice president-training and flight operations for Toulouse-based ATR . He was an executive at Comex-Nucleaire and had been a test pilot for French defense agency DGA.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Robert Wall (Newport, Wales)
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. is preparing to unveil a submetric satellite imaging system intended to meet the needs of commercial mapping and location-based services for regularly refreshed, consistently high-quality global imagery.
A pending decision could see GKN Aerospace winning a spot on Bombardier’s CSeries single-aisle airliner production for its recently acquired Airbus site, signaling the start of an aggressive diversification program. GKN formally took over the Airbus wing component and assemblies manufacturing work on Jan. 5, bringing to an end an 18-month period of negotiations. GKN would like to see its Filton business attract 40% of its work from other than Airbus within the next three years.
