Richard A. Leach, who is president/CEO of Trans States Holdings, has been elected chairman of the Washington-based Regional Airline Assn. for the 2008-09 term. Other officers elected are: vice chairman, Russell (Chip) Childs from SkyWest; treasurer, James Rankin of Air Wisconsin; and secretary, Daniel Wolf of Cape Air. New members of the board of directors are: Jim Ream of ExpressJet, Joe Randell of Air Canada Jazz, Peter Bowler of American Eagle, Doug Voss of Great Lakes and Steve Farrow of Piedmont.
With Defense Secretary Robert Gates looking at a job extension of at least a year into the Obama administration, his opinions on the future of controversial programs may carry more weight than they did a couple of weeks ago. His minions, including acquisition chief John Young, have pushed cutting F-22 and accelerating F-35 (see pp. 30-31). Young says he advocates cutting programs in preference to slipping their schedules. “You have to pay your personnel . . . and for your operations and maintenance,” he says.
A report to the director of the National Intelligence Agency looking out to 2025 forecasts a global power shift from the West to the East, with energy and economic issues among key drivers of world events. Shrinking economic and military capabilities will force the U.S. to make tradeoffs between domestic and foreign policy priorities, states the report by the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community’s strategic think tank.
Cirrus Design Corp. on Nov. 25 temporarily furloughed 500 of 1,100 employees at its Duluth, Minn., and Grand Forks, N.D., facilities, as it ramps down to zero aircraft production in December to rationalize inventory levels. The layoffs are short-term, as all employees are expected to be able to return to work Jan. 5. The company will continue to pay medical and other benefits in the interim period. Cirrus expects to start ramping up to a “more normal” production rate—about 12 aircraft per week—in January.
Boeing and the Pentagon’s program executive office for the Joint Tactical Radio System have demonstrated that software-defined ground mobile radios can operate with one another in a tactical situation. A month-long demonstration at the Electronic Proving Grounds at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., involved a vehicle-mounted, 12-node, secure, self-healing multi-channel network that was part of a system integration test scheduled late in 2009. The team verified that 80% of the final design of the network manager’s waveform is complete.
The big move to a-la-carte pricing among U.S. airlines will face critical tests this winter and in 2009, amid several new surveys that show U.S. consumers are conflicted about their willingness to accept a fare-plus-fees model that has them paying for previously free services such as phone reservations, meals, snacks and all checked bags. The first test will come with the aftermath of fall and winter holiday travel.
Despite their complaints about Pentagon acquisition, there are programs that Gates and Young like: C-17, C-130J, C-5, EA-18G, P-8 and small-diameter bomb. And Young expects fewer flawed programs and protests in the future. He plans to overcome a “chilling of communications with industry . . . and do so within the laws and regulations.” As to programs being derailed by protests, Young contends some “are invalid . . . excessive on the part of industry.”
At the height of the Cold War, Greece was an important ally of the U.S. in helping to check the Soviet Union’s potential to threaten the eastern Mediterranean. Since then, the nation has remained a vital player in the region’s security. Along the way, that evolution has done little to suppress Greece’s appetite for modern weapon systems, and today its shopping list may be valued at up to $12 billion over the next 10 years. Less clear is the source of those new armaments and how Athens might go about procuring them.
Please accept my congratulations on being elected the 44th president of the United States. Your campaign inspired millions of Americans and urged us not to abandon hope in favor of building a brighter future. I am confident in the potential for American prosperity during your administration.
NASA and the U.S. Energy Dept. will cooperate on a spaceborne mission to perform highly accurate measurements of distant galaxies and supernovae in an effort to gain a better understanding of the mysterious force astrophysicists call dark energy, the force causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. Dark energy is calculated to comprise about 70% of the Universe’s total mass energy content.
Michael Kahn (see photos) has been appointed executive vice president/general manager of ATK Launch Systems for Alliant Techsystems of Minneapolis. He was vice president-Space Launch Systems and is being succeeded by Charlie Precourt, who has been vice president-strategy and business development.
The Alenia Aeronautica Sky-Y unmanned air vehicle demonstrator has completed a second evaluation at Sweden’s Vidsel test range. The aircraft flew six missions carrying a variety of equipment, including the EOST-45 Selex Galileo optronic surveillance system, as well as a mission computer developed by Quadrics and a satellite data link used to transmit sensor imagery.
Boeing’s delayed 747-8F will not fly for the first time until around January 2010 under the latest development schedule, revised for the second time to include the effects of supply-chain delays, overstretched engineering resources and the recent Machinists’ strike.
Parts of Southern California are on fire yet again and there is no Bombardier CL-415 water bomber in sight. A few years ago, you reported on a demonstration of the CL-415 to relevant firefighters in California and their response that the Canadian aircraft had incompatible radio frequencies, and thus were of no use to them. It’s sad to see the “not-invented-here” syndrome letting houses burn. I hopped in a plane on Google Earth’s flight simulator and could drop 1,600 gal.
Boeing and Chinese partner Avic have begun to expand their joint composites business in Tianjin, breaking ground on the $21-million project that is planned to increase capacity by 60%. Boeing Tianjin Composites Co. is due to begin production in 2013.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), John M. Doyle (Washington)
The battle over how many F-22 Raptors the U.S. needs is getting uglier. Defense Dept. leaders appear to have effectively choked off further purchases by using a loophole in the Fiscal 2009 defense spending bill. Lawmakers say the Pentagon must spend $140 million in advance procurement funding appropriated for 20 F-22s. But John Young, the Pentagon’s acquisition czar, says that only $50 million will be spent on components for four aircraft.
Fixing the A380 airliner and A400M military airlifter have been top priorities for EADS managers all year. They will have that ignominious distinction again next year, as the European aerospace giant has failed to remedy the problem-plagued projects. What’s more, strife that had been quieted over the internal management of the company is again breaking out. French and German stakeholders are resisting reform and acquisition efforts EADS managers deem vital for the long-term growth of the company.
Tom Anderson has been named senior vice president of Airbus North America Customer Services Inc. , Herndon, Va. He succeeds Francois Mourareau, who is retiring. Anderson was senior vice president-technical operations for Virgin America.
Singapore’s Changi Airports International (CAI) will manage King Fahd International Airport for the next six years, under a S$65-million ($42-million) contract signed Nov. 18 with Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation. The airport, located at Damman, is the gateway to the eastern province, which is the largest in terms of population and land mass in Saudi Arabia. Development plans call for an increase in passenger capacity to 16 million a year, compared with the current 11 million.
Anthony L. Velocci, Jr. (New York), Joseph C. Aneslmo (New York)
At last week’s AVIATION WEEK/Credit Suisse Aerospace & Defense Finance Conference in New York, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President/CEO Scott Carson talked with Editor-in-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr., and Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo about the tough times that have descended on the global economy and his company. Aviation Week & Space Technology: The elephant in the room at this conference is the availability of financing. How much of Boeing’s backlog has been financed?
PARTNERSHIPS Nov. 29-Dec. 1—Bengaluru (India) Space Expo 2008. You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/conferences or call Lydia Janow at +1 (212) 904-3225/+1 (800) 240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada Only)
Hundreds of European air route changes to be introduced in March are expected to shorten flight times, cut fuel consumption and reduce congestion, although airlines say they are not growing too excited until they see the new routes actually implemented. The changes slated for 2009 are a key part of a wider three-year airspace redesign effort. The first stage of the redesign was introduced this year, and the third stage—being developed now—will be implemented in 2010, says Joe Sultana, who heads Eurocontrol’s airspace network planning and navigation unit.
NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Div. at Ames Research Center is ranked among the world’s fastest in an exclusive club called the Top500 from the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis. NAS is recruited for some of the aerospace industry’s most complex tasks, from global climate studies to space shuttle main engine thrust analysis. The new network is called Pleiades and is an SGI Altrix ICE system with 12,800 Intel Xeon quad-core processors running 487 teraflops (487 trillion floating point operations per second).
