Nov. 11-13—Society of Experimental Test Pilots’ Flight Test Safety Workshop. Netherlands National Aerospace Laboratory, Amsterdam. See www.setp.org/HTML/Symposia/SafetyWorkshop/FTSW_information.htm Nov. 12-14—World Airline Forum. Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel. Call +33 (15) 377-1345, fax +33 (15) 377- 1303 or see www.waf2008.com Nov. 13-14—Aegean Free Zone Development & Operating Co.’s Izmir Global Aerospace Conference. ESBA Technology Center Conference Hall, Izmir, Turkey. See www.izmiraerospace.com
Robert Blaha has been promoted to director of original equipment manufacturer and international sales from Western U.S. sales manager for Aspen Avionics Inc. , Albuquerque, N.M.
Indian controllers are continuing orbit-raising maneuvers with the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter as it moves toward a Nov. 8 rendezvous with Earth’s natural satellite. A 3-min. burn of the probe’s 99-lb.-thrust Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on Oct. 29 pushed it into a new elliptical six-day Earth orbit with an apogee of 267,000 km. (165,910 mi.) and a perigee of 465 km.
Dennis Cary has been appointed senior vice president/chief marketing and customer officer for United Airlines , and Graham Atkinson president of its Mileage Plus program. Cary was senior vice president-marketing, while Atkinson was chief customer officer.
Customers and suppliers should achieve more stability in their dealings with Boeing with ratification of a four-year contract with machinists. The strike, which began Sept. 6, ended as Boeing started formal negotiations with the 20,300 engineers and technical workers represented by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea), whose three-year contract expires in early December. Speea says it’s willing to sign a four-year agreement as well, noting that both unions signed them in 1995.
Delays in receiving its Boeing 787s and the wish to expand its long-haul fleet are prompting Royal Air Maroc to look for leased wide-body capacity. The airline does not expect to see the first of five 787s before March or April 2010, says CEO Driss Benhima. Deliveries had been scheduled to start last month. As a bridge, the carrier is looking to lease two 767s, with the first to be added to the fleet in April. But Benhima stresses that the extra capacity ‘”is not just a transient situation,” and aircraft will be used for some time even after the 787s start arriving.
Brian Colamosca has received the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Laurel Award for contributions to the work of its Air Navigation Commission in the field of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM). Colamosca is an employee of Washington-based CSSI who works at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center in New Jersey. The award honors contributions to furthering the safety, regularity and efficiency of international civil aviation through commission panels, study groups or worldwide meetings. According to the award citation, the U.S.
British Airways’ fledgling subsidiary OpenSkies is being forced to shelve its growth plans just four months after its launch, as it struggles with the wider malaise affecting the transatlantic business travel market. Together with BA subsidiary L’Avion, OpenSkies operates four Boeing 757s between New York and Amsterdam and Paris. It was planning to add two more 757s and new routes next year, but further expansion is being deferred until the economic environment improves.
Michael McDonnell has been appointed executive vice president/chief financial officer of Intelsat Ltd. , Pembroke, Bermuda, effective Nov. 17. He has been executive vice president/CFO/chief operating officer of the MCG Capital Corp.
Terrence C. Morgan, who is director of network-centric strategy for the Global Government Solutions Group at Cisco Systems, has been elected chairman of the Washington-based Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) . He succeeds USN Rear Adm. (ret.) Robert C. Williamson of the Raytheon Co, who becomes chairman emeritus. Michael Curtis and Edgar Buckley have been elected vice chairmen. Curtis is executive consultant for IBM Global Business Services. Edgar Buckley is France-based senior vice president-European business development at Thales.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Lockheed Martin and a host of other industry partners are about to demonstrate to the FAA how NextGen air traffic control techniques can help controllers anticipate convective weather and reroute aircraft early to avoid massive delays.
The U.S. Defense Dept. is crafting a policy that will allow the Navy and Boeing to begin talks with allies on the potential sale of the Harpoon Block III air- and ship-launched anti-ship missile, says Capt. Mat Winter, program manager at Naval Air Systems Command. Clearance could come as soon as December. Harpoon Block III will include the addition of a new Rockwell Collins data link designed for inflight targeting updates. Recently, 28 Harpoon-owning nations attended an annual partners meeting in Seville, Spain.
A modified Zefiro 9 third-stage motor earmarked for the European Space Agency’s new Vega light launcher has been successfully fired, improving chances that the three-stage solid fuel rocket can make its maiden flight from ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, by the end of next year. The Zefiro 9 failed in a test in March 2007, contributing to a six-month delay in the inaugural mission (AW&ST Aug. 4, p. 34).
The Naval Air Systems Command is upgrading the Navy Reserve’s F-5N Adversary aircraft with a new inertial navigation system to replace the aging, expensive-to-maintain units. The $6.1-million upgrade uses Northrop Grumman’s LN-260INS with a small touch-screen display suitable for the F-5N cockpit. The display is provided by Interface Display and Controls (see photo). The new inertial system features a fiber-optic gyro and an embedded GPS. The Navy plans to purchase 44 systems plus spares.
Continental Airlines, seeing strong demand for daily nonstop service between oil markets, last week filed an application with the U.S. Transportation Dept. to operate a daily flight to Rio de Janeiro from Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport via New Orleans beginning June 2009. Pending approval, the carrier plans to operate a Boeing 767-200 configured with 25 seats in business class and 149 in economy. Continental now operates daily nonstop services to Sao Paulo from Newark (N.J.) Liberty International Airport and Houston.
Chengdu celebrated its 50th anniversary by sticking a two-seat version of it J-10 fighter on display in front of its main building, and the aircraft should—at last—make its debut at this year’s Airshow China.
Bombardier is claiming a civil-aviation first with the flight of a test aircraft equipped entirely with all-electric braking. In February, Airbus tested electric brakes on the center landing gear of an A340-600. Bombardier’s Global 5000 technology demonstrator has been fitted with Meggitt’s EBrake electric braking system, which combines brake-by-wire control with electric brake actuation.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s SJX61-2 dual-mode ramjet/scramjet completes a high-Mach run inside NASA Langley’s 8-ft. high-temperature tunnel (see p. 62). The tests were conducted to clear the fuel-cooled engine to power Boeing’s X-51A WaveRider hypersonic demonstrator when it flies next year. The scramjet sits upside-down atop a copper pedestal simulating the vehicle forebody and nozzle. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne photo by Tim Tress. In the upper right, the Chengdu J-10 fighter is expected to be displayed at Airshow China this week (see p. 66).
Spain’s Indra Sistema is to produce a Bombardier 415 waterbomber flight-training device (FTD) for the Spanish ministry of defense and has selected as a subcontractor Canada’s Mechtronix Systems, which produced the only other FTD in existence for the twin-turboprop firefighting amphibian. Spain has three 415s in service or on order, and operates 19 earlier CL-215/215Ts.
Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines have won the regulatory approvals they need to form the world’s largest airline, but they still face the daunting task of combining two vastly different operations. Their success will be measured by how smoothly and rapidly the carriers can integrate—and whether streamlining can offset substantial merger costs.
An investigation into an anomaly in the guidance and navigation system (GNS) of the Breeze KM upper stage on the Rokot launcher that is to carry aloft the European Space Agency’s Gravity Field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has determined that fixing the problem, discovered on Sept. 7, will take longer than thought. ESA now says it will be necessary to make extensive hardware changes that will require two months or more of additional work by the GNS manufacturer, pushing the launch back until at least February 2009.
For Diehl and Thales, the acquisition of an Airbus plant is intended to propel them into a lead position in cabin systems and create a new cabin-integration model for the aviation industry. The two companies were selected in August to acquire the EADS Airbus factory here, which employs 1,100, and the deal has just been sealed. The facility makes cabin linings, crew rest compartments, overhead baggage bins and air ducts for all Airbus aircraft. It will be known as Diehl Air Cabin and will be owned 51% by Diehl and 49% by Thales.
Anthony Grant has been named global transition project manager for Circor Aerospace Inc. , Corona, Calif. He was aftermarket business manager for Honeywell Aerospace’s Air Transport and Regional Strategic Business Unit, Tempe, Ariz.
NASA’s decision to defer servicing the Hubble Space Telescope until May 2009 will have a domino effect on efforts to replace the space shuttle with the shuttle-derived Ares I/Orion, possibly delaying a key test when time is money for the follow-on project.
Effective Nov. 12, flight crews of the DC-9/MD-80 family of aircraft will be required to conduct a Take-Off Warning (TOW) system check before each flight, in accordance with an airworthiness directive issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency on Oct. 29. The move follows the Aug. 20 crash of a Spanair MD-82 on takeoff from Madrid’s Barajas International Airport that killed 154 people. Preliminary accident findings indicate the flaps/slats were not set for takeoff and the TOW check did not occur. The FAA has no plans to issue a concurrent directive. As of Oct.
