Disastrous losses from unregulated credit default swaps could help the Air Transport Assn. make its case to Congress for more oversight of oil speculators. ATA President James C. May says wild speculation in sub-prime housing loans—which forced the U.S. and European governments to put up several trillion dollars to keep the banking industry from collapsing—is akin to speculation that helped push oil prices to a record $147 a barrel earlier this summer.
Russian aviation authorities were expected to ground nine airlines by the end of last week for failing to pay off their debts. Interavia, Dalavai and Omskavia are the three most well-known airlines affected. The others are Tesis, Vyborg, Aeroshchit, Irkutsk Bezbokov, Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant and Buguruslanskoye Letnoye Uchilishche. The country’s many small domestic airlines are in deep financial trouble from high fuel prices and a sharp drop in demand since July. Almost all of the smaller carriers still operate inefficient Soviet-era aircraft.
Complete with a five one-millions-of-an-inch-thick reflective aluminum coating, the 2.5-meter-dia. telescope mirror has been reinstalled on NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a modified Boeing 747SP, at NASA’s Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility. The coating was applied in a vacuum chamber at the NASA Ames Research Center. Ground tests of the telescope and cavity doors will be conducted later this year; flight tests are to begin next spring.
President Bush signed new authorizing legislation for NASA last week that requires the agency to add two space shuttle logistics flights to the International Space Station to its baseline flight manifest and “take all necessary steps to fly a third” mission. It also requires the agency to take steps to ensure that ISS remains viable through at least 2020.
General Atomics President Thomas J. Cassidy, Jr., is understandably upset by the Predator article (AW&ST Sept. 1, p. 24; Sept. 22, p. 10). However, you were reporting and corroborating the findings of a government assessment of his company’s past and potential performance.
Indian Navy Cdr. (ret.) Ajit Kumar Kokkeri has become aviation surveyor in the Indian office of London-based Airclaims Ltd. He was contract and insurance manager for Kingfisher Airlines. Tan Soon Keat has been named aviation surveyor in the Singapore office, effective Nov. 1.
The UAL corporation executive severance plan is providing retiring executive vice president and chief financial officer Jake Brace with a cash package of $1.86 million plus benefits. The separation agreement, effective Oct. 31, approved by the human resources subcommittee of the UAL Board, set his severance pay at twice his base $653,125 salary plus a target annual incentive equal to 85% of his base salary. In addition, all equity awards will vest immediately and stock options remain exercisable. Travel and medical benefits will be offered through Sept.
Russia’s biggest domestic carrier—S7 Airlines—Air Berlin and Austria’s Niki have entered into a broad code-sharing alliance that essentially nixes S7’s previous intentions of buying Austrian Airlines. Air Berlin and Niki will put their codes on many of S7’s Russian domestic routes while S7 will grow its international presence by code-sharing on Air Berlin and Niki. The three airlines are also linking frequent-flier programs.
Scientists are set to begin using the Hubble Space Telescope for observations again after controllers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight switched the orbiting observatory’s Science Instrument Control and Data Handling system to its backup “B” side on Oct. 16. After two days of complex commanding and calibration that required extensive practice on the ground and top-level approval from NASA managers, “a full schedule of science observations” with the telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and other instruments was ready to resume on Oct. 17.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has reached an agreement with United Space Alliance that USA will perform subcontractor support to ATK for NASA’s Ares I launch vehicle. USA has been supporting ATK under a $257-million letter of agreement until a more formal document is completed in 60-90 days, says Michael Kahn, executive vice president and general manager of ATK Launch Systems in Promontory, Utah.
Honeywell Aerospace President/CEO Rob Gillette met with AW&ST Editor-in-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr., and Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo to discuss changes in the company and his outlook for the business aviation industry in an era of economic uncertainty. AW&ST: Honeywell’s new business aviation forecast says that industry will see little discernible effect from changes in U.S. economic conditions and energy price fluctuations. Why is business aviation so different from the rest of commercial aviation?
Rocket racing has obtained an experimental exhibition certificate in the U.S., thanks to FAA approval. The agency green-lighted it to perform flight demos with its latest Rocket Racer, which is based on a Velocity Aircraft kitplane equipped with a liquid-oxygen/alcohol engine built by Mesquite, Tex.-based Armadillo Aerospace. In 2009, Rocket Racing plans to perform exhibition races with up to six aircraft at 6-8 venues selected from more than 20 approved sites. Official races are planned for 2010.
ESA is confident its newest flagship mission, Herschel-Planck, will get off the ground next spring, putting Europe in the forefront of infrared and cosmic-background astronomy. The €1-billion dual-spacecraft mission, which had been set to launch this month, has suffered from a combination of “minor issues,” says ESA science director David Southwood, including a leak on the Planck pressure controller, now being investigated, and nitrogen contamination in Herschel’s helium tank that forced engineers to drain the tank and replenish the helium supply.
Aeroflot’s interim results reflected a 55.2% drop in net profit, with the airline identifying increased fuel and lubricant costs as the cause of the decline. Consolidated revenues for the first six months of 2008 were $473.1 million, up 28.4% from the same period for 2007. Operating expenses, however, grew by 42.1%. Profits totaled $72.2 million.
This week’s planned launch of India’s first mission to the Moon will intensify the search for lunar water ice that could help support future lunar base operations. Crews kept the Chandrayaan-1 mission on track for its Oct. 22 launch date with a move Oct. 14 to the vehicle assembly building at the launch facility on Sriharikota Island in the Bay of Bengal, for mounting atop its PSLV-XL Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Organizational changes are being introduced at BAE Systems in the wake of Ian King’s appointment as CEO, with the creation of four operating groups. Guy Griffiths, previously managing director of Insyte, becomes international group managing director. He was chief operating officer of MBDA. Nigel Whitehead becomes group managing director for programs and support. He held the same post at Military Air Systems.
Bruce Nobles has been named president/CEO of Air Jamaica . He was its president/chief operating officer from 2002-03. Nobles succeeds William Rodgers, who has been acting president/CEO since the resignation of Mike Conway. Nobles also has been president of The Renwick Co. of Dallas.
European Space Agency managers have dropped plans to seek sharply expanded funding for the agency’s science program, but they still hope to get a real spending increase. Earlier this year, science director David Southwood had expressed hopes for up to €100 million ($135 million) in additional funding—a 20% increase—in the three-year budget plan to be approved in November.
Airservices Australia and Airways New Zealand are using or installing wide-area multilateration systems, but the two air navigation service providers down under have different views on the future role of such technology.
David L. Matthews has been named senior vice president-technical operations and Kevin Layton senior vice president-air traffic systems for SRA International Inc. , Fairfax, Va. Matthews succeeds Layton and was vice president-engineering project management at the Sensis Corp.
Boeing has added another 10 orders in the Ryanair column for 737s, raising total orders for the type this year to 480 and total aircraft orders to 633.
All aircraft programs seem to be late these days for multiple reasons. Boeing, for example, apparently went too far in trusting long-distance partners who couldn’t match the 787 program’s advanced technology and tight schedule. Airbus clearly underestimated the A380 wirings complexity, at least in terms of production, while China’s Avic and Russia’s Sukhoi are discovering that regional twinjets are no simple matter.
Thorny disputes between airlines and their airport and air navigation service providers, usually over the levels of fees and charges, can be avoided in future if recommendations for procedural changes take hold around the world.
Sensis Corp. is installing wide-area multilateration systems in North America, Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region, and the first ones being used in the U.S. may set a pattern for further use of the new technology here.
