While immediate priorities for Russia’s helicopter sector call for upgrading the Mil Mi-8/Mi-17 family and bringing the Mi-38 medium-lift to market, designers are also pursuing high-speed rotorcraft concepts. Kamov and Mil began to flesh out their respective ideas for high-speed rotary flight during the HeliRussia 2008 exhibition held in Moscow earlier this month. Alongside the ambitious concept models, considerable emphasis was placed on pushing ahead with industry consolidation.
With upwards of 25% of airline flights in the U.S. delayed on a typical day and untold additional flights canceled, would anyone argue that this system, which allows massive over-scheduling, does not need reform? The airline industry maintains that the fault lies with the government for not keeping up with growth to provide a national airspace system of sufficient capacity. And there is some truth to that.
Mike Gardiner has been appointed president of the Engine Control and Electrical Power Systems unit of the Goodrich Corp. , Charlotte, N.C. He was president of the Power Systems unit. Gardiner succeeds Marc Duvall, who is now vice president/general manager of the Aerostructures unit.
EasyJet is trying to force a judicial review of the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority’s pricing decisions at London Gatwick Airport, submitting an application to the High Court May 22. The court likely will decide by the end of July whether it believes the CAA has a case to answer. EasyJet contends the CAA “acted unlawfully” when it ignored the government’s Competition Commission recommendation regarding the regulatory settlement the CAA should determine for airport operator BAA. EasyJet is incensed by an “obscene increase” in the passenger fees at Gatwick for 2008-13.
Wong Tsoo, Boeing ’s first engineer and who is known as the father of its Model C training seaplane in the early 1900s, and was an early aviation and aerospace pioneer, has been honored by the company and its Museum of Flight in Seattle. As part of the ceremony, National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, where Tsoo taught from 1955-65, presented Boeing with a bound copy of Tsoo’s recently rediscovered lecture notes.
The House Homeland Security Committee wants the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to get serious about developing biometric identification policy for airport personnel. The panel has cleared, and sent to the full House, the Biometric Enhancement and Airport Risk Reduction Act, which would require the TSA to conduct a study on the best way for airports to transition to interoperable biometric identification for airport workers with unescorted access to secure or sterile areas.
The first prototype of Sukhoi’s Superjet 100 could be moved to the Gromov flight research institute near Moscow as early as next month, following its maiden flight on May 19. The Superjet is the first Russian commercial aircraft to be designed and developed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a great deal is riding on its success. The program will form a core element of any resurgence within the country’s ailing commercial sector.
The Civil aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is implementing Airways New Zealand’s “Flight Yield” system to extract flight data and produce invoices to send to airlines for ATC services provided. Airways is New Zealand’s air navigation service provider, and its Airways International affiliate sold the system to the CAAC to cover all of China’s ANS charges and airport fees, according to Bruce Heesterman, general manager of Airways International.
ORBITER: Discovery (OV-103) will be making its 35th flight. It most recently returned from orbit on Nov. 7, 2007. LAUNCH DATE: Targeted for May 31 from Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A for a 14-day mission, returning to KSC on June 14.
AgustaWestland has agreed to a collaborative deal with Oboronprom Corp. to jointly sell, support and perhaps build helicopters for the Russian and world markets. The deal, which also includes Loyd’s Investments Corp., initially would involve the purchase of up to €450 million ($706.5 million) worth of AW109, AW119 and AW139 helicopters for resale in Russia and neighboring countries. The acquisition of 10 aircraft worth €65 million is already under contract.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. on May 22 finalized its tentative decision to grant antitrust immunity that will let SkyTeam members Delta, Northwest, Air France, Alitalia, Czech Airlines and KLM coordinate their transatlantic fares, services and capacity as if they were a single carrier in that market.
Darryl M. Fraser (see photo) has become corporate vice president-communications for the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. He succeeds Rosanne O’Brien, who will be retiring. Fraser has been vice president-business development and strategic initiatives for the company’s Mission Systems Sector.
Mark McGraw, Vice President/Manager, Boeing Tanker Programs (St. Louis, Mo.)
As a company with decades of proven performance in meeting America’s aerial refueling needs, we at Boeing were dismayed to read the Viewpoint by Jerry W. Cox saying the tanker offered by an unproven U.S.-European team was better-suited to address the evolving needs of the warfighter (AW&ST May 12, p. 66). It doesn’t add up.
Zane Rowe has been appointed executive vice president/chief financial officer of Continental Airlines . He has been senior vice president-network strategy and succeeds Jeff Misner, who will be retiring Aug. 31.
Airlines operating out of Sacramento (Calif.) International Airport could see their per-passenger fees rise to $14 from $5 over the next eight years to cover a $1.27-billion terminal modernization program. In a preliminary move, the city’s Board of Supervisors unanimously voted for the rate change. The program includes a new overnight parking space for aircraft, a taxiway and a landside terminal, as well as a Federal Inspection Station in the airside concourse.
Embraer has selected Honeywell to provide the auxiliary power unit for its new Legacy 450/500. Honeywell had already been picked to provide the HTF7500E powerplant for the twinjets (see p. 36).
John C. Sorensen has been appointed vice president/treasurer and Richard C. Forsberg promoted to assistant vice president from director of aerospace contracts management-Aerospace for the Kaman Corp. , Bloomfield, Conn. Sorensen held the same positions at the Visant Corp., Armonk, N.Y. He succeeds Russell H. Jones, who has retired.
Hank Driesse has been named interim head of the defense business of the ITT Corp. , White Plains, N.Y. He succeeds Steve Gaffney, who has left the company.
Be careful what you wish for. During a Senate Appropriations hearing, Patty Murray (D-Wash.) tried repeatedly to get Defense Secretary Robert Gates to concede the Air Force was off base when it picked the Northrop Grumman-EADS team over Boeing in the replacement refueling tanker competition. Murray and other lawmakers from states with large Boeing constituencies have been complaining the selection process was unfair.
Pat Hassey spent much of his career railing against the use of composite materials as a substitute for aluminum. But today, the 62-year-old metals industry CEO can be heard expounding on how the increased use of composites in next-generation aircraft is going to make his shareholders a lot of money.
Lawmakers with an interest in NASA hope to use the agency’s Fiscal 2009 authorization bill as a road map for U.S. civil space policy. The legislation, now wending its way through Congress, would authorize a boost in NASA spending to prevent the Bush administration’s human spaceflight program from eating up funds needed in other areas. It also would target extra money to close the “gap” between the end of space shuttle flights and the first flights of the follow-on human vehicles now in development.
Jerry W. Cox’s global arguments are valid, but where is the global support going to come from? In 1955-57, I was stationed in Japan as a Marine aviator. We were flying North American, Douglas, McDonnell and Lockheed aircraft and operating Raytheon radars, and had on-site support from each company. In the late 1960s, I was operating Boeing 727s at Eastern Airlines. It was about this time that Pratt & Whitney decided that an aircraft on the ground with an engine problem no longer warranted the expense of a P&W engineer on site.
The tiltrotor design depicted for Boeing’s JCALS concept would be mechanically simpler and better performing if it were redesigned as a tiltwing configuration (AW&ST May 12, p. 29). Use of the tiltrotor configuration for advanced vertical-takeoff-or-landing aircraft is the result of a prejudice from early tiltwing experiments that employed high-disk-loading prop-rotors for propulsion. Since then, the tiltwing concept has been linked with high disk loading and tiltrotor with low disk loading.
HondaJet has started its sales drive in Europe and named Honda Formula 1 driver Jenson Button as the first customer; he’s to receive his aircraft in 2012. Meanwhile, HondaJet is starting to build up the support infrastructure for the aircraft’s arrival in Europe. It identified the first members of the sales and support network last week: TAG Aviation in the U.K., Rheinland Air Services in Germany and Aviastec in Spain.
