Tom Gentile (see photos) has become vice president/general manager for services for Cincinnati-based GE Aviation . He was chief marketing officer for GE Money and succeeds Brad Mottier, who has been promoted to vice president/general manager of the General Aviation Operation Div.
London Heathrow Airport was plunged into a security alert Mar. 13, the day before the official opening of Terminal 5 by Queen Elizabeth II, when a man with a rucksack scaled a perimeter fence and ran onto a runway. He was apprehended by police on the northern runway and arrested. The incident was not initially believed to be terrorism-related.
General Dynamics has delivered the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (Glast) to Kennedy Space Center for final processing before its planned launch in May. The work will be done at the Astrotech payload processing facility near the NASA center. NASA is working with the U.S. Energy Dept. and research organizations in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Sweden on the project, which will cover the entire sky every 3 hr. in energy ranges from 10 keV. to more than 300 GeV.
The chairmen of the two U.S. House panels that oversee the Homeland Security Dept. say the Bush administration’s $50.5-billion Fiscal 2009 budget request wasn’t big enough and they intend to increase it. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), chairman of the Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) say the White House did not ask for enough funds for the Transportation Security Administration and other homeland security agencies.
USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Jeffrey B. Kohler has been named vice president-international strategy for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in St. Louis. He was director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and had been director of plans and policy at U.S. European Command Headquarters in Germany.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is Japan’s largest aerospace manufacturer and a premier collaborator with Boeing, Bombardier, Lockheed Martin and others on fighters, business, regional and commercial jets. But it hasn’t built a commercial airplane of its own for more than three decades and its last attempt, a turboprop, was an economic disaster.
Lufthansa has acquired four additional Cessna Citation Businessjets to equip its Private Jet Fleet, set up in 2005 to provide point-to-point flights to destinations in Europe and Russia and to funnel business and premium passengers into Lufthansa and Swiss hubs. The two CJ3s and two Excel XLS+ aircraft are in addition to four CJ1s purchased last September for the German carrier’s new pilot training program. Lufthansa revealed that at year’s end it will cease using aircraft provided by NetJets Europe and acquire assets of its own to serve the fleet.
Shares in perennially profitable Southwest Airlines tumbled as much as 11% after the carrier was fined by the FAA for lapses in required inspections and briefly pulled 38 of its Boeing 737s out of service (p. 62). But Southwest shareholders must be euphoric when they look at the performances of other airline stocks.
David J. Helfgott has been appointed president/CEO/executive chairman of DataPath Inc. , Duluth, Ga. He has been president/chief operating officer. Helfgott succeeds Tom Dyer as CEO and Wilson Lowery as chairman, both of whom resigned.
Chris Jenkins has been appointed managing director of Thales Australia . He has been vice president-operations. Jenkins succeeds Norman Gray, who has resigned.
Jack Pelton, Cessna Aircraft Co. Chairman, President and CEO Although he grew up in the shadow of the Douglas Aircraft plant and then spent the first several decades of his career building airliners for Douglas in California and China and for Fairchild Dornier in Germany, Jack Pelton was never so much an airliner guy as he was an airplane guy. Old, new, big, small, burning aviation gas or Jet A—he really loved them all.
Robert J. Regan has been appointed vice president/general counsel of the AAR Corp. , Wood Dale, Ill. He succeeds Howard A. Pulsifer, who is retiring. Regan was a partner in the law firm Schiff Hardin.
Michael E. Larkin has been promoted to executive vice president/general manager from senior vice president/deputy general manager of the Space Systems Group of the Orbital Sciences Corp. , Dulles, Va.
Michael A. Taverna (Noordwijk, Netherlands, and Washington)
Proposals by the European Space Agency to demonstrate data-relay and multipurpose payload technologies could help space-service providers develop an integrated offering combining telecom, remote sensing and navigation.
The European Union Parliament’s Industry Committee has issued draft rules for licensing of hybrid space-terrestrial mobile satellite service (MSS) systems to provide mobile TV/radio, Internet and other high-speed services. The committee decided that future MSS systems should be obliged to cover at least 60% of the EU’s total area initially and all EU members within seven years, and be transferable to disaster relief services in case of emergency. It also decided that no more than 15 MHz. of the 30 MHz.
Raytheon has delivered its first integrated infrared sensor for the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Infrared Satellite System (Airss) program, a technology effort that will eventually produce systems to augment and replace the Space-Based Infrared System satellites.
Ed Barnes has been appointed chief financial officer and Joseph Eng executive vice president-systems and technology of JetBlue Airways . Barnes had been interim CFO and was principal accounting officer/senior vice president-finance. Eng was president/CEO of Spectrum Systems. Christoph Franz has been named to the board of directors. He is CEO of Swiss International Air Lines Ltd.
USN Adm. (ret.) John B. Nathman has been named to the board of directors of the Curtiss-Wright Corp. , Roseland, N.J. He was commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
April could prove to be the cruelest month for either airport operator BAA or its airline users, as initial guidance emerges on possibly breaking up BAA’s hold on the southeast of England.
Rolls-Royce’s win on the Gulfstream G650 (see p. 59) introduces a new member of the BR700 engine family. The BR725 incorporates a 50-in.-dia. fan made up of 24 swept titanium blades, and an additional third low-pressure turbine stage to drive it. The engine includes a revised high-pressure (HP) compressor with integrally bladed disks (or blisks) on Stages 2-6, and elliptical leading edges on the blades. Improved materials and cooling have also been introduced into the two-stage HP turbine.
Denmark’s largest aerospace contractor, Terma, is to develop an observation processing and scheduling facility in Canada for that country’s Sapphire program, which is to provide a space-based data collection platform for continuous surveillance of man-made objects in medium- to high-Earth orbits (6,000-40,000 km./3.7-24.8 mi.). Data collected by the telescope-equipped Sapphire spacecraft will be processed by the new facility, and the results will be used to update the U.S.
Researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Cassini science team members around the world are beginning to pore over unique images and data transmitted to Earth Mar. 13 by the Cassini Saturn orbiter. On Mar. 12, Cassini dove through “Cold Faithful,” a gigantic plume of water vapor ice and dust jetting from under the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus 1 billion mi. from Earth. Cassini descended to within only 30 mi. of the moon’s surface and about 120 mi. from the central core of the plume to sample it. The spacecraft survived in excellent shape.
SAS plans to buy 27 Bombardier regional jets and turboprops as part of a settlement between the airline and aircraft-maker over landing gear problems that occurred last year with the carrier’s fleet of Q400s. After three accidents, SAS removed its entire fleet of Q400s from service. SAS has since been in a dispute with Bombardier and landing-gear-maker Goodrich. The settlement, for which exact financial terms have not been disclosed, has SAS ordering 13 CRJ900 NextGen regional jets and 14 of the latest version of the Q400.
With the launch of its three-ton Selene spacecraft Sept. 14, 2007, Japan joined the very elite club of spacefaring nations that have sent probes to Earth’s natural satellite. The only other members of the lunar club are the U.S., Russia (through the work of the former Soviet Union), the European Space Agency and—after Selene—China. All stand to benefit from the success of the Japanese mission.
1) AW&ST Tokyo-based correspondent Kazuki Shiibashi (far right) joins Space Laureate Yoshisada Takizawa and his wife, Yuko. 2) Aviation Partners chief aerodynamicist, Louis B. Gratzer (second from right), an Aeronautics/Propulsion Laureate nominee, and Mrs. Gratzer are accompanied by their son, Richard, and his wife. 3) Aerospace Industries Assn. President and CEO Marion Blakey (second from left) congratulates IT/Electronics Laureates (left to right) UPS Airlines Capt. Robert C. Hilb, Paul Fontaine and UPS Airlines Capt. Karen D. Lee.
