USAF Brig. Gen. (ret.) Pete Hennessey has been promoted to vice president-business development for Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle's National Security Div. from head of the company's business with the Air Force.
Field Aviation Co. of Toronto will modify and deliver three de Havilland Dash 8-300s for use as maritime patrol/search and rescue aircraft for the Japan Coast Guard (JCG). Plans call for all three airplanes to be delivered by the end of 2008. Beginning in November, Field Aviation will perform the modifications that include a suite of surveillance sensors, search radar, a stabilized electro-optical, multi-spectral imaging payload; large conformal observation windows, air-drop capability and navigation and communications equipment.
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The Global Hawk has resumed flight operations at Beale AFB, Calif., after a standdown to training missions last year. The FAA was concerned about coordinating flights in dense California airspace. Procedures have now been set to continue ramping up training missions there, program officials say.
F-22s are on the move as part of a Pentagon effort to install the stealth fighter in the Pacific and imprint its capabilities on operations in what U.S. strategists see as an increasingly worrisome area.
Pentagon officials tell Congress that plans to train and equip national security forces in Afghanistan include providing a "small but capable air corps." This would increase the Afghan army's combat mobility, officials say.
Sweden is looking for a training service provider to prepare air and ground crew to use the NH90 transport helicopter. Before April, the government plans to issue its request for proposals within a six-month turnaround. The government notes that due to delays in getting the procurement going, a determinant will be the ability to quickly establish a program. Because Sweden is buying only 18 helos, it doesn't want to purchase its own full-flight simulator.
The British Defense Ministry is beginning to consider whether it may need additional C-130 airframes following the loss of a third aircraft in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the Royal Air Force's Lockheed Martin C-130J-30s was destroyed following an incident on landing at a "temporary" strip in southern Iraq on Feb. 12. Two personnel were injured. The cause of the initial damage has not been made public. The aircraft was destroyed to avoid a recovery attempt in a hostile environment.
Pilatus Aircraft has signed an agreement with the Swiss air force to deliver six PC-21s starting late this year. The Jet Pilot Training Systems PC-21 program is to commence operations in March 2008, allowing pilots to transition directly to the F/A-18.
Alan Stern, newly named as NASA's science chief to replace the retiring Mary Cleave, must try to fulfill a burgeoning agenda of worthy missions at a time when the agency's top leaders have put science on a downhold to pay for human spaceflight and exploration. Although scientists' complaints about the agency's priorities have found some traction on Capitol Hill that may translate into extra dollars for missions, the agency's science-spending priorities also are under attack.
Judy Cavanaugh has been appointed vice president-market analysis at Input, Reston, Va. She was vice president-business intelligence for the L-3 Communications Titan Group.
The Italian government has dumped embattled Alitalia Chief Executive Giancarlo Cimoli, hoping to ease the process of finding a buyer for the struggling Italian carrier. Cimoli's political support had become increasingly tenuous after he had little success in improving Alitalia's performance. A new management team has yet to be named, but first the government wants to reconstitute the board that has effectively been disbanded by resignations. New chairman Bernardino Libonati is to be confirmed at a shareholder meeting Feb. 22, along with four other new members.
I started flight lessons in 1992 when I was 17. Ever since, I've been told countless times there will be a major pilot shortage in the next five years. Fifteen years and thousands of small-jet hours later, I'm still waiting.
A move into the Australian domestic market by Singaporean budget carrier Tiger Airways will challenge the profitability of Qantas budget unit Jetstar, just as the Australian airline prepares to be taken over by private-equity buyers. Tiger's plan also means the airline--still a small business, but an ambitious one with the backing of big-name aviation investors--will run a narrow-body network stretching from southern China, to the Philippines, southeast Asia and across the Australian continent, which is itself about as big as the continental U.S.
Communications satellite operators, manufacturers and launch providers see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, as the industry emerges from a decade of stagnation.
Adam Isles has been appointed deputy chief of staff in the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. He has been counselor to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and was counsel to the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Dept.'s Criminal Div.
General aviation manufacturers, reporting a "spectacular" 2006, point to user fees as No. 1 among the challenges to continued growth in 2007. The General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. members last week reported 4,042 total aircraft shipments in 2006, a 12.9% increase compared with 2005, and a 24.1% climb in total billings to an all-time high of $18.8 billion (see chart)--a banner year, according to GAMA President and CEO Pete Bunce. This is attributed to several factors:
U.S. Air Mobility Command officials say the primary causes of a C-130E accident at Al Asad AB, Iraq, on July 17 were pilot and crew error. The investigation determined that the crew from the 317th Airlift Group at Dyess AFB, Tex., used aggressive braking and taxied at a high speed after landing, which resulted in mechanical failure in three of the transport's four brakes and led to a fire in one of the wheel wells. There were no injuries.
Dassault Aviation is poised to launch a new mid-size business jet as sustained orders continue to strengthen the company's backlog. The aircraft--code-named the SMS--will be formally launched as soon as the ultra-long-range Falcon 7X deliveries begin in April, Chairman/CEO Charles Edelstenne said here last week. The unveiling would aim to build buzz going into the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibit in Geneva in May.
Oksana Bardygula has been named vice president-business development for Tectura's aerospace and aviation practice in Southern California. She was a junior partner in the aviation practice of Mercer Management Consulting.
Anatoly Serdyukov has been appointed Russian defense minister. He succeeds Sergei Ivanov, whom President Vladimir Putin has named as first deputy prime minister. Serdyukov was head of the federal tax agency.
General Electric was slated to conduct its first ground test runs of the GEnx on its Boeing 747SP flying testbed in Victorville, Calif., late last week. Flight testing is to start by early March. The first icing tests are to get underway this week, using GE's mobile test stand near Montreal.
Frederick A. Tarantino (see photo) has been named president/CEO of the Washington-based Universities Space Research Assn. He was vice president-operations for the Federal Services Div. of Burns and Roe Enterprises.
Researchers, using notional six-dimensional geometries predicted by string theory to map energy distribution in the infant Universe, hope Europe's upcoming Planck background energy mapper will give them some real data to work with. String theory hypothesizes six dimensions beyond the three we live in, plus time, in super-tiny shapes that occupy every point in the Universe. Scientists have used computers to visualize the shapes, like this example produced at Indiana University, but there's no way to test them for accuracy. Now researchers have published work in the Feb.
