The 2006 air show season marks the U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration team's 60th anniversary. Known for dynamic, precision flight maneuvers in close proximity, the team's pilots live by an almost-mystical credo that permeates the entire Blue Angels squadron. Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief William B. Scott was invited back for a second flight with the team--this time in the four-ship Diamond formation--providing a close-up look at the Blue Angels' formula for breeding perennial excellence.
Deborah Costolo McElroy has been appointed senior vice president-government affairs for Washington-based Airports Council International-North America. She has been president of the Regional Airline Assn., also in Washington.
Roxanne S. Austin, former president and chief operating officer of DirecTV Inc., has been named to the board of directors of Los Angeles-based Teledyne Technologies Inc.
MARKET FOCUS Aerospace investors trying to make sense of election results 10 NEWS BREAKS Boeing completes its second successful liftoff at Vandenberg Complex-6 18 Aurora flies its GoldenEye 80 UAV for the first time 19 Chinese join aerospace fervor for unmanned aerial vehicles 20 AW&ST's Sparaco wins lifetime achieve- ment award from French club 20 Aircraft-carried satellite launch vehicle may be on Chinese agenda 22 Russia pushing ahead with upgrade to its MiG-31 Foxhound 22
While military officials may agree on the need, the choice of what active-defense system to deploy on their armored vehicles often comes down to time and money. The recent dispute over the U.S. decision not to field the Israeli-made Trophy system illustrates that point.
Capt. David Skilling's letter (AW&ST Oct. 30, p. 6) is a typical rant of an airline pilot who is probably 59 and facing retirement completely unprepared. There are several key points that he fails to recognize. *There is not a single airline pilot employed by a U.S. carrier who was hired when the Age 60 rule was not in effect. Those that didn't like the rule should have opted for other flying careers.
Alliant Techsystems has joined the Rocketplane Kistler team developing the K-1 two-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicle under NASA's Commercial Orbital Space Transportation (COTS) seed-money effort, which is also helping fund the Space X Falcon 9 development. The Utah-based company will oversee final development of the K-1, its assembly at the government-owned Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, construction of an initial launch site in Woomera, Australia, and eventually launch operations.
CAE Inc.'s net income rose 81% from a year earlier, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, despite flat revenue. The Montreal-based aircraft simulator producer reported net income of C$31 million ($27 million) on revenue of C$280 million.
Claims that ground-based radars have discredited the theory that water ice is hidden in cold traps at the Moon's poles are "overwrought," says noted lunar scientist Paul Spudis, and not borne out by the "preponderance of evidence." Spudis, who was on the team that underscored the possibility of lunar ice with data from the Pentagon's 1994 Clementine Moon orbiter, is responding to a report in the journal Nature from scientists who used the Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes to obtain high-resolution radar imagery of the lunar poles.
So far, the Chinese market has been long on promise but short on follow-through for executive aircraft. But Dassault has delivered a used Falcon 2000 to Citic, the state-owned financial services holding company, which will operate it in a VIP capacity. The Falcon 2000 is a stand-in for a Falcon 900DX that's due for delivery in 2007.
NASA may be in a better position to gain a $1-billion windfall in the upcoming lame-duck congressional session with the Democrats in control, but overall there shouldn't be major changes in support for agency programs in the wake of the election. Sen.
A state-of-the-art, airborne ground surveillance radar, intended for the U.S. Air Force's high-altitude Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, recently began a year of flight trials on a manned Proteus jet aircraft similar in size to the UAV. The service is testing the various modes of the new active electronically scanned array radar, which is housed in a pod under the Proteus for the testing.
Robert Bednarek has been named president/CEO of SES New Skies. He was executive vice president-business development. Bednarek succeeds Dan Goldberg, who is now chief executive of Telesat of Canada.
Every few years, a small company shows up at a trade show with a promise to revolutionize warfare with their newfangled weapon or supercheap aircraft. They come, they go and then they disappear off the face of the Earth. It looks like the latest in a long line of would-be Wright brothers is American Dynamics, a previously unknown New Jersey-based company that unveiled its BattleHog unmanned combat air vehicle this fall in Florida.
Pilatus is preparing to ramp up production of its PC-21 trainer now that market response to the program is gathering momentum. After a slow start, partly brought about by the crash of one of two prototypes early last year, the PC-21 program is gaining strength. Singapore this month committed to the trainer as part of a Lockheed Martin-led team to provide a 20-year basic training system.
If you build it, they will come. That's what Jordan hopes will happen with $100 million, guidance from the U.S. and blueprints for a training center designed to draw special operations forces (SOF) from around the Middle East and possibly the world.
The shock waves over the changing of the guard on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon reverberated to Wall Street last week, as investors sought to ascertain what changes the new regimes will make. In the two days after the Nov. 7 elections--capped off by the confirmation on Nov. 9 that Democrats had unexpectedly won control of the Senate as well as the House--military stocks took a modest hit. Lockheed Martin Corp. was down 2.4%, General Dynamics Corp. 2.3%, L-3 Communications Holdings 3.3%, Northrop Grumman Corp. 2.7% and Raytheon Co. 1.9%.
Last February, sending its Fiscal 2007 budget request to Congress, the U.S. Transportation Dept. said it would issue in the spring a plan to revamp the way the government raises revenue for the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, which is the source of money for the FAA's capital spending and airport grants, and most of its operating budget.
Kenneth E. Gazzola, former executive vice president/publisher of Aviation Week & Space Technology, has become a Washington-based marketing consultant to FlightSafety International of New York.
Upgrades and repairs planned for the Hubble Space Telescope may help astronomers reset the cosmological zeitgeist for future space exploration. But regardless of the scientific outcome, the astronauts who carry out the newly announced servicing mission in the spring of 2008 will work in an operational environment reshaped by NASA's shift to human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
Safran appears close to selling off its troubled Sagem cell phone unit. Last week, it acknowledged long-running rumors that it is in talks to sell part or all of the unit to Motorola. The company also named Jean-Paul Herteman to replace Jacques Paccard as head of Sagem Defense and Security. Paccard, like another long- time Sagem veteran, Gregoire Olivier, who resigned earlier, are thought to have resisted moves by Safran chief Jean-Paul Bechat to break up Sagem's commuications business.
Sea Launch successfully orbited XM Radio's XM-4 digital audio radio system satellite, marking its fifth mission of the year. Built by Boeing with a payload supplied by Alcatel Alenia Space, XM-4 was launched on Oct. 26. It is intended to replace two ailing spacecraft, - XM-1 and 2, dubbed Rock and Roll by the satellite radio operator, that were orbited in 2001, but will reach the ends of their expected lives around the first quarter of 2008. They will become in-orbit spares for as long as they last after that.
PIAGGIO AMERICA SAYS A FULL FLIGHT SIMULATOR FOR the P.180 Avanti turboprop business aircraft has been qualified by the FAA as a Level D device. The simulator was built by FlightSafety International (FSI) and has been installed at the company's Learning Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. FSI is responsible for Piaggio Aero pilot training. Plans call for a second Level D unit for the Avanti II to be built, with the location determined by customer demand.
USN Capt. (ret.) Ken Ginader has been appointed director of authentic fighting systems for tactical aviation in the Aircrew Training Systems Div. of the Environmental Tectonics Corp., South- ampton, Pa.
