Frank McKenna has become president of Space Transport Inc., McLean, Va., which is a successor to the Lockheed Martin's Corp.'s share in International Launch Services Inc. He was vice president of ILS.
Meanwhile, Aviation Maintenance and Engineering Corp. (Ameco) in Beijing, has signed its first contract to overhaul Airbus A320 landing gears (see photo). The contract went to China Zhejiang Airlines. In the past, the component services division at Ameco, a partnership between Air China and Lufthansa, has concentrated on Boeing 737 landing gears. And while Ameco broadens its services portfolio, it isn't forgetting its core airframe work. It recently celebrated the first anniversary of overhauls of some of United Airlines' 777s.
Burkhard Zachewicz (see photos) has become head of marketing and sales and Lutz Neugebauer director of Technology Center Aviation at Claas Fertigungstechnik, Beelen, Germany. Zachewicz was manager for several Airbus projects, while Neugebauer was Boeing 787 program manager for Brotje Automation.
The first of 12 C-27J Spartan tactical transports is officially in the hands of the Italian air force, after having completed test activities at the Practica di Mare center. A second model is to be delivered for acceptance testing in December, and the remainder by 2008. The first aircraft is to be assigned to the 46th Air Brigade in Pisa. The initial C-27J will not become operational in Italy immediately, but will be "diverted" to the U.S. where it will undergo an evaluation campaign as part of the Pentagon's competition for a Joint Combat Aircraft.
Germany's court of appeals has cleared the acquisition of full control in Astra Playout Services (APS) by SES Astra, denying a complaint filed by competitor Eutelsat in early 2005.
France, Germany and Spain are discussing a new European unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance program to replace their aborted EuroMALE initiative, and hope to have an intergovernmental memorandum of understanding for the project signed by year-end. The MOU would permit the launch of an 18-month risk-reduction phase, presumably under the leadership of EuroMALE prime contractor EADS.
Stock sales may not be on the table yet, but venture capital and serious public money is finding its way into the nascent U.S. commercial spaceflight industry. Human-spaceflight entrepreneurs attending the Wirefly X Prize Cup competition here report more receptivity from venture capitalists and bankers as they seek backing for rockets that are finally clearing the paper-and-powerpoint stage and becoming real hardware.
Theodore McFarland has become vice president-technology practice at Edward W. Kelley and Partners in Chicago. He was vice president-marketing for International Launch Services and had beenpresident of Hughes Electronics Japan.
The U.S. Air Force has issued refined guidance to Boeing and a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team, both bidding for a contract to build refueling tankers. During meetings Oct. 24 at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, program executive officer Lt. Gen. John Hudson announced the addition of a key performance parameter to refuel tiltrotor aircraft, and clarified the cargo-carrying requirement. The tankers must be able to haul at least six 463L pallets and at least 50 passengers. There is an objective threshold to carry more passengers and cargo, as well.
Mike Hauck has been appointed director of business development for the Lux Aviation Engineering Corp., Tucson, Ariz. He was an executive of the Learjet division of Bombardier.
Boeing CEO James McNerney is putting his reputation on the line to reassure customers that have placed 432 orders for the company's new 787 passenger jets. His message: The aircraft will not go down the same path as the Airbus A380. And to back up that pledge, Boeing is throwing more money into the program.
Joyce L. Winterton has become assistant NASA administrator for education. She succeeds John M. Hairston, Jr., who was acting assistant administrator. Hairston will return to NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland as head of the external programs directorate. Winterton was director of national education programs for USA Today.
USAF Lt. Gen. Stephen G. Wood has been appointed deputy commander of the United Nations Command Korea/ deputy commander of U.S. Forces Korea/commander of the Air Component Command, South Korea/U.S. Combined Forces Command/commander, Seventh Air Force, Pacific Air Forces, Osan Air Base, South Korea. Wood has been deputy at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. Maj. Gen. Loyd S. Utterback has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general with assignment as commander of the 13th Air Force, Pacific Air Forces, Hickam AFB, Hawaii.
U.S. Navy officials estimate they will save $2.5 billion through Fiscal 2011 by implementing corporate business practices in managing aviation programs, allowing them to buy more aircraft than anticipated and to achieve improved readiness of the airplanes in the fleet.
Regarding your Oct. 2 editorial, more than a decade ago the Airbus Military A400M mock-up was previewed at the Farnborough air show. As a Lockheed Martin executive then, I told a group of European aerospace writers it was "the wrong airplane, for the wrong mission, at the wrong time."
Flags of Our Fathers Dreamworks Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures Directed by Clint Eastwood War heroes are associated with powerful terms like courage, integrity, selflessness and actions that go above-and-beyond the call of duty. But other words--chance, luck of the draw, and right place, right time--also apply. In "Flags of our Fathers," a new movie based on James Bradley's book of the same title, director Clint Eastwood portrays both quintessential battlefield heroes and reluctant, public-defined war heroes.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London), Robert Wall (Paris)
An emerging arena for new competition in the defense industry will involve the melding of airframes and what they traditionally have carried internally. The debate about whether platforms or payloads are more important will soon shift fundamentally as systems--particularly sensors, communications and weaponry as they merge into one--move to the outside of platforms and become their skins. Moreover, there are moves afoot to integrate the two more closely, even on more traditional designs.
Eumetsat member states have served notice that they will not continue providing Meteosat forecasting data for the Indian Ocean region beyond 2008. The service is provided to compensate for the loss of a Russian Elektra spacecraft and lack of a data- sharing agreement with India. Russian officials say a new Elektra is to be launched next year.
The Fire Scout unmanned rotorcraft could be ready to provide intelligence to troops in Iraq ahead of schedule in 2008, but industry and government officials are instead weighing a delay to fielding the four-bladed system by 25 months.
The British Defense Ministry has three primary areas of interest in conformal antenna radar development: aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and guided-weapons. The ministry, for example, is funding technology research into conformal radar designs suitable for comparatively small, unmanned aerial vehicles. British defense technology developer Qinetiq is carrying out the work.
There was little surprise on Wall Street when Michael T. Strianese was named president and CEO of L-3 Communications last week. The 50-year-old veteran finance executive played a part in founding the company in 1997 and had run it on an interim basis after L-3's larger-than-life CEO, Frank C. Lanza, died (AW&ST June 12, p. 30). In an interview with AW&ST Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo, Strianese outlined his plans for a company that has grown to more than 62,000 employees and $12.4 billion in annual revenues--and how his style will differ from Lanza's.
Active electronically scanned arrays are being developed that can serve as radar, directed-energy weapons and communications data links, possibly all at the same time (see p. 46). They also are being designed to assume the shape of the platform that carries them. On a large airship, these arrays can cover extensive flat areas and produce radar images of great detail. On a small stealthy, missile-sized vehicle, the antenna could become skin and aid in penetrating enemy air defenses to deliver a destructive spike of energy to enemy electronics.
In parallel with launching the A350 and fixing the A380, EADS and Airbus officials are busy sorting out other key product portfolio elements, with changes looming for the A400M military transport and a timeline emerging for the replacement of the A320 narrow-body family.
