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.
Mary Kay Burch (see photo) has been named vice president-logistics services for the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Baltimore-based Electronic Systems Sector. She has been the sector's vice president-Eastern Region Manufacturing.
A gunship without guns? Maybe, the way Air Force Special Operations Command sees it. The command wants a replacement for the AC-130 gunship, which it has internally dubbed the Next-Generation Gunship, or NGG. But answering a reporter's query on the subject, AFSOC officials make clear that it's not that simple. It seems no one wants to offend the non-gun-toting gunships of the world.
FedEx is preparing for the holiday onslaught of shipments. The Memphis, Tenn.-based overnight delivery giant has predicted that for the ninth-straight year it will set a record in the days just prior to Dec. 25 for one-day shipments. The prediction: 9.8 million packages will move through its global FedEx Express and FedEx Ground networks on Dec. 18, breaking the previous record of 8.9 million packages set on Dec. 19, 2005. This year's total will include 5 million packages moving through the FedEx Express air freight network.
Russia's Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russian Federal Assembly, has cleared the Indo-Russian space cooperation agreement signed in New Delhi in December 2004. This sets the stage for joint space exploration and transfer of Russian space technology to India. Once signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the accord will hasten completion and the beginning of the collaboration on the Global Navigational Satellite System.
An article on the Applied Physics Laboratory's control of the Messenger spacecraft mission to Mercury misstated the dates of the spacecraft's next trajectory correction maneuver and second Venus gravity assist. The trajectory correction will occur on Dec. 12, followed by the second Venus flyby on June 5, 2007 (AW&ST Oct. 30, p. 35).
Boeing appears close to signing its first customer for airline passenger versions of the 747-8, but with the program moving from concept to design, some of its milestones appear to be slipping. First flight of the freighter version is now planned for January 2009, says Boeing 747 Vice President Dan Mooney. The event was planned for the last quarter of 2008, though a company official backtracked and acknowledged that 2009 seems more likely. No single program development is seen as causing the delay.
Thomas Duffy, Jr., has been promoted to vice president from managing director of technical services, Jeffery H. Domrese to vice president from managing director of maintenance and Paul K. Kinstedt to vice president from managing director of system control for Republic Airways Holdings. Gary Weatherlow has been named director of crew resources.
Southwest Airlines will open pilot and flight attendant crew bases at Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport by next October. The bases will occupy a 17,000-sq.-ft. facility near Concourse C, which is scheduled for expansion to initially accommodate 350 pilots and 600 flight attendants. Planned growth projects 600 pilots and 1,000 flight attendants at Las Vegas.
