John Griffith, ALCM/CALCM Program Manager (The Boeing Co., Seattle, Wash.)
Regarding Douglas Barrie's article "Bunker Shot" (AW&ST Oct. 2, p. 34), it is important to fully address the U.S.'s ability to attack deeply buried hardened targets. The Air Force currently has the AGM-86D penetrator. Using a time-delay fuze, the missile is capable of penetrating greater amounts of soil and steel reinforced concrete than the Taurus. It has greater range than Taurus, is certified for carriage on the B-52 and was used successfully during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Monarch Airlines will use Rolls-Royce Trent 1000s to power its Boeing 787s. The airline has six firm orders and options for four more of the Boeing aircraft. Deliveries are to start in 2010. It's the first order for the Trent 1000 from an airline in Rolls' home market, the U.K. The carrier already uses Rolls engines on Airbus A330s and Boeing 757s.
John C. Ulrich has been appointed a corporate vice president of General Dynamics, Falls Church, Va., and president of its European Land Combat Systems Div. He succeeds H. Michael Malzacher, who is retiring. Ulrich was the division's senior vice president/ deputy director.
James C. May, president and CEO of the Air Transport Assn., talked to Senior Editor David Hughes about how to pay for a modernized ATC system in the U.S. Hughes has covered plans for ATC modernization in the U.S., Europe and Asia extensively for Aviation Week & Space Technology. The interview was conducted by phone, and May followed up with these written answers to AW&ST's questions. Aviation Week & Space Technology: Is the national airspace system reaching a crisis point?
Frederick Reed, executive vice president/general counsel/consultant with Development Specialists Inc., Columbus, Ohio, has been named to ABX Air Inc.'s board of directors.
MBDA is negotiating to buy solid rocket and ramjet motor specialist Bayern Chemie-Protac as it continues efforts to improve profitability and boost export sales. CEO Marwan Lahoud told a gathering of journalists here last week that the company is near agreement on acquiring the Franco-German rocket motor manufacturer from Thales and EADS for an undisclosed price. Bayern Chemie generates annual sales of €60 million ($75 million) and employs 300 people, two-thirds of them in Germany.
A Canton, Ohio, aerospace company is fielding an entry in the competition for a counter-insurgency aircraft. A proof-of-concept for the turboprop-powered A-67 Dragon flew Oct. 6. Test pilot Dale Mitchell completed a 45-min. test regime after takeoff from Cassville, Mo. Upon landing at Monett Municipal Airport, also in Missouri, the right landing gear failed, causing the aircraft to slide off the runway. The gear and four-blade Hartzell propeller were damaged; a stronger main gear is under consideration.
Robert Mionis has become CEO of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise's Manufacturing and Engineering Divs. and Michael Allgood the corporation's chief financial officer. Mionis was vice president-integrated supply chain for Honeywell Aerospace, while Allgood was CFO of Emery Worldwide and Pacer Global Logistics.
It sounds like a typical movie preview for a sequel: You thought it was over, but it's back. The Aerial Common Sensor, a terminated Army intelligence aircraft program, could make a renewed appearance this Halloween. On Oct. 31, the Army's program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors will hold its first post-termination industry day to begin to address questions about developing a system to succeed the RC-12 Guardrail.
Donald J. Boucher, Jr. (see photo, p. 10) has received El Segundo, Calif.-based Aerospace Corp.'s highest honor, the Trustees' Distinguished Achievement Award, for "technical leadership in recovering functionality of a new Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) sensor in support of critical national programs." He is a principal engineer in the Space Support Div.
Growth in global demand for business aviation is driving efforts to develop, certify and produce aircraft from very light jets to supersonic transports capable of speeds from 340 kt. to Mach 1.6. The following synopsis of major programs details their current status and projected entry into service.
British Airways' commercial director, Martin George, has resigned as a result of the ongoing investigation by the British Office of Fair Trading and the U.S. Justice Dept. into alleged price fixing on fuel surcharges. George has been on a leave of absence since June. In his resignation letter, George says that "within my department there may have been inappropriate conversations in violation of company policy in relation to long-haul fuel surcharges.
President Bush's new U.S. space policy is heavy on national and homeland security, doesn't even mention the Moon, and offers a glimmer of hope for U.S. companies and their offshore trading partners hobbled by State Dept. enforcement of export control regulations. The policy puts the secretary of defense and the director of national intelligence in charge of spaceborne intelligence-gathering and other support of U.S.
Your article on the Comair Flight 5191 accident ended with a discussion about the number of controllers present, but overlooked the obvious (AW&ST Sept. 4, p. 34). As with most airplane accidents, there were multiple factors, any one of which could have prevented the accident. The primary factors in this case were the actions (or inactions) of the pilot, first officer and tower operator.
Dassault Aviation recently closed its largest-ever sale of business aircraft, marking the occasion with an elaborate signing ceremony at an ornate Paris hotel. The $1.1-billion order from fractional operator NetJets Europe for 24 long-range Falcon 7X jets was trumpeted as a "coming of age" for private aviation in Europe.
Airbus will have to jump high to reach some of the goals set by the two recovery plans EADS board members have approved for the embattled aircraft maker. Central to the Airbus road map are an A380 "fix-it" plan, which will try to put assembly of the mega-transport back on firm footing, and the Power8 competitiveness program, through which larger, structural issues should be fixed and the company's cost base be reduced by €2.1 billion ($2.6 billion) per year.
Uwe Mukrasch has been named chief executive for human resources of Lufthansa Technik, effective Jan. 1. He will succeed Wolfgang Warburg, who will be retiring. Mukrasch has been head of the aircraft component services division.
Alan Garwood, chief of the British Defense Ministry's Export Services unit, says he anticipates U.S. purchases of military goods from the U.K. to remain at about $2 billion per year for the foreseeable future despite pending sales of the Joint Strike Fighter. Conversely, the U.K. buys just over twice that amount from the U.S. In the mid-1990s, the U.K. bought up to four times the amount of military goods sold to the U.S.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has established a high-technology Missile Defense Engineering and Analysis Center at the company's Cummings Research Park complex in Huntsville, Ala. The center combines its company-wide resources, including experienced personnel, to support customers' integrated air and missile defense capabilities.
Kelly Ortberg has been appointed executive vice president/chief operating officer of the Commercial Systems Div. at Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He will succeed Bob Chiusano, who is retiring. Ortberg has been vice president/ general manager of the Air Transport Systems Div. Succeeding Ortberg will be Jeff Standerski, who has been vice president-strategy for the Commercial Systems Div. Kent Statler has been named executive vice president of Rockwell Collins Services. He was senior vice president/general manager.
David C. Reeve has been appointed chairman/president/CEO of Milwaukee-based Skyway Airlines Inc. He has been senior vice president-operations of parent company Midwest Airlines.
Stephen D. Yslas (see photo) has been named corporate vice president/secretary/deputy general counsel of the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., effective Dec. 15. He will succeed John H. Mullan. Yslas has been vice president/deputy general counsel.
All three crewmen on the International Space Station are set to receive another load of supplies after suiting up and buckling in to move the Soyuz capsule that delivered two of them to space. Expedition 14 ISS Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Thomas Reiter backed Soyuz TMA-9 away from the aft docking port on the Russian Zvezda service module Oct. 10 and spent 20 min. moving it to the nadir port on the Zarya module. That clears the way for Progress 23P to dock Oct. 26, pending its scheduled launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Oct.
MARKET FOCUS Defense budget bookkeeping could affect contractors' fortune 15 NEWS BREAKS SR-20 crash spurs general aviation security concerns 22 China appears to plug a gap in its air-launched weapons inventory 23 Italy starts work on a medium- to high- altitude unmanned aircraft 24 Groen Brothers Aviation chairman dies, developed auto-rotative aircraft 24 A-67 Dragon enters competition for counter-insurgency aircraft 25 WORLD NEWS & ANALYSIS
