The Air Force, which hates calling its big, new MQ-9 the Predator B, quietly names the turboprop-powered UAV the "Reaper." Since the unmanned aircraft has six weapon stations and has been assigned the Killer portion of the Hunter/Killer mission, it appears there is an unspoken meaning, "as in Grim Reaper," confirms a senior defense official. Budget planning for Fiscal 2008 leaves nearly all the UAV programs untouched, but without any large initiatives.
Charles Leader has become director of the U.S. Joint Planning and Development Office. Robert Pearce, who has been acting director, will be deputy director. Leader was a partner in McKinsey and Co. and co-head of its aerospace/defense practice.
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After winning two battles with Mother Nature and successfully completing negotiations with the Russians, NASA is poised this week for three tries to launch the shuttle Atlantis STS-115 mission to reinitiate space station assembly. But the International Space Station is also about to be the setting of perhaps a bit of diplomatic drama involving the current U.S./Iranian situation: The Russian Soyuz TMA-9 mission in mid September will fly to the ISS an Iranian-born woman space tourist who is a naturalized American citizen (see p. 16).
Gary Bomhoff has been named leader of Boeing's Oak Ridge, Tenn., site. He was skin and spar manufacturing director for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Frederickson, Wash.
In his commentary on airline bankruptcies (AW&ST Aug. 21/28, p. 62), Julius Maldutis did not hit the nail on the head until his last paragraph, where he wrote: "Prior to airline deregulation in 1978, there were few, if any, airline bankruptcies." What happened in 1978 was the deregulation of egomania and greed.
Richard Collins and Scott Bridge have become general managers, respectively, of the West Palm Beach, Fla., and Albany, Ga., fixed-base operations of Landmark Aviation. Collins was general manager of Landmark's Rochester, N.Y., FBO, while Bridge held that position at Lakeland, Fla. Greg Haywood has been named group sales manager for the Western U.S. and international sales territories. He was chief operating officer of GE Healthcare's services business in the Northeast U.S. Harry Zegarski has been named modifications sales manager for the Western U.S.
Boeing has finished thermal vacuum testing of the third Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-P) it is building for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. GOES-O is in storage and awaiting launch next year; GOES-P will be launched in 2008.
Raytheon has completed sensor verification flight testing for the complete electro-optical/infrared and laser-designator system slated to be carried by the U.S. Army's new Warrior unmanned surveillance aircraft. Warrior is the product of the extended-range multipurpose UAV competition.
Mark Paolucci has been appointed senior vice president-customer service for the Cessna Aircraft Co., Wichita, Kan. He will succeed Ron Chapman, who will be retiring. Paolucci was vice president-Citation sales.
Bulgaria has taken delivery of the first of 12 Eurocopter Cougar AS532 AL helicopters--the first non-Russian military rotorcraft to be ordered by the Balkan country. The Cougars, earmarked for tactical transport and combat search-and-rescue missions, are to be in service by 2009. Six Eurocopter Panther AS 565 units are also on order for delivery in 2010-11.
How long and how many millions of dollars did it take Rand to determine that "USAF is using aircraft designed for other needs for COIN missions, but that aircraft specifically geared for such needs would be better?"
THOUSANDS OF U.S. COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT are equipped with Honeywell's Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, but only a handful of airlines have purchased the optional Runway Awareness and Advisory System. RAAS is a software-only modification that provides voice-only reminders to pilots to prompt them so they avoid a runway incursion.
Worldwide spending on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will more than triple over the next decade to $55 billion, according to the Teal Group. The Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace and defense consulting firm predicts UAV spending will grow to $8.3 billion from $2.7 billion annually within a decade. During that time, the U.S. will account for 77% of worldwide UAV research and development spending and 64% of the procurement.
Pat Forrey has been elected president of the Washington-based National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., defeating two-term incumbent John Carr. Forrey is a controller at the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center and had been vice president of Natca's Great Lakes Region. Paul Rinaldi was elected executive vice president. He is a controller at the Washington Dulles tower and had been alternate vice president for the union's Eastern Region.
Panama's Copa Airlines will take delivery of two Embraer 190s in October, increasing the total of its mixed fleet of Boeing 737-700/800s and Embraer 190s to 30 aircraft by year-end. Each is equipped with vertical situation displays and Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems. Copa's 2005 acquisition, AeroRepublica, is to take delivery of two Embraer 190s in 2007 under leases with GE Commercial Aviation Services. AeroRepublica has firm orders for seven 190s, four to be delivered this year and three in 2007, and holds options for 20 additional 190s through 2011.
Tanker programs for Italy, Japan and possibly the U.S. have taken another step forward with delivery of the first production Remote Aerial Refueling Operator II (RARO) station for the Boeing KC-767 tanker. RARO is a mission management and planning console positioned next to the cockpit (on older tankers the console was in the rear of the fuselage) from which the refueling operator can control both boom and drogue maneuvers with a remote vision system. The first tanker will be turned over to Japan in February 2007, followed by the first Italian tanker in mid-2007. A U.S.
Embraer, which has introduced itself to China with a fast-growing regional carrier in Hong Kong and a licensed manufacturing operation in Harbin, has sold 50 ERJ145s and 50 Embraer 190s to the HNA Group, parent of Hainan Airlines, the nation's fourth-largest carrier. The sale marks the first contract for an Embraer jet in mainland China and is valued at $2.7 billion at list prices. It constitutes the largest order for the E170/190 family since JetBlue bought 100 in 2003.
John Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Cosmic Background Explorer science team--Samuel Gulkis and Michael A. Janssen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory--have received the 2006 Cosmology Prize from the Peter Gruber Foundation. The team was honored for their studies confirming that the universe was born in a hot Big Bang. The prize recognizes individuals who have contributed to fundamental advances in cosmology.
Central and Eastern Europe's legacy carriers are facing deeply rooted uncertainty and questions over their strategic positioning two years after their home markets were opened up and as low-fare carriers are making inroads. The region's three biggest carriers--LOT Polish Airlines, CSA Czech Airlines and Malev Hungarian Airlines--plus Austrian Airlines as an airline with huge exposure in the area, share the same difficulties: The customer base is eroded by new entrants, yields are falling and cost-cutting remains a challenge in legacy structures.
Launch of twin NASA solar-observation spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on a Boeing Delta II will be delayed from Aug. 31 to no earlier than Sept. 18 to validate the strength of an Italian-built propellant tank. The Delta II second-stage tanks are made by Alcatel Alenia Space in Turin. Launch likely will be delayed until October unless a potential problem with the hardware can be resolved. The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (Stereo) mission is to collect 3D imagery of gigantic coronal mass ejections as they wrap around Earth's magnetosphere (AW&ST Sept.
UPS pilots remain at the top of crew pay scales as members of the Independent Pilots Assn. ratified a contract through 2011. The first pay raise since 2002 increases the scale for a 12-year captain to $223 from $190 per hour immediately and to $251 by 2011. UPS gains efficiencies including improved use of reserve pilots.
William J. Begert, vice president-business development and international programs for Pratt & Whitney Military Engines, East Hartford, Conn., has been appointed to the U.S.-India Business Council board of directors.
Air France will transfer all U.S. flights at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to a new terminal, 2E, and equip it with new measures to meet more stringent American security requirements. Despite higher security and fuel costs, Air France-KLM reported an 84.3% jump in first-quarter operating income to 411 million euros ($526 million), compared to a year earlier, and healthy growth in passenger and cargo unit revenues.
