Thales has sold its GPS navigation business to Shah Capital Partners, a private equity firm, for $170 million. The business, to be renamed Magellan Navigation, employs 600 people in the U.S., France and Russia.
Brigita Rasys has been promoted to senior director of strategic marketing and development from business development director for the government marketplace for the Inventory Locator Service, Memphis, Tenn.
The U.S. Navy has ordered another two T-6A Texan II training airplanes from Raytheon Aircraft Co. Total orders for the Texan II stand at 420, and 319 have been delivered--270 to the Air Force and 49 to the Navy. Plans call for delivering about 800 through 2017.
The two entrepreneurial launch-services companies that will split almost $500 million in NASA funds to develop commercial cargo delivery vehicles for the International Space Station (ISS) have begun work on human-rated versions.
What appeared to be a "pulser" contrail was photographed over Santa Fe, N.M., at 2:26 MDT on Aug. 16 within seconds of being created by an unknown aircraft. Steven Sande, a professional civil engineer and president of Raven Solutions, says the contrail's discrete puffs were formed by "a fast-moving aircraft at very high altitude." It was flying due north initially, then gradually turned north-northwest. Sande and his wife, a Lockheed Martin employee who worked on the Titan rocket program for 25 years, say they heard no noise from the aircraft.
THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY'S U.S. CUSTOMS and Border Protection has ordered another five American Eurocopter EC120B helicopters, which will bring to 15 the number of EC120Bs in the agency's fleet. In other news, American Eurocopter has delivered an EC145 to EmergyCare/LifeStar based in Erie, Pa., which conducts airlift for emergency medical services.
Hong Kong Express Airways, which relies on Embraer 170 regional jets for business-oriented travel, has received government approval to nearly double its services to mainland China by adding the cities of Chengdu, Nanning, Wuhan, Jinan and Yantai. The carrier already holds rights to six other Chinese cities.
Since the U.S. Transportation Security Administration instituted stricter controls over carry-on luggage after last month's London bombing scare, airlines are reporting a 20% increase in checked baggage. The shift is having two effects. It's putting more pressure on ramp services. But with fewer passengers trying to cram suitcases in the overhead bins, the boarding process is quicker, reveals a spot check of leading carriers by Aviation Week & Space Technology.
EasyJet plans to set up a hub at Madrid's Barajas Airport as part of a major expansion of its Spanish network. The hub--EasyJet's 17th--will open Feb. 16, 2007, and is expected to serve a large number of new destinations to be detailed this month. The British no-frills carrier is already the fourth-largest operator in Madrid, serving 11 destinations, and Spain is EasyJet's second-largest market, after the U.K.
Academic space scientists and their graduate students are the only ones feeling the pinch from NASA's decision to focus its spending on President Bush's human exploration program at the expense of space science. After seeing its sales rise 91% over five years to $695 million in 2005, Ball Aerospace is expecting a flat year in 2006, says CEO David Taylor. One reason: Ball is a top supplier of advanced space-science instruments for NASA-funded principal investigators. The problem is compounded by a similar trend at other U.S. government customers.
Pluto will no longer be considered the ninth planet under a new definition adopted by the International Astronomical Union. Meeting in Prague, the IAU rejected a proposed definition that would have boosted the number of planets in the Solar System to 12, and instead knocked it back to eight.
British Airways has agreed to join Verified Identity Pass Inc.'s Registered Traveler program at John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 7. It was the first time an airline, rather than an airport, signed up with Verified, which runs the only Registered Traveler program operating in the U.S.
Lockheed Martin has completed aerodynamic, high-speed wind tunnel analysis of the conventional takeoff-and-landing and short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. The tests were conducted in the 16T Propulsion Wind Tunnel at the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) near Tullahoma, Tenn. At conclusion of the tests, the 16T facility had surpassed 8,000 hr. of operation in support of the F-35's System Design and Development phase.
Joy Romero has been apppointed president of Boeing Canada Operations Ltd. and general manager of Boeing Winnipeg. She was head of Boeing's Salt Lake City components manufacturing site.
Brazilian low-cost carrier Gol continues to expand its network across South America. The airline last week received regulatory approval to operate 14 flights per week to Lima. Gol already flies between Brazil and Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, and plans to expand service to Chile. The one-class, all-737 carrier now offers more than 500 flights daily to 50 airports.
A blockbuster order from Ryanair for OnAir mobile access, along with announcements of phone trials and satellite TV availability by Qantas and Qatar Airways, suggests there is definitely a market for inflight phone and data services, but Boeing misread it.
Market Focus 10 Short-sellers having field day with some aerospace stocks News Breaks 17 Russia refocusing on commercial air safety following Tu-154 crash 18 Possible Russian purchase of EADS stock remains mystery 19 Safran shakeup could presage new round of aerospace consolidation 19 Apparent 'pulser' contrail pho- tographed over New Mexico 20 U.S. airlines absorbing increase in checked luggage
France has ordered seven additional Eurocopter EC145 helicopters to replace aging Alouette IIIs used by its gendarme corps, particularly in mountain search-and-rescue operations. The aircraft will be delivered in 2007-08.
That unconscionable C-5 crash by an experienced military crew on a clear day is a call for action by USAF and the Defense Dept. to look into the entire Air Mobility Command force structure. Many AMC missions could be outsourced to civilian contractors despite a consultant who recently said otherwise. With skyrocketing personnel costs, it is in the U.S.'s interest to downsize the 150,000 personnel assigned to AMC.
Chinese air marshals are slated to start anti-terror training this month with the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS). The first 18-member Chinese team will participate in two weeks of training sessions and tactics exchanges with their U.S. counterparts at the FAMS training facility in Atlantic City, N.J. After completing the program, the Chinese air marshals will be deployed on China-U.S. flights operated by Chinese airlines. The arrangement grew out of a memorandum of understanding on aviation security signed by the two countries Apr. 9.
British airports operator BAA is rejecting calls from airlines that it be broken up. Relations between BAA and airlines are growing increasingly fractious as a result of increased security at British airports, and the problems this has caused BAA and consequently the airlines. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is looking into how the U.K.'s airports are managed. British Airways has already called for the OFT to refer its study to the Competition Commission, while Ryanair advocates the breakup of airport ownership.
USAF has declared its 250-lb. Small-Diameter Bomb operational for use on the F-15E after the first units reached squadrons at RAF Lakenheath, England. The first of the Boeing-made GPS-guided bombs will be deployed with the 494th Sqdn. as its Strike Eagles deploy to Southwest Asia in the coming months. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Riemer, the Air Force program executive officer for weapons, says he expects the first SDBs will be dropped by year-end. Development continues of the SDB II, a variant optimized to destroy moving targets, and a downselect is planned for 2009.
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The Hungarian government began its latest attempt to privatize state-owned Malev Hungarian Airlines last month. But like its peers, LOT Polish Airlines and CSA Czech Airlines, Malev is facing increased competition from local startups such as Wizz Air and Sky Europe, while established carriers like Ryanair and Lufthansa are trying to grab their shares of the growing Central and Eastern European air transport market (see p. 40). Malev, LOT and CSA are still trying to find the right niche in between. Keith Gaskell photo.
Here we go with more "free thinking" from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. Now MDA is proposing a new space-based testbed for risk reduction and defense capability testing (AW&ST July 3, p. 14).
