The departure of Olivier Gregoire as head of Safran's Communications Div. has raised speculation that the aerospace and defense contractor is ready to restructure and perhaps sell off its troubled cell phone activities. Safran's decision not to name Gregoire's successor, Xavier Lagarde, to the executive board, where Gregoire sat, only added fuel to the rumor mill.
Russia is refocusing attention on commercial air safety, following a second fatal accident involving a passenger aircraft within two months. A Pulkovo Airlines Tupolev Tu-154M with 160 passengers and 10 crew crashed on Aug. 22, en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg. There were no survivors. In July, an S7 Airlines Airbus A310-300 crashed on landing at the Siberian city Irkutsk, kiling 125 out of the 203 on board.
Eumetsat has rescheduled the launch of its first polar weather satellite, Metop 1, to Oct. 7. The launch, originally planned for July 17, had to be postponed three times because of problems with the Soyuz Fregate booster.
Israelis are unhappy about encountering some of Russia's top-of-the-line weapons during combat with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, including the Metis-M and laser-guided Kornet-E anti-tank weapons. U.S. aerospace industry officials, who spend their time developing defenses against these same weapons, say an Israeli government team was sent to Moscow to complain.
Your obituary for James Van Allen paid proper homage to a space pioneer (AW&ST Aug. 14, p. 17). However, you misidentified the launch vehicle used for the Explorer I satellite. Jupiter-C was a variant of the Redstone missile, not the Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile. The confusion stems from the use of the name "Jupiter" for two different rockets. Jupiter-C was used to test ablative reentry nose cones for the Jupiter program, but was based on the Redstone.
Gordon Bethune, former chairman of Continental Airlines, is now chairman of the Aloha Airgroup Inc. and Aloha Airlines. Aloha CEO David A. Banmiller says the airline will benefit from Bethune's "proven track record of driving up customer, employee and company value."
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has approved Groen Brothers Aviation's third-phase design for a high-speed, long-range vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft. Designated "Heliplane" by Darpa, the aircraft is to explore the company's experience with gyrodyne technology.
In your photo essay on AirVenture 2006 (AW&ST Aug. 21/28, p. 88), you say the Avro Lancaster carried Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs. You went on to say they were used to destroy the Ruhr dams. That is incorrect. The dams were destroyed by the Barns Wallis-designed bouncing bomb. Tallboys and Grand Slams were "earthquake" bombs, also designed by Barns Wallis, which were designed to burrow deep into the earth before they exploded. They also were used effectively against submarine pens, penetrating the reinforced concrete roofs before detonating.
The FAA's long-awaited proposal on measures to dole out capacity at New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) is everything big airlines feared: minimal-growth limits on operations, regulations encouraging use of larger aircraft and, worst of all, a market-based mechanism to reallocate all slots every 10 years.
Average pay of U.S. defense CEOs has doubled since 2001, far outstripping the 6% increase across all industries, a new report claims. The study, by two liberal groups, United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies, calculates that CEOs at 34 publicly traded companies deriving at least 10% of revenues from defense contracts earned an average of $7.2 million a year in 2002-05, compared with $3.6 million in 1998-2001. United Technologies Corp.'s (UTC) George David led the list in 2005 with $31.9 million, followed by Boeing's James McNerney at $28.4 million.
Every accident exposes weak links in the aviation system--and ultimately leads to safety improvements. Comair Flight 5191's takeoff roll down an inactive runway in the Kentucky pre-dawn darkness ended in the deaths of 49 of 50 people on board (see p. 33), and it appears human error was the critical link that, combined with other factors, broke the safety chain.
Don Antonucci has been appointed to the board of directors of the Rannoch Corp., Alexandria, Va. He was president of Lockheed Martin's Transportation and Security Solutions.
The Pentagon's well-oiled--and often dull--process of building an annual budget takes a dramatic turn this year. Squeezed dry for cash and out of tricks to pay for the war in Iraq, the Army decides not to submit its Fiscal 2008 budget request to the department's top civilian leadership. The service's latest long-range budget plans were due last month. The balk has brought the bureaucracy to a standstill until top civilians figure out how to stop the financial hemorrhaging; Iraq war costs have run as high as $5 billion per month.
Rand Corp. doesn't expect a significant uptick in the commercial space launch market, and warns the U.S. Air Force to "be prepared to bear the full cost of ownership" for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle fleet of Atlas Vs and Delta IVs. But in a report released Aug. 16, Rand predicts the EELVs will be the best choice for military launches through 2020 and advises the service not to divert funds from the program to finance other launch initiatives such as Operational Responsive Space.
Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kibo experiments module (top) and European Space Agency Columbus module highlight the tons of International Space Station hardware under prelaunch checkout in the Kennedy Space Center's Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF). Kibo, the station's largest laboratory, is tested by a Mitsubishi team from Japan, while just across the SSPF aisle, engineers from EADS in Germany and Alenia in Italy work on Columbus (see p. 70). AW&ST photos by Carleton Bailie.
The accused conspirators who aimed for multiple Lockerbie-scale disasters on the same day are now, for the most part, in custody. But the ripple effects on aviation security go on and on.
My Lancair 235 has 1/8-in. X 1-in. X 6-ft. 6063T5 aluminum bus bars from the battery to the starter. They have the same conductivity as AWG #0-#1 OFHC copper, with half of the weight and cost. They were coated with Alcoa No-Oxid or petroleum grease and abraded through the grease to keep out air and prevent oxidation. They were then assembed with the grease still on them and with spring washers to maintain a 1,500-psi. contact pressure under the less-than-15-ppm. difference in thermal expansion between the steel fasteners and aluminum.
Boeing was slated to formally announce late last week that it would close the C-17 production line. The announcement was expected to mean layoffs of about 5,000 employees over the three years in which the final airlifters are to be built for U.S. and international military customers.
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), which last year handled 61 million travelers, will be seeing increased passenger traffic starting December, when Delta Air Lines begins its rollout of expanded Latin America services. The airline plans to add 16 routes from LAX, mainly in the December-January period. They include nine new nonstop flights to nine cities in Mexico, including La Paz, Acapulco and Mazatlan; one to Liberia, Costa Rica, and another to Guatemala City. The airline will add connecting flights to five U.S. cities, including Las Vegas and San Francisco.
When it comes to installing checked-baggage screening systems inline to check efficiently for explosives, Canada is way ahead of the U.S. The Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority is now operating inline bag-screening systems at all major Canadian airports, according to Gregory Principato, president of Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA). He told the Senate Commerce Committee about the Canadian installations at an aviation security hearing in April.
The Washington-based Air Line Pilots Assn. has honored three cockpit crews with Superior Airmanship Awards. The first went to an Air Transat crew, Capt. Martin Gauthier and First Officer Benoit Loiselle. On a Mar. 6, 2005, flight from Varadero, Cuba, to Quebec City, the rudder on their Airbus A310 ripped off while flying at 35,000 ft. The flight was carrying 261 passengers and nine crewmembers. The pilots safely returned to Varadero.
A newly formed air safety advocacy group established by frequent travelers has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FAA regarding what steps have been taken by the agency to protect air traffic control systems from computer hacking and cyber-terror attacks. The Washington-based group wants information on FAA computer systems that have been invaded following 9/11, whether hackers could create phantom tracks in the ATC system and whether FAA employees are allowed to take laptop computers with key data away from agency facilities.
Duane P. Andrews has been appointed CEO of North American operations for U.K.-based QinetiQ. He was chief operating officer of the Science Applications International Corp. Andrews succeeds Phil Odeen, who has resigned.
Connexion by Boeing, the inflight broadband service started on the premise that Internet junkies couldn't live without a fix on a long-distance flight, is to end its commercial services by year-end. The company had signaled on June 26 that it was likely to close the business unit. Chairman, President and CEO James McNerney said in a second-quarter conference call with analysts that Boeing was talking with commercial satellite networks to see if the service could be sustained. But a Boeing official said the company could find no takers.
The FAA has increased the inspection rate of older model GE CF6-80 engines following an investigation of an uncontained failure of a CF6-equipped American Airlines Boeing 767 during ground maintenance June 2 at Los Angeles International Airport. GE Aviation says the FAA airworthiness directive affects 600-800 engines manufactured before 2001. The directive requires that inspections and repairs be made to engines by December 2008 under a rework program that is designed to prevent cracks and potential disk failure.
