Amy C. Butler, David A. Fulghum (Washington), Robert Wall (Paris)
The Pentagon is winnowing its options for future airlift capabilities, halving the field of candidates on one hand for the Army-Air Force Joint Cargo Aircraft competition and, on the other, maintaining silence on future C-17 buys. As a result, the future of Boeing's strategic transporter production line looks increasingly grim.
OnAir is moving forward with deployment of inflight phone service and high-speed broadband data offerings that it hopes will become the industry standard.
Embraer brought a bit of history to AirVenture 2006 with a replica of Brazilian inventor and aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont's 14Bis aircraft. Oshkosh and Washington are the only stops outside Brazil on a tour commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 14Bis flight at Paris.
Rockwell Collins is teaming up with Universal Weather and Aviation Inc. to provide data link services to the cockpit. Universal's UV data link Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) service allows pilots to access data in-flight using Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 cockpit avionics. The data link can carry text weather reports and graphical weather charts, text messaging to other aircraft, flight progress reporting and other functions.
With only a handful of months to go until London is meant to contract to purchase the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, senior officials from the U.K. and the U.S. have just agreed a "framework for further discussions" covering the key issue of British "operational sovereignty" of the aircraft. British and U.S. sources caution that this is far from being a resolution to the issues of technology access and support that have dogged British participation in the program.
To prepare Heathrow controllers for a facility switchover this winter, U.K. air traffic services provider NATS is using a 360-deg. simulator that matches the setup of a newly constructed air traffic control tower. When the tower change occurs--NATS officials are working with the airport and airlines to set the exact date--all air traffic control operations here will be moved overnight. Heathrow handles about 1,200 flights a day.
Alexis P. Michas has been appointed to the board of directors of AirTran Holdings Inc. He is managing partner of Stonington Partners Inc. and was a partner of Merrill Lynch Capital Partners Inc.
10 Correspondence 12 Who's Where 17 Industry Outlook 19 Airline Outlook 21 In Orbit 22-26 News Breaks 27 Washington Outlook 55 Arrivals 59 Inside Business Aviation 66-67 Classified 68 Contact Us 69 Aerospace Calendar
International Space Station Expedition 13 astronauts Army Col. Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter from Germany completed a nearly 6-hr. extravehicular activity (EVA) Aug. 3 for various ISS installation and maintenance tasks. They installed a new computer to operate key elements of the station's cooling system and a rotary joint motor used to rotate a radiator for proper Sun angles. They also installed a device to measure electrical fields around the station so that astronauts on EVA do not risk being shocked by a buildup of static electricity.
FAA Chief Operating Officer Russell Chew says it is too early to tell if the Air Traffic Organization he heads will one day need some form of separation from the government to serve customers. Many of the 40 air navigation service provider organizations that have been partially privatized around the world have some form of cushion between their operations and the government to avoid political interference.
USN Rear Adm. (select) Mark D. Harnitchek has been appointed director for strategy, plans, policy and programs for the U.S. Transportation Command, Scott AFB, Ill. He has been vice director for logistics for the Joint Staff in Washington. Rear Adm. (lower half) (select) Townsend G. Alexander has been named commander of Navy Region Hawaii/commander of Naval Surface Group Mid-Pacific, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He has been commanding officer of NAS North Island at San Diego. Rear Adm. (lower half) (select) Kendall L.
The U.S. may be able to mount a manned mission to Mars by the late 2020s, says NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. In order to return to the Moon, NASA will need a heavy-lift launch vehicle, "the key element for any approach for going to Mars," Griffin told the Mars Society Aug. 3. The scheduled lunar arrival around 2018 will give the astronauts experience with long-duration planetary exploration, which they could use during the seven- or eight-year preparation for a Mars mission.
Engineering services will be the next wave of offshoring, but aerospace lags other industries in sending work overseas, according to a new study by Booz Allen Hamilton. The study forecasts that up to $225 billion worth of engineering services--about 20% of the total projected market--will be offshored by 2020, up from $10-15 billion currently. Booz Allen also found that the aerospace industry currently sends just 8% of its engineering services work offshore, well behind high-tech/telecom (30%) and automotive (19%).
With Hezbollah lobbing hundreds of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, Northrop Grumman is seeking to give new life to interest in an air defense system that uses a high-powered laser to destroy incoming projectiles.
Boeing awarded competitive contracts to Harris Corp. and Rockwell Collins to supply the data link for the company's Small-Diameter Bomb II offering to USAF. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing with Raytheon for the SDB II work. A winner will be announced in 2009.
Chen Qi has been named corporate communications director for China for Embraer. She had been assistant to the company's managing director there, overseeing government relations, public relations, industrial cooperation and internal communications.
The FAA is expected to name the new director of the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) as early as this week. The office is developing a master plan for the reorganization of air traffic management in the U.S. and has been headed by an acting director all this year since the previous leader left in December 2005.
NASA is on track to award a 12-year contract for the development and construction of its next human spacecraft within a month, arguing the move-out procurement strategy will minimize the gap in space access for U.S. astronauts after the space shuttle is retired. But lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, backed by a critical report from the Government Accountability Office, worry that the agency is forging ahead too quickly and should wait almost two years before committing long-term.
Robert Wall (Paris), David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London)
Israel's ability to sustain prolonged around-the-clock air combat operations is partially due to fielding of sophisticated sensors. But the technology advance has not enabled the Israelis to avoid costly targeting missteps, or to suppress the Hezbollah rocket threat or pinpoint the adversary's weapons supplier.
Less than four months after the FAA declared a negotiating impasse with the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. and unilaterally imposed its final offer as the official new contract, the union's president, John Carr, lost his bid for a third three-year term. Instead, a 58% majority of about 7,000 voting controllers elected Pat Forrey, an 18-year veteran from the Cleveland en route center. Forrey's term begins Sept. 1, leaving Carr another month to needle the FAA, as he did Aug. 1 with a statement on another attempt in Congress, this one by Sen.
Andy Rish has been promoted to maintenance and projects planning manager from maintenance planner for Empire Airlines, Hayden, Idaho. Tim Fulp has been promoted from heavy maintenance mechanic for Empire Aerospace to succeed Rish. Jim Culora has been named quality control manager. He succeeds Frank James, who was promoted to director of quality assurance. Culora was an aircraft maintenance technician and quality inspector for Delta Air Lines.
European scientists are applying data-coordination lessons learned during the Huygens probe's descent onto Titan to future planetary exploration missions, including the Rosetta mission to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. A command error deprived Huygens mission scientists of the highly stable radio signal they had counted on for tracking wind profiles in the moon's cloudy atmosphere, but an experimental array of 18 radio telescopes on Earth was able to fill in by following the descent module's carrier wave (AW&ST Jan. 24, 2005, p. 25).
Protecting commercial aircraft from a terrorist surface-to-air missile attack is a high priority in Congress, but Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems still have to prove their airborne laser-jamming technology is a practical and cost-effective response to the threat. A critical third and final round of testing by the Homeland Security Dept. is scheduled to get underway this month to determine the suitability of using both companies' directed infrared countermeasures (Dircm) technology, originally developed for the military, on scheduled commercial flights.
