LOT Polish Airlines expects to become the first European airline fielding the Embraer 175 regional jet. The carrier is taking four aircraft of the type. After the April delivery, another model should arrive in May and the rest by midsummer.
Kenneth Boudreau, who is president/ CEO of the M.C. Gill Corp., El Monte, Calif., has been appointed to the board of directors of Pacific Premier Bancorp.
MBDA plans to close down some sites and reorganize operations in the face of a slowdown in domestic business and a stiff export challenge from emerging players. One thrust of the five-year undertaking, according to CEO Marwan Lahoud, will be paring MBDA's 10,650-strong workforce by 10%, and reducing the number of major facilities--most likely to 10, from 16 today. A second objective will be to improve the organization of program management, engineering and production activities, particularly in Italy, and integrate them across European national boundaries.
Robert Meyer and Eric Ovlen have been appointed group vice presidents for sales and marketing and for human resources, respectively, at Meggitt Aerospace Equipment, Simi Valley, Calif. Meyer was president/general manager of the Endevco unit of the Meggitt Electronics Div. Ovlen was the division's vice president-organizational effectiveness.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London), Andy Nativi (Genoa)
Anglo-American feuding over the Joint Strike Fighter threatens to spill over into the wider transatlantic relationship. On the domestic front, there is bad blood between Congress and the Pentagon over the fate of the aircraft's alternative engine. Britain is leading the assault on Washington over the contentious issue of technology access on the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), with other program partners, such as Australia, in support.
Accident investigators examining the crash of a Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 north of Athens last summer are in the final stages of writing the draft report and hope to issue the final version in early summer. The investigation is already yielding suggestions on how to improve monitoring of flight deck activity.
Apparently sensing a window of opportunity, Thales is earmarking more than $1 billion for acquisitions in a bid to grow its business by 25% over the next three years.
The European Space Agency Smart-1 lunar orbiter continues to acquire innovative science data as the U.S. is beginning a major restoration of Apollo-era lunar data to prepare for the new Exploration Initiative. As the U.S., India, China and Japan all prepare to launch new lunar orbiter missions over the next two years, often overlooked is Europe's lunar orbiter which is already at the Moon where it has been acquiring science data since mid-2005.
In a dramatic bid to maximize the utilization of existing, low-cost planetary spacecraft, researchers want to divert the NASA/Lockheed Martin Stardust comet-sample-return mothership to intercept and image a second comet that was blasted open last July 4 by the Deep Impact mission. Stardust is about 20 million mi. behind the Earth in a solar orbit that earlier enabled it to collect samples from the comet Wild 2 (AW&ST Jan. 12, 2004, p. 29).
FOR NOW, EL AL HAS NO INTENTION TO FLY AIRCRAFT equipped with missile self-protection systems into or over the U.S., according to the FAA. The Israeli carrier is the first commercial airline to protect its aircraft from shoulder-fired missiles. Israel Aircraft Industries' Elta Group developed the Flight Guard system now installed on El Al aircraft. This unit uses Doppler radar for detection and tracking of shoulder-fired missiles and a dispenser that ejects "dark flares" that emit mainly in the infrared rather than the visible spectrum and burn briefly.
Goodrich's Aircraft Interior Products will provide 16g-certified seating for cabin attendants for the Boeing 787. Goodrich will also produce an LED-based lighting system for the aircraft's flight deck, a cargo system, wheels, electric brakes, exterior lighting, nacelles, thrust reversers, proximity sensing system, fuel quantity indicating system and fuel management software.
International Launch Services has won a contract to orbit a big geostationary communications satellite on an Atlas V vehicle for ICO North America in mid-2007. Built by Space Systems/ Loral on its 1300 spacecraft bus, the satellite will anchor ICO's planned satellite/terrestrial hybrid mobile satellite service, which is scheduled to begin operations in July 2007.
Boeing has been awarded a $240-million contract from the U.S. Air Force to produce 10,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition tail kits for 500-, 1,000- and 2,000-lb. bombs, some of them for the Navy.
Fuji Heavy Industries has delivered the first AH-64D Apache Longbow combat helicopter to the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force. The helicopters are being produced under license from Boeing. Unique configurations will include an air-to-air Stinger missile launcher.
Engineers across NASA are running more trade studies on Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's big RS-68 rocket engine as a potential powerplant for the Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) the agency sees as the heavy lifter on missions to the Moon and Mars. A throwaway version of the reusable Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) was the original choice for the job, but tight money may make the RS-68 more attractive. "From a recurring-cost standpoint [the RS-68] is a reduction," says Daniel Dumbacher, deputy director of the exploration launch office at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Barely 15 weeks after it started services, Australian startup OzJet Airlines has suspended flights between Melbourne and Sydney--its only route and the country's busiest. "OzJet will focus its future flying around ad hoc and VIP charters, something for which there's clearly a demand in Australia, as little, if any, competition exists in that market," says Chairman Paul Stoddart. OzJet operated Boeing 737-200s, competing with Qantas and Virgin Blue.
Rex Geveden, NASA's associate administrator, expects to report this week on his review of the agency's Mar. 2 decision to terminate the Dawn asteroid-exploration mission. Geveden, formerly NASA's chief engineer, has been evaluating new information provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the wake of the cancellation, as well as the work of the independent assessment team that triggered the cancellation.
Qinetiq has been selected by the British Defense Ministry as a preferred bidder for its Combined Aerial Target System requirement to provide subsonic targets for a range of air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. Target drones in the Qinetiq bid include the Galileo Avionica Mirach 100/5 and the Meggitt Banshee and Voodoo. Previous Defense Ministry figures estimate the value of the program at 750 million pounds ($1.31 billion) over a 20-year period.
Data from three more years of observations with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotrophy Probe (WMAP) at the L-2 Sun-Earth Lagrange Point support the idea that the Universe expanded trillions of times over in the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Earlier WMAP results reached back to only 380,000 years after the Big Bang (AW&ST Feb. 17, 2003, p. 17).
Constantino de Oliviera, Jr., the CEO of GOL, has won the 2005 Federico Bloch Award from the Latin American Airline Assn. (Aital). The award honors the late CEO of Grupo Taca. In other activity, Santiago International Airport General Manager Carlos Plass accepted the first Rolim Amaro Award. That honor remembers the founder of TAM and is given to the Latin American airport with best service to Aital member airlines.
Turkey has received its first green 737-700 for conversion to an airborne early warning and control aircraft under the Peace Eagle program. It will be modified by Tusas Aerospace Industries of Ankara. The aircraft will be much the same as the six Wedgetail aircraft being built for Australia. The Turkish air force will have four of the aircraft by the end of 2008.
The SAS Group has completed the sale of 67% of its SAS component business to Singapore Technologies Engineering, which was announced in December. The transaction is valued at 260 million euros ($309.4 million). As part of the deal, the airline group has signed a multi-year component supply contract.
FAA is proposing a new airworthiness directive for certain Boeing 747 aircraft. The AD would require repetitive mid- and low-frequency eddy current inspections to detect and correct any cracks in the overlapped skin panels in the fuselage skin lap joints in Sections 41, 42, 44 and 46. The AD proposal is prompted by a report from an operator who found multiple small cracks in the panels. If cracks in overlapped panels join together, they could result in reduced structural capability in the skin and rapid decompression.
