David Calvert-Jones has been named CEO of Helinet Aviation Services of Los Angeles. He was senior vice president-corporate strategy. Calvert-Jones succeeds company founder Alan Purwin, who will oversee business development.
With diverse businesses that include aircraft landing gear, wheels and brakes, nacelles and sensors, aftermarket services and defense and space products, Goodrich Corp. enjoyed a nice run on Wall Street during the first nine months of 2005. But its stock took a dive last October after the company warned that 2006 earnings would be negatively impacted by "headwinds" from pension expenses, currency exchange rates and stock-based employee compensation.
Russia has set a fare of $21.8 million for NASA astronauts to ride a Soyuz vehicle to the International Space Station. Detailed long-term arrangements remain to be negotiated, but the Russian Federal Space Agency has committed to the ticket price through 2011. The price tag emerged in negotiations over how ISS transportation will be handled now that the original Soyuz barter deal has expired, and the U.S. Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 (INA) has been amended to allow NASA to buy station services from Russia.
The NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory New Horizons Pluto mission spacecraft is inspected at the Kennedy Space Center by Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute. The black simulated Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator will be replaced by the actual plutonium-fueled system just before launch. A Lockheed Martin Atlas V with a Boeing upper stage will propel the craft at a record Earth escape speed of 10.07 mi./sec. (see p. 46). AW&ST photo by Carleton Bailie.
Air Canada has expanded its Simplified Fares structure now available in Canada and the U.S. to include flights to London Heathrow and Manchester. Additional European destinations are to be added in the near future. The web-based system allows the passenger to choose from four fare categories, with prices dependent on desired flexibility in different categories including seat choice, advance booking, stopovers and minimum stay requirement.
Jun Li, a research scientist at the Center for Nanotechnology at the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffitt Field, Calif., has won an award from Nanotech Briefs magazine for his invention of a microscopic sensor that can monitor spacecraft water quality and detect biohazards. Li's carbon-nanotube biosensor may be used to monitor water quality of the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle that NASA plans to fly to the Moon and Mars.
Routine space tourism has drawn a step closer with publication of proposed rules governing the nascent industry published by the FAA. Drawing heavily on its experience certificating Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne for its ultimately successful try at the $10-million Ansari X Prize, the FAA sets out its plans for pilot licensing (case-by-case, with instrument rating required); medical standards for the crew (second-class airmen); vehicle flight testing (no tourists allowed), and the official term for a space tourist ("space flight participant").
Senior Editor Craig Covault (left) interviews Alan Stern, overall lead manager and principal investigator for the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft in the background. Both are wearing protective "bunny suits" in the Kennedy Space Center Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., has for years championed the need for a mission to Pluto and Kuiper Belt objects. The planned Jan. 17 liftoff of New Horizons will be the first mission into unknown planetary territory since the launch of Voyager 2 (see p. 46).
FAA CERTIFICATION OF THE ECLIPSE 500 VLJ will be delayed until late in the second quarter of 2006 from March, as originally planned, say Eclipse Aviation officials. President/CEO Vern Raburn attributes the slip to supply chain issues. "Unfortunately, an in-depth assessment of the new schedules has made it clear that these slips will force a delay in our overall certification effort." Initial customer deliveries would begin shortly after certification is received, according to Raburn. The company has orders for more than 2,000 jets.
Southwest Airlines launched its Denver service Jan. 3 and announced two destinations to be added Mar. 4--Baltimore/Washington, with one daily nonstop, and Salt Lake City, with four. United, Frontier and US Airways currently serve Denver-BWI nonstop, and these three carriers, plus Delta, fly nonstops between Denver and Salt Lake City. Also on Mar. 4, Southwest will add a fifth daily Denver-Phoenix flight and a sixth to Las Vegas. Southwest serves Chicago Midway from Denver, too, and offers direct service or connections to 36 additional points.
Mike Heuer of the U.S. has been reelected president of the Switzerland-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale's Aerobatics Commission. John Louis Gaillard of South Africa, Jiri Kobrle of the Czech Republic and Osmo Jalovaara of Finland were reelected as first, second and third vice presidents, respectively. Karl Berger was elected vice president-gliders. Kobrle also recently received the commission's Leon Biancotto Diploma for his "long and distinguished service to aerobatics."
The New Horizons Pluto flyby spacecraft is poised to become the fastest vehicle ever to depart Earth, blazing outbound at 10.07 mi. per sec.--zooming past the orbit of the Moon in just 9 hr.--on the first mission to the last known planet. New Horizons' velocity will be about 10,000 mph. faster than most previous Earth escape flights to the Moon and planets. Flying at 36,000 mph.--the Earthly equivalent to about Mach 50--New Horizons will reach Jupiter in only 13 months. Relative to the Sun, its Earth escape velocity will be 28.8 mi. per sec.
Launch rates at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) are set nearly to double in 2006, compared with 2005. The U.S. Air Force 45th Space Wing, which operates the Eastern Range and reserves mission slots for both Cape Canaveral and KSC, has at least 20 launches booked for 2006, compared with only about a dozen missions flown in 2005.
THE ISRAELI CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY HAS CERTIFIED the Israel Aircraft Industries/Elta Systems Ltd. Flight Guard on an Israeli Boeing 767, and the system is now expected to be used on most Israeli airline 767s. Derived from military technology, Flight Guard is designed to protect civil aircraft from man-portable air defense systems (Manpads). The ICAA will have to apply for permission from local authorities if the system is to be used on flights to destinations in other nations.
NASA will work with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to develop a new Earth-observing satellite that would continue the 33-year-old Landsat data set, following a White House decision to pull the mission from the faltering National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (Npoess).
Airbus has increased its A350 order book, with Bangkok Airways committing to take six aircraft and Italy's Eurofly converting its intent to purchase three A350-800s to a firm order. Deliveries to Bangkok should commence in 2012, and those for Eurofly a year later.
As predicted, the White House has again maneuvered around the Senate confirmation process by taking advantage of President Bush's authority to make appointments during congressional recesses. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) suggested the tactic to install appointees that had been on congressional hold for months, in at least one case as retaliation for base closing decisions.
Finmeccanica holds 84.8% of Italian information and communication technology company Datamat, after completion of a public share purchase offer. Finmeccanica previously held 56%. Datamat retains 4.2%.
Led by its twin-engine, wide-body family, Boeing set a sales record for 2005 with orders for 1,002 aircraft, including individual high marks for the 737, 777 and 787, the company's three main product lines.
Airbus has assigned additional work packages to Russian entities Irkut and the Voronezh Aircraft Production Assn. (VASO), netting them about $200 million in 10 years. Irkut's deal includes wall panels for the A320 family auxiliary center tank, A330/A340 wing ribs and flap-track roller beams, and A380 work. VASO will build engine-pylon elements and A380 parts. The first shipments are to be delivered in about a year.
Federal Communications Commission approval for a second AfriStar satellite is helping clear the way for WorldSpace to launch a digital audio radio service in Western Europe.
Vigorous debate of public policy is not just a hallmark of democratic republics, it's a good way to make decisions. Even a despot, were he savvy, might convene the best minds in his empire and listen to them discuss and argue before making his unilateral decision.
Piaggio Aero Industries has delivered the first P.180 Avanti II business aircraft, to a Swiss customer. Plans call for installing upgraded Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-66B turboprop engines in production airplanes late this year, which will increase cruise speed slightly. EASA certified the Avanti II in October 2005, and FAA approval is expected soon.
Development of a new air defense system will proceed, based on French government approval, while a comparable German effort appears stalled because of budget uncertainties.
FLIGHTSAFETY INTERNATIONAL OFFICIALS SAY this year's simulator deliveries should outpace 2005's, when FSI delivered 54. More than 30 commercial and military simulators are now being built at FSI's facility in Broken Arrow, Okla., including units for Raytheon Aircraft Co., Bombardier, Cessna, Gulfstream, Dassault Aviation, Boeing, Embraer, Bell and Piaggio.
