Mike Szucs has been appointed chief operating officer of EasyJet. He succeeds Ed Winter, who has retired. Mike Campbell has been named people director. He succeeds Stephen Connock, who has left the company.
Greece is once again changing strategies on what to do with financially struggling Olympic Airways after an effort to privatize the carrier failed. Under the new plan, Athens plans to restructure the carrier and set up a new company.
Next spring could finally see Britain and France launch a multibillion-dollar project to develop a new generation of conventionally powered aircraft carriers. The decision by the French government to include the equivalent of $1.16 billion to build an aircraft carrier in its September 2005 defense budget clears a major hurdle to launching the Anglo-French venture. Next spring the British are expected to formally launch the project by authorizing construction to begin on two 60,000-ton carriers.
The best thing about the cover of the Oct. 24 issue that featured the bright orange nose cone of the Quick Reach 1 test vehicle was all of the signatures. Seeing that much pride is as inspiring as the novel nature of the vehicle itself.
The Socom weapon's young life can be summed up like this. Time from program birth to scheduled initial fielding: a bit over two-and-a-half years. Cost for the first year of development to create a family of weapons around the desires of the operator: $634,000. Having your acquisition separate from the Army: Priceless.
The European Commission is signaling the start of its next major space endeavor--the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security network--with plans to launch a series of pilot projects underpinning it.
In its rush to field equipment to protect troops in Iraq from improvised explosive devices, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force is known for cutting through red tape. But at least in one case, that's led the Army to buy Chinese-made blinding lasers designed to prevent suicide bombers from rushing checkpoints.
It's back to the future for a revolutionary concept in aerodynamics called the oblique wing, a conceptual aircraft featuring one wing angled forward, the other angled back. At transonic and low supersonic speeds, this unusual configuration offers advantages over the familiar swept-wing layout of high-performance military and civilian aircraft.
Allan Skramstad, assistant chairman of the Aviation Dept. at the University of North Dakota, has been elected president of the Auburn, Ala.-based University Aviation Assn. for 2005-06. Other new officers are: president-elect, Guy M. Smith, who is associate program manager for the master of science in technical management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and managing director of Ypsilon Associates; secretary, Bruce D. Hoover, who is flight training director of St. Louis University's aviation program; and treasurer, Robert F.
Jill Smith has become president/CEO of DigitalGlobe, Longmont, Colo. Herb Satterlee will continue as chairman. Smith was president/CEO of eDial and had been chief operating officer of Micron Electronics Inc.
Emirates and Qantas recently exchanged a new round of jabs after the Dubai-based carrier asked the Australian government for permission to double the number of flights to the country as part of its aggressive expansion plan.
Michael B. Baughn has been promoted to president/chief operating officer of B/E Aerospace, Wellington, Fla., from vice president/general manager of B/E's commercial aircraft segment, effective Dec. 31. He will succeed co-founder Robert J. Khoury, who will retire as president/CEO but remain on the board of directors. Amin Khoury will become CEO and remain as chairman.
What could the Pentagon do with a perfect lens? It probably won't get one, but it might come pretty close. In 2000, university scientists began claiming they'd created materials in which light bends in the direction opposite to the direction it bends in every other material on earth. If the scientists had done what they claimed, the material's potential uses were considerable, including lenses that can focus light more tightly than the ordinary rules of physics allow.
The launch of FalconSAT-2, a small satellite designed, built and tested by U.S. Air Force Academy undergraduates for ionosphere research, has slipped to Nov. 23. It will be the sole payload on the inaugural flight of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Corp.'s Falcon 1 booster from Omelek Island in the Pacific (AW&ST Aug. 22, p. 31).
International Launch Services will launch Telenor's Thor II-R telecom satellite, under construction at Orbital Sciences Corp., on a Proton Breeze M booster. The launch is planned for late 2007.
NASA's new Commercial Cargo/Crew Projects Office will seek proposals from industry by about late January toward demonstration of a range of International Space Station servicing capabilities.
UNITED STATES Editor-In-Chief: Anthony L. Velocci, Jr. [email protected] Managing Editor: James R. Asker [email protected] Assistant Managing Editor: Michael Stearns [email protected] Senior Editors: Craig Covault [email protected], David Hughes [email protected] NEW YORK 2 Penn Plaza, 25th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10121 Phone: +1 (212) 904-2000, Fax: +1 (212) 904-6068 Senior News Editor: Nora Titterington
Australia's new business-class airline, OzJet, on Nov. 29 plans to begin operating eight Sydney-Melbourne round trips daily with three Boeing 737-200s. Australian owner Paul Stoddart will transfer seven aircraft from his European Aviation charter fleet next year to help OzJet's planned expansion of services to Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra. Aircraft are configured for 60 business-class-only seats, and ticket prices will be based on traditional, fully flexible economy fares at A$325 ($237) one way.
Five driverless cars recently motored across the finishing line of an arduous 132-mi. journey dubbed the "Grand Challenge." Four of the vehicles finished within the 10-hr. time limit. The race across the Mojave Desert was indeed a grand testament to the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and its legacy of groundbreaking innovation (p. 41).
As budgets are being crunched, the Pentagon names eight major troubled programs on its new list of Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs). These latest estimates of cost, schedule and technical status are required only for programs experiencing unit cost increases of at least 15%, or schedule delays of at least six months. The total estimate of acquisition costs for programs covered by SARs increased by 4.4%, or $64.999 billion, from June to September over an earlier total cost of $1.474 trillion.
Twenty-two months after winning the contract, Hamilton Sundstrand has completed its first test of the APS 5000 auxiliary power unit for the Boeing 787. The APU was started at the company's San Diego Power Systems facility and operated at 100% speed under the APU controller (see photo). The APS 5000 is a traditional design using a single radial compressor and two-stage axial turbine developing about 1,000 shp., says Program Manager Joan Inlow. Its size is unremarkable at 38 in. long, 30 in. high and 30 in. wide. With oil, it weighs 538 lb.
Alcatel Alenia Space says it has completed the installation of 51 weather data receiving stations intended to link 47 African countries to Eumet- sat's second-generation MSG weather satellite system. The so-called Puma project is meant to bolster monitoring of food and water supplies and help prepare for natural disasters.
Dynamic and innovative, the Canadian aerospace industry experienced a tremendous expansion during the 1990s, led by world-class companies such as Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney Canada and CAE Inc. But underneath the surface were problems: lagging R&D investment, inadequate productivity and a supply base that was unprepared for stiffer global competition (AW&ST Dec. 4, 2000, p. 54). Those problems were laid bare during the commercial downturn that began in 2001. Today, Canadian aerospace is an industry in transition.
Rolls-Royce and General Electric have committed to 74,000-lb.-thrust versions of their Trent 1000 and GEnx engines, respectively, for the Boeing 787-9 stretch version. These changes will permit Boeing to increase the maximum takeoff weight by 40,000 lb. to 540,000 lb. and give the aircraft a range of 8,600-8,800 naut. mi. with passenger loads of 250-290.
