Montie R. Brewer has been appointed president/CEO of Air Canada, succeeding Robert Milton in those positions. Milton will remain chairman. Brewer was executive vice president-commercial. Jon Turner has been named vice president-maintenance. He was general manager for maintenance and aircraft programs. Duncan Dee has become senior vice president-corporate affairs/chief administrative officer of the airline's parent ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. He was senior vice president-corporate affairs for the airline.
SES Global has been delisted from the Frankfurt stock exchange and its status upgraded on the Euronext Paris bourse, permitting it to offer deferred settlement service. SES began trading on Euronext in May following a successful offering of fiduciary deposit receipts that raised its free float to 33% from 23% (AW&ST May 10, 2004, p. 20). The float further grew to 40% on Nov. 18 when Deutsche Telekom unloaded its remaining 7% shareholding.
The U.S. Navy has given full-rate production approval to the Raytheon-built AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapon. The penetrator-warhead-equipped glide bomb received the production nod after the Navy's test community deemed the weapon "operationally effective and suitable." The first full-rate production contract is to cover 189 missiles. Low-rate production began in 2003, with the first missile delivered last September. The Navy has established a so-called buy-to-budget plan as an incentive for Raytheon to cut the weapon's cost, according to Navy acquisition chief John Young.
MIDEAST JET OF SAUDI ARABIA IS THE FIRST BOEING 777 operator to retrofit a Class 3 electronic flight bag in the cockpit. The installation uses Jeppesen's airport moving map software application. This shows the aircraft position on geo-referenced airport taxi charts and allows pilots to make takeoff performance calculations. It also displays live video from the passenger cabin surveillance cameras.
Steven R. Loranger, who has been president/CEO of ITT Industries Inc., White Plains, N.Y., now also will be chairman. He succeeds Lou Giuliano, who has retired.
The Orbital Sciences Corp. missile defense interceptor that didn't fire in last month's IFT-13C flight test will likely be shipped back to the U.S. from the Kwajalein missile range before further testing, according to a Pentagon official. A few seconds before interceptor launch, with the target already inbound, flight computer messaging reported a fault in a stage-one component, which prompted an automatic shutdown. The root-cause analysis continues, and no one has set a date for the next test, IFT-14, or decided whether to attempt IFT-13C again.
Saab is selling its short-range radio operations to Telephonics Sweden, a subsidiary of New York-based Telephonics. The divestiture of Saab Communications allows the Swedish aerospace company to "focus on our core business," says SaabTech President Bjorn Erman. The ownership transfer is to take place this month. The Swedish military uses the short-range radio technology in ground ops of the Gripen. Saab says several hundred systems have been sold internationally to support trials of the technology by various military and civilian users.
The U.S. Army is establishing a new intelligence support capability for combat troops and hopes to give the system its trial run in Iraq when the 3rd Infantry Div. returns there this year.
The unusual South Asia earthquake off the coast of Sumatra has prompted calls for a world-wide early warning system, such as that already in place for the Pacific Rim, to guard against the devasting tsunamis that the quake spawned. But what about predicting earthquakes themselves? That's a long-sought goal that no one has mastered. Yet, at last month's American Geophysical Union meeting here, there was much talk about the role nanosats and microsats can play as global surveyors in that quest.
Italy's parliament has approved a plan to privatize and recapitalize Alitalia, recommending that the government retain a minimum 30% stake. The first installment of a 400-million-euro government loan is to be made available early this month. The bailout plan also calls for a 1.2-billion-euro recapitalization, to be carried out by July, and a series of cost-cutting measures, including the spinoff of ground-handling activities. The capital injection was given the green light by shareholders in mid-December.
The defense funding crisis that is affecting Italy's Cosmo-SkyMed radar satellite constellation (see p. 29) is also holding up a contract for the second Italian military satcom satellite, Sicral 1B. Work on long-lead items is underway through a funding package approved for the first satellite, which was launched in 2001. However, Alenia Spazio is still waiting for a formal contract award, which is expected to be worth more than 200 million euros.
Germany's Cirrus Airlines has taken delivery of its first Embraer 170. The German carrier plans to introduce the aircraft into scheduled service in March on the Saarbrucken-Berlin Tempelhof route. In the interim, the aircraft will be used for charters. Cirrus' aircraft is configured for 76 passengers.
I am sure at least a few of your readers shook their heads as they read "Desperate Measures." As mentioned, most all these fuel savings methods have been tried. They failed to prevent the demise of any major airline. Along with these measures, the time may have come for a government-mandated fuel surcharge that may help "hyper-competitive" airlines stay competitive.
A late rush of airline and defense business--including an initial preliminary deal for the new A350 long-range transport--is expected to further grow the EADS order book, putting added pressure on archrival Boeing, and perhaps increasing the risk of trade friction. Over the final weeks of the year, EADS' Airbus affiliate, in which BAE Systems has a 20% stake, garnered orders and commitments from a dozen different airlines, including seven in Asia and three low-cost carriers--segments of the market that Boeing has traditionally dominated.
The Pentagon's industrial policy shop, which has long been telling Congress it needn't worry so much about U.S. military dependence on offshore suppliers, has delivered the first congressionally mandated assessment of the issue to the Hill. In Fiscal 2003, which ended 15 months ago, the Pentagon awarded $66.2 billion for defense items and components, and $1 billion or 1.5% went to foreign suppliers. Foreign contracts for airframes and related assemblies and spares netted only 0.7% of the total.
In the Dec. 20/27, 2004, issue, the caption for the military first-place winner in the AW&ST Photo Contest should have indicated the aircraft was an Alaska Army National Guard UH-60L. The caption for the painting on p. 105 misidentified the aircraft depicted. A Consolidated PB4Y2 that had been converted to a firefighting aircraft from a bomber was featured.
You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.AviationNow.com/conferences or call Lydia Janow at +1 (212) 904-3225/+1 (800) 240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada Only) Feb. 16-17--World Aerospace Symposium/Toulouse. Pierre Baudis Toulouse Congress Center, Toulouse, France. Apr. 19-20--MRO Military Conference. Also, Apr. 20-21--MRO USA Conference & Exhibition. Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Dallas. May 24-25--Homeland Security Summit & Exposition. Washington.
After the military's planners put Fiscal 2006 budget proposals to bed and left for their Christmas break, a handful of senior Pentagon civilians got together and in a week mapped out $60 billion in defense cuts for the next six years (see p. 20). The group included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; the director of program analysis and evaluation, Ken Krieg; the undersecretary for intelligence, Steve Cambone; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Comptroller Tina Jonas. Program targets and the size of proposed cuts shifted during that week.
L-3 Communications has bought Easton, Md.-based BAI Aerosystems, a developer and builder of UAVs. L-3 plans to announce the acquisition this week. It expands L-3 Communications UAV portfolio to platforms (see p. 56). BAI builds the Exdrone, Tern and Javelin UAVs, as well as sensors and control systems.
In what amounts to a symbolic gesture, Japan's Defense Agency excluded Mitsubishi Heavy Industries from the agency's bidding process for the final two weeks of 2004. As expected, the punishment is nominal. A whistle-blower's revelations about poor testing at MHI's Nagoya Guidance Propulsion System Div. led to the sanctions. At issue were structural tests of the Type 88 (SSM01) surface-to-ship missile system. The JDA demanded retesting (AW&ST Aug. 23/30, 2004, p. 17).
Finally the U.S. military is unabashedly embracing unmanned aircraft and has pushed the number in service to more than 700, with nearly 400 of 12 different types operating in the global war on terrorism, say top Pentagon officials.
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) spacecraft has discovered some newborn galaxies in the nearby Universe, surprising scientists who had thought the galactic birthrate has been dropping since the Big Bang. Scanning in the ultraviolet wavelengths, where young stars are most likely to be spotted, Galex found about three dozen massive galaxies that resemble those seen at much greater distances when the Universe was young. The galaxies are rare and had not been spotted before, but Galex was able to scan thousands of nearby galaxies from its vantage point in space.
After 80,000 hr. of painstaking work spread over the last 14 years, a B-17 named "Liberty Belle" recently flew again. The venerable World War II-era bomber logged a 30-min. flight from Kissimmee Gateway Airport in Florida. The restoration took place at the Flying Tigers Warbird Restoration Museum.
An Embraer-EADS joint venture has acquired control of Portuguese aerostructures and maintenance firm Ogma, reinforcing ties between the two aerospace giants and solidifying Embraer's foothold in Europe. Embraer has a 99% share in the joint venture, which is called Airholding, but EADS has an option to raise its stake to 30%. Airholding paid 11.4 million euros ($16 million) for a 65% stake in state-owned Ogma, which generates sales of more than 100 million euros a year. EADS holds 20% of Embraer stock in partnership with Dassault Aviation, Thales and Snecma.
