USAF Maj. Gen. (ret.) Timothy J. McMahon (see photo) has been named vice president-Air Force and command and control strategic programs/corporate lead executive for the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s business in the Colorado Springs area.
U.S. Army Gen. (ret.) Wesley K. Clark and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater have been apppointed vice chairmen and senior advisers in the Washington domestic and international security consulting firm of James Lee Witt Associates. Clark also is chairman/CEO of Wesley K. Clark and Associates, Little Rock, Ark., while Slater is a partner in the Washington law firm of Patton Boggs.
Ryanair has sold its 20 Boeing 737-200s to Autodirect Aviation for $10 million. Six already have been withdrawn, and the remainder are to be pulled from service by the end of 2005.
AirTran Holdings Chief Executive Joe Leonard has told a conference in Atlanta that oil prices at $50 per barrel "will probably take some people out of the industry." Earlier in London, he said no airline business plan could work with oil prices that high. AirTran is better off than most U.S. carriers. It has hedged 48% of its fuel needs in the fourth quarter at $31-32 per barrel, which approximates $1 per gallon, says Stanley J. Gadek, senior vice president for finance. But if prices remain in the $50-per-barrel range, airlines will be put to the test.
Regarding the In Orbit column of Sept. 20 (p. 17), the NASA Genesis mishap investigation board should make it a priority to find out why a tried-and-true system for airborne recovery, going back to the 1960s Corona spy satellites, was abandoned for a totally new system using a parafoil and helicopters.
Jun Mokudai has been appointed chairman of NWA Japan. He has been president of Northwest Airlines Japan. Fred Deschamps will be vice presidentPacific operations, finance and administration. He was vice president-international. Laura Liu has become vice president-international marketing and sales. She was vice president-international marketing and revenue management. Pat Epting has been appointed managing director of the Amsterdam-based Atlantic Div. She was managing director of corporate and agency sales for North America.
THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR AVIATION RESEARCH, at Wichita State (Kan.) University has experienced 226% growth in the last decade and has 15 advanced laboratories as well as three FAA Centers of Excellence within the facility. NIAR is conducting work on composite airframe materials for a number of general aviation companies including Gulfstream Aerospace, Raytheon Aircraft Co., Bell Helicopter Textron, Cessna Aircraft Co. and Adam Aircraft.
Cray Inc. is aiming to make supercomputers more accessible for aerospace and automotive design projects by offering a new machine at a fraction of the cost of its traditional customized systems.
Joseph W. Pallot has been appointed to the board of directors of the Heico Corp., Hollywood, Fla. He is a partner in the law firm of Devine Goodman Pallot & Wells.
The British Defense Ministry and Thales are discussing meeting the Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle requirement with one, rather than two, type of UAV. The Hermes 180 may be cut from the proposal, leaving the roles to be met by the larger Hermes 450.
Fast on the heels of the X Prize win and Richard Branson's vow to build a space tourism business (see p. 34), backers of a bill that was supposed to help the nascent industry are trying to quash a Senate version they say would do just the opposite. The bill that passed the House in March would streamline licensing of commercial suborbital flights and make clear that paying passengers are "spaceflight participants" who understand the risks.
European helicopter industry managers are modestly optimistic that plans to create an annual operators show patterned after the Helicopter Assn. International event in the U.S. will be a success, and help drive growth of the slow-moving civil rotorcraft sector.
One of the "Original Seven" Project Mercury astronauts, U.S. Air Force Col. (ret.) Leroy Gordon (Gordo) Cooper, Jr., died on Oct. 4 in Ventura, Calif. He was 77. Cooper flew both Mercury and Gemini orbital missions and described the experience of flying in space as "humbling." Selected in 1959 along with Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, John H. Glenn, M. Scott Carpenter, Walter M. (Wally) Schirra, Jr. and Donald K. (Deke) Slayton, Cooper flew the final mission in Project Mercury.
US Airways and United Airlines already are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Delta Air Lines is fighting to avoid it, and relentless price competition from low-cost carriers is wiping out gains in passenger loads. Can it get any worse for the legacy U.S. airlines? You bet. Futures contracts for crude oil surged to $52 a barrel last week, an increase of more than 50% since the year began. With jet fuel being one of airlines' biggest expenses--after labor--the impact of the oil shocks is overshadowing any progress that airlines are making in cutting costs.
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 Conference & Exhibition. Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Dallas. Nov. 16-17--A&D Programs. Biltmore Hotel, Phoenix. PARTNERSHIPS
Rex Geveden, deputy director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., has received the 2004 Outstanding Alumnus of Kentucky Award from the Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education. Geveden, a graduate of Murray (Ky.) State University, has led research and development projects in several fields including space science and space optics. He headed the NASA Gravity Probe B program, whose hardware was launched earlier this year, and was project manager for the Optical Transient Detector and Lightning Sensor Earth-orbiting satellites.
Arianespace says the planned reflight of its Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift booster is likely to slip from the planned Oct. 27 launch date. CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall has indicated that the reflight might be moved behind France's Helios 2 intelligence satellite, which French defense ministry officials say is set for year-end.
Business jet manufacturers are rebounding from the doldrums of the last two years and should gain steam heading into 2005, buoyed by the rollout of new models and a rebounding U.S. economy. But the industry is just beginning the climb, and deliveries of new business aircraft are not expected to return to their 2001 peak of $12.4 billion until 2011, according to Honeywell Aerospace's 13th annual Global Aviation Outlook.
Researchers have developed a "traveling-wave thermoacoustic" system that relies on sound waves to generate electrical power on deep-space vehicles. A University of California scientist working at Los Alamos National Laboratory with researchers from Northrop Grumman Space Technology designed a traveling-wave engine/linear alternator system that they say more than doubles the efficiency of radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs).
Eurofighter Typhoon partner nations are investigating exploiting an enhanced synthetic aperture radar capability to provide sub-metric-resolution air-to-surface targeting data, and "identification," at ranges in excess of 50 mi. An improved SAR mode for the ECR-90/Captor radar will be introduced in the Tranche 2 standard for the aircraft. A priority for Tranche 2--irrespective of British government-industry politicking over final inking of the production contract--is to quickly introduce and expand the Typhoon's latent air-to-surface capability.
Douglas Barrie (Velizy-Villacoublay and Bourges, France)
An improved-range variant of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/ Scalp EG air-launched cruise missile could be available by 2007, one of a number of spiral development steps toward midlife update in the next decade.
Europe's XMM-Newton spacecraft has delivered X-ray imagery of two galaxies colliding a mere 800 million light-years from Earth, providing the clearest picture yet of the way the overarching structure of the Universe is forming. Surpassed only by the Big Bang in energy output, collisions between galaxy clusters generate shock waves of 100-million-deg. gas that radiate in the X-ray spectrum.
The current dire financial condition of the large airlines was not caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy. It was caused by mismanagement. Before Sept. 11, there was a surplus of airline capacity, yet the airlines were on a buying frenzy to see who could acquire more Boeing 777s.
EADS has established a new organization to be able to better operate in the U.S. defense market and comply with security requirements. EADS North America Defense Co. will operate under a so-called Special Security Agreement (SSA) that provides for industrial security and export control. The SSA allows a non-U.S. owner to retain control over the business except for work on classified contracts. Outside directors have to be named and approved by the government. They must be U.S. citizens with security clearances, to help oversee the operation.
