I hope you solicit responses from the 9/11 commission from your great Aug. 23/30 editorial. As a retired aerospace engineer (35-plus years at Boeing), I wonder how many of the tens of thousands of aerospace retirees would volunteer for a task force to work on yours and the commission's recommendations. This would defuse a lot of concerns that the administration and Congress would have about costs. Many retirees held security clearances, thus saving the 18 months it takes to investigate new hires.
The Raytheon Hawker 800XP has been cleared to operate from London City Airport. Fractional ownership specialist Netjets is looking to offer flights from London City to European, Middle East and North African destinations. The operator has a fleet of 13 Hawker 800s, including three delivered so far this year. A further three are due before year-end. It already operates the Cessna Citation Bravo and Excel out of London City.
The Pentagon is about to embark on negotiations for two major international defense projects, but government and industry officials believe wider efforts to ease transatlantic partnering have largely run out of steam.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Goddard Space Flight Center, Md.)
Robotic technology being developed out of necessity to keep the Hubble Space Telescope operating could also lead to new levels of man-machine teamwork in deep-space exploration down the road--if it survives the near-term scramble for funding.
Michael Blake has been appointed senior vice president-commercial business for Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter Textron. He was vice president/director of the Comanche helicopter program at the Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
Ray Toosky, principal aerospace product engineer, and Soheil Eshraghi, director of product engineering for aerospace fasteners, both for Textron Fastening Systems, Santa Ana, Calif., have received the Chairman's Award for Innovation. They were recognized for developing the Cherry Rivetless Nut Plate, a fastening system that is described as having the potential to save the aircraft industry millions of dollars annually.
Ted Mallory has become senior vice president-flight operations for Miami-based Astar Air Cargo. He was an aviation safety inspector for the FAA and is a retired captain and chief pilot for Northwest Airlines.
Matthew W. Donnelly has become vice president-production for Aerospace Composite Structures, Rio Ranchos, N.M. He was technical staff principal at the Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M.
Rear Adm. James B. Godwin, 3rd, has been named director of the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet at the Pentagon. He has been program executive officer for Tactical Aircraft Programs, NAS Patuxent River, Md. He will be succeeded by Rear Adm. (lower half) David J. Venlet, who has been commander of the Naval Warfare Center Weapons Div., China Lake, Calif.
EADS reportedly has submitted a bid for 25% of One Equity Partner's stake in German submarine builder HDW, which earlier this year agreed to sell the rest of the 100% stake to Thyssen/Blohm & Voss, another German shipyard. EADS Co-CEO Philippe Camus declined to confirm the bid, although he did say one wasn't excluded. However, he remarked that other options are under consideration to enable the aerospace and defense giant to have a role in the looming restructuring of the fragmented European naval market.
The binational U.S./Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command may add a third member and assume more responsibilities to bolster security of the entire continent, according to Norad's four-star commander.
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The final Rocketdyne-powered original design of the Atlas-Centaur booster lifts off from Cape Canaveral Aug. 31 carrying a secret National Reconnaissance Office payload with elliptical orbit relay mission characteristics. The 155-ft.-tall International Launch Services Atlas IIAS was the last of a line combining Rocketdyne first-stage MA-5A engines with Pratt & Whitney RL10 upper-stage engines. It was also the last mission for Launch Complex 36A (see p. 64). Lockheed Martin photo by Patrick Corkery.
Singapore Airlines is once again looking at staff cuts. Barely five months ago, Chief Executive Chew Choon Seng vowed to improve labor relations after a tough 2003 forced many layoffs at an airline accustomed to steady profits. But high-priced fuel and competition from discounters mean more job cuts are likely.
A Ryan International Airlines Airbus A320-233 that lost its engine cowling when taking off from Atlanta is not the only A320 to have lost a cowling in a similar mishap.
NASA is hiring an old-line Washington law firm, Arnold & Porter, to help it set up a private venture capital fund that would track down private-sector technology the space agency needs to meet President Bush's deep-space exploration goals. NASA would join private venture capitalists to invest in what it has dubbed the Mercury Fund, which would find companies with likely patents and skills.
International Space Station crewmates Gennady Padalka and Mike Fincke breezed through a complicated extravehicular activity on Sept. 3, trimming 28 min. from the time it was expected to take them to replace a pump controller and install more antennas to guide Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). In the process the pair stood motionless for 17 min. as part of an ongoing study of the effects of EVA crews on station attitude control, although they did not have to interrupt their work to make way for a thruster firing as they did on their previous EVA (AW&ST Aug.
Days after logging yet another traffic record in its continuing expansion, AirTran Airways warned investors it expects to report a loss for the third quarter because of revenue weakness, fuel costs and hurricanes Charley and Frances. Noting that 51% of its normal traffic flow involves areas affected by the storms, AirTran said it lost Labor Day weekend revenue to disruptions from Frances, and near-term bookings were weakened by continuing weather alerts.
Additional missile defense agreements with international partners have been announced by Boeing in the run-up to the Pentagon unveiling its plans for collaboration with overseas partners later this month. The two latest agreements are with MBDA and Australia's CEA Technologies. Boeing, as well as several other U.S. missile defense contractors, have signed a slew of such agreements, although so far with little practical implication. MBDA would offer Boeing additional missile expertise, while CEA has worked on radar technologies with potential missile defense applications.
FlightPrep, a Stenbock & Everson company, has released Chartcase EFB's software, and upgrades to its Golden Eagle FlightPrep DUATS package. Besides flight planning, Chartcase offers practical and affordable paperless cockpit capability in a single pilot-compatible package, according to the company. Pilots get every Sectional, WAC and TNroute chart for the contiguous U.S. plus every instrument procedure, with every departure/arrival and exclusive relief-shaded vector charts for the entire U.S. on DVD.
Looking past its newly issued cap on peak-hour flight operations at Chicago O'Hare airport, the FAA is making a "very focused effort" to evaluate market-based measures to manage demand at overcrowded airports throughout the country, Administrator Marion Blakey tells the House aviation subcommittee. Experts have spent the spring and summer gaming various options, such as slot auctions and capacity pricing, the latter involving higher prices for airport services when they are most in demand.
Boeing's high-speed Internet-based onboard communications system, Connexion, definitely has an Asian flair. That's a combination of two factors: Asian carriers are in a better financial position to be ordering the system, and they emphasize cabin amenities because many flights are of long-stage length. South Korea's Asiana Airlines is the latest carrier to say it will equip its fleet with Connexion, beginning with a Boeing 777-200ER targeted for delivery in July 2005.
The Portuguese Defense Ministry has become the first export customer for satellite services of the U.K.'s Paradigm Secure Communications. Paradigm is now operating Britain's Skynet 4 milsatcom network, and will provide the successor Skynet 5 system.
Frederick W. Smith, chairman, president and CEO of FedEx Corp., will lead the U.S. Business Roundtable's security task force. The task force focuses on partnering with the government to improve security. A recent Roundtable study found that CEOs are spending increased amounts of time on security and more than half of all companies surveyed have made the subject a board-level issue.
QinetiQ, the U.K.'s largest technology research and design company, will purchase Waltham, Mass.-based Foster-Miller in a 91.8-million pound ($163-million) deal, subject to regulatory approval. This will be QinetiQ's first U.S. acquisition and is seen as the initial step to significantly growing the U.K. company's U.S. business. Foster-Miller, an engineering and development company, will maintain its name and operate as a subsidiary of QinetiQ.
