Sikorsky's pending acquisition of Schweizer Aircraft will enable the helicopter giant to diversify quickly into nontraditional markets and gain access to a rapid-prototyping organization that has penetrated a variety of aerospace and defense sectors. Schweizer, for its part, will be able to call on Sikorsky's greater resources in developing new products. It also will gain the marketing savvy and reach, as well as the financial clout, it needs to grow and prosper, said President Paul Schweizer.
Eric Byer has been promoted to vice president from director of government and industry affairs, Amy Koranda to director of safety management from manager of education and training, and Jacqueline Rosser to senior manager for regulatory affairs from manager for flight operations, all at the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Assn.
David Holeman has been named vice president-information technology for Sentient Jet, Norwell, Mass. He was an IT consultant to startup companies and had been chief information officer of the Monitor Group, Cambridge, Mass.
Hooray for Aviation Week & Space Technology for recognizing that general aviation has shouldered an unfair burden for the events of Sept. 11, 2001. GA pilots have been made to feel like second-class citizens and worse.
A secret National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft with characteristics of a data relay payload that will operate in a highly elliptical orbit was launched Aug. 31 from Cape Canaveral on board a Lockheed Martin/ International Launch Services Atlas IIAS booster. The Atlas IIAS is the last of the original Boeing/Rocketdyne-powered Atlas designs.
BAE Systems is preparing for 6-9 months of intensive trials on its Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft as it attempts to show the U.K. government that the aircraft is worth procuring.
World News Roundup 18 BAE preparing for intensive Nimrod MR4A flight tests 19 NASA picks first exploration studies for funding 19 British Airways chief reviews lean efforts after Heathrow debacle 20 Ex-AW&ST editor named an Elder Statesman of Aviation 20 Homeland defense strategists imple- ment novel way to protect facilities World News & Analysis 24 Expectations, aspirations clash on transatlantic aircraft subsidy talks
Frances Fiorino (Washington), Alexey Komarov (Moscow)
The midair destruction of two Russian aircraft by explosives stunned the aviation community because terrorists were able to easily breach the post-Sept. 11 security of a modern airport facility. The events that unfolded on the evening of Aug. 24 at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport were very travel-ordinary--things that occur every day at every airport around the world. Passengers checked in at one of the most modern and well-equipped airports in Russia.
Eurocopter is scheduled to begin deliveries of Tiger attack helicopters next month to a Franco-German training center located at Le Luc in southeast France. Late in August the UH Tiger obtained certification by the BWB German armaments agency and was certified a few days later by the Occar European military procurement agency. Germany and France will take delivery of 80 Tigers each while Spain and Australia have orders for 22 aircraft apiece.
Curtis E. Sawyer has been appointed senior vice president/chief financial officer of Midwest Air Group Inc. He succeeds Robert S. Bahlman, who is resigning. Sawyer has been vice president/CFO of Pinnacle Airlines.
H. John Mucks, an electronics engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate, Rome, N.Y., has been named to receive the 2004 Harold Brown Award, the Air Force's highest honor for research and development. The award is named for a former Air Force and Defense secretary.
NASA Langley Research Center is working in conjunction with the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to develop standards for composite materials used in manufacturing aircraft. The standards would be similar to those established for aluminum alloys. Specifically, NIAR would develop the process to validate composites and advanced materials through a centralized database.
A Forecast International study focuses on the growing role of large-capacity regional jets and the impact the trend may make on Bombardier and Embraer. These larger aircraft, 51-75 seats and 76-130 seats, will make up more than 3,000 of the total 3,728 aircraft forecast to be built in the 2004-13 timeframe. Analyst Raymond Jaworowski gives Embraer a current edge over Bombardier in the large-capacity RJ category with its EMB 170 and 190 aircraft. Bombardier's current offering, the CRJ 900, tops out at 90 passengers.
NASA headquarters isn't the only outfit in D.C. that wants to avoid bad news before the Nov. 2 election (see above). Congress itself is in no hurry to get anything done that might upset the voters back home. So far the only appropriations bill to clear Capitol Hill is defense, and only homeland security is expected to make it through the wickets with Congress back from recess. Defense is the sole appropriations bill addressed by the full Senate, and its appropriations subcommittees have tackled just three others. The House has done better.
Developers of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) have demonstrated critical technologies needed to realize their vision for an autonomous battlefield scout and attack helicopter, but uncertainty still lingers over the project's future.
Craig L. Johnson (see photo) has become vice president of the Baltimore-based Network-Centric Systems Dept. of the Northrop Grumman Corp. Electronic Systems Sector. He was vice president for F-16 sensor systems.
Italy's Alenia Spazio has completed the pressurized cupola that will give crewmembers on the International Space Station a panoramic view of their spacecraft and the Earth below. Built at the company's Turin facility (photo), the module is ready for shipment to Kennedy Space Center. There it will receive final checkout before going into storage until its planned January 2009 launch to the station. Weighing 1,880 kg.
After arbitration, the French Thales group and Honeywell settled a patent infringement dispute involving the design of an airborne terrain awareness and warning system.
National security space officials need to dedicate themselves to ensuring that revamped programs don't spiral out of control again and to bridge differences between military and intelligence demands, argues an outside task force. More than a year after reviewing U.S. national security space efforts and identifying a slew of problems, the group, headed by former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young, provided an upbeat assessment of progress made. But it also urged caution, noting that more work needs to be done in many areas.
Lt. Gen. Ronald E. Keys has been nominated for promotion to general with assignment as commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley AFB, Va. He is deputy chief of staff for air and space operations at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. He will be succeeded by Lt. Gen. Carrol H. Chandler, who has been commander of the Alaskan Command of the United States Pacific Command/commander of the Eleventh Air Force of Pacific Air Forces/commander of the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. Chandler, in turn, will be succeeded by Maj. Gen.
Cameron Gowans has become chief marketing officer for Cleveland-based Flight Options. He was vice president-sales and marketing for Delta AirElite Business Jets.
Eleven engineering organizations will spend six months preparing preliminary concepts for human exploration of the Moon under new NASA contracts worth about $27 million awarded last week. All of the contracts carry six-month options of roughly equal value. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate also selected a long list of technology studies for further evaluation as it begins to flesh out President Bush's call for human and robotic exploration of the Moon, Mars and elsewhere beyond low-Earth orbit.
Walking toward the airplane, I ignore all the commotion and confusion, focusing on about-to-happen matters. I've already answered questions and responded to requests from air show organizers, FAA officials, reporters and the general public. Weather conditions have been checked and deemed acceptable, and I've taken note of the self- and outside-imposed pressure to jump, even if winds were to arise. Of course, the landing site's been surveyed to avoid any last-minute surprises.
David M. North, former editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology, has been named an Elder Statesman of Aviation by the National Aeronautic Assn. along with several other aviation professionals. North is being recognized for his leadership of AW&ST from 1995 until earlier this year and for his long career as an aviation journalist. North was the first western pilot to fly the Soviet Su-27 and MiG-29 fighters, and also flew the USAF B-2 and countless other military jets and civil transports for pilot reports.
