Colin Bond (see photos) has been appointed chief financial officer for the worldwide operations of Zurich-based Jet Aviation, effective Aug. 15. He was vice president-finance for the Great Lakes Chemical Corp. Bond succeeds Donald Dawn, who has resigned. Philip Balmer has been promoted to senior vice president/general manager of Jet Aviation Dubai from director of maintenance at the Singapore facility. Eric Jan has been named interior design manager for Jet Aviation in Basel, Switzerland. He was managing director/project manager/designer at Archibald Design.
When President Bush set out a new space policy for the U.S. almost six months ago, he clearly intended to restore vitality to the U.S. space program by setting it on a path toward human exploration of the solar system. This was a bold move on the part of the U.S. President. Whether Congress and the American public will approve his call for a renewed focus on exploring space remains in question. They should, and if they do, the U.S. will be positioned to take a dominant role in coming decades to open up the solar system for exploration and eventual exploitation.
The Air Force and top Pentagon civilians are up in arms about a House Appropriations Committee decision to kill funding for a top network-centric warfare system that has just been recognized as the outstanding program for advancing net-centric operations by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement. Curiously, the decision to terminate L-3's Network-Centric Collaborative Targeting (NCCT) was placed under the unrelated Global Hawk UAV line item. NCCT is a product of the Air Force's famed but secretive Big Safari program.
A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL fell short and left its Telstar 18 payload below its intended geostationary transfer orbit last week. Loral Space and Communications said the big telecommunications platform had enough fuel on board to reach its orbital slot and still outlast its specified 13-year service life. But the "reduced apogee" orbit suggests the company is having trouble with its Russian Energia Block DM upper stage, which reportedly left the payload about 5,000 mi. low.
Market professionals believe investors will keep Boeing Co. stock strong for about three more weeks, but it's likely to weaken considerably if the airframe manufacturer fails to announce any significant orders during the Farnborough air show, scheduled to begin July 19. Even with an expanded orderbook for the 7E7, history shows that air-show euphoria dissipates quickly.
Lockheed Martin has chosen Galileo Avionica to develop a special vacuum cell for the EOTS (electro-optical targeting system) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The contract for the Systems Development and Demonstration phase contains an option for follow-on Low-Rate Initial Production for a total value of $12.9 million. The cell for the EOTS is a small unit without air that avoids atmospheric interference during laser designation.
Clive Langeveldt has become executive vice president of Hermes Aviation Inc., a division of Los Angeles-based Mercury Air Cargo. He was New York-based Eastern U.S. vice president for Mercury.
Recent actions by military space and information-operations specialists unwittingly affected combat or counterterrorism campaigns--for the worse--according to a top U.S. general. Details are classified, but these incidents underscore the difficulty of rapidly switching milspace professionals from supporting roles to mainstream warfighters.
An article on international cooperation in space exploration referring to a conference at George Washington University failed to mention the meeting's other co-sponsor (AW&ST June 28, p. 24): the Science and Technology Office of the Embassy of France.
"Transformation" is the latest buzz word for Western militaries, but their activities pale in comparison with the massive overhaul South Africa is undertaking with its national security apparatus. Ten years ago, a multi-racial democracy was established in South Africa. Today, the government is facing such challenges as creating a new security environment, transitioning to an array of modern military equipment and completing the process of racially integrating the armed forces.
There's no denying that InVision Technologies Corp. is in the right place at the right time. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the world has come knocking at its door to buy explosives-detection systems, sending sales soaring from $76 million in 2001 to $416 million in 2003.
The South African air force is set for a massive juggling challenge as the service introduces new aircraft and at the same time tries to revive the country's air power expertise.
Robert Wall (Langebaanweg, Makhado and Hoedspruit AFBS)
The South African military may slowly be recovering from the depths of its personnel crisis, but for the time being the formerly massive air force finds itself in the awkward position of having more operationally ready fighters than available pilots.
Worldwide international passenger traffic was 38.1% higher in May than it was a year ago, when the war in Iraq and SARS suppressed travel. According to the International Air Transport Assn., in the Asia-Pacific region traffic more than doubled, and the worldwide total is up from 2000 by 5.4% for May and 8.8% for the first five months of the year. The overall growth rate since 2002 is 3.6%--half that anticipated in the late 1990s, but still worth about $4.76 billion per year in international passenger service revenues, says IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani.
The U.S. Air Force is pursuing two divergent technology approaches to meeting its requirement for a next-generation missile warning system (MWS). The service is looking for an infrared system to increase detection range over existing ultraviolet MWS. Northrop Grumman had snagged a $32-million contract for system design and demonstration of its two-color system, while Lockheed Martin has received $27.7 million for a single-color device. The latter has built its design around the AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector employed on the F/A-22.
Dennis J. Jarvi has become president of Rolls-Royce Defense North America, Chantilly, Va. He succeeds Steve Dwyer, who is now chief operating officer of the Rolls-Royce Corp. Jarvi was vice president/general manager for the V-22 program for Bell Helicopter Textron.
By the end of this year, India may have a new low-fare carrier named "Kingfisher." The airline would be launched by Bangalore-based United Breweries Group, which markets a popular beer by that name. The $33-million project, spearheaded by liquor magnate Vijay Mallaya, would use eight Airbus A320s. If approved for service, Kingfisher would be the second low-fare airline in the country, after Air Deccan, launched a year ago. Air-India recently unveiled plans to start a low-fare international airline called Air-India Express.
WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP 14 Projected tasks for 11-lb. UAV include rail monitoring 15 BAE Systems to buy Boeing commercial electronics unit 16 NetJets orders 40 more Raytheon Hawkers 16 Delta and Boeing in supply chain initiative agreement WORLD NEWS & ANALYSIS 20 Inflatable space habitat lures Chinese interest 22 Saturn intriguing scientists during Cassini orbit capture 25 NASA evaluates missions for 30-year plan
Five Japanese companies are in talks that could lead to a joint venture for commercial remote sensing satellites. The goal would be to launch two spacecraft after 2008 into 500-1,000-km. (310-620-mi.) orbits, offering data with better than 1-meter resolution for use by a variety of professions interested in Earth images, including mining, urban planning, soil science and mapmaking. Program costs are estimated at 40 billion yen ($370 million). The satellites would be built by NEC-Toshiba Space Systems and an undisclosed U.S. manufacturer.
In his letter, Steve Ziegler criticized you for failing to propose advanced fire suppression concepts whose implementation would challenge the "future aerospace talent" (AW&ST June 7, p. 6).
The goal of Aviation Week's & Space Technology competitiveness study is to gauge how well the world's publicly traded airlines and aerospace/defense companies employ their resources in their quest for capital-efficient growth.
The British Defense Ministry has selected Raytheon over Lockheed Martin to implement Project Picasso, a classified system providing the U.K. with the ability to access and disseminate intelligence imagery from U.S. space-based reconnaissance systems.
International Space Station controllers in Houston will complete checkout of the station's newly repowered third control gyro this week, following replacement of a critical circuit box. The substitution was accomplished during the most heavily coordinated U.S.-Russian joint extravehicular activity (EVA) since the two sides began extensive manned flight cooperation.
USN Rear Adm. (lower half) Stanley D. Bozin has been nominated for appointment to rear admiral. He is commander of Navy Region Europe/commander of Fleet Air Mediterranean/commander of Maritime Air Forces-Mediterranean, Naples, Italy. Other nominations for promotion to rear admiral are: Charles T. Bush, program executive officer for Integrated Warfare Systems at the Pentagaon; William D. Crowder, director of the Naval Operations Group at the Pentagon; Steven L.
