The hemorrhaging of red ink by U.S. airlines continues to boggle the mind, with market professionals now forecasting even larger first-quarter losses than they had anticipated. Most expect a total first-quarter loss of around $3.5 billion, before extraordinary items, versus the earlier estimate of $2.4-2.7 billion. For the same period last year, the loss totaled $2 billion.
Zeev Gofer has become corporate vice president-marketing and business development for Elbit Systems, Haifa, Israel. He was corporate vice president-aircraft and helicopter upgrades and systems. He succeeds Ran Galli.
Steve Fossett showed how progress can be made when he flew around the world solo in a balloon last summer, capping a nearly decade-long quest to achieve this remarkable goal for the first time.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE Commodore Aviation Inc., a heavy maintenance division of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), will change its name to Empire Air Center and relocate to Rome, N.Y., from Miami. The state and city will pay to renovate B-52 hangars at the former Griffiss AFB, now known as the Griffiss Business and Technology Park. IAI has a 20-year lease on 355,000 sq. ft. of space and 20 acres of ramp area. Plans call for Commodore to begin overhaul work at the new site in September.
U.S. defense contractors, buoyed by relatively stable program funding, are expected to report a healthy first-quarter financial performance. Less fortunate are companies for which civil aviation constitutes a large part of their business; their numbers will reflect the prolonged down-cycle in commercial, regional and business jets.
CROP WATCH Satellite-derived imagery could help farmers reduce production costs and improve crop yields, but only if accurate geological data can be delivered within 24 hr. at reasonable prices, according to a study by two Aerospace Corp. researchers. Frank Wong told attendees at the 2003 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Aerospace Conference that the top 7% of U.S. farms--those with annual revenues greater than $250,000--are candidates to incorporate imagery-related technologies and processes.
Scaled Composites' White Knight aircraft flies above the company's earlier Proteus high-altitude research craft. White Knight will release a three-man rocket ship from under its gull wing as part of a suborbital space program announced by Scaled last week (see p. 64). Photo by Cory Bird.
Editor-In-Chief David M. North (left) and Senior Engineering Editor Michael A. Dornheim (center) recently received an exclusive look at Scaled Composites' novel spaceship program (see p. 64). Scaled President Burt Rutan showed North and Dornheim the work in progress at his Mojave, Calif., facility, and gave them an opportunity to fly the simulator for the rocket-powered spaceship. They also witnessed a firing of a candidate hybrid rocket engine. Construction of the spaceship has progressed rapidly since the visit on Mar. 19, and it was scheduled to be rolled out on Apr.
AMADEUS BUYS OPODO SHARE Computer reservations system operator Amadeus will take a 16.7% stake in Opodo, an Internet travel portal operated by Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways and six other European airlines. Amadeus officials insisted that the company would provide essential technologies to Opodo, and had no intention of becoming a distributor or increasing its share in the future.
FOLLOW THE MONEY Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board are starting to probe the "context" in which the space shuttle's Feb. 1 mishap occurred, and that includes funding. John Logsdon, a George Washington University space policy wonk who serves on the board, will lead an effort to track budget trends in detail.
A recent wargame focusing on national security space matters reconfirmed that U.S. laws and policies must evolve in tandem with the integration of space and terrestrial combat capabilities.
EADS is restructuring its military business, with the creation of the Defense & Security Systems Div., partly reflecting its failure to establish a new home for its military aircraft business. EADS had been looking to use its military aircraft business as the core of what it dubbed the European Military Aircraft Co. Intended to be initially a joint venture with Italian industry, this failed to come to fruition.
U.S. Navy Vice Adm. (ret.) Arthur K. Cebrowski, director of the Office of Force Transformation at the Pentagon, has led the effort to define "network-centric warfare" and advance it to wide acceptance within the Defense Dept.
Scott Galdi has been named president and Christine M. Amos executive vice president of Atlantic Aviation Flights Services Inc., Teterboro, N.J. Galdi was executive vice president and Amos senior vice president of The Air Group Inc.
In a major development, the Columbia accident board is now focusing on the separation or fracture of a wing T-seal as a scenario that could have opened a 1-in.-wide vertical slit in the orbiter's leading edge where reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels are joined together end-to-end. The fracture or separation of an RCC panel also continues to be examined, investigators said.
Aviation Week & Space Technology's Laureates Hall of Fame recognizes all of the Laureates winners selected by the magazine's editors since 1988. Each year, the current Laureates are added to the Hall of Fame following the award ceremony. The Hall of Fame display--featuring the Laureate Trophy, Legends plaque and a listing of the members who have been inducted to date--is on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. AERONAUTICS/PROPULSION Pierre Baud Laurent Beaudoin
John Tomblin has been named interim executive director of the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita (Kan.) State University. He has been director of research and development. Tomblin succeeds Skip Loper, who has been interim director and will remain associate vice president-research. Succeeding Tomblin is James Locke, an associate professor of aerospace engineering. Dale Cope has become manager of the Aging Aircraft Research Laboratory. He was a senior structural engineer for Boeing.
Although air and space power were profound contributors to ousting the Saddam Hussein regime from Iraq, they could be big losers in Washington's budget wars. Senior Air Force and space leaders appear to be concerned that lawmakers and citizens will not appreciate the important--but relatively low-profile--contributions made by airmen and space professionals during Gulf War II, because they were not as visible as ground forces.
BALLOONING BUDGET The Navy's plan to more closely integrate tactical aviation with the Marine Corps may have done much to reduce the service's modernization challenge in the fighter arena, but it does little in other communities. For non-fighter aircraft "there is a bow-wave ahead of us that is impressive," warns Vice Adm. Joe Dyer, who heads the Naval Air Systems command.
Regarding the letter from Gareth Williams of the European Space Agency (AW&ST Mar. 31, p. 6), yes, "the current GPS system is controlled by a single country"--the one that paid for it and now depends on it while fighting a war. Of course, Williams is right about why the rest of the world should not "use a system so compromised by the political and military whims of the U.S." Williams also wrote: "America is the sole superpower in our world, but it does not rule the world."
Bryan T. Moss has been named president of Gulfstream Aerospace, reporting to General Dynamics Corp. Chairman/CEO Nicholas D. Chabraja. Moss, who had been vice chairman of Gulfstream since 1995, succeeds Bill Boisture, Jr., who retired. Before he joined Gulfstream in 1995, Moss was president of the Business Aircraft Div. of Bombardier Aerospace since 1992.
TIME TO DIET Almost all tactical aviation programs reach this point somewhere in their lives, and now the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is running into weight problems. When Lockheed Martin projected the weight of the aircraft, it found it to be about 2% above target at the preliminary design review point. But Tom Burbage, the company's JSF general manager, said the weight is still below the not-to-exceed level where performance would be affected, particularly for the short takeoff vertical landing version.
In the end, the Fiscal 2003 Iraq war supplemental came close to what everyone expected in the way of airline and airport relief. But it demands something in return--limits on executive compensation, and a General Accounting Office analysis of carriers' attempts to make themselves profitable again and repair their balance sheets. The $3.8-billion aid package, adopted Apr. 12 after resolving differences between House and Senate bills, provides:
USMC Lt. Gen. (ret.) Frank Libutti has been nominated as undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection in the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. He is deputy commissioner for counterterrorism in the New York Police Dept. and former special assistant for homeland security in the Defense Dept.
UNITED STATES Editor-In-Chief: David M. North [email protected] Managing Editor: James R. Asker [email protected] Assistant Managing Editors: Stanley W. Kandebo--Technology [email protected] Michael Stearns--Production [email protected] Senior Editors: Craig Covault [email protected], David Hughes [email protected] NEW YORK 2 Penn Plaza, Fifth Floor, New York, N.Y. 10121 Phone: +1 (212) 904-2000, Fax: +1 (212) 904-6068
