William Birtcil has been appointed vice president-communications for the aerospace business unit of Honeywell, Morris Township, N.J. He succeeds Dennis Signorovitch, who has retired. Birtcil was vice president-corporate affairs for the Pillsbury Co.
The British government has informed Singapore it would be able to permanently station a squadron of Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft in the U.K. if it was selected as the winner of Singapore's ongoing fighter competition. The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) intends to replace its aging A-4SU Skyhawks around 2007. An initial batch of 20 aircraft could be purchased, along with follow-on orders to replace the air force's F-5s.
Europe's Airports Council International (ACI) and Assn. of European Airlines (AEA) jointly asked the European Union to set aside its rules prohibiting state aid to industry and begin building an "urgently needed" contingency plan for war or terrorist attack. The financing for any new security measures "must not be passed directly onto airports or air passengers," said Philippe Hamon, director general of ACI Europe.
Network-centric warfare (NCW) means many things whether relative to reconnaissance, targeting, ordnance on target, or bomb damage assessment. As Admiral Cebrowski said: "We don't want the one best warfighting concept . . . the single architecture . . . the single standard."
The Columbia shuttle tragedy comes at a pivotal time for the Pentagon, as senior officials were beginning to question the Defense Dept.'s annual spending on the dual-track "assured access to space strategy," born largely from the Challenger accident 17 years ago.
French Foreign Minister Dominque de Villepin has reiterated a proposal to provide U.N. weapons inspection teams with supersonic high-flying Mirage IV reconnaissance aircraft, which captured invaluable information in the Afghan conflict. The proposal, first put forward by Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie last October, would give the U.N. an imaging capability similar to that obtainable with the U-2.
Rich Bjelkevig (see photos) has become president/director of operations, Gary Emmerson vice president/chief pilot and Wallace Nestingen secretary/treasurer and director of maintenance, all for Mountain Aviation of Denver.
Two years after its maiden presentation at Heli-Expo, Eurocopter's new EC130 high-end single has received better-than-expected market acceptance and is well positioned to benefit from potential growth in the single-engine sector, according to company officials. The EC130 (originally dubbed the AStar/Ecureuil B4) was created to provide an advanced, quiet, wide-cabin product in the 6-8 seat single market to complement existing AStar/Ecureuil models and the new-generation five-passenger EC120, whose sleek look it shares.
The independent investigation board named by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe to parallel work by the agency's internal probe began its task quickly last week. Those may not be the only probes of the Columbia accident, however (see p. 21). The independent panel is being led by retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman, Jr. Gehman (pronounced GAY-mun) co-chaired the independent commission that investigated the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, Oct. 12, 2000, and once served as the commander-in-chief of the Joint Forces Command. Other board members are:
Questioning what went wrong with the space shuttle Columbia, and why, quickly exploded last week from narrow technical issues to the broadly political. As the White House hunkered down, Capitol Hill prepared to probe basic assumptions underlying space policy decisions that ranged from shuttle safety funding to building the International Space Station to the need for reusable space launch vehicles.
Midway through an industry assessment phase, the British Defense Ministry is casting an eye over the progress on a key procurement for both army and naval aviation. The Defense Ministry is now beyond the halfway point in the 18-month assessment phase for its Battlefield Light Utility Helicopter/Surface Combatant Maritime Rotorcraft (BLUH/SCMR). A single-source contract for this phase of the program was awarded to Westland Helicopters, the U.K. subsidiary of AgustaWestland, in March 2002. The work package is due to be completed by September of this year.
Lawrence J. Delaney has been appointed senior vice president of the Titan Corp. of San Diego and president/CEO of its Washington-based Advanced Systems Development Sector. He was chairman/CEO/president of Arete Associates and previously was assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition and chief information officer.
Mary A. Simmerman has been named vice president-materiel for the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector, El Segundo, Calif. She was vice president-supplier management and procurement for Boeing Space and Communi- cations Operations, Seal Beach, Calif.
WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP Europe's Artemis satellite arrives on station Limps home on the strength of its last ion thruster 17 Air Canada weighs sales of maintenance subsidiaries Also regional carrier Jazz, all to stem flow of red ink 18 Summer restart seen for 328JET program New owner predicts many sales to corporate operators 18 Hungary and Sweden revise Gripen sales agreement Central European nation will receive NATO interoperable version 19
Greg Canavan of the Physics Div. of the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory is one of three laboratory researchers who have been named senior fellows. The others are: Hans Frauenfelder of the Center for Nonlinear Studies and Geoffrey West of Los Alamos' Elementary Particles and Field Theory Group. Canavan was honored for research in remote sensing, missile defense systems and issues related to national security. Frauenfelder was named for work in biological physics and leadership of the Center for Nonlinear Science.
The Transportation Security Administration needs to exercise better contract oversight, according to U.S. Transportation Dept. Inspector General Kenneth M. Mead. Mead told the Senate subcommittee on Aviation that the lack of infrastructure and heavy reliance on contractors in 2002 resulted in a deficiency of management oversight and a "tremendous growth in contract costs." One contract rose from an initial estimate of $104 million to $700 million, Mead reported.
Bill Connors has been appointed executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Business Travel Assn. He was senior vice president-meetings, education and member services for the American Society of Travel Agents.
Keeping options open on its fighter choice, Norway signed an industrial partnership on the Eurofighter Typhoon program. The country is already a Level III partner in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The government and industry will each contribute $10.8 million through 2007.
Hungary and Sweden have signed a revised agreement covering the acquisition of 14 Gripen combat aircraft. Offset on the lease and purchase contract has been increased, with a later standard of the aircraft to be supplied. Hungary will receive 12 single-seat aircraft, along with a pair of two-seat trainers.
French dissatisfaction with the pace and scope of efforts to reform operating rules threatens to divide the European helicopter community. Operators have labored for years to engineer changes in Europe's helicopter operating standard, JAR-OPS 3, so that it does not unduly penalize single-engine rotorcraft and older twin-engine models. Introduced in the mid-1990s at the behest of the North Sea oil-producing countries, JAR-OPS 3 is based on Annex 6 of the International Civil Aviation Organization code, which is largely outdated.
Heading into a congressional reauthorization year, the FAA seeks to preserve--but not expand on--budget gains it made three years ago in AIR21. But to do so, the Bush administration will increase the pressure on the aviation trust fund, which is taking in less money because of the industry downturn.
