Li Fenghua has been named president of China Eastern Airlines. He was vice president/Communist Party secretary for China Southern Airlines. Li succeeds Liu Shaoyong, who has been promoted to deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
Also honored were: U.S. Rep. James V. Hansen (R-Utah); Sydney Gillibrand, chairman of AMEC plc. of London; and Jerry Morgensen, president/CEO of the Hensel Phelps Construction Co., Greeley, Colo. Hansen won the W. Stuart Symington Award for civilian contributions to national security. He was recognized for advocating aerospace power and USAF as the world's principal air and space force, and for contributions to national defense. Gillibrand and Morgensen were co-recipients of the John R. Alison Award for contributions to national defense by industrial leaders.
The French government will sell a significant part of its controlling stake in Air France ``probably in six months to a year,'' said Francis Mer, minister of economics. A plan to lower the government's stake in the flag carrier to about 20%, from 54.4%, was delayed in the aftermath of the world economic slowdown and post-Sept. 11 crises. In the current economic environment, airlines cannot be expected to evolve rapidly into an attractive investment, but shares of Air France should be sold for what they are really worth, Mer said.
DGA French armaments agency has chosen Snecma Services and Air France Industries to provide maintenance on CFM International CFM56-2 turbofan engines, under a 10-year contract. The engines power C-135F tankers, E-3F AWACS early warning aircraft and DC-8 airlifters.
Boeing has several bright spots in its military business, including at least $1 billion in orders placed during the last year for all-weather Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance kits. More than 70,000 JDAM kits have been contracted for delivery through 2004 in a program that was originally slated to top out at 87,000 units, said Robert A. Algarotti, Boeing's manager of communications for weapons programs. ``Originally we had thought this was a $2-billion program,'' he said. ``Now we're thinking it's $5 billion for the U.S.
Officials of the Be A Pilot (BAP) program, which offers low-cost certificates for an introductory flight experience in a small airplane, said consumer interest increased 4.2% during the summer with 24,137 inquiries for an initial flying lesson. FAA data show a 4% rise in initial student pilot certificates issued through July, according to BAP President/CEO Drew Steketee. The program has yielded 28,562 leads to date, and it is appealing to the aviation industry for broader financial support to maintain momentum.
Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve pilots and aircrew members are leaving at accelerated rates to avoid participating in the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP), congressional auditors find. With the threat of an enlarged conflict in Iraq, more troops are being immunized. The General Accounting Office (GAO) finds that flight crew concerns involve two areas: first, the safety of the vaccine and severity of adverse reactions, and, second, the still-unexplained illnesses among Gulf war veterans who received anthrax vaccinations.
Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell are exploring the unique technologies needed to create an efficient, 500-shp.-class heavy-fuel engine that could be used to power future unmanned aerial rotorcraft. Under a 39-month U.S. Army contract awarded last month, Pratt is focusing on designing, developing and testing an integrally bladed high-pressure turbine rotor made of monolithic silicon nitride ceramic materials. The program's value to the company is about $2 million.
NASA is restructuring the $4.8-billion Space Launch Initiative (SLI) to give it a near-term focus on building a crew rescue vehicle for the International Space Station, shifting as much as $2.4 billion through Fiscal 2007 into development of an ``orbital spaceplane'' that would allow the station to accommodate a larger crew than the three currently authorized.
A Hunter unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, in two flights at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., dropped four Northrop Grumman brilliant anti-tank (BAT) missiles. The acoustic and infrared guided weapons struck four targets--in each test a BMP armored reconnaissance vehicle and a T-72 tank--on Oct. 9-11. After selecting their targets from an array of several vehicles, three of the BATs made direct hits. One of the weapons blew the turret off one of the T-72s.
Sergio Vetrella (see photo), who is chairman of the Italian space agency, has been appointed for a second term as president of the Italian Aerospace Research Center, CIRA. He is a professor of aerospace systems at the Engineering University of Naples and a senior academic member of the International Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The Pentagon wants to quickly improve its defenses against short-range ballistic missiles. ``We are looking at ways to accelerate the production of [Patriot] PAC-3 out of concern for near-term vulnerabilities,'' said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. While Iraq and its inventory of ballistic missiles loom as a near-term threat, Wolfowitz also is increasingly concerned about a potential attack on the U.S. from ship-based, short-range missiles. Without identifying the country, he said ``we have observed an outlaw state'' developing a ship-launched capability.
Australia has completed negotiations with the U.S. on joining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter development program. Earlier, Australia had verbally committed to the project to meet a U.S. government deadline, but last week the cabinet approved the memorandum of understanding that obligates Canberra to spend $150 million on JSF over the next 10 years.
United Airlines employees have launched a letter-writing campaign, trying to persuade the Transportation Dept. to choose their employer's Los Angeles proposal over six competitors for a single available daily round trip between Reagan Washington National Airport and a point beyond National's 1,250-mile perimeter (see p. 19). The letters started out slowly last week, with 33 in three days, most of them following one of two forms.
Greece has selected Sagem's Sperwer unmanned aerial vehicle for surveillance and target detection, identification and targeting applications. The units will be designed for operation in mountainous terrain and real-time data transmission, and have an operational radius of more than 200 km. The contract is valued at several tens of millions of dollars.
Radio-frequency-pulse energy weapons that emit short powerful bursts to damage electrical equipment and computer memories have so far been designed by U.S. and British researchers as relatively large systems that require at least a cruise missile-size platform to carry them. BAE Systems designers are eyeing much smaller energy weapons for inexpensive UAVs with a wingspan of a few feet.
Almost irrespective of Britain's defense industrial strategy initiative, the pace of aerospace and defense policy change in Europe remains slow--a concern underscored by European aerospace lobby group Aecma. The European Assn. of Aerospace Industries (Aecma) took the opportunity of its recent annual convention, to urge European governments to move rapidly to embrace the agenda for change outlined in its Star 21 initiative.
Russian industrial giant Basic Element and the Irkutsk Aircraft Production Organization (IAPO) are emerging as the most likely candidates for a takeover of bankrupt regional jet manufacturer Fairchild Dornier. The two companies have made a joint offer to acquire Fairchild Dornier from administrator Eberhard Braun. The proposal includes all divisions and would lead to continued production of the 328JET and the restart of the 728/928 program.
China Southern Airlines' 737 maintenance, repair and overhaul operations is moving to a dedicated engineering facility at Xinzheng Airport in Zhenzhou, a city in Henan Province in north China, from their base at the airport's headquarters in Guangzhou near Hong Kong. China's largest airline, China Southern operates 41 737-300/500s from Guangzhou, one of the country's three largest hubs. China Southern is a partner in Guangzhou Aircraft Engineering Co. (Gameco), an independent MRO operator, which built the CSN Henan Branch.
After years of studying whether to equip satellites with self-protection equipment, the Pentagon is putting money and technology into proliferating such equipment beyond the most crucial systems that already feature a rudimentary electronic warfare suite. Electronic countermeasures for spacecraft are expected to be a major growth area in the coming years, although the military's uncertainty regarding its needs continues to be an impediment. Critical questions such as identifying a threat and defining the area a satellite must monitor to be effective remain unanswered.
As United Airlines made what it hopes will be crucial advances last week in its attempt to stay out of bankruptcy protection, three of its major competitors expressed varying degrees of concern about whether they have enough cash--or access to cash--to ride out commercial aviation's deepening financial crisis. America West, with the industry's first government-guaranteed loan and $422 million in cash and equivalents on Sept.
