Jake Brace has become executive vice president/chief financial officer of United Airlines. He was senior vice president-finance/CFO. Bob Merz, who has been managing director for corporate planning, has been named vice president-financial planning and analysis. Jeff Kawalsky has been appointed vice president/treasurer and was assistant treasurer. And, Mark Anderson, who was senior director for governmental affairs, is now vice president-governmental affairs in Washington.
An aggressive push by Victorville to keep the former George AFB facility occupied has prompted GE Aircraft Engines to relocate its 747 flying testbed activities from its home at Mojave, another of Southern California's desert airport cities. GE began construction Aug. 9 on a 161,700-sq.-ft. aircraft maintenance hangar at what is now known as the Southern California Logistics Airport (see artist's rendering). The airport's offer of a 13.1-acre site and favorable tax incentives prompted the switch from Mojave, where the test-bed aircraft did not have a hangar.
If Raytheon Aircraft Co. (RAC) can sustain the operating improvements it has been able to accomplish in the last 12 months, much of the credit will belong to the kind of motivated employees who demonstrated earlier this year what they can achieve when the chips are down. As part of a company-wide drive to reduce production costs, management determined that suppliers in Mexico could assemble general aviation aircraft wire harnesses of essentially the same quality for considerably less money. Outsourcing the work meant that up to 250 employees would be laid off.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe is justifiably concerned about management issues at the agency. The former Pentagon comptroller was suitably appalled by the civil agency's incoherent collection of financial accounting systems. He is correct in his view that NASA's field centers tend too much to be fiefdoms to their own. And with 25% of NASA's scientists and engineers eligible to retire within five years, O'Keefe is understandably concerned about attracting new technical talent.
A manned space race looms between China and Japan as the Chinese near initial manned flights with the Shenzhou spacecraft system, according to Robert Walker, chairman of the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. Asian political rivalries will help fuel this new manned space race, already involving extensive Chinese aerospace industry efforts. Walker has recently returned from visiting Japan, China, Europe and Russia to assess foreign competition to U.S. aerospace. His commission's report is due in mid-November.
A helium leak on Raytheon's exoatmospheric kill vehicle forced the Pentagon to push back by about two weeks its next planned ground-based midcourse ballistic missile intercept test. The leak, first reported in Aviation Week & Space Technology's affiliate Aerospace Daily, has been fixed. The test is now slated for late this month.
The U.S. Air Force late Thursday finally awarded Boeing the long-awaited multiyear contract for 60 additional C-17 transports. The $9.7-billion deal will boost USAF's inventory of C-17s to 180 aircraft. Military planners are already discussing a further increase of 42 C-17s that would be bought at the end of the latest contract.
Satellite data collected over the past 20 years reveal a sharp drop in concentrations of phytoplankton in the northern oceans, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Levels of the tiny plants at the bottom of the ocean food chain have dropped as much as 30%, possibly because warmer water temperatures and lower surface winds deprive phytoplankton of needed nutrients.
In one of her last actions as FAA Administrator, Jane Garvey didn't pardon Executive Jet International. The mammoth charter- and fractional-business-jet provider had asked twice to have the last of its new Gulfstream G-V aircraft exempt from an Aug. 19 deadline mandating that new aircraft of that size be delivered with an 88-parameter digital flight data recorder instead of the 57-parameter devices.
BUSINESS AVIATION OFFICIALS ARE CONCERNED that the FAA's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums (DRVSM) does not allow sufficient time for operators to equip and certify their aircraft before the planned implementation date of December 2004. In response, FAA officials expect to hold a special seminar on DRVSM Sept. 8-9 in Orlando to explain the program and address concerns from business aircraft owners and operators.
Daniel C. Tracy, who has been a director of EDAC Technologies Corp., Farmington, Conn., has become chairman, and Dominick Pagano, who been a consultant to the company, has been named president/CEO. They will succeed Richard A. Dandurand, who has resigned as chairman/CEO.
The Air Transportation Stabilization Board rejected two more loan guarantee applications last week and drew serious return fire for the first time. Spirit Airlines took it in stride. The carrier wanted a $54-million guarantee as part of a $60-million loan. It lost out when the board concluded, in a 2-1 vote, that the proposal didn't provide reasonable assurance that the airline would be able to repay the loan. The board cited Spirit's credit rating and the risk and volatility of its business plan.
Managers had reason for ``cautious'' optimism late last week after NASA called in the Air Force to help search for a $159-million comet probe that went silent following a critical maneuver conducted ``in the blind'' with preprogrammed commands. Controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., listened in vain for the Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour) spacecraft at 5:35 a.m. EDT Aug. 15, when ground stations in Australia and California should have begun receiving telemetry. As the silence lengthened NASA asked the U.S.
US Airways, which shrank itself more, lost more of its passenger traffic and leveraged itself to greater heights than any other major U.S. airline after Sept. 11, is the first--and maybe not the last--to go into a reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Boeing has begun production of its first wide-body-sized overhead luggage bins for single-aisle aircraft, and is scheduled to ship the initial batch in September to Northwest on a 757-300 (photo). The bins are not quite as big as the outboard bins on widebodies, but they have sufficient depth to accommodate 10 X 15 X 25-in. roll-on bags with their top handles facing out. Boeing's standard narrow-body luggage bins require them to face forward-to-aft. The larger bins add 60% more space to the bins, meaning they can handle five bags instead of three.
Italy's space budget for 2003-05 continues a trend of increasing cooperation between the civilian space agency ASI and the Defense Ministry. The University, Instruction and Research Ministry, which provides 89.5% of the funding in the new budget, is pushing for greater participation in space projects by the military. Included in the new 2.277-billion-euro ($2.2-billion) spending plan is Cosmo Skymed, a constellation of four small radar satellites that will work with two French optical remote-sensing platforms for civilian and military applications.
Raul Cosio (see photo) has been appointed general manager of aerospace, defense and discrete manufacturing industries for IBM. He was vice president-ebusiness transformation.
Most European carriers continue to suffer deeply from the economic downturn and are desperately seeking any signs of optimism. There are few. According to the Assn. of European Airlines' crisis monitoring system, international passenger traffic remains about 8% below pre-Sept. 11 numbers. AEA-member carriers' concerns are being exacerbated by the weak demand on the North Atlantic, an average 13% below last year's level--an indication that the summer peak season will lead to very disappointing results.
Faced with the loss of Saudi Arabia's large airfields for combat operations and, in particular, the critical combined air operations center (CAOC) at Prince Sultan AB, south of Riyadh (which is staffed with 1,500 top Allied war planners), the U.S. has been building and enlarging bases elsewhere.
Eurocopter is believed to be mulling judicial proceedings against the Portuguese government for canceling an order for nine EC635 escort/armed reconnaissance helicopters. The EC635s, valued at 35 million euros ($34.3 million) and powered by 791-shp. Turbomeca Arrius 2B1 turboshafts, were initially scheduled to be delivered in 2001 to create an army air corps in Portugal. Service entry was delayed under a joint agreement but the Portuguese Defense Ministry and Eurocopter later could not agree on the terms of weapon system integration work.
The Aug. 11 emergency evacuation of an Iberia Airlines Boeing 747-200 at John F. Kennedy International Airport that resulted in critical head wounds to one passenger and minor injuries to eight others sparked industry concerns about aircraft cabin evacuation safety. Madrid-bound Iberia Flight 6250 departed 6:57 p.m. local time from Runway 13R at JFK in clear weather. Shortly afterward, the flight crew received an indication of fire warning light on the No.
The Vietnamese government has approved the purchase of five Airbus A320s for Vietnam Airlines to add to the 12 that it already flies. Approval also was given to lease one Boeing 767-300ER and another is under consideration. The carrier already leases five 767s. Vietnam's air services have grown despite the Asian recession and, beginning Nov. 1, will grow some more. Additional services from Hanoi to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are planned, in addition to extra flights from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. All are serviced by A320s.
Look for more senior management changes at NASA as Administrator Sean O'Keefe puts the finishing touches on his team. There is a new human spaceflight chief at headquarters--former shuttle commander William F. Readdy--who will be building his own team. Getting a little long in the tooth are center directors Roy D. Bridges at Kennedy Space Center and Arthur G. Stephenson at Marshall. Jeremiah F. Creedon left a vacancy at the top of the Langley Research Center when he took over aerospace technology at headquarters.
The U.S. Naval Space Command has been renamed the Naval Network and Space Operations Command, a subordinate command under the new Navy Network Warfare Command (NetWarCom) at Norfolk, Va. The shift is intended to strengthen Navy network-centric warfare capabilities by focusing them around Naval Space Command, which has operated since the mid-1980s. Under its new name, the command will become the advocate both for network operations and for closely tied space activities.
British-based low-cost carrier Ryanair is to set up a maintenance facility at Prestwick airport in Scotland. The 10-million-pound ($15.6-million) overhaul facility will be capable of housing simultaneously two Boeing 737-800 aircraft, and is due to enter service in 2004.
