Nick Lockwood has become director of sales and training and Vaughan Dow director of European training, both based in London, for GE Capital Aviation Training, Stamford, Conn.
There appears to be a surprisingly large market for gyroplanes, based on sales and options Groen Brothers Aviation has garnered. As of late October, GBA held cash deposits on 148 Hawk gyroplanes, and an unsecured order for another 200--plus an option for 300 more--from the Shanghai Energy and Chemical Corp. of China. Twelve dealerships have been established in the U.S. and Costa Rica.
Col. Carlo Landi, a navigator/weapon systems officer, has succeeded Col. Gabriele Salvestroni as head of Reparto Sperimentale Volo, the Italian air force's experimental test flight wing.
Anew international airport to complement Paris-Orly and Charles de Gaulle has been approved by the French government, however, a specific plan is being postponed because of a lack of political consensus. The French government's timid go-ahead is a fragile compromise designed to reconcile an urgent need for more runway capacity and the Greens' opposition to unlimited air traffic growth at Paris airports.
I am pleased to announce Aviation Week's fourth annual Aerospace Expo has expanded in size and scope. Consisting of three management conferences and an exhibit hall, Aerospace Expo is a leading resource for all levels of aerospace management in every discipline. The theme for Aerospace Expo 2000 is ``To Lean and Beyond . . . Setting a Course for Operational Excellence.'' Here are some highlights:
A potentially large international market for a low-cost utility aircraft that blurs the lines between helicopter and fixed-wing air vehicles motivated a small Salt Lake City-based company to revive the gyroplane concept.
Precision Castparts subsidiary Scaled Technology Works will build up to 400 single-engine airplanes for Liberty Aerospace under a four-year work order valued at more than $60 million.
Pratt&Whitney and CFM International will use Enigma Inc.'s CommerceSight software to automate the procurement and sale of spare parts through each company's Internet-based portals. These will allow Pratt and CFM customers access to pricing information for both OEM and refurbished parts cataloged on their sites, as well as electronic access to life-cycle data, service bulletins, repair manuals and illustrated parts publications. CFM will offer parts for seven versions of its CFM56 engines through its portal.
Allan E. Cook, who has been group managing director for programs at BAE Systems and managing director for its Eurofighter involvement, is leaving to become deputy chief executive of Cobham plc. Later next year, Cook is to succeed Gordon Page as chief executive. Page is slated to become executive chairman following the retirement of Sir Michael Knight.
This week, the American people will elect a new President and commander-in-chief of the armed services, and a Congress to work with the new chief executive.
Jeffrey A. Fordham (see photos) has been appointed vice president-engineering and John Wilbur vice president-custom systems business for MI Technologies of Atlanta. Fordham was engineering project manager and succeeds Syed Tariq, who has been named vice president-applications engineering. Wilbur was director of business management.
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey envisions the formation of an interdisciplinary team within the agency to speed up the process of certificating new technologies such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS-B), which last week underwent its second operations evaluation at OpEval2.
The Intersputnik board has approved a small/medium satellite project that will enable the international organization to develop unoccupied orbital positions more efficiently and at less cost than standard telecom spacecraft, and moved to restructure a joint venture with Lockheed Martin.
Former astronaut Guion S. Bluford, Jr., who is now vice president/general manager of the Federal Data Corp. and program manager of the NASA Glenn Research Center's Microgravity Research, Development and Operations Contract, and Lou Dobbs, chairman/CEO of Space. com, have been named to the board of directors of the Space Foundation of Colorado Springs.
French space agency CNES has opened a new office in Japan. The office is meant to support expanded cooperation between CNES and the two Japanese space organizations, NASDA and ISAS. In February 1999, CNES and NASDA agreed to devise an action plan to improve understanding of natural disasters using satellite data. NASDA also asked CNES to coordinate distribution of data from its ALOS Earth observation spacecraft in Europe and Africa, in conjunction with ESA. Most recently, CNES agreed to work with Japan on its Hope-X spaceplane project.
South African Airways (SAA) has moved into the second stage of its dramatic turnaround with the plan to strengthen its intra-African market, bolster international service and refurbish the fleet with next-generation twinjets.
U.K. aircrews were woefully ill-equipped for their missions in NATO operations in Kosovo, according to a House of Commons Defense Committee report, especially in terms of precision-guided munitions, an area now receiving special attention.
Airbus Industrie's A3XX mega transport could help forge closer links between the major European airlines' maintenance, repair and overhaul units. A3XX launch customers could wind up sharing the 555-seat aircraft's maintenance and overhaul tasks, reminiscent of the Boeing 747's early days, according to analysts. In the 1970s, European carriers formed two cross-border MRO partnerships, dubbed Atlas and KSSU, to jointly overhaul long-range high-capacity transports.
Information and psychological warfare conducted by the U.S. during the Kosovo air campaign had mixed results, an outcome that is pushing both the Navy and Air Force to develop new technologies for future conflicts. The discrepancy involves the performance of the EC-130E Commando Solo television and radio broadcast aircraft and the EC-130H Compass Call communications jammer. Commando Solo did not perform well in the war, raising questions about whether there is a mission for that type of propaganda tool.
Lockheed Martin Corp., including one-time items, posted a net loss of $704 million for the third quarter ended Sept. 30. Sales for the period reached about $6 billion, just below the prior year's level of $6.2 billion. The company earned $115 million during the third quarter compared to $183 million one year earlier.
Mining space rocks may seem like a movie plot dreamed up in Hollywood, but SpaceDev, a Poway, Calif.-based startup, is quite serious about extracting vast wealth from near-Earth asteroids someday. But laying claim to and mining heavenly bodies will pose unique challenges, and Jim Benson--SpaceDev's founder, chairman and CEO--admits it's ``a step-by step process,'' and all the pieces aren't in place--yet.
To acquire Honeywell International Inc., General Electric Co. will have to pay the equivalent of $56 a share, which some industry observers consider ``a great deal'' for stakeholders. Is it?
AirNewco, an airline-led business-to-business initiative, last week joined forces with MyAircraft, which is spearheaded by three of the aerospace industry's largest suppliers, to form an e-commerce exchange unparalleled in scope within aviation.
Lonnie D. Bane has been named senior vice president-human resources of America West Airlines. He was director of human resources for Corporate Express.
