Robert E. Smith has been appointed president of General Dynamics (GD) subsidiary Jet Aviation, Basel, Switzerland. He succeeds Daniel G. Clare, who has been appointed CFO of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., another GD subsidiary. Smith was vice president/CFO of Jet Aviation. Clare follows Jason W. Aiken, who has been named GD senior vice president/CFO. And Jim Jaeger has become chief cyber services strategist for General Dynamics Fidelis Cybersecurity Solutions, Waltham, Mass. He was vice president-cybersecurity services and has been succeeded by Mike Buratowski.
David Yokeum and Sebastiaan Scholte have been named to the board of directors of The International Air Cargo Association. Yokeum is Bangkok-based president/CEO of independent freight-forwarder network WCA. Scholte is CEO of Netherlands-based Jan de Rijk Logistics.
China should be congratulated for its Moon mission. Landing on another celestial body requires a bit of luck as the exact conditions at the very place of touchdown can never be fully known. But this good luck should not reduce the impressive advancement of China's space capabilities, propelled by an admirable mixture of resolution and caution to ensure rapid progress.
Kellstrom finished consolidating and segregating its business into commercial and defense units, and expects the first quarter of 2014 to start showing results of those efforts, as well as its “leaner and meaner side,” says Kellstrom Materials President and CEO Roscoe Musselwhite. The past six months have been devoted to merging AirLiance Materials into Kellstrom to form Kellstrom Material as the commercial unit and spinning off the defense activities and everything around those tasks.
Peter F. Dumont (see photo) has been elected 2014 president of the Aero Club of Washington. He is president/CEO of the Alexandria, Va.-based Air Traffic Control Association
USN Rear Adm. (lower half) Mark L. Leavitt has been appointed deputy commander of Naval Air Forces/deputy commander of Naval Air Forces Pacific/commander of the Naval Air Force Reserve at San Diego. He was chief of naval air training at Corpus Christi, Texas.
Aviation Week's annual photo contest took place online and can be most fully enjoyed at AviationWeek.com/photo, where you can see all the finalists along with the winners. They are organized by category, including a special one from our Chinese partner, International Aviation. In the digital edition of the magazine, you can view a selection of finalists in each category. The experience is exquisite on a tablet, like an iPad. If you have not signed up yet for the digital edition, you are missing out. It's free to subscribers.
T. Hastings Siegfried (see photo) has become Singapore-based chief operating officer for Asia-Pacific sales and technical services for Nordam. He has been chief operating officer of the Tulsa, Okla.-based company's Transparency Group and remains the company's vice chairman. Siegfried's roles in the U.S. have been divided between Bailey J. Siegfried, vice president-global marketing, and Jeff Chalupa, general manager of the Transparency Group.
“No Easy Answers” (AW&ST Dec. 9, p. 17) cites the problem caused by the decay of hand-flying skills in the general pilot population. Humans are economic creatures who will typically take the easiest route, if given the opportunity. For pilots, automation provides that opportunity.
NASA expects to begin looking for undetected near-Earth objects with a reactivated astronomy spacecraft soon, and to find one “in the next few months,” now that it has verified that the old Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise) still works. Launched in 2009 to scan the universe in infrared wavelengths, and switched off in February 2011 at the end of its nominal mission, the spacecraft has been renamed Neowise to reflect its new mission seeking hard-to-see space rocks and comets that might pose a threat to Earth.
Wingtip vortices form in the spray behind a crop duster in southeastern Washington state in this photograph taken by Steve Whiston of Newcastle, Wash. Whiston was one of more than 200 photographers from 18 countries who submitted nearly 600 images for Aviation Week & Space Technology's 22nd annual contest. Prize-winning photos and honorable mentions are highlighted in a 21-page section that begins on page 19.
Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center exerted almost 1 million lb. of force on a simulated rocket tank before it failed in the second round of testing that was intended to improve design models and take weight out of the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and other vehicles. More than 800 sensors and 20 cameras monitored the latest round of shell-buckling, knockdown-factor testing at Marshall, which started Dec. 9 and ran through the ensuing week.
If last year's airline debate centered on the use of mobile electronics in flight, the argument in 2014 moves to regulating passenger cell phone use—not just for safety's sake but also for sanity's. In recent weeks, lawmakers have introduced legislation that, if enacted, would prohibit passengers from talking on mobile telephones on airline flights in the U.S. While the fate of those proposals remains unclear, their powerful sponsors indicate the debate will likely play out during the crafting of an FAA reauthorization bill next year.
Business aviation's most unique aircraft, both Italian, are progressing despite setbacks worthy of operatic treatment. After years of togetherness, the Bell/Agusta 609 was in 2011 spurned by its U.S. partner, whose commitment seemed to range from indifferent to obstreperous, casting further doubt on the long-delayed civil tiltrotor's future. In case you've lost track, the BA609 project began in the late 1990s with deliveries to begin in 2002. Needless to say, that deadline was missed, as has almost every one since.
Joint procurement programs such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter do not save money and actually cost more than the multiple single-service projects they replace, according to a report from Rand Corp. commissioned by the U.S. Air Force. The researchers compared cost-growth rates in joint programs, between the start of full-scale development and service entry, with growth in one-service programs. They found that in almost all cases, joint programs had higher cost growth than single-service projects.
