John H. “Jay” Gibson has been appointed vice president for Global Mission Support for Wichita-based Beechcraft. He has been head of the company's special missions business.
Jeff Standerski and Steve Timm have exchanged jobs at Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Standerski will now be vice president/general manager of Business and Regional Systems, while Timm has become vice president/general manager of Air Transport Systems. Greg Irmen has been named vice president/general manager of a new Tustin, Calif.-based portfolio which consolidates Flight Information Solutions with Cabin and Electro Mechanical Systems.
Dominique Giannoni (see photo) has been named CEO of Thales's Irvine, Calif.-based Inflight Entertainment and Connectivity business. He was head of Thales's Military Avionics Business.
Jacques Desclaux (see photo) has become CEO of the Roxel subsidiary of France-based Safran. He was chairman/CEO of Snecma and NPO Saturn joint venture PowerJet and had been executive vice president of Europrop International.
Pratt & Whitney Canada took the first steps toward developing what would become the world's most popular turbine in 1956, when the company's engineering manager, Dick Guthrie, was told to hire a team of gas turbine engineers to lead the development of new generation of engines.
Airbus has put the A350 prototype into scheduled lay-up in readiness for a second flight-test phase starting in August following the opening up of the initial flight envelope over 92 flight hours. The manufacturer says MSN1 has performed well during the initial sorties conducted since its maiden flight on June 14, just prior to the Paris air show. Overall, the A350 flight-test campaign will total around 2,500 flight hours with five development aircraft. The second test aircraft, MSN2, is undergoing final assembly in Toulouse following fuselage section joining in mid-June.
USAF Brig. Gen. Mark C. Nowland has been selected for promotion to major general and appointment as chief of staff of Headquarters U.S. Southern Command in Miami. He has been the command's director of strategy, policy and plans. Brig. Gen. Christopher J. Bence has been named director, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-U.K./U.S. Air Forces in Europe at RAF Mildenhall. He has been deputy director for operations at the National Joint Operations and Intelligence Center, Operations Team Two, at the Pentagon. Bence will be succeeded by Col. Ronald D.
Reader Jonathan Penn comments that we would be better off canceling all manned space efforts and applying half the money saved to space exploration (AW&ST July 8, p. 10). However, he is making an unstated assumption about our goals for being in space.
While most engine makers generally support a few hundred users of their products, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) supports the maintenance needs of a hugely diverse set of over 10,000 operators, 90% of whom have only one or two aircraft.
Paul Meyer has been appointed senior vice president-advanced programs and business development for Aerojet Rocketdyne, Sacramento, Calif. He was sector vice president/general manager of the Aerospace Systems Advanced Programs and Technology Div. of the Northrop Grumman Corp. and was an executive at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.
More encouraging words for the U.S. Army's Armed Aerial Scout program, aimed at replacing the aging OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, were heard in Washington June 18. Earlier this year, Army leaders said company-funded demonstrations had not shown any candidate capable of meeting its needs. Last week, Lt. Gen. William Phillips, military deputy and director of the Army Acquisition Corps for the assistant Army secretary for acquisition, sounded a different tone at an Association of the U.S. Army meeting.
In the wake of June's Paris air show, both Airbus and Boeing issued victory statements detailing orders, options, commitments and letters of intent reportedly signed during the five-day event. Both rivals claimed they achieved or surpassed their most optimistic sales predictions, disseminating robust releases to the media. And, once more, the press corps—in most cases without the required restraint—agreed to the rules of the game, although that was largely meaningless.
Vincent Caro (see photo) has been appointed as executive vice president-programs for the Landing Gear and Systems Integration Div. of Safran subsidiary Messier-Bugatti-Dowty, Velizy, France. He succeeds Helene Moreau-Leroy, who has been reassigned. Caro has been vice president-purchasing of another Safran subsidiary, Snecma.
In the North Sea, the Eurocopter EC225 has been a workhorse, plying routes between bases in Norway and Scotland oil and gas platforms. But for 10 months, the helicopter has been missing from such operations, grounded as engineers searched for the root cause of the failure in its bevel gear vertical shaft. For the major operators in the North Sea region such as Bond Offshore Helicopters, Bristow Helicopters and CHC Scotia, the loss of the type from their fleets had a dramatic impact on their capacity to fly for customers.
Airlines are accusing some of the major airports in Australia and New Zealand of ratcheting up fees unfairly, and they are criticizing the governments of the two countries for not reining in these airports' pricing practices. Reflecting similar arguments around the world, local airlines say that fee hikes highlight the fact that regulators need to take a firmer line with airports. Now, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stepped up its own calls for the two governments to intervene more directly in airport disputes.
Claudio Pereida, vice president of the Reconnaissance Systems Group at San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, and James Machin, director of advanced development programs, have received local awards from the Washington-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for aerospace engineering and aerospace management.
The “Future of Aircraft Carriers” (AW&ST June 24, p. 42) encompasses well beyond the reports of the U.S. Navy's evolution of carrier-based unmanned aircraft and its tactical aircraft transition choices in the challenging acquisition posture.
The U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman failed to execute a fourth arrested-landing attempt of the X-47B onboard the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier, and the Unmanned Combat Air System demonstration flight-test program has completed its planned “at-sea” trials. The X-47B demonstrator launched from NAS Patuxent River, Md., July 15 but experienced a “minor test instrumentation issue” that prompted officials to scuttle the carrier landing attempt and recall it to NAS Patuxent River.
