USN Capt. Andrew L. Lewis, who has been selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), has been named commander of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, Fallon, Nev. He has been director of fleet and joint training for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Norfolk, Va. Capt. Roy J. Kelley, who has been selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), has been appointed chief of Naval Air Training, Corpus Christi, Texas. He has been chief of staff to the commander of the Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, at San Diego.
Any launch vehicle that flies as often as Russia's Proton is bound to have its share of mishaps. The venerable heavy-lifter has flown 388 missions since its first in 1965, 45 of which have been deemed total or partial failures.
Jim Wasson, President Growth Strategies International (Charleston, S.C.)
A recent Commander's Intent commentary, “Seeing the Big Picture” (AW&ST June 17, p. 22) caught my attention because I worked with Gene Adam at McDonnell Douglas for years and witnessed the 3-in. stack of Vu-Foils he went through at an amazing pace while holding everyone's undivided attention. Gene was truly a visionary whose technology forecasts are today becoming a reality.
Adding to London's Heathrow Airport is the most cost-effective way of delivering extra capacity to the capital's busiest but most constrained airport, its owners are asserting. In the next fortnight, airport managers will deliver evidence to the U.K. Airports Commission outlining their ambitions to expand the Heathrow site.
House and Senate lawmakers, though nearly $1 billion apart on their recommended fiscal 2014 FAA budget, do agree on some priorities, including support for the transition to an unleaded aviation gasoline and funding for FAA's certification and inspection workforce. Despite making cuts below sequestration levels in the parent transportation appropriations bill for fiscal 2014 that includes FAA's budget, the House is recommending an increase in funding for alternative-fuels research.
A new inspector general report that found Afghan air forces to be woefully unprepared is recommending halting two related U.S. aircraft acquisitions. The announcement could not have come at a worse time for the Pentagon and White House. The Pentagon and the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) are pushing forward with the sale of 30 Mi-17s from Rosoboronexport and 18 Pilatus PC-12s via Sierra Nevada under contracts worth nearly $772 million.
Mark Brewer, director of the Manchester (N.H.)-Boston Regional Airport, has been elected chair of the Alexandria, Va.-based American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) for 2013-14.
How does a squadron charged with testing navigation and guidance systems in extreme jamming know where its aircraft and weapons are and how they are performing when GPS is jammed? The answer from next year on will be by using a local positioning system that has the potential to back up GPS wherever jamming or spoofing could have disastrous results, such as critical infrastructure, airports or guiding unmanned aircraft in civil airspace.
Heidi Wood has been named senior vice president-strategy and Duane Hawkins senior vice president-operations of Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems. Wood was managing director for global aerospace/defense analysis for Morgan Stanley. Hawkins was vice president and deputy for air warfare systems for Raytheon Missile Systems. He also been an executive for Defense Research Inc. and General Dynamics.
Business was booming for Raytheon at the recent Paris air show. The defense electronics giant's “hospitality chalet”—a two-story structure set up for VIP meetings—was packed with prospective buyers from places such as Oman, Qatar and Japan. “This is the busiest I have ever been at an air show,” proclaimed CEO Bill Swanson, who is aiming to raise exports to 30% of Raytheon's sales, up from an impressive 26%.
Brian K. Miller (see photo) has been appointed product sales manager for the aerospace maintenance, repair and overhaul business of the Timlen Co., Canton, Ohio.
Kevin Imanaka (see photo) has been named director of internal and corporate communications for Hawaiian Airlines. He was director of communications and community relations for the Hawaii Permanente Medical Group.
USAF Maj. Gen. (ret.) Michael Kostelnik has become president of Astrium Americas, Herndon, Va., and vice president of EADS North America's space business. He was assistant commissioner of the Office of Air and Marine in U.S. Customs and Border Protection and had been deputy associate NASA administrator for the space shuttle and International Space Station.
Frances Townsend has been named to the board of trustees of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. She is executive vice president of MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings and was homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.
DayJet founder Ed Iacobucci died on June 21 at home in Boca Raton, Fla., from pancreatic cancer. He was 59. Like many entrepreneurs, Iacobucci had a lifelong passion for aviation. On a rain-soaked day in Tallahassee, Fla., in 2007, he opened the doors of his dream business, a per-seat, on-demand “airline” called DayJet that would ride on a massive fleet of 1,400 four-passenger Eclipse 500 jets, connecting small communities across the U.S. that were not adequately served by airlines.
Jason-1, a Franco-U.S. ocean-topography spacecraft in operation since Dec. 7, 2001, has gone offline after its sole remaining transmitter failed on June 21. NASA and French space agency CNES decommissioned the Earth-science bird after 11.5 years of service, continuing the dataset started in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon and continuing today with the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2.
Did two French aviators cross the Atlantic oceans days before Charles Lindbergh completed his historical 1927 New York-Paris flight? The question is asked by Bernard Decre, a well-regarded amateur historian. In the last five years, he has been working full-time on the ill-fated attempt by Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli who vanished hours after they took off from Le Bourget on May 8, headed for New York. The assumption for years has been that they plunged into the sea during the early part of the crossing, but there is no definitive information to back this up.
Frank Morring, Jr., in his commentary “Out There” (AW&ST June 24, p. 22) notes that, “While six humans crank away at their research—a pair of aging robotic great observatories continue to fine-tune mankind's understanding of the cosmos.” And then, in the same issue, on the facing page, we are told by a former Lockheed Martin executive that with NASA's current budget he doubts we will ever get to Mars.
Assembly work has started on the first pre-production JAS 39E Gripen fighter, according to Saab. The front fuselage of the first of three development aircraft, 39-8, is the first major component to enter production. It is due to fly in early 2015, followed by 39-9 in 2016 and 39-10 in early 2017.
