Badly wounded in Vietnam when his gunship's rocket exploded during launch, Walt Fricke spent months in a stateside hospital, some 700 mi. from his family. During that time he was worried, lonely and in pain. He says that he wasn't really able to heal until his family could gather the resources to come visit him several weeks later. It was this experience that led him to create the Veterans Airlift Command (VAC), a network of business-jet operators that transports wounded vets and their families wherever they need to go, free of charge.
Last week provided another milestone for the Boeing 737 program: delivery of the 7,500th 737 since the single-aisle jet began service with Lufthansa in February 1968. The latest, a 737-900ER, went to Malindo Air of Malaysia. Meanwhile, a 737-800 destined next month for Panamanian carrier Copa Airlines rolled out of Boeing's Renton, Wash., factory—the first produced at a 38-aircraft-per-month rate for 737s. Boeing expects to reach the 42-per-month rate next year as it works through a backlog of 3,100 orders.
In the first quarter of 2013, Delta Air Lines expected to pay $2 billion more for fuel than it did in the first quarter of 2000, the peak of what was then a steep upturn. That Delta is still likely to make a profit in the seasonally weakest period of the year—and in a still challenging economic environment—shows how much the carrier has changed.
If time is money, precision is capacity, and the Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) can make the most of both. The 2013 Laurel for IT recognizes the multiple engineering challenges overcome by a team—including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Honeywell Aerospace and United Airlines—that spent years preparing to go live with GBAS hardware in 2010 only to have to go back to the drawing board because of radio-frequency interference. Because of their persistence, GBAS is already proving the benefits of higher precision at one of the most congested U.S.
Yann Barbaux (see photo) has been appointed chief innovation officer for Toulouse-based Airbus. He was head of EADS Innovation Works, which he created and developed.
Contract-tower program supporters are appealing to the FAA to limit the number of airport tower closures set to start April 7 due to across-the-board budget cuts. Senate leadership rejected the efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) to keep the FAA from closing up to 189 contract towers and restore funding for the program in a short-term spending bill that passed Congress last week.
Dear Aviation and Aerospace Colleague: Aviation Week's mission is to deliver actionable content comprising best practices and insight from all areas of the aviation and aerospace world. To stay ahead of the information clutter and accelerated decision-making you—the aerospace professional—face, we are constantly challenging ourselves to make this information more forward-looking, integrated and simpler to access and use.
With the help of all of the supply chain solutions available and the plethora of options for component asset management, airlines are gaining efficiencies and improving their bottom lines.
Each year, in addition to naming Laureates, Aviation Week honors outstanding cadets at U.S. military academies as Tomorrow's Leaders. The awards are sponsored by BAE Systems. This year, four cadets were named and recognized at the Laureates gala by Aviation Week President Greg Hamilton.
Al Peterson has become general manager of Houston-based Landmark Aviation's Los Angeles location. He was airport and FBO manager at Nantucket (Mass.) Memorial Airport.
The final chapter has apparently opened in the turf war among national security agencies over which should control the most prominent weapon system in use since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Lockheed Martin has received an additional $71 million to conduct two surface-launched tests and a third air-launched flight evaluation of the stealthy Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) being developed for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Office of Naval Research. Three air-launched flights of the LRASM, which is based on Lockheed's Jassm-ER strike weapon, will be conducted from an Air Force B-1B beginning this summer. Two ballistic-test surface launches are planned for the end of 2014.
Martha May has been named senior VP-human resources and corporate officer of Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Rockwell Collins, effective April 8. She will succeed Ron Kirchenbauer, who will retire at the end of April. May was senior VP and chief human resources officer of Bell Helicopter.
April 8-11—29th National Space Symposium-Space Foundation. The Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs. See www.nationalspacesymposium.org April 9-10—SpeedNews Aerospace Manufacturing Conference. Charleston (S.C.) Place. See www.speednews.com/ConferenceInfo.aspx?conferenceID=141 April 16-18—ABACE Conference & Exhibition. Shanghai China. See www.abace.aero/2013/ April 17-18—SMI's Second Annual ISR Conference. Copthorne Tara Hotel, London.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is seeking to ward off planned massive cuts in the FAA's contract tower program. The FAA plans to close up to 189 such air traffic control towers as part of its effort to meet its required budget cuts under “sequestration,” which took effect March 1. Airports and general aviation groups have protested the plan to shut down 75% of the nation's contract towers, saying the program is slated for far greater cuts than the rest of the FAA's budget, at a risk to safety.
The rolling green scenery of the U.K.'s Salisbury Plain is an unlikely stand-in for Afghanistan's Helmand Province. But for Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) Helicopter Wing personnel, the area has provided a place to hone their skills in preparation for a long-awaited helo deployment to Afghanistan.
Brad Furukawa and Helena K.L. Chan have been named to receive Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman's Asian-American Engineer of the Year award. Furukawa is VP and chief technology officer of the company's Enterprise Shared Services organization, and Chan is the integration and test lead of the USAF Deployable Instrument Landing program.
The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has used its first deployment of Eurofighter Typhoons to a Red Flag exercise to start conceptualizing how it might use the fighter in conjunction with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.
Brad Furukawa and Helena K.L. Chan have been named to receive Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman's Asian-American Engineer of the Year award. Furukawa is VP and chief technology officer of the company's Enterprise Shared Services organization, and Chan is the integration and test lead of the USAF Deployable Instrument Landing program.
Does it make sense to keep pursuing a goal that has eluded industry for decades? Not surprisingly, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) believes that it is, and has launched yet another bid to build a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) vehicle that combines the low-speed agility of a helicopter with the high-speed capability of a fixed-wing aircraft.
The recent Up Front column “And Then There Were Four” (AW&ST March 4/11, p. 14), refers to Southwest Airlines as a “low cost-behemoth.” I beg to differ. I've been planning to visit my daughter in California, and the best prices I could find for a trip from Raleigh, N.C., were on American and Delta. Southwest was barely third, $9 better than United. It's clear that Southwest, which certainly once was a low-cost airline, no longer routinely beats the others on price.
The revised 787 lithium-ion battery configuration incorporates a range of modifications that Boeing says are designed to prevent conditions under which potential issues might occur, and to isolate them if they do. The revised battery is physically wider than the existing design because of large spacer units attached on either side of the cells. The spacers are configured to improve thermal and electrical isolation, and are bordered toward the outside by additional insulation layers.
