Japanese industrial conglomerate Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) is on track to launch its Epsilon rocket in August carrying the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Sprint-A planetary observatory. The solid-fuel rocket is designed to launch satellites up to 1.2 tons into low Earth orbit, and satellites weighing up to 900 lb. into Sun-synchronous orbit, he says.
USAF Gen. (ret.) Arthur J. Lichte has been named to the board of Wilmington, Ohio-based Air Transport Services Group. He was commander of the Air Mobility Command at Scott AFB, Ill.
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has sealed its deal to buy London's Stansted Airport. The agreement with Heathrow Airports Ltd.—formerly BAA—was completed Feb. 28 and sees MAG paying £1.5 billion ($2.38 billion) for London's third busiest airport and its low-cost-carrier gateway. The deal follows the U.K. Competition Commission's July 2011 ruling that BAA had to sell two of its U.K. airports.
C. Megan Urry (see photo), astrophysicist and chair of Yale University's Physics Department, has been elected president of the American Astronomical Society for a one-year term, succeeding David Helfand.
The merger deal struck by American Airlines and US Airways has been widely characterized as the endgame for U.S. airline consolidation, a process begun in 1978 when the government deregulated the industry. After all, in just the last five years, the number of mainline carriers has shrunk from six to three, and low-cost behemoth Southwest Airlines gobbled up AirTran Airways. That leaves the nation with just four large airlines. With the “Big Four” collectively accounting for almost three-quarters of U.S.
The price of EU Allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading System rose in February, but fell back in the second half of the month on questions over whether a fast-track process can be launched to approve the European Commission's bid to delay EUA auctions in 2013-15. EUAs for delivery in December 2013 rose to a peak of €5.30 per metric ton ($6.95) on Feb. 21, after the EU Parliament's environment (ENVI) committee on Feb. 19 backed the EC's proposed amendment to the ETS Directive which would clarify its power to alter the timing of auctions.
The fact that large-scale aerospace and defense manufacturing is no longer as prominent in Southern California as it was in the Cold War-era is not news. But the region still leads the nation in the number of small suppliers and many are trying to come up with new ways of doing business, especially as they see ominous headlines about defense cuts from Washington.
Boeing has placed 10 777-300ERs with Air Lease Corp., adding to the 15 -300ERs the Los Angeles-based company already has on order. Although American Airlines completed a previously announced order for 43 widebodies earlier this year, the Air Lease agreement is Boeing's first new widebody placement of the year. Meanwhile, the company delivered its first 777 produced at the top rate of 8.3 aircraft per month that it has been developing for the past 32 months. As of Feb. 28, Boeing's 777 back-order list stood at 367 aircraft.
Dennis Tito's plan to send a crew of two around Mars is getting a big assist from NASA via a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with its Ames Research Center (see page 24). While Tito will repay NASA for its work, the agency's inspector general and a powerful member of Congress are examining SAAs—which are less restrictive than standard federal business arrangements—to see if they are being abused. That is one of the charges in a whistle-blower report on alleged malfeasance at Ames (AW&ST Feb. 18, p. 19). Rep.
Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight from New York to Paris to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize inspired the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private suborbital spaceflight, which was won for SpaceShipOne in 2004 by a Scaled Composites team led by designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen. In turn, they are serving as inspiration for a growing number of incentive challenges run by government and industry to cast a wider net for ideas in a bid to spur innovation and solve problems in aerospace and defense.
U.S. defense budgets are declining, but Parker Hannifin, a leading supplier of hydraulics, fluid systems and flight controls, still sees lots of opportunity in aerospace. With major positions on platforms such as the Airbus A350, Bombardier CSeries, Comac C919 and Embraer Legacy 450/500, the company projects annual aerospace sales will rise two-thirds by mid-2016, to $3.5 billion. Roger Sherrard, president of Parker's aerospace unit, and Thomas L. Williams, executive vice president and operating officer, spoke with AW&ST Editor-in-Chief Joseph C.
Honeywell is fine-tuning a civil helicopter-specific combined vision system based on a recent flight-test campaign that evaluated fused synthetic vision and enhanced vision technologies for the primary flight displays of higher-end models. Though the company had planned to begin offering a helicopter synthetic vision system (SVS) by 2010, complexities in presenting real and database-generated terrain, obstacles and various safety features to a helicopter pilot have slowed the process. Work continues, but no new date has been issued.
The ongoing, expanding F-35 fiasco reminds us that then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates forgot the old admonition about “a bird in hand” when he canceled the F-22 Raptor, likely to remain the gold standard for a generation or more. What's more, key U.S. allies Japan, Australia, Canada, Britain and Israel were eager to take another 100 if Congress had allowed F-22 exports—at an incremental cost likely lower than that of the far less capable F-35.
Australia and Saudi Arabia have formally inducted their new Airbus A330 multirole tanker transport aircraft into service. Australia announced that it had achieved initial operating capability for the aircraft on Feb. 26. The Royal Saudi Air Force formally introduced the type into service a day later.
David S. McKay, a NASA planetary geologist who studied the soil and rock samples Apollo astronauts returned from the Moon and argued that a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica contained fossil evidence of extraterrestrial life, died in Houston Feb. 20 of heart disease. He was 76. McKay joined NASA in 1965. He trained Apollo 11 crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to help them return useful samples from the Moon's surface, and stood by in Mission Control during the first Moonwalk on July 20, 1969, as a resource.
International Airlines Group (IAG) has posted a €997 million ($1.31 billion) net loss for 2012, mainly because of charges related to the Iberia crisis, and warns more restructuring costs may be upcoming if deeper cuts to the business are needed. “We have to downsize Iberia and make it competitive,” says IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh. IAG's Spanish subsidiary posted a €351 million operating loss on sales of €4.84 billion last year.
Renuka Ayer (see photo) has been named VP-finance of Corona, Calif.-based Circor Aerospace Products Group, covering the North American, Asian, European and North African regions. She was chief financial officer for Orange County Container Co.
Asia's premium airline market is set for a shake-up. AirAsia's group CEO Tony Fernandes is moving ahead with his plan to establish an ultra-premium carrier, Caterham Jet, which will operate Bombardier CRJ200s in a 16-seat VIP configuration from Singapore to destinations across Southeast Asia.
