Parker Aerospace, a major supplier of fuel system nozzles to the gas aero-engine industry, has opted for vertical integration with one of its biggest customers by forming a joint venture with GE Aviation. The partners plan to establish Advanced Atomization Technologies (AAT) in Clyde, N.Y., a town of 2,500 halfway between Syracuse and Rochester, to develop and manufacture all fuel nozzles used in General Electric and CFM commercial engines or their military equivalents. Terms were not disclosed.
Col. (ret.) Shaul Shahar (see photo) has been appointed general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' Malat division, based at Ben Gurion International Airport. He succeeds Col. (ret.) Mordechai “Tommy” Silberring. Shahar was acting general manager of the Tamam division of IAI's Missiles Systems and Space Group.
Angela Gittens, director general of Montreal-based Airport Council International World, was selected to receive the Airport Consultants Council 2012 Aviation Award of Excellence. Gittens was honored for the breadth of her contributions to the aviation industry, her advocacy on behalf of aviation stakeholders and her leadership on local, federal and global levels.
Russian researchers, long in the forefront of plasma control experimentation, are combining forces with U.S. military and European industrial counterparts to further exploit plasma's potential effect in hypersonic flight. The concept involves generating plasma by using an electrical discharge to create a shape or force which can act as a virtual actuator, a flow modifier or as an aid to combustion.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea) underscored its displeasure at the rate of progress in contract talks with Boeing Commercial Airplanes last week by seeking National Labor Relations Board intervention, even as the manufacturer made what it calls “significant improvements over our initial offer.”
Tony Parasida has been appointed senior VP-human resources and administration for Boeing. He will succeed Rick Stephens, who plans to retire in March. Parasida is president of Boeing Defense, Space & Security's Global Services & Support.
You quote an unnamed manufacturing “executive” in Wichita, Kan., as saying: “Why take on all that trouble? You'd be nuts.” And you helpfully explained that view, because in Wichita, workers want better wages and medical coverage (AW&ST Oct. 29, p. 46). They are right to demand it. Unions made the middle class. They made it possible for an average Joe to make enough money to purchase a house, take a vacation, buy televisions, refrigerators and cars, and now PCs and iPods, that feed our economy. And they made for loyal, productive employees.
Bill Irby has been promoted to senior VP and general manager of Wilmington, Mass.-based Textron Systems' AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, from VP of Ground Control Technologies.
Howard Povey (see photo) has been appointed sales director of the business aviation arm of Marshall Aerospace Group, which is based at the Cambridge (England) Airport.
Marvin Young, VP-engineering of Sacramento, Calif.-based Aerojet, has been named the recipient of Purdue University's Outstanding Mechanical Engineer Award. Young was honored for accomplishments in the mechanical engineering industry, particularly for the development of rocket propulsion systems for defense and aerospace.
The European Space Agency (ESA) will spend €588 million ($752 million) over the next two years to upgrade the Ariane 5 rocket, conduct detailed design studies of a successor and identify synergies between the two launch vehicles, including development of a common upper stage.
Three decades ago, carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, commonly known as composite, was beginning to appear in commercial aircraft. It was not cheap and could not, at that time, be applied to anything like an entire airframe. With the Boeing 787, an almost completely composite aircraft is now in service. The problem of cost remains, but a second phase of the composite revolution is now underway, with manufacturers looking for ways of eliminating autoclaves—the costly, energy- hungry pressure cookers that are traditionally used to cure the material.
Having forged an international partnership unprecedented in the annals of high-speed research, the U.S. and Australian Hypersonic International Flight Research Experiment (HIFiRE) is past the halfway stage and planning an extension as it accelerates toward a fast firing finale.
Philip Tilston (see photo) has become CFO of Madison Heights, Mich.-based Wall Colmonoy's European team. He has been deputy managing director and CFO for Turtle Wax Europe.
Peter Turner has been named VP-business development of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines' TechOps division. He was VP-customer business at Rolls-Royce North America.
The lure of hypersonic speed for military and commercial use, as well as space access, continues to drive research around the world. Due to the tough challenges, and the cost of overcoming them, more international partnerships are forming to follow the hypersonic dream. One of the latest projects is Australia's scramjet-powered Scramspace experiment, which is being readied for flight-test. The Scramjet team includes the University of Queensland, which prepared a computational fluid dynamics simulation of the flow field around the recently redesigned fins.
Now that voters have had their say, new and returning lawmakers are running their own popularity contest to determine who sits where and controls which appropriations or policymaking in the next, 113th session of Congress. Consequently, leading candidates are making their positions clearer on certain issues, leading to interesting insights normally glossed over. For instance, Rep.
SAS Group has narrowly escaped insolvency, after reaching agreements with eight of its unions over deep cost cuts. The deals vary by employee group, but Norwegian pilots are accepting a 10% wage cut plus 8% more flying hours and flight attendants are surrendering two weeks of vacation per annum while their pay is frozen. The cuts were a prerequisite for SAS to receive another loan by a consortium of shareholders and banks. A Swedish minister says efforts to sell the Swedish government's stake in SAS will now also resume (see related story on page 16).
Jeff Filkins has become West Coast sales manager for aircraft maintenance and management for JFI Jets, Long Beach, Calif. He was West Coast sales manager for Honeywell Flight Support Services and operations leader at Honeywell International's Global Data Center.
In the cutthroat world of defense spending and lobbying, even the most academic of mistakes can cause a major headache. Take the recent case of a wording error buried in a lengthy National Research Council report on boost-phase missile defense systems. In September, the report mistakenly estimated that the operation and sustainment costs for the Patriot system would be as high as $809 million annually per battalion, when in fact it was for the entire 15-battalion force. Moreover, an Army document says the actual fiscal 2011 cost was about $545 million.
