Three years after then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates scrapped Lockheed Martin's VH-71 program to replace presidential helicopters—erroneously slamming it for requiring the capability “to cook dinner while in flight under nuclear attack”—the Pentagon has finally re-initiated the procurement. Addressing concerns about the previous program's penchant for costly, leap-ahead technology, the Navy's new plan draws on mature technology to satisfy user requirements. But the current fleet of nearly 40-year-old helicopters will still be in service for quite some time.
One of the most consistent and persistent voices in Washington is that of a man who wants to shrink the place by making government smaller. Robert Poole (see photo) helped found the libertarian Reason Foundation in 1978 to promote free choice and free markets.
The big order rates for CFM International's Leap and Pratt & Whitney's PW1100G geared turbofan engines that will power this decade's new single-aisle and regional jets are pushing up production rates at key suppliers, particularly for those with flexible strategies for working in the supply chain, such as fuel-systems-maker Woodward Inc.
Del Denny has been appointed director of operations for Trenton, N.J.-based Wyvern. He was its auditor and had been a member of Bombardier's New Product Advisory Council for the Lear 60, Lear 45 and Challenger 300, and FlightSafety International's Advisory Board. Erin Salley and George Signoriello, both formerly with Merrill Lynch, have been named customer service executives.
Greg Russell has been appointed Asia-Pacific executive aviation adviser for Airbus Americas subsidiary Metron Aviation, Dulles, Va. for the Asia-Pacific region. He was CEO of Airservices Australia and had been director of aviation at Sydney Airport and chief operating officer at Athens International Airport.
Arati Prabhakar has been appointed director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as part of the U.S. Defense Department Senior Executive Service. She was a partner in U.S. Venture Partners, Menlo Park, Calif., and is among four new appointees to the service. Ross W. Branstetter, 3rd, will be general counsel for the Missile Defense Agency, Fort Belvoir, Va., and had been an attorney adviser for contracts for the U.S. Air Force.
The U.S. Air Force has restarted the competition to replace its TPS-75 transportable air-defense radars by awarding pre-development contracts to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. Lockheed and Saab Sensis demonstrated prototypes of the Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) in late 2010, under technology-development contracts awarded in May 2009, but budget cuts forced USAF to restructure the program.
Bombardier's CSeries jet, which is scheduled to enter service late next year, sports a clean-sheet design, next-generation Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan (GTF) engines and advanced materials. Unfortunately for the Montreal-based aircraft builder, the new 110-149 seat aircraft's technical merits have been overshadowed by the buzz about the program's struggle to gain market acceptance. While customers have ordered 1,425 reengined Airbus A320NEOs and another 649 Boeing 737 MAXs, the CSeries has won just 138 firm orders since its formal launch more than four years ago.
“There you go again,” as President Ronald Reagan used to say. Aviation Week & Space Technology continues its biased, anti-Republican political reporting. While the analysis may be good in “Guns or Budget” (AW&ST Aug. 20, p. 18), the extended headline implies that Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan is planning to gut the defense budget. The fact is that President Barack Obama has already slashed $464 billion.
Expect defense to be a sideshow, rather than center stage, at this week's Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Pro-military Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) are all on the speaking lineup, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.)—neither of whom are known as strong on national security issues—will headline.
Douglas Millar (Campbell River, British Columbia )
I was delighted to read “Golden Turbine” (AW&ST July 30, p. 14). I was one of the “team of 12 young gas turbine engineers” hired to start the turbine group at Longueil, Quebec, that eventually produced the PT6. After graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I worked in the Engine Lab of the National Research Council of Canada. One of my colleagues was Elvie Smith, and perhaps the most effective task I performed was persuading him to interview with Dick Guthrie of what is now Pratt & Whitney Canada.
As a pilot for Eastern Air Lines, I flew the A300 for 10 years. Airbus was years ahead of Boeing in the development of twin-engine widebody aircraft. The strength of the A320 design was demonstrated in 2009 during the “Miracle on the Hudson” crash in New York. Boeing may whine about Airbus coming to Mobile, Ala., but nowhere is it written that all commercial airliners be built in Seattle. Let's spread the wealth around this great country. Airbus builds “Magnificent Flying Machines” and Mobile is proud to be a part of it.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to postpone for a few years imposing regulations on emissions from leaded aviation gasoline gives the general aviation community longer lead time to find an unleaded replacement. But despite incremental progress toward potential alternatives, the majority of industry leaders believe that leaded aviation gasoline will remain a fixture, at least in the U.S., for some time.
Frank Wilson has been named senior vice president/general manager of the defense and security unit of the iRobot Corp., Bedford, Mass. He was sector vice president-business development and mission applications for electronic systems at BAE Systems.
Finnair and Air Berlin plan to expand their code-sharing program into Scandinavia and the Middle East, beginning Oct. 28. Passengers will be able to book travel for longer distances using a combination of the two airlines. The two airlines began code-sharing for flights in 2010.
Andrew Cullington (see photos) has become a geospatial intelligence consultant and Mark Richardson business development manager for Envitia, Horsham, England. Cullington was head of modelling and simulation for General Dynamics UK, and Richardson was an operational analyst and policy officer for the British Defense Ministry's intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance domain. He also was a political adviser to the commander and British deputy commander for the 2011 NATO operation over Libya.
In the race to create a new commercial space industry, the FAA is trying to establish rules for safely conveying crews and passengers into space. The Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee recently held the first of three teleconferences aiming to help the FAA craft regulations for the nascent industry. The discussion revolved around questions such as what level of safety and care should be expected. Former astronaut Livingston Holder, the chair of the systems working group, highlighted the difficulty of embarking on this regulatory journey.
Virgin America celebrated its fifth birthday this month in style with a party to mark its inaugural flight to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. With legions of loyal fans—close to 400,000 on the microblog site Twitter—and a reputation for digerati chic in its San Francisco base, the airline seems poised to carve out a successful niche in the U.S. market. Behind the cheers and confetti, however, lay an uncomfortable truth: In five years of operations, Virgin America has never turned a profit.
FL Technics Ulyanovsk, a subsidiary of Avia Solutions Group, has begun construction of a new maintenance, repair and overhaul center in Ulyanovsk, Russia. The $22 million facility, which will include two 8,000-sq.-meter (86,000-sq.-ft.) hangars, will open one by the beginning of 2015. Designed to service narrow- and widebody aircraft, the facility will feature a 3,000-sq.-meter aircraft parking platform and up to 500 workplaces for technical specialists.
Boeing has opted to enlarge its Portland, Ore., factory, a company center of excellence for complex machining, gear systems and flight controls, rather than turn to outside contractors as second sources.
Kathleen Meehan Coop has become vice president-education of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Alexandria, Va. She was director of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.
