General aviation leaders are pushing the FAA to more than double its budget for research into an unleaded “drop-in” replacement for aviation gasoline (avgas), saying a wide-scale testing program is necessary to achieve a goal of developing UL100 avgas by 2018. The heads of five general aviation associations recently wrote acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta in an attempt to buttress the FAA's continued cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on potential avgas emissions standards.
China has begun ordering updated narrowbodies, with an unannounced contract for 30 Boeing 737 MAXs from Xiamen Airlines. Although not yet definitive, the agreement confirms that Chinese carriers, with the presumed blessing of the government, will not wait for the finalization of the next five-year plan in late 2014 before ordering reengined narrowbodies. If they had, they would probably have been locked out of that market until the five-year plan after that—2021-25.
Karen A. Williams (see photo) has been selected to become VP-contracts, pricing and supply chain at Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman, succeeding Susan L. Cote, who plans to retire.
USAF Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Bogdan, who has been selected to become lieutenant general, has been nominated to be director of the Joint Strike Fighter Program, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Arlington, Va. He is deputy director of the program. Brig. Gen. Andrew M. Mueller has been nominated for appointment to major general. He is component commander of E3A, NATO's Airborne Early Warning and Control Force Command, Geilenkirchen, Germany.
Bureaucratic turf wars between the Defense and State departments are the stuff of legend in Washington circles, let alone in remote corners of the world that feel the effects. Beyond age-old liberal cries of militarizing foreign policy, and conservative denunciations of do-good-and-get-nothing diplomacy, there lies an inherent struggle for the soul of securing American interests abroad. “These two organizations, they love each other like brothers,” quips revered wonk John Hamre, “like Cain and Abel.”
Reader Laurence Scott's suggestion of a three-axis spirit level in airline cockpits seems valid (AW&ST Aug. 6, p. 10). I recall that the needle-and-ball in a couple of U.S. Air Force aircraft, a T-33 and an F-86, saved them and me in somewhat related situations. In two instances I lost all my instruments—including the artificial horizon—immediately after entering overcasts on rainy winter takeoffs and had to yo-yo my way to VFR-On-Top with that normally ignored instrument.
Ed Kangas, non-executive chairman of Tenet Healthcare Corp., has been named to the board of directors of Intelsat, Luxembourg. He was chairman and CEO of Deloitte, Touche, Tohmatsu from 1989 tp 2000.
Cathay Pacific Aircraft Services (CPAS), Cathay Pacific's acquisition facilitator, has converted an existing order for 16 Airbus A350-900s into 16 A350-1000s, and ordered an additional 10 A350-1000s. The new order comes under a supplemental agreement to a 2010 purchase pact between CPAS and Airbus SAS. CPAS expects to take delivery of the aircraft beginning in 2018-20.
Landmark Aviation and Canadian airline AirSprint have signed with Scotland-based Q-Pulse, a risk, safety and quality management software and services company. Q-Pulse will modernize Landmark Aviation's paper-based safety and quality processes, and it will manage AirSprint's safety and quality processes as the airline expands into the U.S.
Trina Huston has joined Greenpoint Technologies, Kirkland, Wash., as director of procurement. She has held executive roles in supply chain management at B.E. Meyers, NIC Global and Olin Defense Systems Group.
Kevin Warsh, a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, has been named to the board of directors of UPS, Atlanta. He has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and before that served as President George W. Bush's special assistant for economic policy and executive secretary of the National Economic Council.
Nearly $1 billion added to Raytheon's contract to build a new, larger SM-3 interceptor cooperatively with Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is expected to carry the program through to its initial flight test in preparation for deployment in 2018.
Thomas Homberg (see photo) has become managing director of MBDA Missile Systems Deutschland, Schrobenhausen, Germany, and executive group director of improvement, as well as a member of the MBDA Executive Committee. Homberg succeeds Werner Kaltenegger, who plans to retire. He has been head of group strategy at EADS.
On the same day design engineering service and supplier LMI Aerospace announced that its second-quarter net sales had increased by 9.5% from 2011 to 2012, it also announced that it has acquired aftermarket engineering services entity TASS. TASS, whose largest customer is Boeing, provides services ranging from 24/7 airline aircraft-on-ground support, to airworthiness certification program management, to repair design services using CAD techniques.
Rupa Haria, one of our London-based corespondents, provides some post-Farnborough, beat-the-summer-doldrums fun—Airbus's instructions for making a paper model of the A380—on the Things with Wings blog. Aviation Week says: Slow newsweek in London, except for Olympics-obsessed readers.
Unmanned-aircraft avionics maker Procerus Technologies was acquired by Lockheed Martin in January, launched development of a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) UAS in March and flew the small quadcopter daily at the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's show here.
Israeli military and defense officials are boasting that their new trainer-and-sensor aircraft agreement with Italy provides the Middle Eastern country with a high-grade capability and, just as important, opens up Italy and possibly other European markets for Israeli foreign military sales.
Editor's note: This story was originally published on September 6, 2010 The U.S. Air Force’s newest protected satellite communications spacecraft, worth more than $2 billion, will likely reach operational status 7-8 months later than planned after a liquid apogee engine failure.
Boeing says that it is meeting fuel-saving goals in its 737 NG-series aircraft a year after introduction of the single-aisle family's Performance Improvement Package (PIP). Most of the gains derive from improvements in its CFM56-7BE engines, but some also come from aerodynamic refinements. Japan Airlines Vice President Takeshi Katsurada says the airline has validated fuel burn improvement exceeding 2%. Flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith says its PIP aircraft are 1.6% more efficient than non-PIP aircraft. Boeing has delivered more than 420 PIP 737s.
Austrian Airlines plans to spend €80 million ($98 million) in the second half of the year to upgrade aircraft, including the business and economy seats in six Boeing 767s and four Boeing 777s.
