Nancy Potts Hitchins has been named VP-environmental, health and safety (EHS) for , Kansas City, Mo. She was chief EHS specialist at Vestas Wind Systems.
When a person can retire young, it is a good thing, but the early retirement of aircraft has consequences for the aviation industry when it occurs in larger numbers, as is the case now for commercial jets.
Rodolphe Marchais has become chairman and CEO of and chairman of its Miami-based Barfield division. Frederic Denise has become CEO of Barfield. He was chief operating officer.
European Union emission allowance (EUA) prices surged to their highest level in more than three months in June as utilities ramped up their purchasing, triggering stops and forcing banks to cover short positions, traders say.
The European Aviation Safety Agency has provided new guidance for Airbus A380 operators on how to deal with wing rib-feet cracking. The new airworthiness directive is aimed at operators whose A380s have undergone a first round of interim repairs. The first wave of aircraft to receive an interim fix now need to undergo inspection after another 560 flight cycles.
NASA has completed basic fabrication of the first Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration capsule due to be tested in space, while at the same time NASA is starting key vacuum tests on the ATK-built composite module that could form the basis for crew transport to Earth orbit. The Exploration Flight Test 1 Orion has been shipped from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the Kennedy Space Center, where it will undergo final assembly and checkout.
Fred Allen has been named VP-sales and marketing at and , Londonderry, N.H. Allen is a 10-year commercial aviation veteran with experience in supply chain leadership in airline and original equipment manufacturer maintenance, repair and overhaul.
For decades, aerospace and defense professionals worldwide have called Aviation Week & Space Technology “the bible”—the information source they turn to above all others to stay abreast of market and technology trends and developments.
Edie Hunt has joined , Broussard, La., as VP-human resources. She was the director of HR/information technology and administrative departments at Dynamic Offshore Resources.
David P. Storch, chairman/CEO of AAR Corp., has received the Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 Midwest Award in the Master Entrepreneur category. The award recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and success in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.
USAF Col. (ret.) Michael R. Gallagher (Hillsboro, Ore. )
When an unidentified retired war planner suggests an attack on several nuclear facilities in Iran is “not an act of war,” it is time for a logic check. In “Bombing Iran” (AW&ST June 25, p. 29) the planner goes on to suggest advanced warning presumably to give the Iranians an opportunity to minimize collateral damage. The more likely response might be for the country's leader to move thousands of “volunteers” into the target areas to protest a threatened U.S. strike.
Chinese astronauts manually docked their spacecraft with an orbital laboratory on June 24, proving a technology that the country regards as offering redundancy for its proposed space station program. Astronaut Liu Wang, helped by his two colleagues on board Shenzhou 9, took 7 min. to bring the spacecraft into contact with the laboratory, Tiangong 1, from a range of 400 meters (1,300 ft.).
In the On Space blog, a discussion spurred by Senior Editor Frank Morring, Jr.'s In Orbit column (AW&ST June 18, p. 26) regarding commercial space flight—and who is to blame or thank—continues. Dave_In_Rio_Rancho opines:
David Davenport (see photos) has been promoted to VP at New York-based 's Gulfstream Learning Center in Savannah, Ga., and regional operations manager. Steve Gross has been promoted to VP-sales from director-worldwide sales and Bill Nugent to VP-government contracts and training from executive director.
There is a perfect fiscal storm brewing which some have been slow to recognize and has already reached our shores. The most significant element is the Category 5 hurricane known as “sequestration.” Mandated by the Budget Control Act passed last year days before the U.S. credit-rating downgrade, sequestration mandates significant cuts to both defense and discretionary domestic federal spending. It happens on Jan. 2, is automatic and can only be altered by a change in the law.
There's nothing novel about European firms chasing export deals to offset shrinking domestic defense budgets, but MBDA wants to go a step further by making weapon-design decisions to help enhance its new products for customers beyond the home market. Historically, MBDA—the joint venture comprising BAE Systems, Finmeccanica and EADS—has generated roughly 30% of turnover from exports. But Paul Stanley, market development director, notes that “to sustain the business we will be looking much more to 50%” of exports.
Walter J. Zable, the aerospace industry's oldest and longest-serving CEO and a pioneer in the field of global positioning, died June 23 of natural causes at a San Diego-area hospital. He was 97. Zable founded Cubic Corp. in 1951 in a San Diego storefront. Long before GPS was invented, the company developed a satellite-based technology that identified the location of land masses and enabled the U.S. military to pinpoint targets to improve the accuracy of ballistic missiles. Later, Cubic fielded the world's first instrumented air combat training system.
Assuming the hypothesis that most top-performing airlines outgrow their “sweet spot” is true, what steps can airlines take to maintain a competitive edge?
In past economic cycles, most major U.S. airlines tended to make profits in the “up” arc of the cycle and then lose a large amount of money in the down part. Within the last four years, the macro environment has been down sharply with only a very slow recovery indicated in the past three—so why are the airlines earning profits? Investors and the stock market still do not yet fully believe what they are seeing, according to current valuations of airline stock prices.
