Kazuo Inamori had no previous airline experience when he took the helm of struggling Japan Airlines in 2010. But the carrier's dramatic turnaround proves once again that good business practices can cross industry boundaries. Inamori, one of Japan's most successful and well-known entrepreneurs, was asked by the Japanese government to step in to help with JAL's restructuring. As Inamori (pictured) tells Aviation Week, his management techniques have worked just as well in the airline world as in other sectors.
Northrop Grumman employees Sharon Meadows and Roy Foreman (see photos) have received top awards at the National Society of Black Engineers Conference in Pittsburgh. Meadows, who is the lead systems engineer for the engineering military satellite communications program in Manhattan Beach, Calif., received the Outstanding Woman in Technology award. Foreman, an electrical engineering manager at the company's Information Systems sector in Madison, Ala., received the Distinguished Engineer of the Year award.
On the basis of the Concorde “trial,” which was covered in “Flight Safety Angst” (AW&ST April 2, p. 22), can we expect the Airbus A330-200 fleet to be blamed for the Air France Flight 447 accident? Surely there is a common factor somewhere. Corsham, England
LightSquared, a company that sought to build an advanced 4G telecommunications network, is considering bankruptcy, and several lawmakers are wondering why the Obama administration paid for testing of its system and gave it a waiver to operate in the first place. The tests on LightSquared's network resulted in the determination that it could interfere with GPS receivers.
As military procurements go, the U.S. Air Force's competition to supply 20 turboprop light-attack/advanced training aircraft to the Afghan air force is hardly on the cutting edge of technology. Yet a battle for the modest contract has become a political hot potato between the U.S. and one of the world's rising economic powers, Brazil. Last week, it served as a backdrop to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's visit to the White House.
If ever there were a story without heroes, it is the saga of LightSquared, the New York company that wants to build a network using satellites and terrestrial transmitters to offer wholesale 4G-LTE wireless broadband services in the U.S.
A recent “Up Front” column noted the demise of NASA's human spaceflight program (AW&ST April 2, p. 15). Visit the Kennedy Space Center to see the truth of this. The Apollo center showcases the glory days of NASA's history, from the failed rocket launches of the early days of Project Mercury to the amazing success of the Apollo missions. But in the “Explorers Wanted” segment, a NASA employee enthusiastically speaks in extremely vague terms about the agency's exciting partnership with private industry for the next generation of rockets for manned spaceflight.
When the business climate turns cold, companies can contract or invest. With the Pentagon staring at a potential $1 trillion budget reduction during the coming decade, defense company officials are beginning to pursue both options, sometimes simultaneously. Sean O'Keefe, chairman and CEO of EADS North America, says that in this climate the prudent course is to avoid making investments that could amount to nothing as lawmakers wrestle with what level of funding to provide to the military.
In a generally difficult economic climate, France's aerospace and defense equipment industry is coming off an excellent year in 2011, with a healthy backlog and a particularly strong performance in global export markets. The growth more than compensates for declining French defense equipment budgets, having helped mitigate the negative impact of Europe's financial crisis on the country's economy, and augurs well for· both prime contractors and suppliers in 2012.·
Scientists preparing to use International Space Station facilities for research will have better online access to their experiments after U.S. astronauts finish revamping communications links. The work, intended to support a substantial increase in simultaneous science research, includes a doubling of the downlink data rate, solid-state recording and additional voice loops.
Edmundo Olivares Dufoo of Aeromexico, Gonzalo Yelpo of the Latin America & Caribbean Transport Association and Virginia Cordeiro of Aerolineas Argentinas have been nominated by their peers to receive the Latin American Counsel Award for aviation, presented by The International Law Office and the Association of Corporate Counsels. The award recognizes performances by in-house counsels in the regulatory and non-financial services category.
Boeing and Embraer, already working together on biofuels research, are extending their cooperation with an umbrella agreement that is more broadly focused on commercial aircraft manufacturing and design.
ADP Paris airports authority and Air France are scheduled to jointly inaugurate Roissy-Charles de Gaulle's (CDG) additional passenger terminal, dubbed S4, in July. This initiative is expected to strengthen the country's quest for hub dominance in continental Europe. With a touch of arrogance but also armed with convincing arguments, ADP President Pierre Graff and Air France Chairman/CEO Alexandre de Juniac jointly assert that Paris in the longer term will become an indispensable asset for the global airline industry.
Budget cuts not only put pressure on the scope of defense research, but also emphasize the speed with which results can be fielded to improve today's weapon systems. The Office of Naval Research (ONR)—responsible for science and technology (S&T) across sea, air, land and space realms for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps—is looking to field technologies faster to meet the objectives of the Defense Department's new strategic guidance.
Moog plans to announce this week that it has selected AeroTurbine to provide global logistics support, including inventory management and distribution, for its Boeing 787 and 747-8 and Airbus A350 components and systems covered through Moog's support programs. AeroTurbine, a subsidiary of International Lease Finance Corp., will provide warehousing for Moog's global parts pools around the world, including in Miami, Los Angeles, Singapore, Beijing, London; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.
Scientists using NASA's Kepler spacecraft (see photo) to look for planets around other stars have been “surprised by the universe,” and the value of those surprises has earned the mission a four-year funding extension. Kepler was one of nine astrophysics programs granted peer-reviewed extensions on the recommendation of a NASA Senior Review Committee (SRC). Most of them—including the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory—also will continue operating through 2016.
Cobham has launched another takeover effort of satellite communications equipment maker Thrane & Thrane after an initial bid was rebuffed by the Danish company. Cobham launched a £270 million ($432 million) bid for outstanding shares in Thrane & Thrane after bringing its own holdings to 25.6%. The move comes after Cobham withdrew an earlier bid last month, after Thrane & Thrane rejected it. Since then, Cobham has acquired shares from Jupiter Asset Management and other entities that represent 22.7% of Thrane & Thrane shares.
The beginning of a major downturn is not the best time to launch a new company. But the executives who run ITT Exelis didn't have much choice. The 20,000-employee defense and information technology operation was spun off last October as part of a breakup of multi-industry ITT Corp. designed to appease restless shareholders. And Exelis, which draws nearly 70% of its sales from defense, clearly was not the piece of ITT that investors saw as a growth play.
Monarch Aircraft Engineering Technical Training Academy will start Boeing 787 training this year, investing $2.4 million in desktop training equipment at its London Luton Airport facility. The training building will be refurbished to add several classrooms for composites and fiber optics training.
Eric Stuck (see photo) has been appointed senior manager for new business development in the product support organization of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga. He has held sales and program management positions at Hawker Beechcraft, Bombardier, Banyon Air Services and AMR Combs.
Michael L. Coats, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center and former space shuttle astronaut, is the recipient of the 2012 National Space Trophy—the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation. The award is given for furthering national space goals.
Russia is planning to field its newest air and missile defense system, the S-500, after 2015. Work on the system, which would be the follow-on to the S-400 now being fielded, will take place at a new facility that manufacturer Almaz-Antey is building in Nizhny Novgorod with around 9 billion rubles ($30.6 million) in government funding, according to the company. The facility itself is to be completed in 2015.
