Jane Garvey has been named the 2011 recipient of the Donald D. Engen Aero Club Trophy for Aviation Excellence, given by the Aero Club of Washington. She was FAA administrator from 1997-2002 and previously was director of Boston Logan International Airport and acting administrator of the Federal Highway Administration.
Jay Heppner has been elected chairman of the Master Executive Council of United Airlines' Air Line Pilots Association unit. He succeeds Wendy Morse, who did not run for re-election.
Adam Maher has been selected by the New York-based Society of Satellite Professionals International to receive its Promise Award for Young Space Industry Professionals. Maher, an engineer in the Advanced Systems Group at Space Systems/Loral, was honored for leadership in systems and mechanical engineering.
Investors detest the thought of losing money. So one has to wonder what the future holds for struggling Hawker Beechcraft. Investment bank Goldman Sachs and Canadian buyout firm Onex Corp. paid a top-of-the-market price of $3.3 billion in 2007 to acquire the builder of business jets and general aviation and military turboprops from Raytheon. But a collapse in demand for business jets the following year created a flood of red ink that has yet to be stanched, despite progress in cutting costs and improving efficiency.
Boeing Chief Financial Officer James Bell (left photo), 63, will retire April 1 after 40 years with the company. He will be succeeded by Corporate Controller Greg Smith (center photo), 45, on Feb. 1 who will work with Bell “to ensure a smooth transition,” Boeing said.
A system that enables an aircraft to taxi without engine power or ground tugs has been launched by El Al Israel Airlines for application on its fleet of Boeing 737s. Developed by WheelTug, the system will use two electric motors inside the wheels of the nose gear to propel it at speeds up to 28 mph. Although adding around 300 lb., 200 lb. of which comprises the new integrated driving wheels, developers say the overall system is “flight-weight” neutral due to the reduced amount of fuel required for taxiing.
Boeing has submitted its proposal for a second CH-47 Chinook multi-year procurement contract with the U.S. Army. The proposal covers 155 new-build and remanufactured CH-47F helicopters to be produced over five years, with the contract to be signed in January 2013 and deliveries to begin in 2015. The contract will allow completion of the Army's planned procurement of upgraded Chinooks. Boeing, meanwhile, delivered the first of 690 remanufactured AH-64D Apache Block 3 attack helicopters to the Army on Nov. 2.
Poland hopes to revive its advanced jet trainer competition in the spring after deciding to scrap the current session. The move could reopen the door to BAE Systems to offering the Hawk. The company had withdrawn from the competition, believing the requirement was tilted to the high-end air combat role. Alenia Aermacchi's M-346 and the Korea Aerospace Industries T-50 remained in the running for the 16-aircraft program.
Australian officials say their country's defense trade treaty with the U.S. is one step closer to being implemented following introduction of related legislation in Parliament. The treaty, signed in 2007 by leaders of both countries, removes the requirement for individual licenses to be obtained for preordained exports, and allows for the license-free movement of eligible defense articles within the pre-approved communities.
Excalibur Almaz, a Houston space tourism company distinguished by its plans to use refurbished Soviet-era military space station hardware for adventure travel and commercial research, has become the seventh participant in the second round of NASA's Commercial Crew Development initiative. The agreement will permit participation in a series of systems requirements and launch vehicle, test plan, design compatibility, test and operational systems reviews through May 2012, according to NASA.
Capt. Tadeusz Wrona was celebrated as a hero in Poland last week, after he performed a textbook gear-up landing Nov. 1 at Warsaw Frederic Chopin International Airport with his LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767-300ER. But outstanding questions are why the landing gear failed to lower and no alternative means worked.
An article on Finnair in the Oct. 24/31 issue (p. 84) incorrectly states the amount of overflight fees the airline pays Russia. They run about $55 million annually.
Prime real estate on unmanned aircraft is under the nose, where most carry their primary electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor. Even as UAV manufacturers add payloads such as radar and signals-intelligence sensors to increase capability, these familiar gimbaled turrets are staying in place to meet demand for full-motion video.
European Union emission allowance (EUA) prices edged to a new 32-month low in October as macroeconomic fears over Greece's financial crisis continued to hold sway over the market. EUAs for December 2011 delivery eased to €10.13 ($13.98) per metric ton on Oct. 4, down from €12.42 on Sept. 5. Prices continued to fall through October and set a new 32-month low of €9.85 at the close on Nov. 1, the lowest price for the December 2011 contract since February 2009, according to Platts assessments.
Orbiting fuel depots have become the latest marker in the high-stakes game of influencing U.S. space policy. It would be cheaper and faster to preposition fuel tanks in space and launch fuel to them on today's relatively small rockets, the argument goes, than to spend the billions NASA plans for developing the heavy-lift Space Launch System that Congress has ordered. As the volume rises on the received wisdom propounded by both sides, it is starting to sound a lot like a reprise of the old attacks on the Bush administration's Ares I rocket.
A new study commissioned by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) concludes that defense contractors and their suppliers would lose 124,428 jobs in 2013 if the worst-case deficit-cutting scenario via August's Budget Control Act unfolds. Based on the study's calculation of 620,000 total jobs, the industry would see 20% of its workforce vanish in a single year.
After months of wondering how the potential 10-year, $1 trillion Budget Control Act reduction to planned defense spending would impact the military—and their local constituents—lawmakers are starting to let their exasperation show in public. “Frankly at this point, we don't have much information other than that bad things will happen,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), said last week to four of the military chiefs of staff. “It's time for specifics.”
Some lawmakers again are pushing for Congress to allow the president to remove satellites and their components from the U.S. Munitions List. To prevent U.S. technology from spreading to China, the U.S. satellite industry since 1999 has been bound by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that restrict sales of satellites and their components. But as critics have argued in the decade-plus since, that goal was circumnavigated by European companies that design satellites sans U.S.
Blue Origin, the secretive commercial crew-transport startup run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, may wish it were a little less so. The company, which is using $14.9 million in taxpayer funds to develop a vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle under NASA's Commercial Crew Development effort, didn't accept a congressional invitation to testify about its work before the House Science Committee recently—and it didn't leave Texas Republican Rep. Ralph Hall, the panel's chairman, too amused either.
And finally, Republican contenders interested in being their party's candidate for president have been invited to a debate Nov. 22 hosted by CNN and several Washington conservative think tanks. The forum, to be broadcast live at 8 p.m. EST, comes amid a heavy GOP debate series that has focused on domestic issues—traditionally a strong suit for Democrats. The debate also will entail foreign policy, which along with military matters, is seen as a Republican staple.
China's effort to develop its aviation propulsion industry appears to be increasingly ambitious, with two new engine projects coming to light, including a second high-bypass turbofan of around 30,000-lb. thrust, aimed at military use. While the push is broad, the prospects for success still look distant. Industry officials emphasize that independent engine development remains extremely challenging for the various subsidiaries of Avic that are involved. “It is not any one aspect of technology,” says one. “For us, it is all hard.”
They were confident they could do it, and they did it. Just a few days after Chinese officials said with unusual boldness that they expected no trouble in achieving their first space docking, the Shenzhou 8 capsule opened the way for the Chinese manned space program by closing on the Tiangong 1 docking target and solidly connecting to it.
Executing NASA's plan to rely on commercial space taxis to get its astronauts to orbit will precarious at first, and probably won't kick in soon enough to avoid another buy of Soyuz seats from Russia. Boeing—one of two commercial-crew companies that say publicly they can complete their business cases with only the U.S. space agency's two planned flights a year to the International Space Station(ISS)—needs state incentives and essentially free use of surplus space shuttle infrastructure for that to happen.
Under pressure to reduce spending, the institutions responsible for setting and financing European space programs will meet this week to hash out space funding priorities against a backdrop of tremendous financial turmoil in Europe.
NPP, the bridge satellite for civil and military weather- and climate-watchers, is going through a 90-day checkout after an Oct. 28 launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II 7920-10 rocket from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Built by Ball Aerospace and formally known as the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, NPP carries a five-instrument suite and will operate from a 512-mi.-high Sun-synchronous orbit with a 1:30 p.m. daily crossing of the equator.
