Bryan F. McCreary has become VP-fluid and business development for Integrated Deicing Services, Manchester, N.H. He was North American business manager for Clariant Corp.
Nicole Goodstein (see photos) has been named director of Global Total Rewards for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga. She was director of Global Benefits at Cisco Systems. Jeff Patterson has become a senior manager for product support sales and Mark Bennett manager of community relations. Patterson was technical sales manager at West Star's Dassault Falcon facility, and Bennett worked for Alabama Power Co. and Delta Air Lines.
Johnson Yan has joined Quantum3D, San Jose, Calif., as VP-engineering. He was senior VP-sales and business development at Jile Systems and VP-marketing and business development at Silicon Motion.
Derek Sharp has become president and managing director for the Americas at Atlanta-based Travelport. He comes from Electronic Data Systems/HP Enterprises Services.
David Neeleman, chairman of Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileiras, has received the 2011 Federico Bloch Award, given by the Rio de Janeiro-based ALTA, the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association. The award honors a leader in Latin America and Caribbean aviation who exemplifies the leadership, courage, character and vision of TACA's late CEO, Federico Bloch. Mauro Kern, Embraer's executive VP-engineering and technology, received the Rolim Amaro Award for emulating the customer-focused standards of Rolim Amaro, CEO and founder of TAM Airlines.
Mary L. Zuckerman has been elected chair of the Detroit's Wayne County Airport Authority. She is executive VP and chief operating officer for the Detroit Medical Center.
Hong Kong Airlines and subsidiary Hong Kong Express will over the next four years receive 51 aircraft, almost three times the 18 they now operate, including 21 of 30 Airbus A320s ordered in 2007. The remaining aircraft to arrive will be 30 widebodies. Setting out its fleet plan, the HNA Group says that in 2012, it will receive 14 aircraft (six A330s and eight A320s). In 2013 a further 18 aircraft will arrive: eight A330s, eight A320s and two A380s.
Finmeccanica plans to hold a previously unscheduled board meeting as soon as this week, following news reports of a corruption inquiry that involves one of its highest executives. Lorenzo Borgogni, group external relations director and one of the closest advisers to company Chairman Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, is accused of bribing an Italian politician using company money. As of last week, he had stepped aside. Meanwhile, a manager at Finmeccanica subsidiary Selex Sistemi Integrati has been arrested on charges of accounting fraud.
An investigation into the crash of the first prototype of the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master advanced jet trainer should be relatively swift, since both crewmembers survived and the aircraft's wreckage has been found in fairly shallow water. The aircraft hit the water near Dubai on Nov. 18 while flying from the air show. The M-346 was apparently still climbing or had just reached initial cruising altitude.
Two weeks had passed since Russia first attempted to communicate with its Phobos-Grunt spacecraft after the unmanned Mars moon probe became stranded in low Earth orbit. It was not until Nov. 22 that a European Space Agency (ESA) tracking station in western Australia made contact with the mission after modifying a 15-meter-dia. antenna, according to ESA officials.
The FAA has issued provisional type certificate for the Gulfstream G650. The approval earlier this month enables Gulfstream to begin interior completions for initial customer deliveries in the first half of 2012 while continuing development of the aircraft's promised capabilities, including a takeoff field length of less than 6,000 ft. at maximum takeoff weight. The agency has imposed several special conditions that Gulfstream must satisfy to earn final certification for the G650, but it is not known whether any of these challenges have been resolved.
Australian researchers working on an ambitious scramjet-based access-to-space project have pushed back the launch target to early 2013 after electrical systems development proved slower than expected. Scramspace 1 is the first step on the road to what Australia's fledgling space business says could be an affordable, reliable and repeatable launch system based on combined air-breathing and rocket propulsion. The effort is aimed at free-flight tests of a Mach 8 scramjet concept originally targeted at a launch attempt in October 2012.
Raytheon Missile Systems has selected Aerojet to complete the development of the Throttling Divert and Attitude Control System (Tdacs) for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA program. The solid-fuel Tdacs provides propulsion and maneuvering control for the missile's kinetic warhead once it has detached from the third-stage rocket, and is a scaled-up version of the system used on the SM-3 Block IB. With preliminary design review due by year-end, the development contract will extend through 2016.
Theodore J. Forstmann, a private investor who spearheaded the turnaround of Gulfstream Aerospace in the 1990s and then sold it to General Dynamics at an enormous profit, died at home in New York on Nov. 20 from brain cancer. He was 71. His firm, Forstmann Little & Co., teamed with Gulfstream veteran Allen Paulson to purchase the business jet builder from Chrysler in 1990 for $825 million. While many believed Forstmann would flip the Savannah, Ga.-based operation for a quick profit, he instead took a hands-on role, becoming chairman and CEO.
As 2011 closes out with uncertain prospects for U.S. defense spending, suppliers are understandably uneasy. The 2008-09 recession forced many to retrench. While those with commercial aviation accounts are benefitting from that sector's boom, the products and services of many small suppliers are so specialized that they may not.
Walt Fricke returned to the U.S. in 1969 in a bad way. The 19-year-old Army warrant officer's left foot had been severed, save for his Achilles tendon, when one of the rockets on his Huey gunship exploded as he was letting down into a hot LZ in Vietnam. The field doctors wanted to amputate, but he dissuaded them. Once stabilized, he was transferred to a hospital in Fort Knox, Ky., 600 mi. from his family and fiancee, Julie in Traverse City, Mich.
Derided just a few years ago as an ill-conceived concept unsuited for a mature market, a few North American legacy carriers are once again attempting to integrate low-cost operations into their mainline networks. The concept was most recently adopted by North American operators some 10 years ago, when so-called low-cost subsidiaries emerged as the apparent salvation for mainline carriers fixated on retaining leisure passengers after the lucrative business sector all but disappeared in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Hawker Beechcraft Corp. (HBC) has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a review of the U.S. Air Force decision to exclude it from the Light Air Support (LAS) competition to provide 20 light-attack/advanced-trainer aircraft to the Afghan air force. “HBC's exclusion from competing for this important contract appears at this point to have been made without basis in process or fact,” claims the Wichita-based company.
Negotiators on the FAA reauthorization bill are drawing campaign donations from opposite sides of a key labor battle. In talks to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, House Republican leaders are trying to kill an existing rule that makes it easier for airline employees to unionize. The GOP's top two leaders also happen to be among the top recipients of cash from the air transport industry, which wants to make it harder for their workers to organize. Majority Whip Rep.
Now what? In August, it seemed as if the U.S. Congress might finally be coming to its senses, putting together an agreement to force itself to reduce the massive U.S. budget deficit. But at the first opportunity for success, a bipartisan panel created to save lawmakers from themselves bolted, leaving the defense industry holding the bag.
Future aerial combat that pits the U.S. against advanced aircraft, missiles and air defenses—produced by what many defense officials contend are near-peer nations, such as China or Russia—could require more stealth aircraft than the U.S. can muster.
New high-resolution images of a massive star formation taken aboard NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) aircraft demonstrate the power of flying a 100-in. IR telescope high above Earth to escape the dust- and pollution- laden troposphere.
American Airlines will power part of its new Airbus fleet with V2500s—an unexpected selection likely tied to the recent restructuring of International Aero Engines (IAE) and Pratt & Whitney's bold strategy to bolster sales campaigns of its geared turbofan on the A320NEO.
