Mark Hoberecht and Ken Burke of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, were part of a team honored by R & D magazine for developing one of the Top 100 technologically significant new products in 2011. The team, which developed the non-flow-through proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell for long-duration space missions, also comprised Ian Jakupca of Qinetiq North America, Bill Smith and Alfred Meyer of Infinity Fuel Cell and Hydrogen, James McElroy of McElroy PEM Technologies and Christopher Callahan of Callahan Engineering.
Jane Garvey has been named to receive the Air Traffic Control Association's 2011 Glen A. Gilbert Memorial Award. The first woman to receive the honor, Garvey is chairman of Meridiam Infrastructure North America and a former FAA administrator.
Pete Huff, former mayor pro tem of McKinney, Texas, and owner/founder of Dynamco, has been elected vice chairman of the Frontiers of Flight museum in Dallas. Other officers are: treasurer, Eric Stroud, certified public accountant and president of The Hoak Fund; and secretary, David Norton, partner in law firm Shakelford, Melton and McKinley.
Pete Huff, former mayor pro tem of McKinney, Texas, and owner/founder of Dynamco, has been elected vice chairman of the Frontiers of Flight museum in Dallas. Other officers are: treasurer, Eric Stroud, certified public accountant and president of The Hoak Fund; and secretary, David Norton, partner in law firm Shakelford, Melton and McKinley.
It took three years, but Louis Chenevert has made United Technologies Corp. his company. With an $18.4 billion deal to acquire Goodrich Corp., the chairman and CEO of the aerospace-industrial conglomerate is placing a costly bet on the future of the commercial aircraft sector (p. 28). He is also stepping out from under the big shadow cast by his legendary predecessor, George David.
Airbus Military has successfully completed rejected-takeoff and emergency-evacuation tests for the A400M airlifter as it continues to target year-end civil and military type certification.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects airlines to post a higher collective profit this year than predicted earlier. IATA forecasts a $6.9 billion profit for 2011, up from its previous prediction of $4 billion. That equates to a 1.2% net profit margin. However, IATA believes 2012 will be a worse year for airlines, with profits reduced to $4.9 billion and a 0.8% margin, far below earning the cost of capital as an industry.
The CIS-wide Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) cites bad weather and pilot error as the causes of a June 20 crash of a RusAir Tupelov Tu-134A airliner in Petrozavodsk, Russia. The IAC investigation concluded that crewmembers failed to initiate a go-around over the airport and instead continued to descend despite a lack of visual contact with approach lights and ground reference points in deteriorating weather.
Chile's antitrust court has conditionally approved LAN Airlines' merger with Brazil's Grupo TAM but is seeking major concessions. For the two carriers to proceed with the merger, the court is asking LAN, a member of Oneworld, and Star Alliance's TAM to pick just one alliance and sever ties with the other, while opening up their new frequent-flier program to other airlines for five years.
Air France-KLM Group says it intends to order 25 Boeing 787-9 aircraft, raising the order total for the stretched version of the new aircraft to 291 and 846 for the family from 56 customers. The 787-9's design is still under way but final configuration has been completed. Initial production is set to begin next year. First deliveries are expected in 2013.
Airbus is close to acquiring a 51% stake in PFW Aerospace. The German supplier has been in increasing financial difficulties, given delays in two major aircraft programs in which it participates, the Airbus A350XWB and Boeing 787. According to Airbus, the decision was made to insure a continued supply of parts for Airbus programs and avoid an imminent liquidity crisis.
NASA tentatively plans to modify its Ares I upper-stage contract with Boeing to build the main core stage and upper stage of the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), under a “synopsis” of the agency's procurement plans for the big new rocket through 2021. Boeing also will build the avionics suite for the SLS, according to the synopsis released Sept. 22.
PWR says hot-fire tests of its liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen RS-68A engine have demonstrated a cumulative run time in excess of 4,800 sec., four times the engine's design life and 10 times what is needed to boost the United Launch Alliance Delta IV family into space. An evolved version of the RS-68 common-core booster for the Delta IV's first stage, the RS-68A, will provide 702,000 lb. of liftoff thrust—39,000 more than the current RS-68.
U.S. Air Force ground crews will begin checking out the Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (Chirp) riding on the SES-2 communications satellite launched Sept. 21 by an Ariane 5 from the European space center near Kourou, French Guiana. Also launched was Arabsat-5C, a multimission spacecraft owned by the Arab Satellite Communications Organization. The Chirp payload will remain switched off for about 30 days while the SES-2 communications platform that is hosting it is checked out and placed in its operational geostationary orbit at 87 deg. W. Long.
The Pentagon's clean-energy investments increased 300% in 2006-09, to $1.2 billion from $400 million, and are projected to exceed $10 billion annually by 2030, according to a Sept. 21 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. U.S. Defense Department investments will focus on vehicle efficiency, advanced biofuels and energy efficiency, and renewable energy at military bases. The department had 450 renewable energy projects producing or procuring 9.6% of its energy from “clean” sources in fiscal 2010.
India will open the bids of its two short-listed vendors for the $11 billion Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft by mid-October, with the deal likely to be finalized by year-end, says Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne. In April, India downselected the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale as the final contenders for the 126-fighter deal. They have extended their offers until December.
Michael J. Drake, a regents' professor and director of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), died Sept. 21 at the university's medical center in Tucson. He was 65. No cause of death had been cited late last week.
The Npoess Preparatory Project (NPP) weather satellite is scheduled to begin its transfer to the launch pad Oct. 7, in anticipation of liftoff Oct. 25 during a 5:48-5:57 p.m. EDT window. Liftoff will be aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket in the 7920-10 configuration.
FlightSafety International's recent decision to terminate pilot training on a variety of orphaned aircraft such as the Cessna Conquest and 421, Piper Cheyenne, Twin Commander and Saab 2000 was good news for an outfit that has made that kind of work its specialty. Indeed, the company eagerly bought the equipment and courseware that FlightSafety shed.
Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger became instantly famous for safely ditching his A320 in the Hudson River in January 2009. But it turns out that the river had been targeted for similar activity a decade earlier by the New York State Legislature.
Score one for reality over alarmism. The argument for maintaining the new rules for union-representation elections at U.S. airlines received a major boost—or at least it should have—from a vote in August by JetBlue Airways pilots. Proponents of the new rules, which the National Mediation Board (NMB) implemented last year, should be using the election as Exhibit A in the case against the push by some airlines and Republicans to have Congress overturn the changes.
Here is something else that is difficult to ignore: the growing divide between U.S. airlines and the U.S. Transportation Department. It is starting to get difficult to keep track of how many regulatory battles are going on between them. For example: •Allegiant Air, Spirit Airlines and Southwest Airlines are in court challenging some new passenger rights rules as unsupported, unconstitutional and in violation of the Airline Deregulation Act.
NASA's new technology office will test two lightweight approaches to slowing spacecraft entering a planetary atmosphere, with potential applications in Mars landings and returning payloads from the International Space Station (ISS). The flights are planned next year with hypersonic and supersonic inflatable decelerators, using a sounding rocket flown from Wallops Flight Facility, Va., and a high-altitude balloon managed by Wallops, according to Mike Gazarik, space technology program director in the Office of the Chief Technologist.
Astronauts from Japan and Canada will join ISS veteran Shannon Walker for a 13-day mission on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (Neemo) underwater spacecraft analog, along with a leading planetary scientist and a trio of experienced spacewalkers working on asteroid-exploration techniques. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency will join Steven Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator on the Mars Exploration Rovers, in Aquarius, an underwater habitat near Key Largo, Fla.
