Julian Beames (see photo) has been named regional manager at Communications Software (Airline Systems) Ltd. His career history in the aerospace and defense industries includes roles at British Aerospace, BAE Systems, Airbus and Qinetiq.
Matthew Hall has been tapped to join London City Airport as chief commercial officer, effective March 1. He is currently vice president of airline and supplier business development for Travelport and before that was managing director, sales and marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for American Airlines.
A ground-launched, two-stage Mach 4 scramjet that can intercept incoming targets traveling at supersonic speed could be developed with existing technology, says a team from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), South Korea’s space agency.
Cameron Kenyon has been named executive vice president of operations at Calgary, Alberta-based WestJet . He was president and chief operating officer of Lynx Aviation in Denver.
Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems have reached an agreement on 787 shipset pricing that Spirit Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Phil Anderson called “fair and equitable.” Terms were not disclosed but J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Nadol, 3rd, estimates it involves a payment of “hundreds of millions” of dollars from Boeing to Spirit. Last year, Boeing settled with Finmeccanica for the strain imposed by the 787 program running three years late in deliveries. Boeing is negotiating with Fuji, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi.
Back home, technical problems with Lockheed Martin’s F-35B aircraft that prompted Gates to put the program on a two-year probation “will soon be resolved,” asserts the commandant of the Marine Corps. “None of the currently known issues are considered to be showstoppers,” Gen. James Amos says. The commandant, an aviator himself, pledges to personally track the progress of the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) F-35B.
Raytheon Co. saw its share price decline 8% in 2010, but then gained all of it back in the first seven days of 2011. Investors may have soured on defense stocks as budget pressure mounts in the U.S. and Europe, but some are having second thoughts about whether the sell-off has gone too far. A case in point is the market’s reaction to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s latest round of budget cuts, which were less severe than Wall Street had anticipated.
The replies given by Vice Adm. David J. Dorsett in “Intel About China Flawed” (AW&ST Jan. 10, p. 26) with respect to intelligence in general and the Chinese in particular are astounding. He says: “In terms of the [J-20] stealth photos, it’s not clear to me when it’s going to become operational. Do we need to refine our assessment better? I think so.” Well, it certainly was not clear to him what was being built, and refining assessment capabilities is an understatement. He then downplays the impact of such aircraft capabilities as well as the anti-ship missile.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates left China last week with assurances that both the political and military leadership there are determined to advance bilateral relations with the U.S.—but Pentagon officials also came away with newfound doubt over relations among Chinese politicians and military leaders. Gates’s agenda included discussing specific contentious issues, including nuclear missile defense, space and cyber operations, and containing threats from North Korea. But the visit was punctuated by the flight test of an apparent Chinese J-20 prototype (see p.
Robert Dumais, USAF Brig. Gen. (ret.) Jack Gibbs (deceased) and USAF Col. (ret.) Richard Randazzo (deceased) have been selected by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for the Pioneer Class of 2010. Dumais pioneered the intelligence utility of a new capability for an imaging satellite system. Gibbs helped pioneer the application of innovative engineering techniques to U-2 operations, and Randazzo pioneered the introduction and application of new operational techniques for NRO imaging systems, increasing coverage of high-priority targets.
The European Commission and Italy have agreed on the size of disbursements arising out of a dispute regarding the improper use by the Italian government of state development aid for two AgustaWestland aircraft, the A139/AW139 helicopter and the BA609 tiltrotor, in a ruling that could have broad repercussions for Europe’s aerospace industry.
Taipei Songshan Airport expects to open a privately run business aviation facility this year to accommodate traffic growth of private aircraft at the centrally located downtown facility. A customs, immigration and quarantine area for business aviation is also planned for this year.
A Russian Zenit 2SB with a Fregat-SB upper stage is set to loft Russia’s first domestic geostationary weather satellite since the Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite (GOMS-1) debut on a Proton in 1994. The new spacecraft, designated Electro-L, will fly from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Jan. 20 and will be targeted initially on the orbital slot at 76 deg. E. Long, according to Russian press reports. Eventually it will move west to provide weather data for Europe as far east as the Ural Mountains.
Research under NASA’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) program has established that conventional tube-and-wing configurations will not measure up when it comes to meeting the agency’s noise, emission and fuel-burn goals for the mid-2020s and beyond.
Boeing has fitted an F/A-18E with full-scale engineering mockups of the conformal fuel tanks, stealthy weapons pod, infrared search-and-track sensor, and missile/laser warning system proposed for a more capable and survivable growth version of the Super Hornet that will be offered to international customers as a competitor to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and European combat aircraft. The mock-up will be unveiled publicly at the Aero India show in Bengaluru Feb. 9-13. Boeing photo by Ron Bookout.
The global market for business aircraft has shrunk substantially in recent years, but the Asia-Pacific region has been a bright spot for original equipment manufacturers, thanks to the area’s relatively robust economic growth. And the Asian appetite for new business jets is expected to become even stronger. “Despite the global financial crisis, Asia’s stock markets, GDP, corporate profits and exchange rates have been resilient,” says Manfred Baudzus, Embraer sales director for executive jets in Asia-Pacific.
As air transport companies tabulate full 2010 earnings and operational performance metrics, market analysts started sending 2011 predictions for investors. The majority of the financial gurus express cautious optimism for airline profits this year.
A much anticipated shift in India’s offset policy will allow foreign manufacturers to apply work they do in internal security and civil aerospace to defense projects. Announced early this month as part of 2011’s defense procurement procedures policy, the new rules will be applied retroactively to Jan. 1 and widen the opportunities for foreign manufacturers to satisfy India’s strict requirements for 30% offsets in the value of any defense contract.
Epic Aircraft launched in 2003 to produce kits for pressurized, high-performance aircraft of carbon-fiber construction. The company’s primary product was a six-seat aircraft powered by a single Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67A rated at 1,200 shp. That aircraft, called the Epic LT, has a maximum cruise true airspeed of 325 kt. and range of 1,500 nm. at economy cruise. More than 20 of those kit planes are reportedly completed. The company had proposed producing a certificated version as well, but never did so.
George Allen has been named president of VT Group ’s Technical Services business unit. He joined VT Group last year as vice president of strategic development for technical services and before that spent four years with Agility Defense and Government Services. He also served more than 10 years as chief operating officer for the Defense Logistics Agency.
Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rover that landed in the Meridiani Planum on Jan. 25, 2004, has chosen a spot with a view to celebrate its seventh anniversary on the red planet.
The X-51A Waverider scramjet experimental vehicle’s second attempt at broaching the Mach 5 hypersonic threshold will be pushed to late March, following delays caused by test range and aircraft availability. The X-51A was transported from Boeing’s Plant 42 production site at Palmdale, Calif., to nearby Edwards AFB on Jan. 12. Assembly of the stack, comprising the Waverider and modified Atacms booster will begin this week.
Rastislav “Rusty” Valko (see photo) has been promoted to chief operations officer from chief information manager for Angel MedFlight Worldwide Air Ambulance .
The Indian government appears to have given up on near-term aspirations to field the indigenously developed Kaveri engine, but it is not ready to throw out years of development funding. Instead, the focus for the program is changing to get the turbofan ready in time for India’s future fighter.
