Egypt has agreed to buy 20 F-16C/Ds for delivery in 2012, in a deal valued at $1.6 billion. The contract will extend production of the F-16 at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant by a further year, to the end of 2012. Egypt has already taken delivery of 220 F-16s, and the new aircraft will be additional Block 52s with the General Electric F110 engine.
Richard McMillon has been named general manager of the General Dynamics Aviation Services facility at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. He was the operations manager and succeeds Brian Waymire, who is now at Gulfstream Aerospace headquarters, Savannah, Ga.
Douglas Swoish of the Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Aerospace Systems Sector and Joseph Farina of the Technical Services Sector have won awards from the Assn. of Old Crows (AOC). Swoish received the Col. Anton D. Brees Life Achievement Award, which recognizes AOC members for service to the association and the field of electronic warfare and information operations. Farina received the AOC’s Industry Award for 2009 for contributions to electronic warfare, information operations and related efforts.
Jan. 11-14—Practical Aeronautics Short Course: “Introduction to Aeronautics: A Practical Perspective.” National Institute of Aerospace, Hampton, Va. And, Jan. 20-21Holiday Inn Express, Niceville, Fla. Call +1 (970) 887-3155 or see www.practicalaero.com Jan. 20-21— American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Strategic and Tactical Missile Systems Conference. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. Call +1 (703) 264-7500 or see www.aiaa.org
As 2009 drew to a close last week, the news media were full of articles lamenting the stock market’s “lost decade.” The tumultuous ‘00s were far from a lost cause for aerospace and defense stocks, however. Shares in many A&D companies doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in value. Airline stocks were a different story, but let’s start with the good news.
LAN Airlines is buying 30 more Airbus A320s under a firm order completed late last year. The deal puts the total number of Airbus aircraft ordered by LAN above 100. Additionally, Malaysia Airlines has agreed in principle to buy 15 A330-300s and has taken options for 10 more aircraft of the type. The move remains to be converted into a firm order, but would total around $5 billion at list price if all options are exercised. Delivery would unfold between 2011 and 2016.
Thales and Airservices Australia have delivered major performance and safety enhancements to Australia’s Air Traffic Management system. The upgrades are part of an ongoing initiative to The Australian Advanced Air Traffic System (TAAATS). In the latest round of software improvements, known as TAAATS V12, more than 1.3 million lines of code were developed and modified. The software supports the introduction of radar surveillance tracking, safety-net monitoring and radar bypass services, among others.
Newly declassified documents show the inner workings of President Gerald Ford’s White House on the momentous matter of what to name the first space shuttle orbiter, the one used for approach and landing tests. The documents are part of a series on “global issues” that the State Dept. is required to release to provide comprehensive documentation of “major foreign policy decisions.” How this relates to foreign policy or why it was ever classified is not explained. In a 1976 decision memorandum for the president, aide William F.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued EADS Astrium a €150-million ($216-million) contract for definition of a higher-power variant of the Ariane 5 intended to keep in step with growing telecom satellite mass and allow the heavy-lift booster to compete against new boosters such as China’s Long March 5 and Russia’s Angara. Expected to make its first flight around 2017, the new version, known as the Ariane 5 ME (Midlife Evolution), will feature a new upper stage, a re-ignitable Vinci upper-stage engine and enhanced avionics and flight software.
Vernon Smith (see photo) has been named senior vice president-business development and head of ViP-TV for EchoStar Satellite Services , Englewood, Colo. He succeeds Steve Skalski, vice president-satellite services, who has moved to Taiwan to manage operations for EchoStar’s joint venture pursuing the launch of a direct-to-home platform.
Orbital Sciences Corp. finished the year in a flourish with three contracts—a pair of broadband satellites from Swedish-based startup OverHorizon and Avanti Communications, and Intelsat’s IS-23. The OverHorizon satellite, a Ku-band unit to be delivered in early 2012, will be supplied jointly with Thales Alenia Space, which will provide an onboard processing payload. The deals gave Orbital Sciences four telecom satellite awards for 2009 and Thales Alenia five.
As publisher of Aviation Week & Space Technology in the 1970s, I had a front-row seat to observe the development and demise of the Boeing SST program. Hypersonics will go the same path unless Congress gets behind it and radical environmentalists are neutralized.
The International Space Station is fully staffed again after Soyuz TMA‑17 docked without incident Dec. 22, bringing cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA’s Timothy Creamer to join Expedition 22 commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Russian flight engineer Maxim Suraev. Now at full strength, Expedition 22 will spend more time on science than previous crews, who focused on assembly and outfitting. On Jan.
Dave Mutzel has been named director of flight operations, Doug Wilson director of business development and marketing, Chris Bollert operations manager and Nancy Sheckler-Cecchi client services manager, all for Galvin Flying Services of Seattle. Mutzel was director of flight training, while Bollert was training and safety manager. Wilson will continue as director of the line and real estate departments.
The Pentagon has approved plans to demonstrate a long-endurance unmanned surveillance airship that will be deployed to Afghanistan for operational evaluation. A request for proposals for the five-year Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) technology demonstration is to be released at the end of January, with flight testing to begin 18 months after contract award. The LEMV is required to operate unmanned for three weeks at 25,000 ft., carrying a 2,500-lb.
The U.S. Air Force has completed critical design reviews (CDRs) for the final two Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) geosynchronous (GEO) satellites as well as two follow-on single payloads for flight on classified host satellites in highly elliptical orbit (HEO). The $10.4-billion Sbirs, made by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, is a space-based missile warning system that will eventually replace the Defense Support Program satellites in orbit. The HEO payload portion of the CDR was the capstone event after 21 months of efforts to replace obsolete parts.
Patrick J. Allison (see photo) has become business development manager for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy for Thales Communications Inc. , Clarksburg, Md. He was a senior program manager for international command and control solutions for the Raytheon Co., Fort Wayne, Ind.
John Casani has received the Founders Award for “innovation and leadership in robotic spacecraft engineering and project management that has enabled the first four decades of planetary and deep space exploration” and Sheila Widnall the Arthur M. Bueche Award for leadership in expanding opportunities for women and minorities in engineering, both from the Washington-based National Academy of Engineering . Casani is special assistant to the director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
Yemenia’s board of directors has approved the airline’s plan to buy 10 Airbus A320s starting in 2011. The total list price is $700 million. The airline may phase out its remaining A310s once the A320s enter service.
Global use of business jets in November was unchanged from the same period in 2008, a positive development after year-over-year declines in each of the previous 24 months, according to UBS’s monthly industry update. UBS says that while takeoffs and landings are still 23% below their 2007 peak, activity should rise 8-10% in 2010 as the industry begins to claw its way back from a devastating downturn. Utilization of short-range aircraft, which declined the most, is now recovering fastest.
Missile Defense Agency concepts to maximize range and speed for a next-generation SM-3 ballistic missile interceptor include technologies for a lighter kill vehicle. New propulsion systems for the kill vehicle and interceptor also could be used to achieve ICBM engagements. MDA officials are considering introducing liquid propulsion into the kill vehicle design, partly because the plan to move the SM-3 to land for the Aegis Ashore European defense architecture would allow the use of hypergolic propellants, which are banned for ship-based usage.
Kurt Keller has been appointed vice president of the Parker Hannifin Corp. of Cleveland and president of its Seal Group. He succeeds Heinz Droxner, who plans to retire Sept. 30. Keller has been the group’s vice president-operations.
Washington and Moscow continue to haggle over a successor to the 1994 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which expired on Dec. 5. Both governments acknowledged last week they would miss a self-imposed deadline to agree on a follow-on to Start by Dec. 31. But State Dept. officials remain confident a new treaty will be signed after talks resume in mid-January. “It’s very, very complex,” spokesman Philip Crowley says. “We’ve made progress. We think we’re in a pretty good position.” But while U.S.
USAF Maj. Gen. Ralph J. Jodice, 2nd, has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and assignment as commander of Allied Air Component Command Headquarters Izmir and commander of the 16th Air Expeditionary Task Force of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Izmir, Turkey. He has been commander of the Air Force District of Washington, Andrews AFB, Md.
The Russian government is throwing a financial lifeline to one of the country’s main airlines, GTK Rossiya, trying to keep it afloat long enough to privatize and restructure the business. But the challenges the airline face are large and a prior effort to bail out KD Avia with a 4-billion-ruble ($132-million) capital injection did not come in time to stave off liquidation. Under the deal worked out Dec. 25, Rossiya stands to receive 3.9 billion rubles to keep the heavily loss-making airline flying.
