Amy Butler (Washington), Bettina H. Chavanne (Washington), Graham Warwick (Dallas)
While the U.S. Marine Corps struggles to raise its MV-22 mission capability rate from a dismal 62%, the Air Force Special Operations Command is building up its young CV-22 fleet and looking at how to use the tiltrotor in the field.
It has been a productive, albeit quiet, 12 months since Bombardier and Lufthansa unveiled the first solid intent to purchase the 110-130-seat CSeries family of aircraft. While the public focus remains on the firm order count—which includes the German carrier’s Swiss International Air Lines unit and Dublin-based lessor Lease Corp. International—design features have neared finalization and suppliers have pushed forward with their own research and development programs.
George O’Neill and Robert Meade have been promoted to assistant vice presidents-marketing for New York-based CIT Aerospace . O’Neill was a marketing officer, while Dublin-based Meade was marketing manager for the Americas and South Pacific.
While the steep decline in global travel demand may finally be leveling out, the airline industry’s future looks cloudier than ever. Hopes for a steady recovery are being dashed by the prospect of prolonged yield weakness and the new threat of rising oil prices. And even as airlines are scrambling to defer aircraft orders—particularly in Asia, where the pain is greatest—many still worry that surplus capacity could stifle long-term growth.
From the dawn of aviation and throughout the first century of flight, rapid advancements in technology addressed our industry’s most challenging problems. These breakthroughs enabled aviation to grow into an economic powerhouse—and a vital element of the global transportation infrastructure. They also fueled an industry that protects the sovereignty of nations, provides humanitarian aid worldwide, and has transported us into the vastness of space.
July 16—Demonstrating the Value of Corporate Aircraft Management Forum. New York. Aug. 5-6—Required Navigation Performance Management Forum. Dallas. Aug. 12-13—Program Risk Management Forum. Washington. Sept. 22—Green Europe. Hamburg. Sept. 22-24—MRO Europe Conference & Exhibition. Hamburg. Oct. 6-7—Human Capital and Talent Acquisition/Labor Management Forum. Chicago. Oct. 13-14—Aircraft Parts Recycling Management Forum. Miami. Oct. 21-22—Supply Chain Management Forum. San Diego.
Regarding your editorial “VH-71: Spending To Save” (AW&ST June 8, p. 58), what performance characteristics would be required of the future combat search-and-rescue (CSAR) helicopter that the VH-71 does not have?
Two months after taking up the job—barring a last-minute funk in London—the new Eurofighter chief will sign a Tranche 3 production deal, an agreement his predecessor had been trying to secure for more than a year. Warnings of spiraling costs resulting from a production gap—in case of no agreement by early 2009—have proved premature. Senior management from Eurofighter partner-company BAE Systems has always been privately sanguine that obtaining consensus by the third quarter of 2009 would still avoid a halt in the production lines.
American Soda Machines (ASM) customizes beverage machines. Some of the “re-made to order” dispensers are located in hangars. The three primary classifications or styles of soda machines are sliders, round and square tops. While the company restores and sells all three, square tops provide the best “canvas” for customization. Several makes and models of square top machines are available. The Vendo company’s 1960s- era box is a compact 53 X 27.5 X 21.5 in. and can vend either bottles or cans. ASM can create just about any theme requested. American Soda Machines, 5138 E.
Norway’s parliament has approved the start of negotiations to purchase up to 56 Lockheed Martin F-35As, but the Defense Ministry must return in spring 2011 to seek authorization to negotiate a final contract. Norway hopes to sign a deal by 2014, allowing deliveries to begin in 2016. Norway’s Kongsberg has signed an agreement with Lockheed to cooperate on integrating its anti-ship Joint Strike Missile on the F-35. The ministry awarded a contract for the first phase of development in April.
The U.K.’s Defense Manufacturers Assn. last week approved a proposed merger with the Society of British Aerospace Companies, the final clearance required for the deal to proceed. The aim is to launch the merged organization in October.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his Pentagon office are expected to decide by mid-June who will lead the next attempt to buy new aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force. Gates also said June 9 that regardless who leads the acquisition effort, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief in the Office of the Secretary of Defense or the Air Force, he was further leaning toward asking the deputy Defense secretary to watch the competition.
Kurt Sutterer, president of Midcoast Aviation Inc., has become chairman of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Assn. He succeeds Dennis Keith, president of Jet Solutions. James Miller, executive vice president of Flight Options, has been elected vice chairman. Three new members have been elected to the board of drectors: Todd Duncan, chairman of Duncan Aviation; Kenneth Forester, CEO of Meridian Air Charter; and Mark Willey, CEO of Bridgeford Flying Services.
The “Amazon” stair climber is designed to aid in getting passengers of reduced mobility on and off aircraft. It can move up and down aircraft stairs—without the need for manual lift—safely, quickly and comfortably, according to the company. The device can be kept indoors close to the gate or can be stored on board. The 74.8-lb. device can offload 352 lb. With its two IATA-approved-for-inflight batteries it can climb 300 steps without recharging. Its 14.5-in.
It was a great surprise to see an Airbus design proposal for its next narrow-body airplane that has the elegance of DC-9/MD-80 wings but not as nice a fuselage (AW&ST May 4, p. 37). I only hope Airbus can build such a good airplane. I was lucky to work as a consultant to two Mexican airlines, one operating Boeing 727-200s and the other MD-80s. I studied structural maintenance costs for both types. The difference was 5-1 in favor of the MD-80, without considering crew costs and the fact that the MD-80 outlived the 727 by at least 10 years.
The coming months will mark a critical period for the Tiger attack helicopter as France prepares to deploy it to Afghanistan and French special operations units get their first model, while Germany steps up efforts to bring the rotorcraft into service. French defense minister Herve Morin this month confirmed the combat assignment would go ahead. “The helicopter is ready to be engaged,” says French army Col. Pascal Point, who oversees helicopter programs at the Joint Staff.
A new pilot plant in Barcelona, Spain, will demonstrate and test regenerative life-support system technologies that could one day be used to recycle waste products and provide food, water and oxygen for long-term exploration missions on the Moon or Mars. The plant, dubbed Melissa (for Micro-Ecological Life-Support System Alternative) and inaugurated on June 4, is located within the School of Engineering at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
When one looks back over the last hundred years in aerospace, we can only be bewildered. When the Wright Brothers made their breakthrough flight over the shores of North Carolina, could they even imagine that hundreds of people would be getting into a Boeing 777 or an Airbus A380, and move across the globe every day, safely, economically, and at minimal cost to the environment—or, at the same time, we would go to space and the moon? It would have been hard to believe.
The editorial “Spaceflight and Mr. Augustine” (AW&ST May 18, p. 62) says Norman Augustine was the chairman of a 1990 study of space policy “whose participants laid the intellectual cornerstone of the Moon-Mars exploration strategy that will be examined.”
Matt Cowan has been appointed Tampa, Fla.-based Southeast U.S. marketing manager for the Universal Avionics Systems Corp. He held similar positions at Cirrus Aircraft and Avidyne.
Scott A. Moore has been named to the board of directors of the Washington-based National Business Aviation Assn. He is chief pilot/director of aviation for Luck Stone, Manakin, Va.
Mike Stolarik has been named president/chief operating officer of Qinetiq North America , McLean, Va. He was president of Qinetiq North America’s Mission Solutions Group. Mark Greenfield has been appointed director of aerospace training for Qinetiq in the U.K., which operates the Empire Test Pilots’ School. He was head of flight safety training organization Ultimate High.
After completing what Raytheon calls a series of “crucial” tests of Rockwell Collins data link bound for its Small-Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) design, officials are looking ahead to flight tests of the two-way, encrypted system on a UH-1 helicopter. Rockwell Collins encountered problems meeting schedule for the data link’s application into the Harpoon Block III weapon; this was a key reason why the Navy terminated the Harpoon upgrade earlier this year. Despite that setback, Raytheon officials say recent hardware-in-the-loop tests of the data-link technology were successful.
Amid the global economic turmoil, the U.K. is facing key decisions for its aerospace business—both civil and military—which will fundamentally influence the sector’s fate. Defense Ministry officials may already be preparing for a strategic review as part of broader work feeding into the latest spending planning round, PR10. Alongside near-term funding needs, the work may also provide a vehicle to identify procurement options to inform what is now viewed as an inevitable post-election defense review.
When Space Exploration Technologies needed to purchase a couple of overhead cranes to lift its Falcon 9 rockets at the company’s new Florida launch site, the bids came in at about $2 million. Too expensive, decided Brian Mosdell, director of SpaceX launch operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and he talked to the vendors to find out why the price was so high.
