The results are in from Aviation Week & Space Technology’s annual Top-Performing Companies (TPC) Study, which uses a sophisticated set of metrics to measure how publicly traded companies are performing at the operational level. The in-depth report starts on p. 46 with articles that analyze this year’s rankings of 125 aerospace and defense companies and highlight the performance traits that separate the industry’s stellar performers from the laggards. A one-year snapshot of how each company ranks against its peers begins on p. 50.
Enrique Barrientos Blanco (see photo) has been named CEO of the EADS Defense and Security Div. in Spain. He succeeds Pablo de Bergia, who will be retiring. Barrientos was chief of staff of his division’s office in Munich.
Eric J. Shradar, a recent graduate of the Parks College of St. Louis University and commercial pilot and certified flight instructor, has won the Dr. Harold S. Wood Scholarship from the Washington-based General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. The scholarship is named for the founder and past executive director of the National Intercollegiate Flying Assn. and recognizes a student at a member school who demonstrates academic excellence, promotes aviation and participates in activities and community service outside of aviation.
ERA Training Center has begun operating its new facility at the Lake Charles (La.) Regional Airport, near the headquarters of ERA Helicopters. The building houses two FAA-approved Flight Training Devices for the Eurocopter AS350B2 and EC 135 as well as classrooms and pilot briefing areas. The 7,600-sq.-ft. facility will be dedicated to training personnel involved in emergency medical services, airborne law enforcement and business aviation rotorcraft operations.
Ian King, BAE Systems chief operating officer, will succeed Mike Turner as CEO on Sept. 1. King is a former Marconi executive and following the Marconi acquisition by British Aerospace, he became BAE Systems group strategy and planning director. King was also group managing director for customer solutions and support.
Working to keep its skies safe, Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is investigating pilot training and checking systems at Cairns-based Aero Tropics in the wake of the authority’s June 27 grounding of the 15-aircraft fleet. CASA cites “serious and imminent risks to the safety of passengers” in suspending operations. It had planned an appeal to federal court to extend the suspension for 40 days. Founded in 1995 with one aircraft in operation, Aero Tropics expanded from charter to scheduled flights in 2000.
The Royal Air Force will likely lose three main operating bases over the next two decades, with a question mark also being cast over the Eurofighter Typhoon’s basing strategy.
Air China tested night flight service into Lhasa, Tibet’s 13,136-ft.-high Gonggar Airport on June 27 with an Airbus A319 guided by a required navigation performance (RNP) procedure using GPS for position fixing. The RNP procedure was developed for Air China by Naverus of Kent, Wash., which is also developing RNP procedures for Southwest Airlines. New runway lighting at Gonggar airport will facilitate around-the-clock operations.
Prof. T. Nejat Veziroglu’s letter evoked a strong feeling of deja vu. In the mid-1950s, Pratt & Whitney’s FRDC division built and tested an engine designed to use hydrogen fuel. The engine had—relative to then-current Jet A-fueled powerplants—a shorter combustion section and a significantly smaller diameter turbine component. Many problems associated with hydrogen fuel, such as its ability to leak past state-of-the-art fuel system seals and a tendency to ignite in the presence of small static electricity discharges, made the program exciting.
An EADS Astrium-led team has been awarded a €278-million ($436-million) follow-on contract to operate the European portion of the International Space Station from 2008-10. The award, under a framework arrangement concluded in 2004, includes operation of European orbital facilities—notably the Columbus laboratory—along with training, mission preparation/control, logistics, maintenance, ground communications and payload engineering/supply.
Ralf Kladtke has become president/CEO of Carl Zeiss Optronics GmbH. , Oberkochen, Germany. He succeeds Armin Breinig, who has left the company. Kladtke was vice president-security and defense in Germany for EADS.
Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is redesigning five electronic modules used in thousands of VHF/UHF radios operated by the U.S. Air Force for air traffic control. About 7,500 AN/GRT-21/-22 transmitters and AN/GRT-23/-24 receivers, many of which entered service in 1968, cannot be repaired due to lack of parts. GTRI is replacing the radio’s old dual-band power, intermediate frequency and mixer amplifiers, power supply and synthesizer units with commercial off-the-shelf components of the same size and function, and that are compatible with existing connectors.
NASA may test the Orion crew exploration vehicle’s navigation sensors and software on a space shuttle flight in 2009 or 2010, as the shuttle program works toward fleet retirement in September 2010. The Constellation Program’s Orion project office is defining a formal “Relative Navigation Sensor’s Development Test” to document the performance of Orion radar, software and laser ranging as the shuttle is engaged in proximity operations around the International Space Station.
Paul-Jerome Evette has become CEO of the EADS Test and Services unit of EADS Defense and Security in France. He succeeds Jean Bultel, who is retiring. Evette was CEO of APSYS, another EADS Defense and Security entity.
The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a $23-million follow-on contract to Flir Systems Inc. for a version of the company’s Talon stabilized multisensor electro-optical system. The sensors will be installed on HH-60 and HH-65 helicopters for use in the service’s expanded homeland security mission, along with drug interdiction and search and rescue. The company will install the equipment at its North Billerica, Mass., facility.
Even the Government Accountability Office is subject to outside evaluation processes, as the GAO recently rediscovered. But any government program office, smarting from recent GAO scrutiny and hoping for sweet revenge, will be disappointed to learn that two recent independent peer reviews resulted in high marks for the GAO’s methodology and validated the agency’s evaluation procedures. An international team of government auditors from Australia, the Netherlands and the U.K.—led by the office of the Auditor General of Canada—examined the GAO’s performance audits.
Catherine H. Blades (see photo) has been named vice president-communications and public affairs at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems , El Segundo, Calif. She was director of marketing and international communications for the Lockheed Martin Corp.’s aeronautics business.
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is bracing for the impact of planned cutbacks by American Airlines. American and American Eagle will reduce daily flights to 116 from 146 by year-end. In 2007, Lambert recorded a 1.5% increase in St. Louis boarding passengers to 7.7 million, the third straight year of passenger growth. Lambert had lost traffic in the wake of American’s 2001 acquisition of Trans World Airlines, which operated a primary hub at St. Louis, and the 9/11 cutbacks.
