Liam Connolly has been appointed manager of industry and regulatory affairs for the Washington-based Regional Airline Assn. He was national accounts manager for Blackboard Inc.
A Pair of New Embraer Business Jets for seven and 12 passengers, respectively, will use Rockwell Collins’ new Pro Line Fusion avionics system. The cockpit will feature synthetic vision as a standard feature, with enhanced vision as an option, along with a Rockwell Collins MultiScan automatic weather radar—a business aviation version of one used on the Boeing 787. The cockpit will also have four large-format, 15-in. diagonal liquid crystal displays and extensive automated systems providing a wide range of advanced navigation capability.
NASA plans to send a low-cost spacecraft to the Moon in 2011 to study dust in the lunar “atmosphere” and help scientists get a better handle on how it could affect future lunar explorers. The $80-million Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft is expected to gather detailed information about conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust, NASA says.
China is nearing launch of a Long March 3B carrying a communications satellite designed and built by China for Venezuela and Uruguay under a $241-million contract. The mission is set for liftoff from the Xichang Space Center between September and November. The satellite will be designated Venesat 1, since 90% of the funding was provided by Venezuela. It is to have a 15-year service life in geosynchronous orbit.
Scores of airports around the world are now using multilateration surveillance systems to track aircraft and vehicles on the surface and even in flight near the airport, and some are even using the equipment in lieu of radar for wide-area surveillance of airspace in the terminal area and beyond.
Vietnam Airlines and Virgin Blue will put their codes on each other’s flights, connecting Vietnam with 22 Australian destinations. Jet Airways and All Nippon Airways will begin the first-ever Indian-Japanese code-share flight on May 21, subject to regulatory approval. Jet Airways will put its flight code on the All Nippon Airways daily 737-700ER all-business-class flight between Mumbai and Narita.
Boeing has a clear path forward and a long list of manufacturing accomplishments for final assembly of commercial aviation’s first large-hull composite transport. Its problem is that the whole enterprise is running about 15 months late.
The second phase of ground tests of the geared turbofan has begun at Pratt & Whitney’s West Palm Beach, Fla., facility. The PW6000 demonstrator will focus on engine performance and acoustic characteristics with a flight-capable nacelle system prior to flight testing this summer.
Mike Shih has been named Shanghai-based director of China operations for the Cessna Aircraft Co. He was director of aircraft structural integrity for all Cessna models.
Rockwell Collins, Bristow Helicopters of the U.K. and Shell Aviation have combined efforts to secure what they say is the first-ever Traffic-alert and Collision Avoidance System II certification on a rotary-wing aircraft. TCAS II systems have long protected fixed-wing aircraft against most midair collisions, but the aviation community generally thought the slow speed of helicopters and their flight profiles made a collision avoidance system unsuitable for them.
Army aviation is logging more combat hours than it has in the service’s history, operating an unprecedented number of UAVs, and has been fighting an unpredictable enemy for many years in one of the world’s harshest environments. Now it needs to decide which direction to take to modernize and recapitalize its fleet. Aside from its unmanned aerial vehicles, the platforms the Army is operating are all legacy systems, even if they’re beefed up with new sensors and other features.
NanoOpto, a division of API Nanotronics, has introduced low-edge-shift IR cut filters for high-performance digital imaging applications. They are fabricated with a conformal coating atomic layer deposition process that produces a higher-quality filter with better thickness uniformity than conventional techniques such as PVD, vacuum e-beam or sputtering, according to the company. The reduced-edge shift is delivered without sacrificing transmission and rejection performance, and it allows for closer placement to the device image plane.
French armaments agency DGA says qualification trials for the AASM all-weather precision strike weapon, earmarked for the Rafale fighter, are virtually complete. However, a decision to deploy the weapon for operational trials with the Rafale in Afghanistan has not yet been made.
Heinz L. Butner (see photos), James F. Jusko and Lorraine E. Ryan have been appointed principal directors at The Aerospace Corp. ’s headquarters, El Segundo, Calif. Butner will head the Delta IV Operations directorate. He was chief systems engineer for the Delta IV program. Jusko will lead the Audit, Controls and Compliance Directorate. He was director of the Internal Audit Dept. Ryan will head the Advanced Programs Directorate in the Missile Defense Space Systems organization. She was a senior project leader in the directorate.
The Joint Strike Fighter wasn’t alone in attracting interest to the Pentagon’s review of top military acquisition programs. A further sampling of programs related to aviation and space in the Selected Acquisition Reports includes:
USAF and the National Reconnaissance Office are undertaking an analytical review of space protection needs for national security military satellite constellations. Gary Payton, the deputy Air Force undersecretary for space, says the satellite cadre in the government needs to “take a lesson” from the Navy’s submarine community, which is constantly updating its operational concepts and countermeasures.
Safran units Snecma and Messier-Dowty last week each inaugurated facilities in China, with both situated in the Suzhou industrial park outside Shanghai. Snecma Suzhou will build parts for CFM56-5B and -7B turbofans. The Messier-Dowty operation will build parts of the parent company’s landing gears. Moreover, Snecma launched a facility to build turbine parts for several CFM56 models in conjunction with Guizhou Xinyi Machine Factory, a unit of the Avic 1 group. The operation is called Snecma Xinyi Airfoil Castings.
Raytheon scored another $80-million contract for Phase 2 risk reduction of a radar-jamming variant of the Miniature Air Launched Decoy. USAF plans to launch these missiles from bombers and stealthy strike aircraft to penetrate into even the most formidable enemy air defenses. The 300-lb. missile has a range of about 575 mi. The new MALD-J recently completed developmental flight testing.
Cutting stainless steel on a CNC router can be challenging due to the high spindle RPMs found on routers. Onsrud Cutter has developed a line of tools that are capable of running at high spindle speeds while providing good tool life, according to the company. The combination of cutting geometry and coating allows stainless steel to be routed for sign, exhibit and general sheet applications. The solid carbide tools are available in 1/8-, 3/16-, 1/4- and 3/8-in. dia. and can be run at spindle RPMs from 6,000-18,000. Onsrud is the only router bit facility in the U.S.
Your article “Hometown Hubris” (AW&ST Mar. 10, p. 20) could have been written 30 years ago. The subject would have been the same hubris and arrogance shown by Boeing in refusing to listen to customers’ demands for a 737-200 replacement, thereby giving the Airbus A320 a foothold into the world aviation market.
The problem created by USAF in selecting the Airbus A330 instead of the Boeing 767 as the future tanker is one of perception (AW&ST Mar. 17, p. 32). USAF followed the source selection laws and regulations written by Congress. USAF selected a winner based upon its source selection criteria. However, no one in Congress or in a large portion of the country was prepared for the selection of a European aircraft.
Leonard Weber, 2nd, has become chief operating officer of Seattle-based Boeing subsidiary Alteon Training . He succeeds Brad Thomann, who assumed a similar position at Jeppesen, another Boeing subsidiary. Weber was director of Boeing Support Systems in Fort Walton and Jacksonville, Fla. Honors and Elections
The International Air Transport Assn. has launched another initiative to drive down Africa’s accident rate—which is nearly six times the global industry average of one accident for every 1.3 million flights. The $3.7-million Implementation Program for Safety Operations in Africa (IPSO) will provide 30 of Africa’s airlines access to IATA’s flight data analysis tool for a three-year period. The statistical information is meant to help carriers improve procedures.
