General Electric’s GEnx-2B engine for the upcoming Boeing 747-8 reached 70,950 lb. thrust during ground testing on Mar. 11 at GE’s outdoor testing facility in Peebles, Ohio. The engine, which shares a common core and 80% of the line-replaceable units with the GEnx-1B engine for the 787, achieved this thrust level just 12 days after making its first run to idle thrust.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has issued preliminary guidelines for all flights by foreign aircraft associated with the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Operators of business aircraft flying into China from July 1-Sept. 30 must file an application with the CAAC at least 30 days in advance for permission to land. Special arrival routes will be issued late this month, says the National Business Aviation Assn. For more about the guidelines, go to www.nbaa.org
Thales will supply two more systems on the new Airbus A350XWB wide-body twinjet. In January, Airbus selected the French contractor to provide the cockpit display system, radio/navigation—including the inertial reference unit—and integrated modular avionics (IMA) in a deal that could be worth $3 billion over 20 years (AW&ST Jan. 28, p. 413). On Mar. 9, it was tapped to supply the electrical power conversion system and the common remote data concentrators (cRDC)—one of the two main building blocks, with the core processing input/output modules, on the IMA.
The Royal Navy 771 Naval Air Sqdn., based at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall, England, performed a dramatic rescue of two missing swimmers believed to be stuck in a cave in the Newquay area. That 11-hr. mission has earned the five-person team the Breitling Award for Aviation Heroism. The crew was led by Lt. Cdr. Matt Shrimpton piloting the Sea King helicopter, and included co-pilot Royal Marine Capt. Damian May, observer Lt. Tim Barker, paramedic Royal Air Force Sgt. Mark White and Winchman Petty Officer Julian (Bungi) Williams.
The British government is to provide an additional £2 million ($4.06 million) to the Defense Ministry toward the cost of ongoing combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq for 2008-09.
Skybus Airlines of Columbus, Ohio, offers an insurance policy that reimburses passengers whose flights are canceled for airline-prompted causes as well as for previously covered weather-related reasons. Under Skybus policy, if a flight is canceled by the airline or delayed more than 3 hr., passengers have the option of rebooking on the next available flight or accepting a ticket refund. The latest enhancement offers the insurance-covered passenger up to $250 for any increased costs associated with rebooking.
Tom Gentile (see photos) has become vice president/general manager for services for Cincinnati-based GE Aviation . He was chief marketing officer for GE Money and succeeds Brad Mottier, who has been promoted to vice president/general manager of the General Aviation Operation Div.
London Heathrow Airport was plunged into a security alert Mar. 13, the day before the official opening of Terminal 5 by Queen Elizabeth II, when a man with a rucksack scaled a perimeter fence and ran onto a runway. He was apprehended by police on the northern runway and arrested. The incident was not initially believed to be terrorism-related.
General Dynamics has delivered the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (Glast) to Kennedy Space Center for final processing before its planned launch in May. The work will be done at the Astrotech payload processing facility near the NASA center. NASA is working with the U.S. Energy Dept. and research organizations in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Sweden on the project, which will cover the entire sky every 3 hr. in energy ranges from 10 keV. to more than 300 GeV.
The chairmen of the two U.S. House panels that oversee the Homeland Security Dept. say the Bush administration’s $50.5-billion Fiscal 2009 budget request wasn’t big enough and they intend to increase it. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), chairman of the Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) say the White House did not ask for enough funds for the Transportation Security Administration and other homeland security agencies.
USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Jeffrey B. Kohler has been named vice president-international strategy for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in St. Louis. He was director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and had been director of plans and policy at U.S. European Command Headquarters in Germany.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is Japan’s largest aerospace manufacturer and a premier collaborator with Boeing, Bombardier, Lockheed Martin and others on fighters, business, regional and commercial jets. But it hasn’t built a commercial airplane of its own for more than three decades and its last attempt, a turboprop, was an economic disaster.
Lufthansa has acquired four additional Cessna Citation Businessjets to equip its Private Jet Fleet, set up in 2005 to provide point-to-point flights to destinations in Europe and Russia and to funnel business and premium passengers into Lufthansa and Swiss hubs. The two CJ3s and two Excel XLS+ aircraft are in addition to four CJ1s purchased last September for the German carrier’s new pilot training program. Lufthansa revealed that at year’s end it will cease using aircraft provided by NetJets Europe and acquire assets of its own to serve the fleet.
Shares in perennially profitable Southwest Airlines tumbled as much as 11% after the carrier was fined by the FAA for lapses in required inspections and briefly pulled 38 of its Boeing 737s out of service (p. 62). But Southwest shareholders must be euphoric when they look at the performances of other airline stocks.
David J. Helfgott has been appointed president/CEO/executive chairman of DataPath Inc. , Duluth, Ga. He has been president/chief operating officer. Helfgott succeeds Tom Dyer as CEO and Wilson Lowery as chairman, both of whom resigned.
Chris Jenkins has been appointed managing director of Thales Australia . He has been vice president-operations. Jenkins succeeds Norman Gray, who has resigned.
Jack Pelton, Cessna Aircraft Co. Chairman, President and CEO Although he grew up in the shadow of the Douglas Aircraft plant and then spent the first several decades of his career building airliners for Douglas in California and China and for Fairchild Dornier in Germany, Jack Pelton was never so much an airliner guy as he was an airplane guy. Old, new, big, small, burning aviation gas or Jet A—he really loved them all.
Robert J. Regan has been appointed vice president/general counsel of the AAR Corp. , Wood Dale, Ill. He succeeds Howard A. Pulsifer, who is retiring. Regan was a partner in the law firm Schiff Hardin.
Michael E. Larkin has been promoted to executive vice president/general manager from senior vice president/deputy general manager of the Space Systems Group of the Orbital Sciences Corp. , Dulles, Va.
Michael A. Taverna (Noordwijk, Netherlands, and Washington)
Proposals by the European Space Agency to demonstrate data-relay and multipurpose payload technologies could help space-service providers develop an integrated offering combining telecom, remote sensing and navigation.
The European Union Parliament’s Industry Committee has issued draft rules for licensing of hybrid space-terrestrial mobile satellite service (MSS) systems to provide mobile TV/radio, Internet and other high-speed services. The committee decided that future MSS systems should be obliged to cover at least 60% of the EU’s total area initially and all EU members within seven years, and be transferable to disaster relief services in case of emergency. It also decided that no more than 15 MHz. of the 30 MHz.
Raytheon has delivered its first integrated infrared sensor for the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Infrared Satellite System (Airss) program, a technology effort that will eventually produce systems to augment and replace the Space-Based Infrared System satellites.
Ed Barnes has been appointed chief financial officer and Joseph Eng executive vice president-systems and technology of JetBlue Airways . Barnes had been interim CFO and was principal accounting officer/senior vice president-finance. Eng was president/CEO of Spectrum Systems. Christoph Franz has been named to the board of directors. He is CEO of Swiss International Air Lines Ltd.
USN Adm. (ret.) John B. Nathman has been named to the board of directors of the Curtiss-Wright Corp. , Roseland, N.J. He was commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
April could prove to be the cruelest month for either airport operator BAA or its airline users, as initial guidance emerges on possibly breaking up BAA’s hold on the southeast of England.
