USAF Col. Christopher F. Burne is one of five colonels who have been nominated for promotion to brigadier general. He is staff judge advocate at Air Combat Command Headquarters, Langley AFB, Va. The others are: Dwight D. Creasy, staff judge advocate at Air Education and Training Command Headquarters, Randolph AFB, Tex.; Mark A. Ediger, command surgeon at Air Education and Training Command Headquarters; Richard A. Hersack, command surgeon at Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; and Daniel O.
Scientists on NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (Messenger) project have started poring through some 500 MB. of data recovered from the spacecraft recorder after its first flyby, including this previously unseen view of the planet’s south pole. The low Sun angle at the day/night terminator gives better terrain-height perspective than was possible with Mariner 10 in 1974-75.
Aerospace consultant Yvonne Brill is one of the three honorary fellows appointed for 2008 by the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The other two are Henry McDonald of the University of Tennessee SimCenter and Abe Zarem, strategic adviser to the knowledge and information technology industries. Damodar Ambur of the NASA Langley Research Center is one of the 30 AIAA fellows for 2008.
Further restructuring is pending for South African aerospace and defense manufacturer Denel, with the likely creation of a merged unmanned aerial vehicle company as well as changes at its missile business unit and munitions and armored vehicles businesses.
Grob is becoming a major partner on Bombardier’s newest business aircraft, the just-named midsize Learjet 85. Grob is bringing its composite expertise to the project, and will develop primary and secondary structures. It also will be a partner on systems integration. The first three Learjet 85 prototypes will be built by Grob Aerospace.
French armaments agency DGA has awarded Eurocopter a 220-million ($321-million) contract to upgrade 27 Cougar helicopters in a move that should help fill a looming rotorcraft capability gap.
Raptor 03 has landed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The third F-22, manufactured by the team of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney, will be part of a permanent exhibit showcasing air dominance fighters. It was one of nine F-22s built for engineering, manufacture and development testing. This particular model was considered the test fleet workhorse, undertaking loads testing, crosswind landing trials, arrester hook evaluations and weapons bay environment studies.
Gentex won a $95.5-million contract to design a two-part, Modular Aircrew Common Helmet for use on both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. The even wider-cast concept is to reduce the logistical burden by cutting the 27 helmet configurations to a single design. The production run could involve 26,250 units.
Richard A. McConnell has become director of the Boise City (Idaho) Airport . He was manager of Rick Husband International Airport, Amarillo, Tex. Honors And Elections
Lufthansa Systems is working with Lufthansa Airlines and Goodrich to develop a new electronic flight bag that will be standard equipment on Lufthansa jets. The system is designed to bring the airline industry one step closer to a paperless cockpit, according to Lufthansa Systems officials. The EFB software will be combined with Class 2 hardware, and a laptop computer docking station and a Goodrich touch screen will be used to supply power to the system, display information and connect the EFB to aircraft systems.
Boeing has won a $14.9-million USAF systems engineering and modeling contract for the A-10 wing replacement program. The modeling is to institute a cost-saving, paperless engineering package. This award follows a $2-billion 2007 contract for manufacturing 242 sets of A-10 wings.
Eurocopter intends to sharply increase its international footprint and grow its service business in an attempt to vastly expand sales and improve profitability, areas in which it still lags behind its primary competitors.
All Nippon Airways has included Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ MRJ 70-90-seater on its list of regional jet candidates, along with those from Bombardier and Embraer.
Phillip M. Balisle, who is senior vice president-maritime strategic plans and programs for DRS Technologies Inc. , Parsippany, N.J., has been appointed to succeed Michael L. Bowman, who will be retiring as executive vice president-Washington operations.
The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a Boeing 747 modified to accommodate a 19-ton infrared telescope peering through an open door in its fuselage, is on track to begin limited observations above most of the IR-obscuring atmosphere early next year, following completion of the first phase of flight test. Five flights at Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif., with the 16-ft.-high door closed tested the aircraft’s structural integrity, aerodynamics, stability and handling characteristics.
Frances Fiorino’s commentary on the blighted NASA National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (Naoms) project highlights the apparent shambles of the research. However, an $11-million project would have needed approval of senior management at NASA, which implies a rigorous, rational review process. In all of the comments about the Naoms project, there is no description of the original rationale and, in defense of NASA, it would be interesting to hear the views of the management team that authorized the survey.
Airline mergers, like any other form of consolidation, are consummated to gain control of markets and reap benefits of the consequences. Shareholders and management can be, and often are, the primary beneficiaries. But for travelers and employees, joining forces offers a mixed bag, negatives predominating.
Adam Aircraft has completed cold weather tests of its A700 business jet at the McKinley Climatic Laboratory at Eglin AFB, Fla. The Williams International FJ-33 engines and air inlet anti-ice system were subjected to freezing fog, rain and blowing snow, and avionics, flight control and other airframe systems were checked at temperatures as low as ‑40F. Completion of the tests is part of the company’s plan to achieve FAA certification of the A700 this year.
At the beginning of 2008, an unmanned aircraft flown by the 17th Reconnaissance Sqdn. clocked the 300,000th flying hour of USAF Predator operations. Service officials note that it took 12 years to accumulate the first 250,000 hr., but only six months to add the additional 50,000. In fact, USAF now maintains 18 combat air patrol orbits over Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, and continues to log combat missions at the rate of more than 2,500 hr. a week.
BAE Systems will buy Australia’s privately owned Tenix Defense, doubling its presence in the country to more than 5,500 employees and annual sales exceeding A$1.2 billion ($1 billion). Subject to government approval, the British company will pay A$775 million for Tenix, which will make it the largest supplier to the Australian government. The purchase also will strengthen BAE’s land and naval businesses there. Canberra is expected to sell Australian Submarine Corp. In other Anglo-Australian transactions, Qinetiq will buy three Australian defense firms.
Thales says flight acceptance tests have been completed at the Beijing Capital International Airport on a new Category 3 instrument landing system. The installation will allow automatic precision approaches with runway visual range as low as 656 ft. The ILS will serve a third runway that’s needed to meet a 30% traffic increase forecast during the Olympic Games in August. The runway also can accommodate the Airbus A380, which is entering revenue service this year with Singapore Airlines and a few other carriers.
The new executive director of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace says its members want to focus on what went wrong with outsourced work for the Boeing 787 while avoiding labor strife that might further upset the troubled program. Ray Goforth, 39, is a graduate of the University of Washington Law School who has spent the past 10 years as a union representative and strategic adviser to Local 17 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers in Seattle. Speea is an IFPTE affiliate, Local 2001.
On Jan. 17, UPS flew the first revenue flight in the U.S. using an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) software function that allows freighter pilots to conduct “merging and spacing” operations as they line up for continuous-descent arrivals into Louisville (Ky.) International Airport. The procedures rely on GPS positioning for navigational guidance. The FAA granted approval on Dec. 28, 2007, for UPS 757s to conduct these operations.
Daniel M. Barry (see photo) has been named director of research and development at the David Clark Co. , Worcester, Mass. He was a program manager for the company’s NASA projects.
