Aviation Week & Space Technology

American Airlines has promoted Hector Adler to senior vice president of product and service delivery, from vice president of flight service. Jill Surdek will succeed him as vice president of flight service. FlexSys Inc., a provider of wing-morphing technology, has hired David Hornick as president/chief operating officer. Hornick had been with Aurora Flight Sciences.

Here are signposts to follow as the new administration’s choices on defense unfold.

Autonomous systems, terahertz communications, cognitive computing, digitized fabrication—these are the technologies identified as potentially disruptive for aerospace by a panel of experts at AIAA’s SciTech conference.

Upcoming aviation and aerospace industry events and Aviation Week Network events

Eyes may be on the T-X competition, but the international market remains ripe for training aircraft.

Rolls’s settlement emerges as fraud investigators begin to examine the aerospace industry as a whole.

A thumbnail outline of most nation’s plans to replace their trainer aircraft in light of many current trainers approaching retirement.

With its far-aim still set squarely on Mars, Elon Musk’s space company is happy for now to be resuming satellite launches and return landings.

Readers weigh in on Factories of the Future article; debate the Persons of the Year selection; discuss Air Force One options and decry ultra-long-range aircraft.

Creation of the world’s third-largest Tier 1 aerospace supplier behind UTC and GE has both positive and negative effects for Boeing, Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers that do business with Safran and Zodiac.

NASA vows to become a “smart buyer” to offset budget threat to X-plane plans as it plans larger, piloted flight demonstrators.

ATR is converting 1980s design drawings to more contemporary digital mockups.

Leonardo’s UK enterprise claims the second largest aerospace and defense company behind BAE Systems.

Replacement for Mangusta to use dynamics and avionics from AW149.

In this week’s roundup: U.S. Marines with F-35Bs arrive in Japan, Israeli air force receives Arrow-3 missile defense, Airbus delivers H225M Caracal helicopters to Thailand, British navy awards radar contract and CAE scores training services contracts

Breakthrough’s Starshot plan is looking for exoplanets in the “Goldlocks Zone” of the Alpha Centauri binary system that might support life.

U.S. major airlines benefited greatly from depressed fuel prices and offshoots of consolidation, but the boon times appear to be near an end.

MIT’s unconventional D8 configuration gets more conventional as Aurora Flight Sciences works to turn the fuel-saving concept into a practical product.

Construction of a third hangar will increase Gameco’s MRO capacity and allow more third-party work.

Taking advantage of New START Treaty reductions, the service is overhauling CBM silos for the first time since they were built more than 40 years ago.

Cernan flew in space on Gemini IX and to the Moon twice, on Apollo 10 and 17.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX returned the Falcon 9 to flight status after a successful Jan. 14 launch.

China featured four large low-frequency radars—at least one of which specifies a detection range against the F-22—along with a new, passive radar. Almaz-Antey was also on site promoting Russia’s counterstealth systems.

A modernized U.S. nuclear arsenal could force adversaries to work toward a stable, peaceful international system.

After years restricted by Western sanctions, Iran Air is looking to finally expand its fleet, and Airbus is the first beneficiary.