The Vietnamese navy is close to completing its first fleet of fixed-wing aircraft with the delivery of the final pair of Viking Air DHC-6-400 Guardian maritime patrol and utility aircraft.
The surface of Mars is the most ambitious target for human explorers in the foreseeable future, given the state of technology, funding and political will today, according to a U.S. National Research Council study team that examined the issue over the past year and a half.
For the first several decades of human space activity, the economically and militarily valuable region of near-Earth orbit seemed like an infinite resource.
Inaki Lopez Gandasegui (see photo), president of Aernnova, has been elected president of Hegan, the Basque Aerospace Cluster based in Bilbao, Spain. He succeeds Ignacio Mataix, CEO of the ITP Group, who is now vice president of Hegan. Elected secretary was Jorge Unda, managing director of Sener Engineering.
Four American Airlines Group employees have received the company’s 2014 Earl G. Graves Award for Leadership in Diversity for “influencing positive change, setting an example and leaving a lasting impact on those around them.” Boeing 737 Fleet Capt. Kathi Durst is American’s first female pilot in a management leadership role. She is active with Women in Aviation International, leads career improvement presentations and mentors young pilots.
USAF Brig. Gen. John T. Rauch, Jr., has become director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) for strategy, plans, doctrine and force development/deputy chief of staff for ISR at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. He was chief of concepts, strategy and wargaming/deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements at USAF Headquarters. Brig. Gen James C. Vechery has been named director of logistics at U.S. Africa Command Headquarters, Stuttgart, Germany. He has been director of the U.S.
Ashley Nicholls has been named vice president-operations and engineering for Fibreform Precision Machining Inc., Huntington Beach, California. He was aerospace product manager at Hoffman Engineering in Australia.
July 28-30 — 50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference. Cleveland. www.aiaa.org/EventsLanding.aspx?id=79 July 28-Aug. 3 — EAA AirVenture. Wittman Field. Oshkosh, Wisconsin. www.eaa.org Aug. 21-22 — Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide UAS Workshop. Dayton Beach, Florida. For more information, visit proed.erau.edu or email [email protected].
Nancy Elder has been appointed vice president-communications for JetBlue Airways. She was was a founding partner and chief strategy officer of Matter Unlimited of New York.
Bobby Lentz (see photos) has become vice president-strategy for the McLean, Virginia-based Information Systems sector of the Northrop Grumman Corp. He was director of strategy for the sector’s Defense Systems Div. Other recent appointments are: Tom Afferton, vice president-operations, and Michael King, vice president-business development, both for the Civil Div.; and Jay Grove, vice president-business development for the Communications Div.
In response to a letter to the editor from reader Jeremiah Farmer concerning a flight to Alpha Centauri (a star) ( AW&ST June 30, p. 8), I believe his estimate of the roundtrip travel time is much too short. Consider the following simple mathematical calculation. Travel time (T)—the time required to go from one place to another—can be calculated using the following formula. (Note the numbers are approximate and thus the calculated answers may be in error by about 10%.)
