In less than one year, unmanned aircraft crashed into the Grand Canyon, buzzed over an amphitheater at Mount Rushmore and harassed bighorn sheep in Utah. Now, UAVs are no longer welcome at U.S. National Parks. National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis will not allow UAVs to launch, land or operate on national park grounds, at least for now. During the temporary ban, he is planning to propose regulating the use of UAVs. This is often a hurry-up-and-wait process that requires a public comment period.
To the relief of a number of defense contractors, Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) clung to his Senate seat in a primary runoff election. It was not an unexpected struggle. To appeal to Democrats, who could cross party lines to vote, the six-term senator highlighted his prowess at delivering federal dollars to the state.
Smarting from the public outrage over how an aircraft the size of a Boeing 777 could vanish, a top official at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is trying to break through the inertia that often slows the release of new global standards. Nancy Graham, director of ICAO’s Air Navigation Bureau, is spearheading efforts within the Montreal-based organization to publish global tracking standards for aircraft in two years, a fraction of the time a major action might otherwise take.
T he administration’s policy toward exporting UAVs elicits grumbling, particularly from an industry that sees foreign developers cutting into a market that the U.S. could have capitalized on. Current export restrictions might cause the U.S. to lose ground in an industry that could grow to $11.6 billion by 2023, but a report by the Stimson Center, “Task Force on U.S. Drone Policy,” also questions if these restrictions are achieving their aim. “It is unclear whether U.S. export control rules for UAVs appear well-suited to advancing U.S.
Kudos to SpaceX; the Dragon V2 capsule is truly visionary. If Elon Musk achieves “refuel and reuse” turnarounds of both Falcon 9R and Dragon V2, spaceflight will profoundly change. Left unsaid is how such technology profoundly changes other fields, becoming a “killer app.”
lfredo Herrera, Lean+ Engineering project manager at Boeing Mesa (Arizona), received the Distinguished DFMA Supporter of the Year Award at the recent 2014 International Forum on Design for Manufacture and Assembly. He was cited for his “role in educating the larger engineering community—not only about DFMA, but about integrating the program into corporate-wide Lean and Value Engineering efforts.
Jill Pomeroy (see photos) has become director of legislative affairs and Michael O’Hara director of business development for space technology and services for Ball Aerospace’s Washington Operations. Pomeroy was legislative affairs director for DigitalGlobe, while O’Hara was director for civil space propulsion development at Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Steven D. Kephart has been appointed vice president-governmental fueling and logistics for Epic Aviation, Salem, Oregon, effective Sept. 1. He will be retiring as an Air Force colonel serving as a director of customer operations for the Defense Logistics Agency.
Michael King (see photo) has become chief operating officer of SimCom Training Centers, Orlando, Florida. He was director of business development for FlightSafety International and had been manager of its St. Louis Learning Center.
