USAF Brig. Gen. Jay B. Silveria has been selected for promotion to major general and appointment as commander of the U.S. Air Warfare Command Center of Air Combat Command, Nellis AFB, Nev. He has been vice commander of the 14th Air Force of Air Force Space Command, Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Col. David A. Krumm has been selected for promotion to brigadier general and appointment as vice commander of the 5th Air Force, Pacific Air Forces, Yokota AB, Japan. He has been principal military assistant to the secretary of defense at the Pentagon.
Keith Marshall has become chief executive of PremiAir International Group UK. He was executive vice president in the electronic warfare and battlespace divisions of Selex Galileo and had been a senior executive vice president with Northrop Grumman. Trevor Jenkins has been promoted to managing director of the PremiAir Aerospace team. He has been a technical director of B/E Aerospace and head of composite materials and processes at Airbus UK.
William Deere has been named senior vice president for government and external affairs for the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Association, effective March 31. He has been vice president-government affairs for the United States Telecom Association and was senior vice president-legislative affairs for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Qantas's urgent need to slash costs to mitigate spiraling losses has sparked one of the largest shakeups in the airline's history. While Qantas is hoping it can cut its way back to profitability, potential political and structural changes could play key roles in assisting the carrier's turnarounds.
Right now, the majority of aviation development in India is like the tango; two steps forward, one back, stop and gaze at your partner, wait for applause, then repeat.
Elizabeth L. Schmid has become vice president for national security and acquisition policy for the Arlington, Va.-based Aerospace Industries Association. She was on the staff of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense and previously the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The British Army has been cleared to begin flying the Thales U.K. Watchkeeper unmanned aerial system (UAS). The long-delayed UAS received its initial release to service documentation from the U.K. Military Aviation Authority on March 5. British Army pilots may now begin training flights with the system in segregated airspace over the Salisbury Plain Training Area in southern England. An interim contingency deployment capability for Watchkeeper is expected to be ready by the end of 2015.
The Singapore government has chosen the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) to replace its aging Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers. Details of the decision emerged in a speech by Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen on March 6. Ng did not say when or how many aircraft would be delivered, but when Airbus tabled its offer last summer, the requirement was for six aircraft to replace four KC-135s. Two more Sikorsky S-70B Seahawk helicopters are also due to be purchased to support ship-borne operations.
The perception that the U.S. enjoys military superiority over all possible adversaries has existed for decades, despite the fact that Russia enjoys a technological edge in many important weapon categories. These systems are also widely exported. Our future military dominance depends heavily on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The SU-35 can already outperform it in almost every realm and the T-50 should be much more formidable.
For several years, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association's (GAMA) annual “State of the Industry” presentation has been a sobering affair. The global fiscal crisis that began in 2008 continued to throttle the industry long after others were well into recovery. The measures are startling. In 2008, GAMA companies delivered 3,970 aircraft—1,313 of them business jets—but by 2012 the totals were down by more than 50%, with just 672 business jets out the door.
Nav Canada is close to completing the nationwide rollout of a controller-pilot data link communications (CPDLC) system that is among the most advanced uses of this technology in any domestic airspace. After deploying CPDLC to six out of seven of its domestic flight information regions (FIR) under a phased introduction, Nav Canada is progressively broadening the message sets to cover a greater range of operational needs. At the same time, the company is seeing a steady increase in airline usage and CPDLC equipage rates as carriers recognize its benefits.
Reader Ted Klapka's letter (AW&ST March 3, p. 8) regarding the recent Viewpoint “Protect Airlines From SAM Threats” (AW&ST Feb. 17, p. 58) is insular to the extreme. U.S. airlines (as well as those of other nations) fly all over the world, frequently in the skies of nations that harbor terrorists who would like nothing more than to stage an encore to 9-11. I will grant him that “no one gets out of this life alive,” but the vast majority of us would prefer it to be via natural causes.
Two retired NASA astronauts died recently—Dale A. Gardner, who helped capture two satellites in orbit and return them to Earth in 1984, and William R. Pogue, who logged 84 days on the first U.S. space station, Skylab, in 1973-74. Gardner, who died Feb. 19 in Colorado Springs, was 65. Pogue, who was 84 and died March 4, had been living in Cocoa Beach, Fla. The causes of the deaths were not disclosed.
Tony Osborne's “Fueling Question” (AW&ST Feb. 24, p. 37) underscores that prudent routine mission planning should have had that helicopter safely back on the ground at Glasgow City Heliport within 30 min.—fuel still in the tanks—not flying around at night over a densely populated city with one low-fuel light blinking and the other steady on. If this was a seasoned crew, something else must have distracted them. That is where investigators should be looking.
Following its recent decision to pursue large geared-turbofan designs for next-generation engines in the 2020s and beyond, Rolls-Royce has announced plans to expand its aerospace research and technology capabilities in Dahlewitz, Germany, with construction of a new testbed for power gearboxes.
Assad Kotaite, a Lebanese diplomat who served in key positions at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for more than three decades, died Feb. 27 of cancer in Montreal. He was 89.
Rachel Ehrenfeld's Viewpoint “Protect Airliners from SAM Threat” was insightful and accurate. I have worked for large aircraft defensive systems for more than 20 years and can readily see that Ehrenfeld has done her homework. Cursory dismissal or deflection of this issue is neither appropriate nor effective. Executive transport (Air Force One and other head-of-state aircraft) are equipped with defensive systems to counter the infrared surface-to-air missile threat, as are a good portion of our airlift aircraft and El Al Airlines.
