Etihad Airways is setting up a new group structure to better reflect its activities beyond the core airline. According to CEO James Hogan, Etihad Aviation Group is being created later this year with the airline as the biggest of several pillars. Other units will include a loyalty program and a travel agency service. Hogan says it is not certain Etihad will invest in Alitalia after the ongoing due diligence process is completed.
USMC Reserve Brig. Gen. William T. Collins has been nominated for promotion to major general. He is commanding general of the New Orleans-based 4th Marine Aircraft Wing. Honors And Elections
Israel Aerospace Industries brought an unmanned air system to the air show, inaugurating a new class that it calls the “super-tactical” UAS. The Super Heron is about 50% larger than the basic Heron or the General Atomics Predator, in order to carry a high-performance multi-sensor suite on long-endurance missions. Flight tests have been completed for the UAS, according to IAI, and it is now “a fully operational system.”
Aviation Week Naval Editor Michael Fabey is the winner of the 2014 Timothy White Award, given by the American Business Media (ABM) association to a journalist who demonstrates “bravery, integrity, passion and quality of product.”
An article on NASA commercial-crew vehicle development in the Jan. 27 issue (page 26) incorrectly stated the type of Commercial Crew Transportation Capability Contract agreement that will be awarded. “One or more” firm fixed-price contracts will be awarded, according to NASA. web hed: Multiple Contracts On The Way
The Comac ARJ21 regional jet project has been delayed again, with the aircraft now due to go into service in April or May 2015, eight years later than scheduled early in the program and 13 years after development began. The first operator, Comac subsidiary Chengdu Airlines, will receive its first aircraft late this year or early next year, says the carrier's deputy general manager, Luo Ning. Further preparations will be made before operations begin in April or May, Luo tells local media.
The Royal New Zealand Air Force has become the latest customer for the Beechcraft T-6 Texan turboprop trainer. Beechcraft and Global Mission Support have partnered with Safe Air and CAE to provide 11 T-6s and simulators and other equipment to support training. The T-6 will replace the CT-4 Airtrainer. The first four are scheduled to be delivered in November, and all 11 by mid-2015.
Maj. Gen. James M. Richardson has been appointed commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. He was commander of the U.S. National Support Element Command-Afghanistan. Richardson succeeds Brig. Gen. James H. Dickinson, who has been named deputy to the inspector general in the Office of the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon.
Obituary: Gilbert W. Speed, the founder of SpeedNews publications and conferences, a sister business of Aviation Week & Space Technology, died Jan. 27 after a long illness. He was 81. Speed's career in the aviation and aerospace industries stretched more than 60 years. He started as a student apprentice at the Bristol Aeroplane Co.—now part of BAE Systems—in 1952. Five years later, he moved to New York to work for Eastern Airlines as a development engineer for the DC-8 and Lockheed Electra.
The high cost of training aircrews for the U.K.'s battlefield support helicopters is prompting senior officers to look at cheaper options to maintain crew currency. With types such as the CH-47 Chinook costing what commanders describe as in the “high teens” of thousands of pounds per hour to operate, officials from the U.K.'s tri-service Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) are drawing up ideas to potentially introduce a less expensive rotorcraft fitted with a comparable modern avionics suite to keep crews current.
President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Jan. 28 hit the theme of rebuilding American infrastructure several times, making U.S. airports and their proponents happy. “Commercial aviation makes a tremendous economic impact across virtually all sectors, and dedicated investment is long overdue, especially in our nation's airports,” said Airports Council International-North America CEO Kevin Burke.
Tyler Evans has been named vice president of “Rocket Shop” Defense Advanced Programs unit of Aerojet Rocketdyne, Sacramento, Calif. He was executive director of international programs and business development for Pratt & Whitney Military Engines.
Diane L. Damos, President (Gurnee, Ill. ), Damos Aviation Services Inc. (Gurnee, Ill. )
Sean Broderick's Airline Intel column “No Easy Answers” (AW&ST Dec. 9, 2013, p. 17) did not mention pilot selection as a possible contributing factor to the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 accident in which a Boeing 777 crash landed on approach to a major U.S. hub on a clear morning July 6, 2013. Note that pilots with lower scores on certain types of selection tests may have trouble learning and retaining complex material. They also may be slower to recognize critical situations developing.
M. David Kornblatt has been named director of corporate development of the Triumph Group Inc., Berwyn, Pa. He has been executive vice president/CFO. He will be succeeded as CFO by Jeffrey L. McRae, who has been president of Triumph Aerostructures-Vought Aircraft Div. and was its CFO.
Patrick Ky was appointed executive director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in September 2013. He is the second person to head this organization, which was formed in 2003 to develop a single civil aviation regulatory system for the European Union's member states.
Colin Jowers has become global director of business technology for London-based Air Partner. He was global chief operating officer of Royal Bank of Scotland's Global Banking and Markets Research and Strategy Div.
Airbus Helicopters has completed the certification process for its EC175 medium twin-engine rotorcraft. CEO Guillaume Faury said he expected the delayed aircraft would win certification within days. Deliveries to the three main launch customers—NHV, UTAir and Heli-Union—are not due until the second or third quarter of the year, however. Certification of AgustaWestland's rival AW189 is also expected shortly, with deliveries due to launch customer Bristow within a week of certification.
After two years of contentious debate, the European Commission has a freshly minted budget of €10 billion ($13.7 billion) over seven years with which to complete and launch two new flagship space programs: the Galileo satellite navigation constellation and the Copernicus Earth-observation system. With some half-dozen spacecraft dedicated to the two programs set to launch this year, the EC's next task is to figure out how to use them.
I was reading “Game Changer,” Frank Morring, Jr.'s profile of Lori Garver (AW&ST Jan. 13, p. 40), and was delighted to see a reference to my late husband: “space-colonization activist” Gerard O'Neill. All his papers and work are now housed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center archives. It is wonderful to realize his dream lives on. Princeton, N.J.
Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., has been named chairman of the Washington-based Atlantic Council's board of directors. He succeeds former U.S. national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who was interim chairman, and Chuck Hagel, who is now U.S. defense secretary. Huntsman is a former governor of Utah and U.S. ambassador to China and Singapore. Scowcroft remains chairman of the council's International Advisory Board.
