Aviation Week has appointed Jeremy Torr as Singapore-based Southeast Asia bureau chief, effective immediately. Torr is a trained engineer and a journalist who has worked in Singapore for 13 years, most recently as editor of Asian Airlines & Airports magazine. He began his career in the U.K., where he wrote for The Guardian, The Sunday Times and a range of technical publications. Torr later was a technology editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.
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.
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.
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.
Brian Moran has been appointed Brussels-based president for Boeing of European Union and NATO relations. He succeeds Antonio De Palmas, who has been named president of Boeing Italy. Moran has been the Berlin-based head of Boeing International's activities in Northern Europe and had been senior manager of international business development for the Nordic region, Switzerland and the U.K. De Palmas succeeds Rinaldo Petrignani, who is retiring.
Aaron Gellman has been named to receive the Francis X. McKelvey Award for 2014 from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies in Washington. Gellman is a professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and was director of Northwestern's Transportation Center. He is being honored for his commitment to the betterment of the aviation industry. McKelvey was also a consultant and co-author of the textbook Planning and Design of Airports.
This month, the FAA will begin a series of “contaminated” runway tests with a retired Boeing 727 at its William J. Hughes technical center in Atlantic City, N.J. Taxiing on 230-300-ft.-long “test strips” of 2-in.-deep “manufactured snow,” created by feeding ice blocks into a gasoline-powered chipping machine, the 727 will test a variety of new technologies aimed at providing pilots more information and training to deal with compromised surfaces.
Eric Hinson (see photo) has become CEO of SimCom Training Centers, Orlando, Fla., in addition to president. As CEO, Hinson succeeds company founder Wally David, who is now non-executive chairman.
Singapore is synonymous with MRO in the Asia-Pacific region, but the fast-paced growth of Asia-Pacific airlines is drawing local and global companies to establish aftermarket support entities in Indonesia and Malaysia as well.
Small UAVs have represented the largest number of losses in Germany's unmanned fleet since their introduction over the last decade. The greatest losses were of LUNA tactical reconnaissance UAVs, according to the latest figures from the Bundeswehr. LUNA losses totaled 56—45 destroyed, including 24 that crashed, and 11 missing. Some 23 Aladin mini-UAVs were destroyed, including six that crashed, and another 10 that are missing. Two Mikado micro-UAVs crashed, and two others went missing.
Westchester County Airport (HPN), 30 mi. due north of Times Square, is one of business aviation's global hubs. Fittingly, it has always been home to five fixed-base operators (FBO) that fuel and pamper the based and visiting business jets, and those who fly and ride in them. But no more.
“Open and Shut?,” on page 46 of the Jan. 20 issue, should have stated that it is the HS748 aircraft, known as the Avro in India, that is facing retirement.
The U.S. Air Force should restructure up to 10% of its active-duty force into either its federal reserve component or the Air National Guard, including aircraft, to save money and maintain optimal capability in a post-war era of austerity, says a highly anticipated report issued Jan. 30.
U.S. Strategic Command (Stratcom) has signed a new data-sharing agreement with France that will permit the exchange of space situational awareness information. The deal will allow the French defense ministry to request information gathered by Stratcom's Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., for launch support, satellite maneuver planning, in-orbit anomalies, electromagnetic interference, spacecraft decommissioning and collision avoidance, according to Stratcom.
Michael Duncan has been named director for Africa for the London-based AJW Group. He has overseen aviation projects in several African countries for the AREF Investment Group.
The trend lines for next year's defense budget are clear: The Pentagon is putting its investments in technology associated with the U.S. “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region. That means intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities will be in demand in fiscal 2015 and beyond, along with long-range strike programs, warship construction and weapons that counter anti-access, area-denial strategies by China.
The price of carbon dioxide allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) rallied to a four-month high in January, as the European Commission's short-term market intervention proposal drew nearer to final agreement. The price of EUAs for delivery in December 2014 rallied to €5.61 per metric ton ($7.66) on Jan. 28—the highest price since Sept. 26, according to Platts data. Prices took support last month from proposed short- and long-term reforms of the ETS.
Europe's version of the Russian Soyuz rocket has more customers than launch slots this year, a problem that complicates a European Commission plan to see six Galileo positioning, navigation and timing satellites orbited by the end of 2014. With four prototype Galileo satellites already in orbit, EC Vice President Antonio Tajani is on a quest to see six more fully operational spacecraft lofted in pairs from the European spaceport in French Guiana starting in June, followed by subsequent launches in October and December.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense is expected next week to sign a long-awaited contract for the country's first squadron of F-35B Joint Strike Fighters. The so-called Main Gate 4 decision had been expected late last year, but it is now expected to be announced before Defense Secretary Philip Hammond visits Washington Feb. 4-6. The order will be for 14 aircraft to form the U.K.'s first operational F-35B unit. The U.K. already has three F-35Bs and a fourth on order.
