Airbus has started the high-altitude flight-test campaign for the A350. The manufacturer has sent MSN003, the second of an eventual five flight-test aircraft to Bolivia where it will perform tests at airports in Cochabamba and La Paz. The two airports were chosen because of their different altitudes: At an elevation of 13,300 ft., La Paz has one of the world's highest airports. Cochabamba is at 8,300 ft. Airbus says MSN003 will perform takeoffs, landings and go-arounds at the two airports in various configurations, including simulated engine failures.
A pushback collision between an Etihad Airways Airbus A330-200 and Boeing 777-300 at Abu Dhabi in May 2012 reveals the complexities involved in solving the ramp damage problem, and in its final report on the incident, the United Arab Emirates' General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) focuses largely on non-technical solutions.
Kevin Dutton (see photo) has been appointed vice president-operations finance for the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga. He has been director of materials and production finance. Scott Clarey has been named sales director for the Southwest U.S. and Kevin Brink for the Northwest U.S. Clarey was Western U.S. and Western Canada sales director for Piaggio America; Brink was sales director in that same area for Dassault Falcon Jet.
Marillyn A. Hewson (see photo) has become chairman of the Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md. She continues as president/CEO. As chairman, Hewson succeeds Robert J. Stevens, who plans to retire.
In 2013 scientists announced that, for the first time, a man-made object had left the Solar System. Voyager I actually entered interstellar space in August 2012, but its operators had to wait until a solar storm generated enough data at the spacecraft to confirm the historic moment. Voyager I has been traveling away from the Sun since 1977, and is more than 11.7 billion mi. from Earth now. In 1996 it pointed its camera back on the Solar System it was leaving and collected this narrow-angle image of Earth at a distance of more than 4 billion mi. (below left).
Michael Ryschkewitsch has been selected to lead the Space Sector at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. He has been chief engineer at NASA and had been deputy director for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and director of its Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate.
Worsening the plight of airlines suffering unexpectedly weak demand, the Chinese government has limited most of its employees to flying economy class. Air China is likely to suffer the most from the new rules, which are part of President Xi Jinping's campaign against the efforts of millions of Chinese bureaucrats to divert public funds to their own benefit. The limits took effect on Jan. 1 and apply to the vast majority of Chinese officials.
What promises to be another busy year in space is set to peak in September, when two orbital missions arrive at Mars and NASA launches the Orion crew capsule it hopes to send back to the Moon into an orbit designed to test how well it will withstand high-speed reentry from deep space. The Mars missions—including the first for India—were launched in the November planetary window to continue the robotic exploration of the red planet. Orbital mechanics dictate that they will at least arrive in the vicinity of Mars as scheduled.
Now it will be called Airbus Group, instead of European Aerospace, Defense and Space Co. (EADS), a name it used proudly for the last 13 years. This is a formidable rebranding initiative for a global 144,000-employee group headquartered in the Netherlands (for fiscal reasons only). The new title, which is scheduled to be ratified in May by the shareholders, has been in use since Jan. 1.
Timing is everything, and the chronology of signatures President Barack Obama provided Dec. 26, 2013, to a couple of A&D-related laws has lowered and reformed a key tax benefit that federal contractors received. Under the Bipartisan Budget Act—the so-called Ryan-Murray budget deal that helps avoid another shutdown and allows fresh appropriations—federal reimbursement of certain contractor compensation packages applied to cost-type contracts has been capped at $487,000. That is down from more than $952,000 under an automatically adjusted regulatory formula.
Singapore's Tigerair will sell its struggling Philippine affiliate to competitor Cebu Pacific, which will replace Tigerair's direct presence in the Philippine market. Tigerair's retreat follows the expansion into the Philippine market by the largest of the franchising low-cost groups, AirAsia, which bought Zest Air last year and rebranded it as AirAsia Zest. Cebu Pacific will buy 40% of the equity of SEair—which also uses the brand Tigerair Philippines—from Tigerair of Singapore, and the remaining 60% from local shareholders. The total price is $15 million.
Joel H. Benkie has been named president of Los Angeles-based Ducommun Inc. He has been executive vice president and will remain chief operating officer. As president, Benkie succeeds Anthony J. Reardon, who will continue as chairman/CEO.
1984 A team of 10 managers starts work on a business plan for a new airline based in Dubai. 1985 Emirates is formally launched with Maurice Flanagan at the top. He has $10 million and five months to get the airline off the ground. Sheikh Ahmed bin Said Al Makhtoum and Tim Clark join. On Oct. 25, EK600 takes off from Dubai to Karachi, Emirates' first scheduled flight. The airline also flies to Mumbai and New Delhi.
USAF Maj. Gen. John W. Raymond has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and assignment as commander of the 14th Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) of Air Force Space Command/commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Space of U.S. Strategic Command, Vandenberg AFB, Calif. He has been director of plans and policy for U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt AFB, Neb.
Details of closely held efforts to make the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet more stealthy have been revealed, perhaps inadvertently, by the appearance of a full-scale test specimen at the U.S. Air Force “boneyard” in Arizona. Lacking wings and its forward fuselage, it appears to be part of a radar cross-section (RCS) model to measure the effects of changes to the fighter's structure and engine nozzles.
Walid Abukhaled (see photo) has become Riyadh-based chief executive for Saudi Arabia for the Northrop Grumman Corp. He was his country's deputy minister for industrial affairs and was president/CEO of General Electric Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Today's International Space Station has roots extending back more than 30 years, to the Cold War competition when the Soviet Union orbited Mir, and NASA, Canada, Europe and Japan planned a bigger outpost dubbed Space Station Freedom. 1987 concept for Space Station Freedom. Mir-2 concept from 1993. Some elements of the follow-on Soviet station found their way into the ISS.
Feb. 4-6—MRO Middle East. Dubai. Feb. 10—Air Transport World's 40th Annual Airline Industry Achievement Awards. Pan Pacific Singapore Hotel. March 4-5—Defense Technology and Affordability Requirements Conference. Washington. March 6—Aviation Week's Laureate Awards. Washington. April 8-10—MRO Americas. Phoenix. Oct. 7—MRO Europe. Madrid. You can now register ONLINEfor Aviation Week Events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/events or call +1 (212) 904-4682.
Barely a decade ago, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) demonstrated that driverless vehicles could navigate desert roads and negotiate city streets. Now car manufacturers from Audi to Toyota are promising that autonomous driving technology will make their vehicles safer by the middle of this decade.
In “Fight and Train” you say “the F-35 remains the world's leading combat aircraft” (AW&ST Dec. 30, 2013/Jan. 6, 2014, p. 58). This is a bit of a stretch for an aircraft that has not yet reached squadron service, much less flown in combat.
