USAF Brig. Gen. Veralinn Jamieson has been appointed director of intelligence at Air Combat Command (ACC) Headquarters, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va. Jamieson was special assistant to the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon and succeeds Brig. Gen. Bradford J. Shwedo. He has been named director of capability and resource integration at U.S. Cyber Command, Headquarters, Fort Meade, Md. Brig. Gen. John L. Dolan has been appointed assistant deputy commander of U.S.
Austin Meyer, developer of the X-Plane simulator and Xaxion emergency landing application for the iPad, tests Xavion in his Columbia 400 single-engine aircraft in this image by Jeff Amberg Photography. Meyer also provides the Xavion software to nascent avionics maker Vertical Power for the VP-400 backup flight display and “runway seeker” package that automatically guides an aircraft to the best-fit runway after an engine failure or pilot incapacitation. VP-400 is being offered to the experimental aircraft market.
Victoria Pender (see photo) has become executive vice president-communications of U.K.-based Cobham plc. She was group director for government and corporate affairs for Network Rail and has been director of communications for Tube Lines Ltd.
Oct. 14-21—AUSA Annual Meeting. Washington Convention Center. See http://ausameetings.org/annual/ Oct. 22-24—National Business Aviation Association Convention and Exhibition. Las Vegas. See www.nbaa.org/events/name/ Oct. 22-25—24th Annual NHA Gulf Coast Fleet Fly-In. NAS Whiting Field, Milton, Fla. For more information, contact [email protected] Oct. 23—Aerospace Components Manufacturers Inc. Hartford/Windsor Airport Marriott Hotel. Windsor, Conn. See www.aerospacecomponents.org/page3643.html for more information.
Boeing has completed initial airworthiness tests of the stretched 787-9 and accumulated more than 40 flight hours in the run-up to the start of flutter tests, which are expected to begin later this month. Initial aircraft handling qualities are good and systems appear to be robust, says 787 Chief Pilot Randy Neville.
Franz Josef Kirschfink (see photo) has been appointed managing director of Hamburg Aviation, which includes Airbus, Lufthansa Technik and Hamburg Airport. He succeeds Walter Birkhan, who is retiring. Kirschfink has been director of technology projects for Lufthansa Technik and had been chief operating officer of subsidiary Alitalia Maintenance Systems in Rome.
Lew Jenkins (see photo), longtime chief of air traffic services for Airways New Zealand, has been named to receive the Jean Batten Memorial Award from the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators on Oct. 23 in London. He is being honored for “outstanding individual contribution to New Zealand aviation, in training and leading professionals in his chosen discipline of air navigation services.”
We are told there is no silver bullet for aviation biofuels, and that the best choice of feedstock-to-fuel pathway will be regional, even local, not global, as petroleum-based jet fuel is today. But there is an option the aviation industry hopes could work pretty well, almost anywhere, and that is algae.
Alexander Mikheev (see photo) has been appointed CEO of Moscow-based Russian Helicopters, a part of Rostec State Corp. He was deputy CEO of Rosoboronexport and succeeds Dmitry Petrov, who will continue to work within Rostec.
With its first Airbus A400M Atlas handed over, attention is now being focused on how the French air force will put the new European airlifter through its paces.
Nigerian authorities are investigating the crash of an Associated Aviation Embraer EMB-120 Pratt & Whitney Canada PW100-powered twin-turboprop on departure from Lagos, Nigeria, on Oct. 3, killing 16 of the 20 people onboard. Witnesses to the crash told local media the aircraft “was making a lot of noise” when it descended, and pilots appeared to maneuver to avoid a residential area.
Delta Air Lines is breaking ranks with its three major U.S. airline rivals, selecting Microsoft as its electronic flight bag provider over Apple. The airline announced Sept. 30 that it will purchase 11,000 Microsoft Surface 2 tablets for its pilots as part of a move to increase productivity and situational awareness, as well as to cut costs by replacing paper manuals and charts.
The first set of flexible wings on the X-56A Multi-Utility Technology Testbed (MUTT) are being installed in readiness for the flight tests designed to probe to the edge, and beyond, of the destructive flutter envelope. Built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, the 28-ft.-wingspan unmanned aircraft has been designed to test control technologies to counter flutter, a potentially catastrophic aeroelastic instability to which aircraft with slender, high-aspect ratio wings are particularly vulnerable.
Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has received the first WTS Navigator Award from Washington-based WTS International, the association for the advancement of women in transportation. He was cited for standing “behind our mission and creating new opportunities for a diverse and inclusive workforce.” He was noted for having set the gender diversity issue in the transportation industry on an accelerated path.
By modernizing a component as rudimentary as a mechanical circuit breaker, Albuquerque, N.M.,-based Vertical Power has opened the door to a wealth of new applications and safety features for the experimental market, including an automatic landing system that flies to the threshold. The offering is similar to new systems being developed for high-end business jets, but at a much lower cost.
Early peer-reviewed results of soil-sample analysis by an instrument on the Curiosity Mars rover hold potentially good news for future human explorers who will need to live off the land as much as possible, and bad news for scientists looking for evidence of past life on the planet.
Roughly 97% of NASA employees were not working as of last week, sidelined by the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1. Remember that fact if, and when, you see Chinese astronauts walking on the Moon, while Americans are still stuck in low-Earth orbit. While politicians will rue that day, in NASA circles, concern centers more immediately on two planetary spacecraft trying to stay on schedule for their launch windows. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) spacecraft was already at Kennedy Space Center preparing for a Nov. 18 launch.
Low-cost operator Norwegian Air Shuttle is expected to return its grounded Boeing 787-8s to service early this month after the manufacturer implemented an aggressive “get-well” campaign to beef up spare-parts provision, maintenance and engineering support. The situation at Norwegian appeared to have come to a head by the end of September, following several weeks of reliability problems in the power distribution system, hydraulics, oxygen system and brakes.
