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.
David O'Neill has been appointed director of sales for the Premier Aviation Overhaul Center, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. He was vice president of international sales and marketing for Aeroframe Services.
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.
India on Oct. 2 moved its Mars Orbiter to the launch pad at Sriharikota for its scheduled liftoff to the red planet on Oct. 28. After a series of tests, scientists at the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) approved transport of the 1,340-kg (3,000-lb.) orbiter to the pad for integration with the 350-ton rocket. It is an extended version of the space agency's workhorse launcher, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL), an ISRO scientist says.
At least one captain of industry thinks the Defense Department could lift its ban on prime U.S. contractors acquiring each other now that lower annual budgets appear locked in for years. “I don't see the department . . . standing in the way of consolidation,” Exelis CEO David Melcher says. The expressed ban on the Top 5 contractors—Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics—merging stems from Pentagon policy crafted before the Budget Control Act and its threatened sequestrations became law in August 2011.
The new Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) rules are all about numbers, regardless of actual experience, and will never address the real issues of pilot qualification and professional conduct.
The photograph that appears on page 47, which accompanies “The Shock of the New” (AW&ST Sept. 30, p. 44), is certainly not of a Lockheed TriStar. It appears to be a Vickers VC10. Prospect, Ky. (The reader is correct—Ed.)
Bennie Johnson has been named managing director of flight crew management systems, Sunae Park managing director of airport services and Sandy Stelling managing director of customer research and development, all for Alaska Airlines. Johnson has been managing director of flight operations planning and resource management; Park director of inflight resource management; and Stelling director of operations.
While U.S. Navy aviation mishap numbers and rates have declined in recent years, the Navy is especially vigilant about potential UAV-related accidents, which are categorized separately. “The mishap rate through Sept. 19 . . . with four mishaps was the best rate in history through this date,” the Navy Safety Center says. But UAVs are not counted in that tally, because they have not posted enough historical flight hours. UAV accidents, including a December crash of an MQ-8B Fire Scout, cost the Navy a total of $67 million in 2012. The U.S.
Russell Ford has become CEO and Marc McGowan senior vice president of the business aviation sector of StandardAero, Tempe, Ariz. Ford has been president of the Carlton Forge Works and Dickson Test Group of the Forged Products Div. of the Precision Castparts Corp. McGowan succeeds Scott Taylor, who is retiring. McGowan was vice president-business development and strategy for business aviation.
When the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) members assemble for their annual meeting in Salzburg, Austria, this week, they should make sure not to miss a presentation scheduled for the last day. Doreen Welsh, one of the flight attendants on US Airways Flight 1549 that ditched into the Hudson River in New York following a devastating bird strike, will tell attendees about what probably were the most dramatic moments of her life and how she survived the incident.
In Bill Sweetman's recent column “Counter-Stealth” (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 16), he writes: “By 1995, everyone knew that shape was the major driver of RCS (radar cross section),” hence the Russian answer (a new radar) to our stealthy Joint Strike Fighter.
A 1:11-scale model of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's D8 “double-bubble” airliner concept undergoes testing in NASA Langley Research Center's 14 X 22-ft. wind tunnel to measure the drag benefit from fuselage boundary-layer ingestion by very-high-bypass engines embedded in the tail. The 13.4 ft.-span model was made using additive manufacturing. NASA Langley photo by George Homich.
A series of U.S.-India military sales agreements worth billions of dollars are nearing completion, on the heels of a meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A $1.2 billion deal to buy six Lockheed-Martin C-130J Super Hercules aircraft (see photo) for the Indian air force (IAF), to bring its fleet to 12, has been inching forward all year. The Indian Defense Acquisition Council issued final clearance for the sale this month and the contract is expected to be signed by year-end.
An industry-government advisory group has prioritized capabilities in the FAA's NextGen program to help the agency realign its spending in an austere budget environment. The RTCA's NextGen Advisory Committee, chaired by Alaska Airlines CEO Bill Ayer, found that its priority list was similar to those compiled by earlier panels that had looked at streamlining and boosting the air traffic management overhaul effort. But this time the ramifications are more dire for programs further down the list.
There have been many times in my career when I have realized (in smack-on-side-of-head mode) that the answer to a question that nobody will answer today is in the notes from last month or a few years ago. This might sometimes be a good approach for the Pentagon to take. I wrote here two weeks ago (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 16) about Russia's impressive new radars, quite clearly designed to detect and defeat stealth aircraft. But short of a doomsday bomb, there is no ultimate weapon, and I noted that these big complexes—“Aegis on wheels”—are not invulnerable.
