With future budget reductions all but implemented, the chief of naval operations is underscoring the Navy's major defense acquisition priorities. Adm. Jonathan Greenert says the Navy will deliver the first-of-class USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) aircraft carrier in fiscal 2015 and maintain and modernize carrier air wings by fielding more F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, E/A-18 Growlers and E-2D Hawkeyes.
James P. Sohan has been named director of public safety for the Louisville (Ky.) Regional Airport Authority. He is a retired major in the Louisville Metro Police Department.
The Latam Group of LAN Airlines and TAM Brazil is delaying deliveries of 21 narrowbody and one widebody aircraft until the end of 2015. That will save $1.1 billion in investment spending, or 17% less than what was planned when TAM and LAN merged a year ago. The decision is part of a strategy for tighter capacity control.
While USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Thomas McInerney may have the correct figures to support is position—using business jets to fix military readiness—as stated in a recent Viewpoint (AW&ST July 29, p. 54), I am not sure he has included all the costs of using business jets as companion trainers. The biz jets would be yet another complex system requiring initial and recurring training to be operated safely. It would not be a system that the crews are already trained on.
Cathay Pacific Airways plans a leadership transition in March, with Chief Commercial Officer Ivan Chu taking over from CEO John Slosar, who will become chairman of Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co. and other Swire Group companies. Current Chairman Christopher Pratt plans to retire.
When a spacecraft is bound for another planet, examining it up close and personal is a rare opportunity. Senior Editor Frank Morring, Jr. (left) and Los Angeles Bureau Chief Guy Norris did just that with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft during its final stages of integration at Lockheed Martin's facility in Littleton, Colo. Now in preflight preparation at Kennedy Space Center, Maven is scheduled for launch in a 20-day window that opens Nov. 18.
Rachael Seidler, an associate professor in the Psychology Department and School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan and associate director of the neuroscience graduate program, has been named to lead the Sensorimotor Adaptation Team, one of seven integrated scientific research teams funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. She will be helping to coordinate the studies of scientists at eight institutions working on five projects, including her own.
Doug Brittin has been appointed secretary general of The International Air Cargo Association. He has been division director for air cargo for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.
In “Again and Again” (AW&ST Aug. 5/12, p. 50), the last sentence—“One thing we have done is to show we can characterize naval aviation digitally and take electronic commands and send them to autonomous vehicles that operate like aircraft in an airwing”—forecasts monumental change. I suspect that the consequences of that statement have already been fed into pro forma U.S. Naval Aviation budget models with “aircrew workup and bounce pattern” removed.
As a pilot with more than 35 years flying corporate, military and commercial aircraft, I am compelled to discount Lt. Gen. (ret.) Thomas McInerney's suggestion of fixing readiness by using business jets. This detached, bean-counter approach ignores the distinction between flying proficiency and military mission readiness.
Obituary: Long-serving NASA astronaut, research pilot and U.S. Air Force test pilot C. Gordon Fullerton died Aug. 21 at home in Lancaster, Calif. He was 76. Fullerton, who logged 382 hr. in space on two shuttle missions, was particularly well known for his work at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, where he was a research test pilot for 22 years.
Almost every airline livery change recently has been a step backward, and the new one from American Airlines is no exception. Because of its size, AA's new livery is a double disappointment. Thankfully I work close to Toronto Pearson International Airport, so I have a bit more time to enjoy the “old” style on finals before the barbershop pole takes over. Toronto, Ontario
ObituarY: Paul Poberezny, the founder of the Oshkosh, Wis.-based Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and the creator of the world's largest general aviation air show—AirVenture—died Aug. 22 from cancer at home in Oshkosh. He was 91. A self-taught aviator who began flying at age 16 in a Waco glider he refurbished, Poberezny started EAA in 1953 with his wife Audrey in the couple's basement near Milwaukee. An annual fly-in that would later become AirVenture started in Milwaukee before moving to Rockford, Ill., and ultimately to Wittman Field in Oshkosh.
Long-span wings generate less drag, but design rules limit their slenderness to avoid the potentially catastrophic aeroelastic instability known as flutter. Now, as part of the search for fuel efficiency and long endurance, flexible-wing control technology is being flight-tested to overcome those limits.
Workers at Lockheed Martin's Littleton, Colo., spacecraft facility prepare NASA's Maven (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) orbiter, the next U.S. mission to the red planet. Development of the high-heritage spacecraft draws on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and previously flown instruments to hold down cost and stay on schedule for a Nov. 18 launch date.
