U.S. Army Maj. Gen. (ret.) Patrick H. Brady, a top helicopter pilot of the Vietnam War, is among four aviators to be enshrined Oct. 4 in the National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. His 34-year Army career included flying more than 2,500 combat missions as a Dust Off helicopter pilot, saving over 5,000 wounded soldiers and earning the Medal of Honor. Also to be enshrined is the late C.
Krisstie Kondrotis (see photo) has become vice president-business development for the McLean, Va.-based Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Information Systems sector. She held business development posts at CACI International and General Dynamics Information Technology.
Chip White and Andy Johnson (see photos) have traded jobs at FlightSafety International. White has been named manager of the Learning Center in Orlando, Fla., succeeding Johnson, who is now manager of the Gulfstream Learning Center in Savannah, Ga.
Earl Diamond has become CEO of Avianor Inc., Mirabel, Quebec. He is a co-owner of the company along with Sylvain Savard, who will continue as chairman and become executive vice president-operations. CFO Paul Costanzo also will be executive vice president-administration.
When Pilatus Aircraft began contemplating a successor to its iconic PC-6 Porter, it initially considered an unpressurized, turboprop-powered utility aircraft. But Cessna preempted that concept with its Model 208 Caravan. Recalculating, the Stans, Switzerland, designers settled on something unprecedented. They conjured up a large-cabin, executive/utility aircraft with a big cargo door, a single PT6 turboprop, short- and rough-field capability, pressurization to cruise over the weather and enough horses to do so at 280 kt.
Science managers have conceded failure in attempting to restore the Kepler Space Telescope to full functionality, and will focus on what the telescope can do with only two of its four reaction wheels working. Designed to find extra-solar planets by detecting the faint flicker in light from distant stars when a planet passes in front of it, Kepler lost its pointing accuracy when a second wheel failed in May. A system-level performance test Aug. 8 concluded the situation cannot be fixed, and mission managers are now evaluating responses to an Aug.
UPS suffered the second fatal accident in its 25-year air package service history Aug. 14 when Flight 1354 went down on final approach to Alabama's Birmingham Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) following a flight from the carrier's Louisville, Ky., hub, killing the two pilots. The Airbus A300-600F hit the ground about one-half mile short of BHM's 7,099-ft. Runway 18 on its initial approach. BHM's primary runway, the 11,998-ft. 6/24, was closed for routine maintenance at the time.
The FAA's fire safety branch is ordering 45,800 lithium-chemistry batteries for “large-scale” fire tests in a Boeing 727 testbed at its William J. Hughes Technical Center this fall. According to a request for quote issued on Aug. 13, the batteries are to be used as part of ongoing research “in support of a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and FAA rulemaking on the shipment of lithium-ion batteries by air. “These cells are to be used for large-scale fire tests that will provide data in support of the rulemaking,” says the FAA.
NASA says it will spend $55 million in fiscal 2014 to fund new milestone payments to the three companies developing commercial crew vehicles under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) phase of the seed-money effort. The companies will also add unspecified investments to meet the additional milestones, which were listed as optional under their 2012 Space Act agreements, and will extend the CCiCap phase from May to August 2014.
Michael Foale, long NASA's most senior active astronaut, has retired from the space agency after three decades and a half-dozen spaceflights. One of them—a 145-day mission to Russia's Mir space station in 1997—was interrupted by a collision with an out-of-control Progress cargo capsule. During his 2003-04 command of the eighth expedition to the International Space Station, Foale became the first American to accumulate a year in space on his way to logging a pre-retirement total of 375 days.
Christine Kelly Singley has become managing director of corporate communications for US Airways. She was head of executive, international, operational and internal communications for Delta Air Lines.
Phillip Spector has joined the satellite/space practice at law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in its Washington office. He was general counsel and head of business development at Intelsat.
USAF Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward has been appointed director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office in the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. She has been Air Force chief of safety/commander of the Air Force Safety Center, Kirtland AFB, N.M. Brig. Gen. Lee K. Levy, 2nd, has been selected for promotion to major general and appointment as vice director of logistics for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He has been director of logistics at Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill. Levy will be succeeded by Brig.
Spacecraft manufacturers in Europe and the U.S. are finding new business in Brazil's emerging satellite market, with Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy, and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Space Systems/Loral (SSL) tapped in recent weeks to build new commercial spacecraft. Brazil, the world's seventh-largest economy, is expected to spend roughly $2 billion between 2012-15 on new civil and military space initiatives.
Aug. 29-Sept. 1—Asian/Australian Rotorcraft Forum. Tianjin, China. See www.arf2013.nuaa.edu.cn/ Sept. 3-6—39th European Rotorcraft Forum. Moscow. See erf2013.org/ Sept. 5-8—China Helicopter Exposition. See www.helicopter-china-expo.com/ Sept. 9-12—Fifth Boeing/Northrop Grumman/Elysium Joint Global Product Data Interoperability Summit. Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, Chandler, Ariz. See www.gpdisonline.com Sept. 10-12—AIAA Space 2013 Conference and Exposition. San Diego. See www.aiaa.org/SPACE2013
It seems everybody is all “Fired Up” and moving in opposite directions: the UAE's GCAA urges installation of cockpit video recorders (CVR) in its final report on the 2010 crash of UPS Flight 6, and for 13 years the NTSB has pushed the FAA to require just that. But the FAA has declined to act, and pilot unions “are firmly against the idea.” So what else is new?
