Lee Lik Hsin (see photos) is exchanging jobs at Singapore Airlines Cargo with Tan Kai Ping. Lee has been named CEO, effective Aug. 1, and Tan will become senior vice president-corporate planning.
OHB System of Germany signed an €816 million ($1.06 billion) contract with the German defense procurement agency to develop the SARah satellite-based radar reconnaissance system. SARah aims to provide an enhanced follow-on to Germany's five-satellite SAR-Lupe constellation, which became fully operational in 2008. Built by OHB, SAR-Lupe, which uses one ground station, is slated to retire after November 2017. SARah will comprise just three satellites supported by two ground stations, entering full operational service by the end of 2019.
I am sometimes amazed by all the optimism of the dozens of Western aerospace executives shuttling in and out of the Comac (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China) headquarters in Shanghai. Most have not made a dime yet on the business, but they continue to send dozens of engineers to China, invest millions to form joint ventures with Chinese aerospace companies, and diligently educate the Chinese on the basics of commercial aircraft-building, hoping one day that these costly efforts will turn into big money. Unfortunately, I do not share the same sentiment.
Eurocopter is awaiting the final endorsements from regulators on fixes to its EC225 helicopter which could allow a return to flight operations in the coming days. Around 50% of the worldwide fleet of EC225s has been halted from flying over hostile environments since October 2012, following two enforced landings into the North Sea by aircraft flown by U.K.-based operators Bond Offshore and CHC. The incidents were found to have been caused by a failure in the bevel gear vertical shaft—a critical component in the main gearbox that drives lubrication pumps.
Headlines out of Capitol Hill in recent weeks have screamed of major “plus-ups”—tens of billions of dollars in unrequested funding—toward U.S. border security. If enacted, the Senate's contentious immigration reform bill would provide a slew of new military-borne unmanned aircraft, helicopters, and surveillance and communications equipment, as well as an army of additional Border Patrol agents.
Christopher Weinberg (see photo) has been promoted to chief information officer from director of strategy and business development at New York-based FlightSafety International.
Dale G. Farr has become rotary sales manager for Max-Viz Enhanced Vision Systems for the Astronics Corp., East Aurora, N.Y. He was aviation safety manager and a tanker pilot for Erickson Air-Crane Inc.
I have to question the U.S. Navy's decision to call the personnel who fly the Northrop Grumman X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) “air vehicle operators” rather than “pilots,” as noted in “Maverick Out” (AW&ST June 24, p. 42). This nomenclature brings back scary memories of the 1960s DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter) program, where the “controllers” who were also not “pilots” ran up an unsustainable loss rate.
New Zealand continues to face a tight fiscal budget, but is moving to procure new primary trainer aircraft for its air force and plans to replace its Lockheed Martin P-3Ks and C-130Hs in the next dozen years.
Piggybacking on the Google Lunar X Prize and various commercial endeavors, NASA has offered its expertise and test facilities to potential lunar-lander partners who might be able to help mount scientific missions to the Moon's surface as early as 2018. A request for information (RFI) published July 2 seeks concepts for “an industry-developed robotic lander that can be integrated with a launch vehicle for the purposes of supporting commercial (and potentially future NASA) missions.” The U.S.
NASA has cleared Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) through two more of its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) milestones, so the company's modified Dragon cargo carrier can begin pad-abort testing as early as this year. The U.S. space agency accepted the SpaceX human certification plan, which outlines everything the company plans to do to prepare for human spaceflight. That includes tests, demonstrations, analyses, inspections, verifications and training events, NASA says.
Pascal Picano has been named Dublin-based head of marketing for the Apollo Aviation Group. He was an executive with the International Lease Finance Corp.
When EasyJet confirmed its latest order for a total of 135 Airbus A320s and A320NEOs at the Paris air show, the airline was quick to point out a few of the deal's most important aspects. Flexibility of future fleet size and pricing that management considers to be very favorable to the airline, combined with EasyJet's track record for growth and profitability, make the plan look like a winning formula.
GeoMetWatch, a startup that is building on its engineers' experience developing an unflown government hyperspectral weather sounder to produce commercial weather hosted payloads, has entered a Space Act agreement with NASA to exchange data from orbit for surplus hardware and calibration services. Under the deal, NASA will receive data from the Sounding and Tracking Observatory of Regional Meteorology (Storm) instrument when it begins flying on AsiaSat 9 late in 2016.
Boeing has selected BAE Systems to provide the spoiler control electronics for the 737 MAX, firm configuration of which is on track for completion this month. The move to fly-by-wire spoilers is designed to improve handling characteristics, reduce weight and lower maintenance costs, and is one of the few major systems changes for the aircraft family which enters service in 2017. The control electronics award is BAE's first win on the MAX and the company's first contract since the Partnering for Success program was rolled out by Boeing.
The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee wants the Air Force and Army to report whether the planned retirement of 1970s-era A-10s and the introduction of so-called fifth-generation F-22s and F-35s actually leaves a gap in close-air-support (CAS) for U.S. ground personnel.
