In late April, the FAA trumped the National Transportation Safety Board by approving a redesign and return-to-flight plan for the Boeing 787's troubled lithium-ion batteries. It came the same week NTSB held an investigative hearing in which participants made it clear that the root cause for the smoking batteries had not been found. The usually loquacious NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman played it cool at the time, but public comments she provided in the FAA's airworthiness directive (AD) docket for the 787 fix earlier this month reveal she might yet have the last word.
John Croft's “Bomb Squad” (AW&ST June 10, p. 28) was interesting, but I am intrigued by the aircraft parked on the lawn in the large photograph at the bottom of the page. Although the resolution is not what one would like, the seven aircraft appear to have the shoulder-swept wing, single-engine, low-set tail and chin intake of the Vought A-7 attack aircraft, retired long ago.
The aircraft that made the news at last week's 50th Paris air show are largely enabled by advances in propulsion technology that allow their manufacturers to offer big reductions in fuel burn over the previous generation of airliners. The savings of 15% or more are driving the orders. Whether it is the Airbus A320NEO with the CFM International Leap-1A or Pratt & Whitney PW1100G, Boeing 737MAX with the Leap-1B, Bombardier CSeries with the PW1500G, Embraer E-Jet E2 with the PW1700/1900G or Mitsubishi MRJ90 with the PW12000G, the engines are critical.
Anthony Sweeney has become general manager of the RF and Microwave Components Group of Chelmsford, Mass.-based Mercury Systems Commercial Electronics unit. He was president of AC Executive Solutions and had been an executive with the Endwave Corp.
Governments have not always been good at dealing with the defense industry. Over history and probably in the future too, there have been and are likely to be a litany of delayed or canceled programs caused by overspecification, cost overruns or poor quality. Such affairs are typically part and parcel of defense life, but as fiscal belts tighten, these events are becoming increasingly politically untenable.
The U.S. military's so-called Pacific pivot has the Navy taking a big gamble on a little vessel—the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The Navy is betting the frigate-sized ship will provide just the right kind of presence without being overpowering as the U.S. struggles to boost its presence in the region without flexing too much muscle and infringing on the sovereignty of the Asian partners it wants to woo.
Argentine tensions with the U.K. over the disputed Falkland Islands have prompted the South American country's main aircraft manufacturer to change ejection seats in the latest version of the Pampa jet trainer. The IA-63 Pampa III will be equipped with a Russian-made NPP Zvezda seat rather than the British-made Martin-Baker seat. The switch will apply to aircraft destined for the Argentine air force, but foreign customers will still be able to have the Martin-Baker fitted.
Aviation Week received three honors at the Aerospace Media Awards in Paris on June 16. The Best Social/Digital Media Award was accepted by Multimedia Manager Rupa Haria, one of the leaders of Aviation Week's increased emphasis on digital and social media. That includes a tablet edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology, videos, photos, blogs, social media and an air show app.
David Shrum has become general manager of Reston, Va.-based Qinetiq North America's Defense Solutions unit. He was vice president/division manager for modeling, simulation and training at the Camber Corp. and had been vice president of land forces at Northrop Grumman's Electronics Systems.
Bell Helicopter is attempting to reinvent the JetRanger and reenter a market it left behind five years ago. Juggling development of the Bell 525 super-medium and V-280 Valor, the company's tiltrotor candidate for the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift requirement, Bell has added the Short Light Single (SLS), revealed at the Paris air show here, in a bid to regain market share lost to types such as the Robinson R66 and Eurocopter EC120 that have leaped into the gap created when JetRanger production ended 2.5 years ago.
Harry “Hap” McSween, a Chancellor's Professor and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has been named the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Professor of the Year. McSween is known for his research of meteorites and Mars. The award honors one SEC faculty member from the 14 conference universities “whose record in research, scholarship and service places him/her among the elite in higher education.”
A “discussion draft” of a two-year NASA reauthorization bill is running into bipartisan opposition in its originating House space subcommittee, illustrating how lawmakers' divergent opinions about NASA spending are inhibiting progress. Democrats are complaining about cuts in Earth Science funding. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), the panel's vice chairman, promises to vote against the bill unless more money is provided for the Space Launch System program in his district.
Paul Dolan (see photo) has been named vice president of the Commercial Aero and Military Strategic Business units of Chromalloy, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was acting head of the Commercial Aero unit and manager of the company's military contracts.
William J. Hanks, CNS Engineer U.S. Army Fixed Wing Project Office (Huntsville, Ala. )
The Viewpoint “WAAS: Vital for NextGen and It Needs Help” (AW&ST June 10, p. 58) describes the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) as being in need of expansion to help NextGen. I believe Ernest Edwards's terminology is a little misplaced. WAAS is a Space-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) to GPS which already covers North America and cannot be expanded there.
CSeries customers assembled here by Bombardier to talk up the aircraft say they are comfortable with the program's progress so far, as the company aims for a first flight by the end of this month. “On performance and timing, we are very confident we will get what we contracted for when it is wanted,” says Nico Buchholz, Lufthansa executive vice president for group fleet management. Lufthansa has 30 110-seat CS100s on firm order for subsidiary Swiss.
NASA has picked a new class of astronauts—four men and four women—as it pares its corps of government space travelers to meet the reduced requirements of operating the International Space Station and perhaps beginning to reach out beyond low Earth orbit. The agency intends to employ 45-55 astronauts for the foreseeable future. The corps reached an all-time high of 139 in 2000, when NASA was launching 5-6 shuttle missions annually and beginning to staff the station full-time. The new astronauts will join NASA 's 49-member “active-status” astronaut corps.
Jun Tsuruta (see photos) has been named senior director of maintenance procurement for Hawaiian Airlines. He was senior procurement project manager for Gulfstream Aerospace and had been director of supply chain/strategic sourcing at Lockheed Martin. Bill Meredith has been appointed director of the project management office. He was vice president for health-care consulting at Teampraxis and Datahouse Consulting.
International Aero Engines (IAE) will begin building the first V2500-E5 test engine for Embraer's KC-390 tanker/transport this week. The joint venture plans to deliver three flight-test engines to the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer this year and three more in the first quarter of 2014. The KC-390 is scheduled to fly in the second half of next year. The V2500-E5, which is almost identical to the V2500-A5 for the Airbus A320, is scheduled for civil certification in the third quarter of 2014.
Manolo Centeno (see photo) has been promoted to director/leader of the operations consulting practice at Sabre Airlines Solutions, Southlake, Texas, from project leader for the operations practice.
