Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is seeking to ward off planned massive cuts in the FAA's contract tower program. The FAA plans to close up to 189 such air traffic control towers as part of its effort to meet its required budget cuts under “sequestration,” which took effect March 1. Airports and general aviation groups have protested the plan to shut down 75% of the nation's contract towers, saying the program is slated for far greater cuts than the rest of the FAA's budget, at a risk to safety.
The rolling green scenery of the U.K.'s Salisbury Plain is an unlikely stand-in for Afghanistan's Helmand Province. But for Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) Helicopter Wing personnel, the area has provided a place to hone their skills in preparation for a long-awaited helo deployment to Afghanistan.
Brad Furukawa and Helena K.L. Chan have been named to receive Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman's Asian-American Engineer of the Year award. Furukawa is VP and chief technology officer of the company's Enterprise Shared Services organization, and Chan is the integration and test lead of the USAF Deployable Instrument Landing program.
The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has used its first deployment of Eurofighter Typhoons to a Red Flag exercise to start conceptualizing how it might use the fighter in conjunction with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.
Brad Furukawa and Helena K.L. Chan have been named to receive Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman's Asian-American Engineer of the Year award. Furukawa is VP and chief technology officer of the company's Enterprise Shared Services organization, and Chan is the integration and test lead of the USAF Deployable Instrument Landing program.
Does it make sense to keep pursuing a goal that has eluded industry for decades? Not surprisingly, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) believes that it is, and has launched yet another bid to build a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) vehicle that combines the low-speed agility of a helicopter with the high-speed capability of a fixed-wing aircraft.
The recent Up Front column “And Then There Were Four” (AW&ST March 4/11, p. 14), refers to Southwest Airlines as a “low cost-behemoth.” I beg to differ. I've been planning to visit my daughter in California, and the best prices I could find for a trip from Raleigh, N.C., were on American and Delta. Southwest was barely third, $9 better than United. It's clear that Southwest, which certainly once was a low-cost airline, no longer routinely beats the others on price.
The revised 787 lithium-ion battery configuration incorporates a range of modifications that Boeing says are designed to prevent conditions under which potential issues might occur, and to isolate them if they do. The revised battery is physically wider than the existing design because of large spacer units attached on either side of the cells. The spacers are configured to improve thermal and electrical isolation, and are bordered toward the outside by additional insulation layers.
In addition to the excellent points brought up by Adam Jones in his Viewpoint, “Pilot Race: Why I Am Dropping Out,” consider the added burden in money and time to complete the additional 1,250 flight hours that are required in order to have the necessary 1,500 to qualify for an airline pilot position. This, too, will have an enormous effect on the coming pilot shortage.
Embraer expects a significant boost to its backlog with the addition of a Republic Airways order for 47 Embraer 175s. A U.S. bankruptcy judge cleared American Airlines plans for Republic to fly the aircraft under the American Eagle brand. The manufacturer expects to deliver 18 of the aircraft to Republic in 2013. By the end of last year, Embraer had 10 remaining 170s on firm order and 35 Embraer 175s. The total backlog also includes 109 190s and 31 195s. Last year, Embraer delivered 106 commercial jets and recorded orders for 56.
Norm Augustine, who engineered the 1995 merger between Martin Marietta and Lockheed, has been selected for induction into Cleveland-based IndustryWeek's 2012 Manufacturing Hall of Fame. Other aerospace inductees are Lewis Campbell, who as CEO of Textron in the 2000s launched Textron Six Sigma; and Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing, who “brought stability to the company and led it to record revenue.”
Jason Weiss has been named VP-operations at Dallas-based Flexjet, succeeding David Gross, who is retiring after 13 years of service. Weiss was VP-crew resource planning at NetJets. Lori Carr (see photo) has been appointed owner experience officer, a new position. She was president of her own consulting practice, Lori Carr & Associates.
Adrienne Robinson has been named president of Atlanta-based Precision Aviation Group (PAG) subsidiary Gardner Aviation Services. She will add the new role to her current position as VP-business development at PAG.
If what is driving a person's interest in being an airline captain is “the lifestyle, the pay, and the prestige,” as stated in a recent Viewpoint (AW&ST Feb. 11, p. 58). I strongly recommend he or she get out now. After 20 years in the cockpit for three different airlines (and still in the right seat!), I find that pilots who are motivated by these three things tend to never be satisfied—even back in the “good old days.”
Leaders have been appointed to key Boeing Commercial Aircraft programs, filling out an initiative that BCA President and CEO Ray Conner started in December.
Taxes on carbon emissions were also a notable feature of the latest round of earnings reports in Australia. The Australian government introduced a carbon tax in July 2012, so this was the first reporting period to include the cost to airlines. Virgin Australia says the per-passenger carbon tax—which applies only to domestic flights—totaled A$24.4 million in the six months through Dec. 31. To put this in perspective, that amount is larger than its net profit for the period.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) achieved the highest “hop' of its Grasshopper vertical-takeoff-and-landing test vehicle, reaching almost 263 ft. on March 9 at the company's McGregor test site in Texas. The vehicle, combining a modified Falcon 9 first stage, landing legs and a Merlin 1D engine, first flew in September 2012. The testbed is a key element of SpaceX's longer-term ambition to develop a reusable booster to lower launch costs.
Stop me if you have heard this one before: the U.S. Air Force considers or awards a high-profile aircraft program to an industry team whose marquee player is a foreign manufacturer. Their U.S. competitor protests loudly. The program stops. International hackles are raised. And military personnel are left waiting for equipment they sorely need.
Lufthansa is emerging as a possible launch customer for Boeing's proposed 777X. The airline is including the aircraft in its long-haul fleet evaluation to be decided later this year. It is looking at the Airbus A350-900/1000, more Boeing 747-8s and the 777X, company sources say. Lufthansa added two Airbus A380s to its orderbook and opted for the A320/321NEO as the future backbone of its short-haul fleet. The carrier is taking 70 A320/321NEOs (new engine option) and 30 A320 family aircraft. It also bought six 777-300ERs for subsidiary Swiss.
The U.S. Air Force's interest in its most expensive white-world unmanned air vehicle, the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, is flagging, at best, and at worst, diminishing to zero. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy continues to dance a stately pavane around the idea of a carrier-based UAV.
Australia's startup satellite operator NewSat will launch the Jabiru-1 satellite in early 2015 after spending several months finalizing more than $400 million in export-credit-agency financing.
A Payern, Switzerland-based startup has joined with France's Dassault, the European Space Agency, Stanford University, the Von Karman Institute and others to propose an air-launched reusable unpiloted space shuttle optimized for launching small satellites at low cost. Swiss Space Systems (S3) plans to use a vehicle based on Dassault's Vehra airborne reusable hypersonic vehicle concept, and a throw-away upper stage, to orbit satellites weighing as much as 250 kg. (550 lb.) at altitudes of 600-800 km.
