Boeing has achieved its highest widebody production rate—8.3 aircraft per month, or 100 per year—with a Korean Air 777 Freighter that rolled out Jan. 8. The company has increased 777 production rates twice in the past 31 months, moving from five to seven per month to the 8.3 in about 16-month intervals. Last year, Boeing shipped 83 777s, the equivalent of 6.9 per month. Previously, the 747 had been the rate champion at a peak of seven per month. The 737 narrowbody production line is now turning out 38 aircraft per month.
U.S. Army Col. Leon N. Thurgood has been nominated for promotion to brigadier general. He has been deputy program executive officer for missiles and space, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), were presented with a challenge at the start of 2012: get their parties to agree to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget and deal with a series of tax extensions. Failing meant a likely recession caused by inaction, and election-year inertia only raised the stakes.
Limited and uncertain funding has forced NASA to make hard decisions as it selects which technologies to take to the next level in its pursuit of aggressive fuel-burn, noise and emissions reductions for next-generation commercial transports. A victim of its own success, NASA's refocused aeronautics research program has advanced more technologies than its diminished budget can afford to take forward into the next phase of its Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project.
Virgin Atlantic Airways' choice to recruit American Airlines executive Craig Kreeger as CEO indicates the London-based airline is preparing for a new chapter in its history, jettisoning its historic independent streak to embrace a future as a fully fledged network carrier and possible alliance member. But the new CEO will have his hands full.
Boaz Levi (see photo) has been nominated as corporate vice president/general manager of the Systems, Missiles and Space Group of Israel Aerospace Industries. He has been general director of the Air Defense Systems Div.
When former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee as the president's choice to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, look for him to be grilled about his past statements on Iran, Israel and maybe even his views about sexual orientation. But former colleagues in the Republican Party are also likely to take him to task for his support of downsizing the U.S. nuclear force.
NASA's decision to launch the Glory climate-monitoring spacecraft in spite of a recommendation from its own engineering safety office not to (AW&ST Dec. 17, 2012, p. 24) is disturbingly reminiscent of some Columbia Accident Investigation Board findings. Equally disturbing is the risk that was taken to avoid “the cost that would be tied up with a very long launch delay.”
Do you have any policy regarding advertising copy? A recent Airbus ad is infuriating, at best (AW&ST Dec. 17, 2012, pp. 4-5). It attacks a U.S. company with an excellent history. Of course, what is missing from the ad copy is any reference to safety and the number of lives lost on Airbus fly-by-wire aircraft.
Four Skyteam members on either side of the Taiwan Strait are deepening their relationship with closer collaboration in their shared market between the island nation of Taiwan and China. The so-called Great China Connection service also marks one of the biggest steps forward in cooperation between China Southern and China Eastern airlines since the latter's 2010 application to join Skyteam. The application put both carriers in the same alliance and raised the question of whether the two state airlines would ultimately be merged.
Frank Morring, Jr.'s commentary “Bring the Mountain . . .” (AW&ST Dec. 17, 2012, p. 22) highlights the difficulties NASA is facing in establishing a meaningful mission for the SLS/Orion system. Both the Moon and Mars beckon, but due to politics and economics NASA is instead considering the capture and return to cislunar space of a small near-Earth asteroid.
Lockheed Martin has finally delivered the waveform needed to fully utilize the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access capabilities offered by the new Mobile User Objective System narrowband communications satellites.
Warning that a looming trio of budget disasters would hollow the military and devastate readiness, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asked the military to begin to prepare for one of them—sequestration. “We really have no choice but to prepare for the worst,” Panetta told reporters during a Jan. 10 news briefing.
Rick Howard has been named chief information security officer for TASC Inc., Chantilly, Va. He was general manager of the iDefense business unit of VeriSign and had led the intelligence-gathering activities at Counterpane Internet Security.
The opening of an expanded terminal at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport signals its aspirations to compete with the larger two airports in the Russian capital, and it also opens capacity for UTair Aviation and its Star Alliance partners.
U.S. government agencies are quietly making “direct arrangements” with airborne Internet providers to obtain certain information flowing through broadband Wi-Fi systems for data and voice in airline passenger cabins.
Improved demand for larger regional jets and sustained sales of its Q400 turboprop helped Bombardier in 2012 post its highest level of regional aircraft net orders since 2007. The 138 sales in 2012 compare with 54 net orders in 2011 and exceed all annual sales since the airframer posted a record 238 orders in 2006. Bombardier's 2012 total includes 73 CRJs—up from four in 2011—and 50 Q400s, up from seven in 2011. CSeries sales, however, fell to 15 in 2012 from 54 in 2011.
Internal studies by Ad Astra Rocket propose key propulsion roles for its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr) on formative space missions that draw interest from Washington and abroad. Those missions include the retrieval of a Near Earth Asteroid to prepare for human deep-space exploration and mitigation of the Earth orbital debris threat, as well as commercial initiatives to reboost and refuel Earth-orbiting spacecraft.
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While it still is ramping up production on the Eclipse 550, Eclipse Aerospace is hoping to make a case that the U.S. Air Force should buy up to up to 100 of its very light jets (VLJs) to supplant the aging fleet of 178 T-1A Jayhawks (Beechjet 400s) flown for the USAF Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training program. Eclipse Jan. 7 responded to a request for information for a commercial off-the-shelf fleet of VLJs to support the program's training track. Eclipse believes it can fulfill the same requirement with 100 trainer versions of the Eclipse 550.
Astronomers using NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a highly modified Boeing 747SP that carries a 100-in.-dia. IR telescope, have created a series of multiple exposures revealing a ring of gas and dust created in a burst of energy 4-6 million years ago at the center of the Milky Way.
China has declared its Beidou (formerly Compass) satellite-navigation system fully operational, although the service remains limited to most of the Asia-Pacific region. The operating office says it is “accelerating” construction of the system but repeats the long-standing commitment to achieve global coverage from about 2020; no earlier possibility is mentioned. An initial operational service began a year ago.
