Research into alternative jet fuels grabs the headlines. Delta Air Lines, justifiably, is drawing a lot of attention for its decision to acquire an oil refinery to alleviate the rising cost of jet fuel (AW&ST May 7, p. 24).
Once spy agencies drove development of advanced investigative cybertechnology, but now banks, credit card companies, PayPal, Google and Yahoo are driving development. The change is benefiting intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies because this new generation of investigative platforms is designed to deal with massive amounts of data. Elbit's Intelligence and Cyber Solutions unit is aiming its Wise Intelligence Technology (WIT) data manipulation platform at the growing dual-use market that this trend has created.
The House has approved a bill to extend for two years an indemnification program allowing the government to share the cost with industry of injuries or property damage suffered by the public in a commercial space launch. Industry had sought a longer extension, but just ensuring the program remains alive is also critical, says Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), who leads the Science, Space and Technology Committee's space subcommittee.
USAF Gen. (ret.) Carrol “Howie” Chandler (see photo) has become VP of business development and aftermarket services for East Hartford, Conn.-based Pratt & Whitney's Military Engine business. He was Air Force vice chief of staff and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Requirements Oversight Council and Deputy Advisory Group.
Joe Allman has been promoted to VP-financial planning and analysis and treasurer at Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings. He will be succeeded as VP and corporate controller by Ryan Willman, who held the same title at BrightPoint Americas.
That Bombardier's CSeries would not fly this year, as promised, has been the expectation of essentially the entire aerospace industry—except for the manufacturer. Now Bombardier has finally acknowledged the aircraft will not take off on its initial flight before the end of June 2013, but the reasons remain cloudy.
Terry Palmer has joined Shreveport, La.-based Metro Aviation as director of training. She has been a member on the International Helicopter Flight Safety Team and at FlightSafety International.
Reader S.J. Deitchman (AW&ST Oct. 29, p. 10) makes the valid point that limiting new weapon systems to incremental changes in existing systems would have excluded some of the most effective ones currently in the inventory. On the other hand, many relatively advanced systems, after they become operational, undergo substantial incremental upgrades in subsequent procurement and modification programs. The Chinook, now 50 years past its initial operational date, has undergone several such upgrades.
Ground control stations and the Fury tactical unmanned aircraft are the key reasons behind Lockheed Martin's Nov. 13 acquisition of small Huntsville, Ala.-based defense company Chandler/May. It builds the OneSystem ground control station (GCS) for AAI Corp., which is used with AAI's RQ-7B Shadow tactical and General Atomics' MQ-1C Grey Eagle medium-range UAVs. Chandler/May company AME Unmanned Air Systems is developing the Fury 1500 large-payload, long-endurance tactical UAV for deployment to Afghanistan.
SAS has been one of the world's best-known airline brands for decades, but if the carrier does not succeed in a quick turnaround, it could soon be gone forever. CEO Rickard Gustafson pointed out in a dramatic statement last week that “the company's existence is dependent” on the fast implementation of its latest restructuring plan. The board was due to convene for an extraordinary meeting on Nov. 18 for final approval of the plan.
Indonesia is building a squadron of locally developed UAVs for air surveillance in border areas. Each UAV will reportedly be 4 meters (13 ft.) long, with a wingspan of around 6 meters.
Airbus will require radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to be attached to all seat and life vests for its aircraft, beginning in 2013. The European manufacturer says RFID is an “error-proof identification” system that boosts the efficiency of its supply chain by improving the visibility of how components move through it. The company estimates an annual volume of 120,000 tags for life vests and 40,000 for seats.
Indonesia's new offsets law is about to be put to the test. The Southeast Asian nation, which has woefully inadequate radar surveillance coverage, is poised to select a supplier for long-range, ground-based radar for its air force. “I have told my staff 'if they are ready to select a supplier for the ground-based radar, I am ready',” Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro told Aviation Week Nov. 6 on the eve of the IndoDefense exhibition here.
Sweden's parliament will probably decide to approve launch of the JAS 39E/F Gripen program in December, with a development contract to be issued in January, according to Lt. Col. Rickard Nystrom, head of aircraft programs in the requirements office at Sweden's armed forces headquarters.
Ferio Pugliese has been named executive VP of Calgary, Alberta-based WestJet and president of WestJet Encore. He will continue to have responsibility for WestJet's people and culture.
Precision Castparts Corp. (PCP) is again strengthening its market position, by acquiring Titanium Metals Corp. (Timet), the largest independent manufacturer in the U.S. of titanium billets used in aerospace structures.
Avic President Lin Zuoming said in April that the Chinese aeronautics group's first priority was engine development. As if to show that the boss was serious, group propulsion specialist Avic Engine unveiled two new turbofans at Airshow China here last week, one of them aimed at freeing the country from reliance on foreign engines—and therefore exposure to a foreign veto—in its quest to become a major military aircraft exporter.
The covers of both editions of this week's magazine show Northrop Grumman's production-ready, two-seat, optionally piloted Firebird UAV in flight at Mojave, Calif. Aviation Week, which revealed both the original Firebird and the first flight of this larger version, gets an inside look at the program as tests begin (see page 32). Northrop Grumman photo by Robert Brown. Also in both editions are reports on cyberwarfare (page 44), China's move to export stealth aircraft (page 26) and the EU's efforts to control airlines' greenhouse gas emissions (page 41).
A common central idea in defending military, government and commercial networks from cyberattack involves “operating through the attack.” To do so, the defender needs near-real-time awareness of an attacker's methods and targets and the ability to manage consequences on the fly.
Computer networks that control crucial industrial and manufacturing processes, and vital energy and water utilities, were once considered immune to cyberattack, because in theory they were “air-gapped,” with no physical connection to the worldwide Internet. But that notion has died as researchers have found obscure Internet connections in virtually every automated system.
Spencer Dickerson (see photos) and Todd Hauptli, under a reorganization at Alexandria, Va.-based American Association of Airport Executives, have been named to head two new business units. Dickerson has become president of AAAE Meetings and International and Hauptli president of AAAE Gov.
