In 2011, airlines around the world conducted the first revenue flights using biofuel blends to demonstrate their potential to reduce carbon emissions. But availability of jet fuel derived from vegetable oils and animal fats remains limited. With biodiesel for road transport competing for feedstock, the aviation industry is looking increasingly toward advanced biofuels produced from more abundantly available woody biomass and municipal waste.
How soon the A&D community forgets. True, 2011 was packed with accomplishments and newsworthy events. However, I believe your Cheers and Jeers editorial (AW&ST Dec. 19/26, 2011, p. 74) overlooked a huge milestone for the U.S. Air Force. Last February, the long battle over whether USAF would get a replacement for the aging KC-135 aerial refueling tanker fleet was finally decided. One can jeer about who won, why it took so long to get there, or the length of the road ahead. Still, that hurdle is finally behind us.
Andy Nativi's Aerospace Daily And Defense Report article “F-35 Under Fire In Italy” elicited: FMafia saying: Don't be surprised if the cuts are more than the predicted one-third. The debt situation in Europe is getting worse. Dare2 noting: The article doesn't mention the escalating cost of the F-35 program. If it stayed at the level for which European customer nations signed, it wouldn't look this bad for countries with lower levels of debt.
Daher-Socata delivered 36 TBM850s last year, equaling the total the year before. Deliveries to buyers in the U.S. continued to dominate, with 84% of deliveries topping even the 76% of 2010. Latin America was the second largest market, with Asia-Pacific and Europe following. Europe was the second largest market in 2010. Daher-Socata says it was the fourth best sales year for the TBM.
The 15 remaining RD-25D space shuttle main engines are on the way from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where they will be stored until needed to power the core stage of NASA's planned heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS). As many as five of the reusable liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engines will be used on the SLS, now scheduled to make its first flight test late in 2017 (see p. 24).
Richard Ennis, director of Melbourne (Fla.) International Airport, has been selected to receive the United Safety Council's Safety Leadership Award for his outstanding safety leadership efforts regarding a new management and training program for aircraft rescue and firefighting services.
Albert J. Givray (see photo) has been named general counsel of Tulsa, Okla.-based Nordam, succeeding Russell E. Wienecke, who has retired. Givray, a partner at Denver-based law firm Davis Graham & Stubbs, has been Nordam's outside counsel for more than 30 years.
In yet another show of force, amid the intensifying uprising against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's regime, the Syrian army held an extensive exercise last month. On display were two recent additions to its arsenal—the medium-range Buk-M2 self-propelled air defense system and the Bastion coastal defense system.
A Boeing artist's concept show how a new cruise missile-like vehicle—a product of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Champ program—has been designed and built to carry a directed-energy weapon into well-protected airspace. It can elude air defenses because of its small size, but it is smart enough to produce tailored pulses of energy to kill the electronics of key sites—or areas within those sites—without blanket power outages. In fact, there would be virtually no clue about where the attack came from. A link to videos of an electronic attack is on p. 44.
Chen Siqing (see photo) has become chairman of BOC Aviation of Singapore, succeeding Zhang Yanling, who has retired. Chen is a member of the senior management of Bank of China and has served as VP and president of its Corporate Banking Committee since June 2008.
Although financial markets are uncertain about Europe's sovereign debt crisis, consumers seem unfazed, says Airports Council International, which expects overall passenger traffic growth to remain above 4% and international traffic to grow by 6% this year. The increase may be smaller in the first half “but overall airports should be in a good spot to grow revenues further,” ACI says. Growth in China and Brazil is expected to cool, and political uncertainty in North Africa is expected to slow activity there.
In an item about F-15 sales, Washington Outlook in the Jan. 2 edition (p. 23) erroneously referred to the “Royal Singapore Air Force.” Singapore is a republic and has no royalty.
Peter Mastroianni has joined Million Air as general manager of its Fayetteville, Ark., facility. Mastroianni recently retired from the U.S. Air Force, where he was chief of standardization and evaluation for the 621st Contingency Response Wing at Joint Base-McGuire/Dix/Lakehurst, N.J.
Daljinder Kaur has become sales and marketing manager of Chromalloy's U.K operation in Nottingham, England. She was European business development manager at Trans World Alloys.
Christopher Ellender (see photo) has been appointed senior regional sales manager for product support sales at Gulfstream Aerospace's facility in Luton, England. He headed global aircraft sales and acquisitions for FirstFlight.
Embraer is starting 2012 with a slight year-on-year drop in the value of its backlog, after a year in which commercial aircraft deliveries increased slightly but executive aviation saw another decrease. The Brazilian aircraft maker ended 2011 with 99 executive aviation deliveries, down from 144 the year before. Phenom, Legacy and Lineage deliveries suffered declines. On the regional jet front, deliveries were up to 105 units from 100. The company closed out the year with 249 E-Jets in its backlog, roughly equal to the 250 at the start of 2011.
Sikorsky is hoping to set a procurement precedent by assembling an industry team to fund the construction of prototypes that would support a Pentagon decision to launch full-scale development of a new armed scout helicopter. The team of 35 suppliers is providing 25% of the unspecified cost of building two prototypes of the high-speed, coaxial-rotor S-97 Raider. Sikorsky is providing the remaining 75% from its research and development funds.
Testing has proved the effectiveness of crucial landing technology for China's third lunar exploration mission, says CAST. The mission, to be called Chang'e 3, is aimed at making advances in a wide range of technologies, says CAST, listing them as soft landing, surveying the surface by rover, “survival on the lunar surface,” communications for long-distance monitoring and control, and direct injection into a lunar transfer orbit. The landing systems that have lately completed their tests have functions such as braking and obstacle avoidance, says the manufacturer.
Olivier Mazzuchelli has been appointed CEO managing director of Hamburg-based Spairliners. He was sales director-regional fleets at Air France-KLM's engineering and maintenance operation.
Stephen Myall has joined Baines Simmons, Camberley, England, as a consultant on its Isle of Man registry team. He was an airworthiness surveyor with the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.
When Congress returns from its holiday recess, the world's largest business association would like to see House Republican leadership yield on a labor issue that is preventing passage of the FAA reauthorization bill. U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue, a proponent of the NextGen air traffic management system, last week said Congress needs to pass the FAA bill that has been stalled for more than four years. The FAA's current operating authority expires Jan.
It was a straight-in nighttime approach to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's Runway 9R. The Learjet was at 2,400 ft., 6 mi. out. That put the pilots below the glideslope, but with ceiling and visibility unrestricted, winds calm and all instruments in the green. Piece of cake. Unless, that is, you had never before been in a cockpit nor at the controls of any airplane. And the whole world was watching. Oh, and a million bucks were on the line.
