USAF Col. (ret.) Michael R. Gallagher (Hillsboro, Ore. )
In reference to your editorial “Disturbing Lessons” (AW&ST June 6, p. 66), the fact that the most junior pilot was at the controls when the accident sequence started should be irrelevant. While a junior pilot won't have the experience base of a senior captain, he must be able to deal completely with any aircraft malfunction that could occur while in charge.
Several forecasts have identified 2012 as a turnaround year for general aviation aircraft manufacturers, but it seems Bombardier was impatient with that timetable and has begun racking up impressive numbers a year early. On June 1, the Montreal plane and train maker announced its financial results for its first quarter, which ended April 30. During the 90-day period, it delivered 37 business aircraft, 23 airliners and one water-bomber—61 aircraft, versus 56 for the same quarter in 2010.
What a ride it was! In recent years, Oshkosh Corp. turned in a performance more resembling a high-tech startup than a 94-year-old truck builder from Wisconsin. Annual revenues rocketed to more than $9 billion last year from less than $2 billion in 2003, rising more than 50% in 2010 alone, when Oshkosh reported an operating profit of $101,000 per employee—second-best among publicly traded companies in the global aerospace and defense industry.
Airlines around the world are looking to the Asia-Pacific region, and China and India in particular, to fuel their growth, but there is a danger Middle East carriers may soak up much of the traffic originating in Asia-Pacific. Besides the competitive threat from the Middle East, rising fuel prices and regional disasters have dramatically reduced the global airline industry's margins, putting the industry as a whole in a precarious position from which it will be difficult to turn a profit if economic growth slows or there is another shock to the system.
Robert Wall (St. Louis), Amy Butler (Philadelphia)
Boeing appears unsure about the long-term sales opportunities—especially to customers abroad—for the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, although the company is more confident about the futures of its fighter and Chinook production activities.
USAF Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Heithold has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and assignment as vice commander of U.S. Special Operations Command at the Pentagon. He is commander of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency/deputy chief of staff for ISR at Lackland AFB, Texas. Brig. Gen. Mark A. Atkinson has been confirmed by the Senate for promotion to major general. He is the director of logistics at Air Combat Command Headquarters, Langley AFB, Va. Brig. Gen. William J. Bender has been promoted to major general.
As more details emerge from the wreckage of Air France Flight 447—which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009—air safety experts will probably focus on the need to further explore meteorological unknowns and Airbus's approach to flight envelope protection. Other areas of interest include the outdated technology used in the pitot tubes, flight training procedures and an envisioned plan to upgrade flight data transmissions using communication satellites.
It is a rare week when airline policy is not at the fore of public discourse, be it passenger rights, pilot or controller fatigue, privatization of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration or the recent, vocal opposition to the European Union's emission trading scheme. Some of these cause celebres certainly deserve the limelight, but at the same time important issues are being left at the wayside regardless of their potential benefit to the entire industry.
Thomas Marrocco (see photo) has been named VP-worldwide sales at Ottawa-based TrueNorth Avionics. He handled software sales for the MRO market at Mxi Technologies.
Lockheed Martin again finished at the top of A&D companies with revenues greater than $20 billion, more evidence of the transformation of this one-time industry laggard. A focus on organic growth rather than acquisitions has led to low goodwill (the difference between the price paid for an asset and its book value) relative to many of its peers and a stellar showing in the TPC's Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) metric. But Lockheed is feeling the pinch of tighter Pentagon spending: Revenue grew just 1.4% in 2010, the lowest increase since 2001.
An Illinois Circuit Court judge has ordered American Airlines to resume providing its fare and flight availability information to Orbitz.com and Orbitz for Business, issuing a preliminary injunction June 1 based on Travelport's claim that its contract with American mandates that the carrier provide the fares to affiliates of the global distribution system (GDS) provider, such as Orbitz.
Adolfo Castro has become chief executive officer of Grupo Aeroportuario del Surestof Mexico City. He succeeds Fernando Chico Pardo, who will remain chairman. Castro was chief financial officer.
The final report on the probable cause of the Air France Flight 447 crash has yet to be written, but the latest update from the French air accident investigation office, the BEA, already suggests airlines and the aerospace industry can learn crucial lessons from the crash, which killed all 228 onboard.
With defense budgets under increasing pressure in the U.S. and Europe, aerospace and defense companies are again looking for growth in non-core, adjacent markets. But will they learn from past mistakes?
At a time when the U.S. Congress is consumed with the federal deficit, lawmakers continue to embrace a vision that reinvests defense budget cuts into the Pentagon's massive war chest.
Astronomers at the University of Michigan are digesting the implications of their discovery that elliptical galaxies previously thought to be dead are still producing stars, relatively slowly but apparently steadily.
“Le CSeries est mort enterré, selon Airbus,” proclaimed the May 31 edition of a Montreal newspaper. Translation: “The CSeries is dead and buried, according to Airbus.”
Your recent editorial “IAM Headed Down The Wrong Path” (AW&ST May 23, p. 62) indicates that globalization has turned the economic world into one huge Walmart.
Conventional wisdom holds that companies with decentralized business models are more agile. Freed from shackles of bureaucracy, they respond quickly to shifts in markets and technologies using cutting-edge innovation to keep product lines fresh. “But there are disadvantages of scale,” says TPC adviser Charles Armitage, a London-based financial analyst. At a certain inflection point, model complexity and size distort focus. Autonomy and entrepreneurial spirit are dulled and products can atrophy.
Cyberattacks continue to alarm Washington. Recently, two large U.S. companies were hit, entailing national security and government victims. Chinese offenders are the chief suspects. Meanwhile, U.S. officials are signaling that a cyberattack could prompt a kinetic response.
Japanese researchers are working on a solar-sail spacecraft with 10 times the surface area of the Ikaros testbed launched toward Venus last year—with a five-year mission instead of the six-month span allotted Ikaros—after achieving all of their technical objectives with the testbed.
The books are closed now and it is clear that core performance in aerospace & defense (A&D) was flat again for the second year in a row, which was good compared with other industries. Revenues stayed essentially the same and barely kept pace with inflation. Earnings were up on its face, but core earnings were level to slightly up if you add back the $10.5 billion of one-time charges in 2009 and $1.7 billion of one-time charges in 2010 associated with over-budget development programs, among other unusual items.
