In a country where status is everything, for Japan Airlines (JAL) to concede it no longer necessarily wants to remain Japan’s Number One international carrier shows just how much life has changed for the once-proud operator. The airline is being forced to downsize its fleet, workforce, and, also, its ambitions. But this may be the only course of action open to management if JAL is to survive. In fact, JAL’s top management should be commended for being realistic about the carrier’s prospects and focusing on profitability rather than considerations of status.
Nick Jones (see photo) has rejoined Virgin Atlantic Cargo as vice president-Europe, Middle East and Africa after three years with Emirates. He succeeds Dominic Jones, who is now vice president-Asia-Pacific, and follows James Williams, who becomes vice president-Americas.
Europe’s launch sector is demanding changes in the Arianespace governance and shareholding structure in return for increased financial support. The European launch provider has asked for a capital injection from shareholders and a new public support mechanism to help it counter growing competition from lower-cost players and help defray the extra burden of operating two new launch vehicles—the Soyuz 2 medium lifter and Vega light booster—from its Kourou, French Guiana, spaceport (AW&ST Oct. 18, p. 31).
CFM International is poised to start endurance runs of its composite fan blade for the next-generation Leap-X engine as China’s Comac announces the first letters of intent for the turbofan’s launch application, the C919.
The U.S. Air Force has not released the name of an F-22 pilot whose plane crashed near Cantwell, Alaska, on Nov. 17, but his parents have identified him as Capt. Jeffrey A. Haney, 31, of the 3rd Wing at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. Early USAF reports said there was no body in the wreckage. Rescue personnel were still searching for Haney late last week.
U.S. defense spending is almost certain to be stretched further—and definitely not grow more than already planned—even as newly empowered Republicans in Congress look to battle the Obama administration over a swath of issues, including conventional weapons programs, strategic systems and war strategies.
The CALT Long March 7 medium-heavy space launcher will go into production in 2014, according to current plans, completing a new family of Chinese rockets with new fuels and engines. Sized between the Long March 5 and 6, the new rocket will offer up to 720 tons (1,590,000 lb.) of liftoff thrust from six engines fed by liquid oxygen and kerosene. The first stage of the Long March 7 will have two YF100 engines, CALT Vice President Hao Zhaoping tells Aviation Week. The YF100 is already known to have a thrust of 120 tons.
Christopher Forshier has been tapped to be director of business development for global airline operations at Metron Aviation . He was manager-operations strategy and implementation for Continental Airlines.
Capt. Jeff Martin has been named Southwest Airlines ’ first vice president of the Operations Coordination Center. He was assistant director of operations. Honors and Elections
Soot from hydrocarbon-fueled rockets flying tourists on suborbital junkets may contribute to significant warming at the Earth’s poles, if the business plans behind the nascent space-tourism industry are accurate.
Prospects are increasing that India will sustain four offerings in its $12-billion Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program but soon eliminate the MiG-35 and F-16IN from the field.
NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden has received an honorary doctor of science degree, conferred by Air University , in recognition of his contributions in education, government, public service and community affairs.
Dale Hawkins has been appointed to the newly created position of airframe sales manager at StandardAero ’s Business Aviation Sector. He comes from Kal-Aero/Duncan Aviation, where was a technician, team leader, department manager and airframe service sales representative. George Trivino has joined the company as regional sales manager for Latin America.
Cautious by its own admission, the airplane builder from Wichita is nonetheless in the early days of employing a novice workforce to make composite fuselage panels in a new factory it has built amid the farms of this rural North Carolina region.
Investors have made a lot of money and lost large sums betting on specialty metals companies Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) and Ladish Co. Inc.Shares in ATI, a leading producer of titanium and nickel-based super alloys, rocketed from $2.10 in 2003 to nearly $120 four years later—and then plummeted to $15 when the global economic downturn hit. Similarly Ladish, which specializes in forging, casting and machining parts for jet engines, airframes and helicopters, saw its stock rise from about $5 in 2003 to $60 in 2007—and then fall back to where it started.
Northrop Grumman plans to perform the first high-speed taxi of its X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS-D) demonstrator by the first week of December as a prelude to first flight by year-end at Edwards AFB, Calif. The taxi test will take the stealthy, single-engine UCAS to 120 kt., according to company officials.
The prospects of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that the U.S. and Russian presidents signed April 8 going into force this year dimmed last week when White House attempts to reassure Republicans in the Senate fell through. Under the American system, the president may sign a treaty, but it must then be ratified by a two-thirds vote in the Senate (see p. 19).
Israel’s defense establishment is pressing the government to accept a U.S. offer of 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in return for a renewal of the moratorium on West Bank settlement-building.
Lightsquared is preparing to launch its second spacecraft in a bid to become the first U.S. hybrid mobile satellite service to enter operation, following launch of its first satellite. SkyTerra-1 was lofted into orbit Nov. 14 by an International Launch Services Proton-M booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Built by Boeing using its 702 HP bus, the 5.3-metric-ton bird is equipped with a 22-meter (72-ft.) L-band reflector that will be the largest ever orbited for commercial purposes.
Boeing is starting flight tests of aerodynamic and performance improvements to the 737 using a United Airlines -800. Testing and certification of the package, aimed at reducing fuel consumption by 2%, will continue through April 2011. The changes are expected to be phased into production from mid-2011 through early 2012.
Jimmy Johnston has joined Primus International as chief people officer. He was leader of global human resources management teams for GKN Aerospace. Pat Thurman has been named senior vice president of Primus’ Composites Group. She was vice president/general manager for several businesses of TECT Aerospace.
Two Boeing 787s were ferried back to Seattle from remote sites on Nov. 16 after being grounded in the wake of the Nov. 9 inflight electrical fire on test aircraft ZA002. Boeing says an investigation of the fire in the P100 power distribution panel in the aft electronic equipment bay shows the fire itself burned for less than 30 sec., while the entire incident lasted for less than 90 sec.
The U.K. Royal Air Force took delivery of its seventh, and possibly final, C-17 at Boeing’s Long Beach, Calif., facility on Nov 16. Following the ceremony, the aircraft flew to the U.S. Air Force’s San Antonio Air Logistics Center at Kelly AFB, Texas, for installation of the Northrop Grumman Large Aircraft IR Countermeasures system, and is expected to arrive in the U.K. before year-end.
A chain of related announcements have served to focus attention on the capability and future of the Hawker 400. One of the more popular light jets, the aircraft began life in the late 1970s as the Mitsubishi MU-300 Diamond and was renamed the Beechjet 400 after Beech Aircraft acquired the program the following decade. It then became the Hawker 400 after the merger with that marque.
