USN Vice Adm. (ret.) Wally Massenburg (see photo) has been appointed vice president-readiness and sustainment for BAE Systems Electronics & Integrated Solutions , Nashua, N.H. He was commander of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Md., and chief operating officer of the Naval Aviation Enterprise.
Three complex yet successful defense acquisition programs that exude fundamental discipline, rigorous staff orientation and reliable adaptability to the unknown have won Aviation Week’s A&D Program Excellence Awards this year. Lockheed Martin’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) program took home the award for programs in research, design and development, while Northrop Grumman’s Defense Support Program (DSP) and Lockheed Martin’s MH-60 Multi-Year Common Cockpit (MCC) garnered top honors for programs in production and sustainment.
Astronaut Scott Parazynski rides a makeshift crane cobbled together from the International Space Station robot arm and an inspection boom from the space shuttle Discovery, to begin repairs on a torn station solar array. The fix may allow NASA to launch Europe’s Columbus laboratory module before the end of the year. But the station crew has a lot more to do before that can happen, and the repair ate into their tight work schedule.
U.S. intelligence officials are assessing the capabilities of mobile vans that China claims can jam signals from the GPS constellation. They fear that if China deploys the vans in quantity, it would be able to jam the GPS signal over large swaths of its territory. The U.S. has photos of the systems, but doesn’t know their potential to degrade the accuracy of GPS-guided weapons against targets in China if a strike were mounted. Iraqi forces used GPS jamming in 2003 during the U.S. march toward Baghdad, but their systems were rudimentary. U.S.
Italy hopes to boost defense spending slightly next year and launch key surveillance and intelligence projects, but there’s already political pressure to divert funds to other endeavors.
Sensis of Syracuse, N.Y., has won a contract that will lead to the first test of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) ground equipment in China using 1090 MHz. (the frequency used by airlines). The Air Traffic Management Bureau is testing ADS-B with an aim to build a nationwide system like that already constructed in Australia and ones planned for the U.S. and Canada. The American company was selected over Thales, which has a leading role in ATC projects in China.
USAF Maj. Gen. Glenn F. Spears, who is deputy commander of Miami-based U.S. Southern Command , has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general. Brig. Gen. Marvin T. Smoot, Jr., has been named director of manpower, personnel and services at Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio. He has been director of manpower, organization and resources/deputy chief of staff for manpower and personnel at Headquarters U.S. Air Force at the Pentagon. Smoot will be succeeded by Col. Sharon K.G.
The Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm) underwent a successful live-fire test Oct. 31 after a series of mishaps earlier this year brought flights to a halt. The missile’s reliability dipped to 58% after four tests revealed a GPS dropout problem, sending missiles more than 100 ft. from their targets. During this test, Jassm used a new anti-jam GPS receiver. Follow-on demonstrations will test its capabilities in the presence of GPS jammers.
Scott Kunkler (see photo) has been appointed director of design engineering for Circor Aerospace Landing Gear Systems and Fluidic Controls, Corona, Calif. He held the same position at the company’s Loud Engineering and Manufacturing unit.
Michael J. Bloomfield (see photo) has been named vice president-constellation systems in the Houston-based Launch Systems Group of Alliant Techsystems . Bloomfield is a former NASA astronaut and deputy director of NASA flight crew operations. Brian Cullin has become Minneapolis-based senior vice president-corporate communications. He was director of communications for foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institute in Washington.
AirTran crystallized its executive succession plan by naming President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Fornaro as CEO. He takes over that role from Joe Leonard, who will remain as chairman. The two executives have worked closely together crafting AirTran’s strategy since arriving at the airline within two months of each other in 1999. Fornaro says he has had more day-to-day responsibility in managing the airline during the last 2.5 years. No immediate plans exist to fill the COO position.
Stork Aerospace is opening a large manufacturing plant in Turkey for the production of military aircraft wiring systems. The company’s subsidiary Fokker Elmo signed the lease agreement for the new factory in Ankara Nov. 1, and initial production is to start by mid-2008.
It started out as a program to identify emerging aviation safety problems. But six years and $11.3 million later, it has mushroomed into a public relations headache for NASA Administrator Michael Griffin that’s hurting his credibility with Congress. Now Griffin is working to mollify incensed lawmakers and calm a media frenzy without violating the confidentiality of the 24,000 commercial airline and 5,000 general aviation pilots that participated in the study.
In the U.S. there has been a remarkable aviation safety record during the past five years and an impressive record since the Gore Commission findings and goals of 1997, continuing the long-term trend in safety improvement during the past several decades. While we can bask in the results, ever more challenges remain if we are to continue to drive down accident rates and meet the goals and expectations that are constantly before us.
Congratulations on the recent improvements in the format and layout of Aviation Week & Space Technology. I see real progress toward a more readable magazine. Almost all of the text is printed black on white, most illustrations are located so as not to break up the text and photographic backgrounds to text are essentially eliminated. This is all for the better. Your magazine again looks like the technical journal it is and not like TV Guide.
As it struggles to regain a competitive footing, Airbus is finding that the use of radio-frequency identification tags might allow the company to unlock much-needed savings in its manufacturing processes.
Michael A. Taverna (Hyderabad, India), Douglas Barrie (London)
India is pushing ahead with the development of ground and flight test hardware as part of an ambitious plan for a hypersonic cruise missile. The Defense Research and Development Laboratory’s Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) is intended to attain autonomous scramjet flight for 20 sec., using a solid rocket launch booster. The research will also inform India’s interest in reusable launch vehicles. The eventual target is to reach Mach 6.5 at an altitude of 32.5 km. (20 mi.).
NATO is under growing pressure to show it’s making progress toward buying C-17 airlifters, particularly with the U.K. looking to expand its fleet and taking up production slots eyed by the military alliance. At this point, 17 countries have committed to become part of a consortium that will buy and operate three C-17s. Although Germany and France—which aren’t among the customers because of their involvement in the A400M airlifter program—have dropped their opposition to a NATO deal, ironing out contract details has still been a slow process.
Roger Wolfe (see photo) has been named CEO of DeCrane Aerospace , Columbus, Ohio. He succeeds Dick Kaplan, who is retiring. Wolfe was an executive with Landmark Aviation and had been vice president-airframe systems for Honeywell.
As European nations scramble to acquire new capabilities for airborne or space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), a lack of skilled imagery analysts is threatening to become a serious bottleneck, European and Israeli industry officials warn. “We’re seeing an explosive growth of ISR requirements in Europe,” says Edwin Cozijn, managing director of Vigilance, an aerospace and defense consultancy and training company in the Netherlands.
In the first paragraph of “Supersonics 101” (AW&ST Oct. 8, p. 50), Guy Norris writes: “The speed of sound varies with temperature and pressure.” Actually, the speed of sound in air is a function of temperature only. The speed of sound in air is a constant times the square root of the absolute temperature. At 59F (518.7 Rankine from absolute zero) the speed of sound is 761 mph.—in other words, 33.414 times the square root of 518.7. At 69.7F (390 Rankine) the speed of sound is 660 mph., 33.414 (again) times the square root of 390.
French defense minister Herve Morin says a new system to streamline defense exports—and avoid snafus like the recent failed bid to sell Rafale fighters to Morocco—will be in place by early next year. Morin says the system will include a special “war room” designed to deal rapidly with major deals like the Rafale sale, which went to the U.S. F-16 after the French could not agree on a financing package.
Kunpeng Airlines, a Chinese regional carrier jointly owned by Shenzhen Airlines (51%) and subsidiaries of the U.S. Mesa Air Group (49%), has begun operations from its base in the western city of Xian, initially operating three Bombardier CRJ200s.
Europeans are becoming more vociferous about the need to overhaul the International Civil Aviation Organization, with the relevance of the United Nation’s aviation body receiving intense scrutiny.
Matthew Farabaugh has been appointed vice president/controller of the Park Electrochemical Corp. , Melville, N.Y. He was corporate controller of American Technical Ceramics, Huntington Station, N.Y.
