With the long-awaited request for proposals out for the $10.5-billion Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft program, India is trying to head off suspicion that the U.S.-India civil nuclear technology accord automatically gives U.S. competitors an edge over their Russian and European rivals.
Politicians and businessmen in California, Louisiana, Nebraska and Texas are pulling strings and twisting arms, positioning their states to become home to the new Air Force Cyberspace Command. Cyber warfare, already practiced on a daily basis by Russia on Estonia and by China on U.S. defense networks, is the early 21st century’s fastest-growing defense industry. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne is making his rounds of candidate bases, and a selection could come by year’s end.
Rick Phillips has been named Los Angeles-based managing director of the Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory Group and Chris Cantwell director of the Structured Finance Group of CIT Aerospace & Defense Finance. Phillips was an executive at Houlihan Lokey Howard and Zukin, while Cantwell was a senior vice president at GE Commercial Aviation Services.
ATR is seeing an increase in sales of its turboprop regional aircraft. Batavia Air has signed to acquire 10 ATR 72-500s, and ATR has begun deliveries of ATR 42-500s to National Air Co.’s Azerbaijan Airlines. The Baku-based carrier will take two of the transports and four of the larger 72-500s, the first of which is scheduled for delivery later this year. ATR’s order book stands at 77 airplanes and plans call for delivering 44 through December.
The FAA has invited Jeppesen, a Boeing company, to qualify as a third-party developer of Required Navigation Performance (RNP) procedures in the U.S. Jeppesen has worked with the FAA to develop RNP approaches to one runway at Gary/Chicago International, where the tightly confined corridor of RNP-defined airspace allows instrument approaches to Gary that don’t impinge on the Class 3 airspace of Chicago Midway.
Austrian Airlines has halted all flights to Erbil, Iraq. The airline is reassessing Iraq security issues following an incident last month when pilots of a Nordic Airways MD-80 reported coming under fire on takeoff from Sulaimaniyah on its way to Stockholm.
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has begun demonstration flights using a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator B unmanned aerial system (UAS) to monitor the massive forest fires that have struck throughout the Western U.S. The vehicle is operating from NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., and carrying a 12-channel visual, thermal and infrared sensor package for day/night operations developed by NASA Ames Research Center. The USFS also is using the flights to evaluate the Predator’s cost-effectiveness for monitoring fires.
Corrections: The first sentence of the article entitled “Innovation and Intellect” in the Aerospace Workforce special report (AW&ST Aug. 20/27, p. 95) should have read: “As with The Aerospace Corp., the Mitre Corp. is a non-profit research-and-development organization chartered to work in the public interest.”
Boeing reports the Air Force’s GPS Wing has approved the initial integrated systems test results for GPS Block IIF, confirming that each of the major subsystems, including electrical power, attitude determination/control, telemetry tracking, navigation and command has been integrated properly. The first IIF launch is set for next year.
Switzerland-based Liebherr-Aerospace and Vladimir Luzyanin of Hydromash JSC have established Liebherr-Aerospace Nizhny Novgorod OOO to develop and manufacture civil aviation equipment. Headquartered in Nizhny Novgorod, the new company will develop and produce hydraulic components. A production hall is planned for 2008-09. Investments in the enterprise are projected to be €15 million ($20.4 million).
Ed Dolanski has become senior vice president-operations for Aviall Services Inc. of Dallas. He succeeds Charley Kienzle, who has become senior vice president-business development and Boeing integration. Dolanski was vice president-mission support for Raytheon’s Network-Centric Systems.
A plan for a major capital-raising operation at Alitalia has received board approval. The exact size has not been specified, but it should allow the government to reduce its stake or exit the airline. The financial operation would not just bring in fresh money, but also lead to a reduction of the workforce, increased productivity and a rationalization of routes. Meanwhile new Chairman and CEO Maurizio Prato has 5-6 months to find a major partner or buyer for Alitalia.
OBITUARY: For a kid who liked building model airplanes, AeroVironment founder Paul MacCready grew up to build some of aviation’s most imaginative, remarkable and fun ones. Once tasked by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to build a life-sized, working pterodactyl, he created Quetzalcoatlus northropi with a 37-ft. wingspan for the IMAX film On the Wing.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has sustained the second round of protests against Boeing’s win of the U.S. Air Force’s Combat, Search and Rescue replacement (CSAR-X) helicopter program. Losing bidders Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have twice protested the choice of Boeing’s HH-47 Chinook variant in a program to build more than 140 helicopters for an estimated price of $10-15 billion. Among various options, GAO could recommend that USAF once again reissue the request for proposals or terminate the award.
David E. Parekh has been appointed vice president-research/director of the United Technologies Research Center, Hartford, Conn. He has been deputy director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
Four F-22s of the 27th Fighter Squadron line up over Okinawa for photographer Katsuiko Tokunaga/DACT during the first deployment of the F-22 outside the U.S. The 27th FS has returned to its home station at Langley AFB, Va. The F‑22’s ability to find small, stealthy targets—like advanced cruise missiles—has been replaced in Okinawa by F-15Cs from Alaska that are specially modified with advanced radars that can be permanently stationed outside the U.S. The F-15s, in turn, were replaced by a new F-22 unit being formed at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska.
Ground-based, U.S. Marine Corps forward air controllers may soon offer airborne electronic attack—just as they now can deliver precision-guided bombs or missiles. But for this to happen, aviation officials say they need to do some inspired missionary work among senior leaders.
Richard H. Anderson, who succeeded Gerald Grinstein Sept. 1 as CEO of Delta Air Lines, will receive a $600,000 base annual salary and a performance-based incentive package that could significantly increase his compensation. The target annual incentive opportunity for 2007 will be 150% of his salary, prorated for actual service for the year. For 2008 the incentive will be at least 150% of the base. These incentives are similar to those provided to 1,200 management employees and are related to achieving business plan goals.
Samantha Sharif has become directo of industry affairs for the Netherlands-based Civil Aviation Navigation Services Organization. She succeeds Alison Macmaster, who has returned to U.K.-based NATS. Sharif held senior management positions at Airways New Zealand and Airservices Australia.
Beirut is maintaining its reputation as a world capital of intrigue. During last year’s fighting in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel, Iran supplied arms and intelligence to Hezbollah and ran a surveillance facility in Syria. The operation included communications intercepts of cell phone traffic from Israeli troops in the field, which were analyzed and forwarded to the insurgent forces in Lebanon. For its part, Israel deployed armed surveillance UAVs and new signals intelligence aircraft.
Xi’an Aircraft International Corp. has completed the previously flagged formation of two joint ventures with siblings in the Avic I aerospace conglomerate based in Chengdu and Shenyang. The new joint businesses are intended to absorb private capital, rather than rely on traditional state military funding, says Avic I General Manager Lin Zuoming.
Investigations into the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle accidents highlighted a phenomenon known as “normalization of deviance,” in which a dangerous condition becomes acceptable over time if it has not caused harm. Diane Vaughn, a Columbia University sociologist who linked the concept to the cause of the 1986 Challenger accident and later served on the staff of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, says reports of preflight alcohol abuse by astronauts probably don’t rise to that level.
Pakistan has flown what its officials say is a stealthy cruise missile—the Ra’ad. It reflects the growing effort to build and buy low-observable, unmanned aircraft and missiles as well as the associated rush to field sensors and defensive missiles to kill them.
Although NASA has done pretty well this year in the authorization process on Capitol Hill, appropriations logjams mean the agency is looking down the barrel of another congressional continuing resolution, which would hold its Fiscal 2008 funding to Fiscal 2006 levels. For the Constellation program, which is building the launchers and spacecraft needed to return humans to the Moon by 2020, this would mean a whack of about $900 million, to $3.050 billion from $3.982 billion.
A court in Brazil has denied a petition by the pilots of the ExcelAire Legacy 600 involved in the Sept. 29, 2006, midair collision with a Gol Airlines 737‑800 to provide testimony from the U.S. Attorneys for the Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based private jet operator are appealing the Aug. 27 decision, the latest development in Brazil’s criminalization of the accident, which killed 154 people. More coverage is online at www.aviationweek.com/aw/business.
