As India becomes aviation's hottest big growth market, international suppliers are setting up training schools for pilots to fill infrastructure bottlenecks in the fast-growing aerospace industry.
German aerospace center DLR has founded a new Space Transportation System Institute, to be sited in Bremen. Its focus will be on work concerning systems analysis and technology, and their applications for space systems.
Kenneth H. Guss has become president/general manager of the Fluid Controls Group of Meggitt Aerospace Equipment, Simi Valley, Calif. He was president of Chatsworth Products Inc.
The stealthy Raptor fighter and intelligence-gathering aircraft is ready for war, but probably not the war we've got, says Air Combat Command's chief, Gen. Ronald E. Keys. Essential electronic surveillance systems may be too sensitive--overwhelmed by the density of U.S. and allied emitters--to be useful in the electronically polluted environment of Baghdad, the main focus of the new U.S. military surge.
German accident investigators have determined that major structural elements of the horizontal stabilizer of the Grob Aerospace G180 SPn utility jet departed the aircraft before the second prototype crashed Nov. 29.
Pratt & Whitney received a Northrop Grumman award for JT8D-219s to re-engine the U.S. Air Force's Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint Stars) fleet. Pratt & Whitney was the only competitor for the work, which prompted delays as the Air Force sought additional competitors for the work. This summer, General Electric agreed to offer what company officials called a "generic CFM56" to provide the Air Force the competition it was seeking. Total program value is estimated at about $700 million.
Mike Golden has become assistant administrator of operational process and technology/chief technology officer of the Transportation Security Administration. He was Southwest Airlines' senior director of airport security technologies.
Malaysian Airline System will keep its order for six A380s, the government says. Struggling to right its poor financial performance, the carrier had seemed likely to cancel, since the aircraft may not fit well with its new, less aggressive business plans.
Safran Chairman/CEO Jean-Paul Bechat says talks to merge the company's Snecma liquid and ion propulsion engine businesses with those of EADS Astrium remain frozen due to continuing disagreement over valuation and EADS's problems at Airbus that have rendered the matter secondary. But Bechat says he still believes the merger, which would rationalize and consolidate Europe's space-engine industry, is a good idea.
lain Burns (see photo) has been named vice president-corporate communications for United Arab Emirates-based Etihad Airways. He held the same position at British Airways.
The flight characteristics of a unique testbed for the avionics of the F-35 Lightening II have earned a thumbs-up, setting the stage for a full year of evaluation of the new fighter's extensive sensor architecture.
Air China and South Korea's Asiana will code-share on 11 more routes as a step toward cooperating on all the services they operate between the two countries. Until now, they have been code-sharing only between Beijing and Busan, and Hangzhou and Seoul's Inchon airport. Air China plans to join Star Alliance next year. Asiana is already a member.
Qantas budget offshoot Jetstar is evidently lining up another affiliate, a running mate for Singapore-based Jetstar Asia. Qantas says it will buy into an Asian airline for something less than $100 million in the first half of this year, and Jetstar says it "may be involved." Jetstar's new long-haul services will be expanding with flights from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, beginning in September.
U.S. aerospace companies began rolling out their fourth-quarter and full-year earnings last week, highlighting another year of double-digit gains in profits and revenues. Among those scheduled to report this week are Boeing, Goodrich, L-3 Communications and Raytheon.
Nineteen board members and top executives of the ill-fated SAirGroup, the late Swissair's parent company, are the reluctant stars of Switzerland's so-called trial of the century. They are charged by Buelach (Zurich) court's prosecutors with breach of trust, false statements, defrauding creditors or, in other words, management failure.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is unveiling extraordinary new terrain and compositional detail about Mars. The Lockheed Martin spacecraft's Ball Aerospace/University of Arizona High Resolution Imaging Science (HiRise) instrument provides 9.8-in.-per-pixel resolution of the 4-mi.-wide Gratteri crater (facing page). Ground ice may have helped to "liquefy" impact ejecta which then flowed into an adjoining smaller and older crater (bottom left).
Raytheon Co.'s advanced targeting pod achieved 100,000 operational flight hours on F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet aircraft. The company's Advanced Targeting Flir system officially logged its 100,000th flight hour last month over Iraq, according to the U.S. Navy's F/A-18 program office.
Tony Gugliotta has been appointed senior vice president-marketing and commercial development and Glenn McCoy vice president-finance/chief financial officer of the Vancouver International Airport Authority. Gugliotta was senior vice president-finance/CFO and is succeeding David Huffer, who is retiring from the commercial development role. McCoy was director of corporate finance.
Textron's Bell Helicopter took a $50-million charge in 2006 as a result of problems with its H-1 program. Last year, Navy executive Delores Etter considered alternatives to the UH-1Y utility and AH-1Z attack helicopter programs due to development hiccups and antiquated management processes at Bell. However, she later said the company was back on track.
Regarding the "Six Issues That Demand Action in 2007" (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 66), it is urgent that the FAA hire and train enough air traffic controllers to make up for the coming wave of retirements. As a current New York center controller, I have seen this issue firsthand.
Northrop Grumman says it has opened a first-of-its-kind, private-industry laser facility in Redondo Beach, Calif. It specializes exclusively in systems integration and production of high-energy, solid-state, laser systems for military uses. Researchers say the thrust is to demonstrate commitment to directed-energy systems for the military. The initial effort is to build and demonstrate the first 100-kw. solid-state laser for battlefield force protection and precision strike.
China's Jan. 11 demonstration of a ballistic anti-satellite (Asat) weapon system is likely to underpin more U.S. spending for "responsive" small-satellite launch, space-asset defenses and greater attention to space "situational awareness" efforts, but not necessarily in the near term.
Boeing says it will compete for a $1.5-billion contract to manufacture 200 wingsets for USAF's A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, which would allow it to fly another 20 years. An award is expected in March.
