Japan's domestic traffic remained relatively steady in the fiscal year that ended Mar. 31. Passenger counts dropped to 91.97 million from the fiscal 2000 year level of 93.43 million, but the average load factor was 64.3% compared with 63.3% the previous year. Japan's nine carriers served 240 city-pairs last year, nearly 31% of which flew on five trunk runs that all connected with Tokyo's Haneda airport.
NASA has picked two new Small Explorer (SMEX) missions from a field of seven finalists. An $89-million Boston University mission to map the hot gas that makes up half the normal matter in the nearby universe was picked for launch in 2005. In 2006, the second mission--a $92-million effort headed by Hampton University in Virginia--is set to launch. It aims to determine if growing concentrations of greenhouse gases at high altitudes are responsible for an increase in the number of clouds in the upper atmosphere.
Tim Sheahan has been appointed president of the Enforcement, Security and Intelligence Div. and Pat Ways president for business development of the Federal Sector unit of the Computer Sciences Corp., Falls Church, Va. Ways was senior vice president-business development for the Federal Sector Civil Group.
PIAGGIO AERO INDUSTRIES IS TESTING a second prototype of the upgraded P.166DP-1 business aircraft that features new Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-121 engines, new avionics and a reconfigured cockpit. Piaggio plans to upgrade the P.166 fleet serving with the Italian customs service, coast guard and air force.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ellis D. (Don) Parker has been named chairman of CAE USA, and USAF Gen. (ret.) Michael E. Ryan and USN Adm. (ret.) Leighton W. (Snuffy) Smith, Jr., have been appointed to the board of directors.
Craig Sinclair has been appointed chief information officer for Air New Zealand. He was chief executive of the country's air traffic control operator, the Airways Corp.
A proposal to trim costs of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft is in trouble because Air Force officials can't agree on which of a laundry list of initiatives they want to adopt. A panel of experts, the Joint Affordability Team (JAT), laid out various options for the Air Force to reduce the unmanned surveillance aircraft's average production price of $73.7 million to less than half.
Jim Youker has become director of military programs and Dennis Jones director of intelligence and national security programs for Denver-based Space Imaging. Youker was director of solutions strategy, while Jones was director of global alliance programs.
Raytheon Co. last week received provisional acceptance and turned over operation of the second of four construction projects the company had to complete as guarantor following the bankruptcy of Washington Group International. The two remaining Massachusetts projects (Fore River and Mystic Station) are on schedule and on budget for completion by the end of this year.
Eurowings, an aggressive regional carrier, is preparing to launch a new low-cost, no-frills airline dubbed Germanwings. A target date of Oct. 27 has been set for Germanwings to begin operating five Airbus A319 twinjets from Cologne/Bonn airport, its parent company's home base. The new venture is expected to further exacerbate competition on Germany's domestic route system while Deutsche BA is being merged into EasyJet. Eurowings' initiative is backed by Lufthansa German Airlines, which owns a 24.9% stake in the regional carrier.
During Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to the U.S. in September, India is expected to complete an agreement to buy a Boeing Business Jet as the country's first dedicated transport for its leader. The aircraft is to be operated by state-owned Air India and is expected to be fitted with secure communications systems, including one for India's nuclear command. A U.S. team visited New Delhi in early July to discuss technological assistance for the aircraft.
Jeffery Quirk has been named associate general manager of the Space-Based Surveillance Div. of The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif. He was senior program manager for government programs for Boeing Satellite Systems.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will provide U.S. Air Force Academy cadets 50 hr. of flight training and a private pilot's certificate under a five-year, $14.5-million contract. The Introductory Flight Training (IFT) program will begin on Oct. 1, operate from the academy's airfield and train 300 cadets initially. As the program evolves, it may expand to 500 students. Cadets will fly the two-seat Diamond Katana DA20-C1, which has both a lower noise limit and better climb performance than previous training aircraft, according to academy officials.
Roxanne Butler has become investor relations specialist for American Trans Air. She was corporate sales account executive for the carrier's Ambassadair Travel Club.
Jake Brace has become executive vice president/chief financial officer of United Airlines. He was senior vice president-finance/CFO. Bob Merz, who has been managing director for corporate planning, has been named vice president-financial planning and analysis. Jeff Kawalsky has been appointed vice president/treasurer and was assistant treasurer. And, Mark Anderson, who was senior director for governmental affairs, is now vice president-governmental affairs in Washington.
An aggressive push by Victorville to keep the former George AFB facility occupied has prompted GE Aircraft Engines to relocate its 747 flying testbed activities from its home at Mojave, another of Southern California's desert airport cities. GE began construction Aug. 9 on a 161,700-sq.-ft. aircraft maintenance hangar at what is now known as the Southern California Logistics Airport (see artist's rendering). The airport's offer of a 13.1-acre site and favorable tax incentives prompted the switch from Mojave, where the test-bed aircraft did not have a hangar.
If Raytheon Aircraft Co. (RAC) can sustain the operating improvements it has been able to accomplish in the last 12 months, much of the credit will belong to the kind of motivated employees who demonstrated earlier this year what they can achieve when the chips are down. As part of a company-wide drive to reduce production costs, management determined that suppliers in Mexico could assemble general aviation aircraft wire harnesses of essentially the same quality for considerably less money. Outsourcing the work meant that up to 250 employees would be laid off.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe is justifiably concerned about management issues at the agency. The former Pentagon comptroller was suitably appalled by the civil agency's incoherent collection of financial accounting systems. He is correct in his view that NASA's field centers tend too much to be fiefdoms to their own. And with 25% of NASA's scientists and engineers eligible to retire within five years, O'Keefe is understandably concerned about attracting new technical talent.
A manned space race looms between China and Japan as the Chinese near initial manned flights with the Shenzhou spacecraft system, according to Robert Walker, chairman of the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. Asian political rivalries will help fuel this new manned space race, already involving extensive Chinese aerospace industry efforts. Walker has recently returned from visiting Japan, China, Europe and Russia to assess foreign competition to U.S. aerospace. His commission's report is due in mid-November.
A helium leak on Raytheon's exoatmospheric kill vehicle forced the Pentagon to push back by about two weeks its next planned ground-based midcourse ballistic missile intercept test. The leak, first reported in Aviation Week & Space Technology's affiliate Aerospace Daily, has been fixed. The test is now slated for late this month.
The U.S. Air Force late Thursday finally awarded Boeing the long-awaited multiyear contract for 60 additional C-17 transports. The $9.7-billion deal will boost USAF's inventory of C-17s to 180 aircraft. Military planners are already discussing a further increase of 42 C-17s that would be bought at the end of the latest contract.
Satellite data collected over the past 20 years reveal a sharp drop in concentrations of phytoplankton in the northern oceans, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Levels of the tiny plants at the bottom of the ocean food chain have dropped as much as 30%, possibly because warmer water temperatures and lower surface winds deprive phytoplankton of needed nutrients.
In one of her last actions as FAA Administrator, Jane Garvey didn't pardon Executive Jet International. The mammoth charter- and fractional-business-jet provider had asked twice to have the last of its new Gulfstream G-V aircraft exempt from an Aug. 19 deadline mandating that new aircraft of that size be delivered with an 88-parameter digital flight data recorder instead of the 57-parameter devices.
BUSINESS AVIATION OFFICIALS ARE CONCERNED that the FAA's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums (DRVSM) does not allow sufficient time for operators to equip and certify their aircraft before the planned implementation date of December 2004. In response, FAA officials expect to hold a special seminar on DRVSM Sept. 8-9 in Orlando to explain the program and address concerns from business aircraft owners and operators.
