Jim Ohlsson has been appointed vice president-operations, Anthony Doyle vice president-business development and partner relationships, Denise Chartrand vice president-marketing and Robert Payne vice president-finance, all of Montreal-based Air Canada-Destina.ca. Ohlsson was senior director of business development for Air Canada, and Doyle was CEO of the Median Aviation Resources Corp. Chartrand was executive vice president-e-commerce for Netgraphe and Payne vice president/chief financial officer of AirBC.
The Pentagon is exploring whether to equip the AC-130 gunship with unmanned aircraft and standoff missiles so it can duplicate its success in Afghanistan in future wars. The AC-130, the Air Force Special Operations aircraft, has been called on multiple times during the Afghanistan war to use its 105-mm. guns for close air support of U.S. ground forces. Moreover, the Air Force established links to provide unmanned Predator UAV video directly to AC-130 crews to help them detect Al Qaeda and Taliban troops.
Eurofighter Simulation Systems has chosen Silicon Graphics Inc. to supply servers to the European combat aircraft's training aid. The multiyear contract is to extend over eight years. Munich-based ESS is a joint venture comprising Germany's Arge STN Atlas, Spain's Indra Sistemas, Italy's Meteor CAE and the British arm of France's Thales Training and Simulation. It is developing the Eurofighter/Typhoon's Simulator Specific System (SSS), a key element of the planned training aid.
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn. (AOPA) claims the FAA's forecast of the number of new student pilots is inaccurate. The FAA staff is predicting a 4.5% decrease in student pilots this year and another 1.2% in 2003, and anticipates that by 2013 the number of students will be fewer than in 2000. The agency, however, also estimates the number of licensed pilots will increase in 2002-13. AOPA claims the agency underestimated student starts this year by more than 13% and ``missed the mark'' for 2006 by 20%.
Howard L. Wesoky, retired FAA chief scientific and technical adviser for the environment, has received the 2002 Environmental Protection Agency Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award for ``leading an assessment of the effects of aviation on the atmosphere.''
After being shut out of the F-15 fighter business for years, General Electric's persistence has finally paid off with South Korea's selection of the company's F110-GE-129 to power its F-15K fleet. Under the $340-million engine deal, South Korea will buy 88 F110-129s beginning in 2005 to power 40 F-15s. The first ``10 or so'' will be made by GE at its Strother, Kan., plant; the remainder will be assembled locally by Samsung Techwin, Anders Solem said. He is GE's general manager of the Military Engine Programs Dept.
Manuel Miranda has been appointed vice president-training and simulation for Unitech Inc., Centreville, Va. He was general manager of the Identix Corp.
Capt. Chris Beebe has been reelected to a third, two-year term as chairman of the US Airways Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Assn. Capt. Bill Pollock was reelected to a second term as vice chairman and First Officer Philip Osterhus to a fifth term as secretary-treasurer.
NASA has selected proposals to study the infrared sky, Earth's magnetosphere, interstellar organic chemistry and the Sun's atmosphere for additional work that could lead to Medium-class Explorer (Midex) flights in 2007 and 2008. Each of the finalists will receive $450,000 for a four-month study leading to selection of two missions by early next year.
Alenia Aeronautica's C-27J Spartan military transport offers potential operators a multimission aircraft with a good-size cargo compartment at close to a third of the price of its larger Lockheed Martin C-130J contemporary.
General Electric's CF6-80C2 has been selected by the Italian air force to power four Boeing 767 Global Tanker Transports the service is procuring. The engine deal is worth an estimated $80 million. Italy will receive its first 767 tanker in 2005.
The Transportation Security Administration awarded more than $100 million in contracts last week in its race to meet Congress' mandate to deploy an all-federal airport screener workforce by Nov. 18. Lockheed Martin Services will receive as much as $105 million to train passenger screeners via a course that will include 40 hr. of classroom instruction, 60 hr. of on-the-job training and a ``tough'' final exam. Officials also said Baltimore-Washington International Airport would be the first airport to have an all-federal screening contingent, in place by mid-June.
Boeing is aiming to fly its canard rotor wing demonstrator for the first time during the third quarter of 2002, as it attempts to determine the maturity of the technology. The CRW design is yet another attempt to develop a hybrid platform combining aspects of traditional fixed- and rotary-wing platforms.
Workers at Goddard Space Flight Center have shipped NASA's Contour spacecraft to Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., for its planned July 1 launch on a Delta II (shown during mass properties measurements). Built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Contour will image the cores of at least two comets close up, beginning with Encke in November 2003, and analyze the gas and dust surrounding them. Shipment came following an eight-week testing period at Goddard.
Eurofighter industry partners submitted key study proposals midmonth covering further development of the aircraft, which will have a fundamental impact on the program's future direction. Proposals that address costed plans for a number of upgrade and modification packages have been submitted to the Eurofighter Partner Company (EPC) board members, following a 12-month Concept Definition Study.
An evaluation committee estimates it will take five years and more than $4 billion to build a fourth runway at Tokyo's crowded domestic hub, Haneda airport, regardless of the construction method chosen. The 2,500-meter (8,200-ft.) runway would be built offshore of the southern end of the airport, parallel to an existing 4/22 runway. Three construction methods--a floating steel structure, conventional reclamation and piers--are under consideration.
UAVs have found another area where they can rival their manned aircraft counterparts--cost growth. The Global Hawk unmanned aircraft that once was to cost $15 million (including sensors and ground station) now goes for $48 million and is climbing to $75 million, industry officials say. Now the Air Force is saying ``Enough!'' It wants to shave at least 25% off the program's cost. No less than the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. John P.
Increasingly sophisticated air defenses are posing a threat that is driving U.S. Air Force plans to replace the AC-130 gunship and to field a new aircraft decoy.
More so than at previous Aviation Week&Space Technology events and observances for decades, Laureate Awards 2001 on Apr. 16 turned into something new--a challenge to aviation and aerospace.
Each Laureate Award winner from 1988-2001 automatically has become a member of the Laureates Hall of Fame. But what about the Laurels winners selected prior to 1988? To ensure the Legends of the past are remembered in Aviation Week's Hall of Fame, each class of inductees now includes the current year's winners and a number of legendary achievers selected by Aviation Week&Space Technology editors. This year, the following legendary Laurels winners from the past have been selected for induction into the Hall of Fame.
If the U.S. war on terrorism expands to countries such as Iraq, Navy aviators expect to need new ways to handle pop-up targets if they want to duplicate the success they've had in Afghanistan. Most strikes during the Afghan war have been against emerging targets, not planned, fixed sites. But military strategists realize that attacking those fleeting targets is difficult because it requires a quick response. ``We've got to do a much better job with time-critical targeting,'' said Vice Adm. John B. Nathman, commander of Naval Air Forces.
Aloha and Hawaiian airlines are expanding service to mainland destinations as their traditional interisland market remains weakened by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The attacks have had a lingering effect on interisland traffic due largely to a sharp decline in the number of Japanese visitors, as well as stepped-up airport security which has added to the overall time required to make interisland hops.
Barry Rempel has been named president/CEO of the Winnipeg (Manitoba) Airports Authority. He has been chairman of the Chambers of Commerce in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta.
For decades, development of supersonic combustion ramjets, or scramjets, has moved at a slow, unsteady pace. Hamstrung by an inexact understanding of the highly complex flows in the powerplants, a reliance on highly volatile, difficult-to-handle hydrogen fuel and an inability to determine whether the engines were actually capable of developing a net positive thrust, the technology has remained beyond the reach of potential users.
Chinese airlines are to buy 56 single-aisle and 12 twin-aisle transports from both Airbus and Boeing later this year, according to officials who have recently completed an evaluation exercise. A separate order for 25 narrow-body Airbus aircraft carried forward from last year also will be firmed up later this year. Also pending is an order for 25 regional jets from Embraer for China Southern Airlines.
