Rich Iudice (see photos) has been appointed director of flight operations and Tom Major director of maintenance and flight administration for the Dassault Falcon Jet Corp., Teterboro, N.J.
The opening round of the allied attacks in Afghanistan showed little that was overtly new or unusual, but there is promise of innovation in the war on terrorism over the next year as new funds appear, say defense officials.
General aviation groups are pleading for the Bush Administration to tell them: What has to be done to get VFR operations restored in 30 major metropolitan areas? Thousands of aircraft are still grounded because of undefined security concerns. Flight schools and maintenance shops are about to go bankrupt, the GA groups complain. They can only keep guessing (and proposing, via the FAA) what might satisfy the National Security Council, just to hear ``not good enough,'' or ``don't bother us now.'' Says the General Aviation Manufacturers Assn.'s Edward M.
At the start of big conflicts, someone usually dusts off the platitude that the first casualty of war is truth. Ritually intoned, this wisdom is promptly forgotten. The adversaries proceed to their fate, which was aptly limned by a Russian chessmaster who said, in an observation that befits war as well as the chessboard, ``All the mistakes are there, just waiting to be made.''
Although the Taliban doesn't have sophisticated air defenses and has seen most of its systems destroyed during the first few days of the air campaign, some of the remaining low-altitude surface-to-air missile systems target U.S. pilots where they are most vulnerable, electronic warfare officials fear.
Bombardier Aerospace recently launched its PrecisionPlus upgrade for its wide-body Bombardier Challenger 604 business jet, improving the aircraft's operating efficiency and performance capabilities. Developed by Rockwell Collins as an enhancement to the 604's Pro Line 4 avionics suite, the upgrade automates both Vspeed calculation and thrust setting as primary information and offers 3D display of the aircraft's flight plan. The newer technology has received certification from both Transport Canada and the FAA.
Phil Soucy has become director of media relations for BAE Systems, Farnborough, England. He was director of public relations for BAE Systems North America, Rockville, Md. Soucy has been succeeded by John H. Measell, who was manager of public information for the Information and Electronic Warfare Systems unit, Nashua, N.H.
James Weiland has become senior vice president-national accounts of the Forward Air Corp., Greeneville, Tenn. He was senior vice president-sales and has been succeeded by Craig Drum, who was vice president-national accounts.
A key witness in a telephone hoax that triggered a hijack scare in India on Oct. 4, Alliance Air employee Shahnawaz Wani, 24, died two days after being interrogated by police and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (AW&ST Oct. 8, p. 20). His father said the death was of natural causes. Police say he was questioned as a witness, not a suspect.
Jody Tedesco has been named chief operating officer of Denver-based Space Imaging. She was senior director of strategic planning of Seagate Technology, Longmont, Colo.
This software from Jet-Care International is one of the very first online aircraft engine monitoring packages that give users a detailed picture of an aircraft engine's status. Data can be networked throughout a maintenance department and its presentation customized for each user as an e-mail. Use of the Engine Condition Health Online (ECHO) software package is expected to provide important safety and economic benefits through early diagnosis of powerplant problems.
No one ever said that wresting greater value from the supply chain is easy, but in some areas there are much smarter ways of doing business than is generally practiced now. One of those is how aerospace/defense companies purchase both direct and indirect goods and services. Truth is that most contractors who have grown through mergers and acquisitions simply are not leveraging their buying power. Another area is collaboration--or what passes as collaboration--among original equipment manufacturers and their supplier networks.
Incorporating a robust special-operations forces (SOF) contingent into major U.S. wargames the last few years has given senior military commanders and civilian leaders an appreciation for how valuable SOF teams will be in the current war on terrorism.
U.S. cargo and parcel express airlines, some facing red ink, are preparing to muddle through the next couple of months, hinging their hopes on a quick recovery of the world economy to restore business.
U.S. Air Force acquisition officials are considering a closely-held concept to develop a larger, possibly twin-engine version of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft in a move some fear could derail the current program. Pentagon officials are weighing the pros and cons of such a system, called the Global Hawk Block 20, which would increase the UAV's payload and flying performance. So far the idea is getting mixed reviews.
The Air Transportation Stabilization Board, newly open for business, is the product of a Bush Administration rulemaking nearly as fast-paced as the legislation that created it in the first place. The board, established to administer up to $10 billion in federal loan guarantees to airlines that can't borrow under reasonable terms otherwise, will operate under rules developed by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The rules took effect Oct. 11, and airlines may submit loan-guarantee applications through June 28, 2002.
Kyle Franklin is just the type of person Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. executive vice president and general manager/JSF, has in mind when he discusses the Joint Strike Fighter program at Lockheed Martin. Burbage faces the challenge of hiring up to 4,500 engineers--some 60 per week each week for five years--should Lockheed Martin be awarded the JSF contract. Approximately 40% of the new hires will come straight from college campuses.
With the air war underway and Afghanistan's thin line of high-altitude air defenses knocked out, Pentagon officials are ready to launch a new, real-time strike operation designed to attack moving targets within 5 min. of identifying them. A key to the ``closed loop, C4I'' operation is keeping an Air Force general in the air over Afghanistan, giving him the authority to launch weapons against Taliban or Al Qaeda senior personnel once they move from their caves.
Additional U.S. Air Force aircraft have been dispatched to South Korea to beef up forces there because of the deployment of the USS Kitty Hawk to aid U.S. retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan, according to a South Korean official. He referred to a ``squadron-level'' deployment but gave no details.
Linda Hall Daschle (see photo), a former deputy FAA administrator and senior vice president of the American Assn. of Airport Executives, has been named co-chair of the Public Policy Practice Group at the Washington law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman and Caldwell.
Use of cholesteric (ChLCD) display technology in a ``mil-e-book'' portable electronic computer being developed for military applications by Kent Displays, Honeywell and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency gives this product the lowest power consumption and longest battery life of any other e-book technology, according to Kent Displays. The military e-book is designed to meet the demands of soldiers in the field.
Lack of situational awareness was believed, as of late last week, to be the most likely cause of the runway incursion accident at Milan's Linate airport, resulting in the crash of a Cessna Citation CJ2 business jet and an SAS Scandinavian Airlines MD-87--killing all 114 on both aircraft and four on the ground.
NASA's Odyssey spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars next week in preparation for a 2.5-year primary science mission to survey minerals and chemical elements that make up the surface of the planet. It will be NASA's first science mission to Mars since the ill-fated Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander spacecraft, which both failed in 1999 during the final stages of their journeys there.
