Christine Kelly Singley has become managing director of corporate communications for US Airways. She was head of executive, international, operational and internal communications for Delta Air Lines.
Phillip Spector has joined the satellite/space practice at law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in its Washington office. He was general counsel and head of business development at Intelsat.
USAF Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward has been appointed director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office in the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. She has been Air Force chief of safety/commander of the Air Force Safety Center, Kirtland AFB, N.M. Brig. Gen. Lee K. Levy, 2nd, has been selected for promotion to major general and appointment as vice director of logistics for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He has been director of logistics at Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill. Levy will be succeeded by Brig.
Spacecraft manufacturers in Europe and the U.S. are finding new business in Brazil's emerging satellite market, with Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy, and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Space Systems/Loral (SSL) tapped in recent weeks to build new commercial spacecraft. Brazil, the world's seventh-largest economy, is expected to spend roughly $2 billion between 2012-15 on new civil and military space initiatives.
Aug. 29-Sept. 1—Asian/Australian Rotorcraft Forum. Tianjin, China. See www.arf2013.nuaa.edu.cn/ Sept. 3-6—39th European Rotorcraft Forum. Moscow. See erf2013.org/ Sept. 5-8—China Helicopter Exposition. See www.helicopter-china-expo.com/ Sept. 9-12—Fifth Boeing/Northrop Grumman/Elysium Joint Global Product Data Interoperability Summit. Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, Chandler, Ariz. See www.gpdisonline.com Sept. 10-12—AIAA Space 2013 Conference and Exposition. San Diego. See www.aiaa.org/SPACE2013
It seems everybody is all “Fired Up” and moving in opposite directions: the UAE's GCAA urges installation of cockpit video recorders (CVR) in its final report on the 2010 crash of UPS Flight 6, and for 13 years the NTSB has pushed the FAA to require just that. But the FAA has declined to act, and pilot unions “are firmly against the idea.” So what else is new?
20% - The amount of federal information technology spending that goes to cyber-security related projects, according to the Office of Management and Budget. $100 Billion - The estimated annual cost of malicious cyberactivity, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. $165 Billion - The potential size of the market for cybersecurity solutions by 2023, according to Strategic Defense Intelligence. 30,000+ - The number of users spear-phished in the March 20 Operation Troy attack in South Korea.
The U.S. Navy has issued separate, $15 million contracts to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics to conduct preliminary design reviews of their bids for the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System (Uclass) program. Nearly $5 million of the awards has been obligated to each of the companies, based on the Pentagon's Aug. 14 announcement. In parallel with this work, slated to wrap up next June, each of these contractors is working to mature its air vehicle concepts.
It was a scientist's nightmare: an expensive test meant to study an exotic virus ruined by contamination because someone had forgotten to sterilize the equipment. And it didn't just happen once, but several times. Except the setting wasn't a medical laboratory, it was a military cyber range in Texas. And the tests weren't from leaving old samples of Ebola in the petri dish, but a failure to cleanse and reboot infected computers used in prior tests.
ATK plans to develop and build the largest composite case solid-fuel rocket motors ever flown, for the planned Stratolaunch Systems Air-Launch Vehicle (ALV), which will drop from the largest aircraft ever built to orbit payloads as heavy as 15,000 lb. Scott Lehr, vice president of ATK's Defense and Commercial Div., says the first- and second-stage motors that ATK will build for Orbital Sciences Corp. will be larger than the 92-in.-dia. cases it currently makes for its GEM 30 line of commercial solid-rocket motors, and larger than the 10.5-ft.
The FAA's fire safety branch is ordering 45,800 lithium-chemistry batteries for “large-scale” fire tests in a Boeing 727 testbed at its William J. Hughes Technical Center this fall. According to a request for quote issued on Aug. 13, the batteries are to be used as part of ongoing research “in support of a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and FAA rulemaking on the shipment of lithium-ion batteries by air. “These cells are to be used for large-scale fire tests that will provide data in support of the rulemaking,” says the FAA.
Duncan Milne (see photo) has become director of business development for Proxy Technologies, Reston, Va. He is a retired USMC colonel and naval aviator who was chief operations officer of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing in San Diego. Honors And Elections
Jane Ahrens (see photo) has been named a senior supervising architect in the Dallas office of Parsons Brinckerhoff, to work on the redevelopment of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. She was a senior associate and director of sustainability at a Dallas design firm, where she managed projects at Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport and Gulfport-Biloxi (Miss.) International Airport, and an assistant professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Northrop Grumman expects to be under contract shortly with Lockheed Martin after being selected to supply the active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for an F-16 avionics upgrade under development for the U.S. Air Force and Taiwan. Lockheed is prime contractor for the Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite upgrade and was tasked by the Air Force with making the AESA source selection, choosing incumbent F-16 radar supplier Northrop over rival Raytheon. About 300 U.S.
Eileen Arnold, a systems engineer at UTC Aerospace Systems, Charlotte, N.C., has been named an International Council on Systems Engineering (Incose) fellow for her contributions to systems engineering. She was cited for leadership in establishing Incose's Expert Systems Engineering Professional credential and industry promotion of systems engineering.
I would be grateful is someone could tell me whether any manufacturers of heavy transport aircraft place video cameras on the wingtips of their aircraft. Cameras placed to view control surfaces and engines inflight would be invaluable in the event of a malfunction. A lot of guesswork could be taken out of what happens next. For the flight engineer to be able to do a virtual walk-around at any time in a flight could be a helpful routine even during normal flights.
John McGraw has become head of regulatory affairs for the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Association. He was deputy FAA director of Flight Standards Service.
Europe's legacy airlines are in great danger and could disappear in the next 20 years, according to a French government-sponsored think tank, the Commissariat General a la Strategie et a la Prospective (CGSP). The analysis was headed by Claude Abraham, a highly respected expert who was in charge of the French civil aviation authority (DGAC) in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, in his capacity as the investigation team's coordinator, he reports directly to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has flown an improved version of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft with twice the payload and endurance of the Block 1 aircraft now flown by the U.S. Army.
Robert Trimborn has been appointed business development director for the American Airports Corp., Santa Monica, Calif. He was that city's airport director.
How unmanned aircraft have matured over more than a decade of war is illustrated by the AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven. This hand-launched UAV is often overlooked, even though it outnumbers all other U.S. unmanned systems put together—there were 5,394 in service as of November 2012 —but advances in microelectronics have given the Raven capabilities previously associated only with larger aircraft. Small size brings challenges. “Our engineers operate within a tight SWAP [size, weight and power] trade space,” says AeroVironment Vice President Steve Gitlin.
Maturing unmanned technology is fueling U.S. studies of how autonomy could benefit civil aviation, including the potential for reduced crewing on commercial aircraft and a future airspace system beyond NextGen. In a June presentation to senior industry and university representatives, NASA noted that “technology is not the overwhelming barrier” to using autonomy to enable single-pilot operations. Social acceptance, certification methods and cost-effective integration of air-ground technology and procedures are listed as the challenges.
