Nimish Doshi (see photo) has been appointed vice president-business management/CFO of the Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Technical Services Sector, effective July 29. He will succeed Dave Harvey, who plans to retire. Doshi has been vice president-business management for the company's Integrated Logistics and Modernization Div. Ian Irving (see photo) has been named chief executive for Australia, effective July 15. He has been managing director of government and defense management consultancy Altilus and had been a deputy CEO of Thales Australia.
SAS made a bold decision to renew its entire long-haul fleet. But whether the airline will actually survive and be able to fund the investments, is beyond its control. That decision is made by the European Commission.
Andrea Greenan has been appointed vice president-communications for Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Jessica Nielsen vice president-communications for Lockheed Martin's Information Systems and Global Solutions Div. Greenan was communicatons director for the Corporate Engineering & Technology Div., acting vice president-enterprise communications and acting vice president-media relations and international communications. Nielsen was executive director of global communications and influencer relations for Dell's IT Services
Until the mid-1990s, nearly 75% of all airline maintenance was performed in-house. In part, that was due to lack of credible alternatives, but it was also a vestige of the pre-deregulation period when maintenance and operations stood as essential and equal pillars of an airline's success, with cost being a far less important element than it is today.
The medium-Earth-orbit constellation designed to bring broadband satellite service to the “other 3 billion” (O3b) customers in the developing world is taking shape above the equator with the launch June 25 of the first four spacecraft on a Soyuz from the European Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. Built by Thales Alenia Space, the O3b satellites weigh 700 kg each, and will move 8,062 km above the equator in a repeating orbit that will present the same satellite to a given ground station every 6 hr.
Paul Desgrosseilliers (see photo) has been appointed general manager of ExecuJet Haite Aviation Services, the company's joint venture with the Sichuan Haite Group, Tianjin, China. He was chief representative in China for Jet Aviation and general manager of the Shenzhen Business Aviation Center.
Jazz Air Capt. Murray Munro has won a Presidential Citation from the Washington-based Air Line Pilots Association for his efforts to assist pilots and their families in times of crisis. He was cited for three decades of work with ALPA's Canadian Pilot Assistance Group for contributions to the physical and emotional well-being of cockpit crewmembers at Jazz Air and the eight other Canadian airlines represented by ALPA. FedEx Express Capt.
John Suttle has been named senior vice president-international business development of BAE Systems Inc., Arlington, Va. He was senior vice president-communications and had been senior director of communications for General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products.
The Eureka! moment of its creation came during a sit-down at a barbeque restaurant in Denison, Texas, back in 1991. As things turned out, there must have been magic wafting from the Jones Family BBQ firebox, because one of business aviation's greatest successes was served up that day along with the brisket, ribs and pulled pork.
It is a golden instrument, in more ways than one. NIRcam, the Near-Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is wrapped in a gold insulating foil, the better to maintain its operating temperature of 35K (-397F). But it also will play a golden role for the three other instruments on the $8 billion mission, which is to put astronomy's largest orbiting observatory into service in 2018.
Trials have begun on a series of optimized transatlantic flights which will test technologies and ideas destined for use in the next generation of air traffic management systems. Air traffic control organizations in Canada and the U.K. hope these “perfect” flights will offer fuel savings of up to half a ton per transatlantic sector and help reduce delays without increasing workload for pilots and controllers.
The wing spar for the U.S. Air Force's KC-46A tanker, traditionally the first piece for major assembly in a new aircraft, was loaded into a tooling jig at Boeing's widebody factory in Everett, Wash., on June 26, kicking off a manufacturing process that should see aircraft rollout in January and a first flight next June.
In “Pacific Punch” (AW&ST June 24, p. 47), Michael Fabey writes that the U.S. Navy is planning to send a little ship with little guns into China's front yard, hoping that this foray will not offend the Red Dragon. I am guessing they cannot send an aircraft carrier group because of the advances in China's anti-ship missile capability. What is the point? Placerville, Calif.
The Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee is moving to further rein in federal subsidies under the Essential Air Service (EAS) program to small cities, according to a committee report explaining its version of next fiscal year's funding. If enacted, the provisions would prohibit EAS payments to communities requiring a per-passenger rate of subsidy in excess of $500, half the $1,000 limit imposed under the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2011. At the same time, other recent restrictions would be maintained.
USAF Brig. Gens. Edward M. Minahan and Michael T. Plehn have been selected for promotion to major general. Minahan has been appointed director of strategy of policy, programs and logistics at U.S. Transportation Command Headquarters, Scott AFB, Ill. He has been principal director to the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy at the Pentagon. Plehn will succeed Minahan and has been deputy director of the Special Plans Working Group at U.S. Central Command Headquarters, MacDill AFB, Fla. And Plehn will be followed by Col. James C.
Differences in structure and timing between European and U.S. airspace transformation programs are keeping alive the spectre of divergent equipment and training solutions mucking up the transition to next-generation operations. These divergences could result in international airlines having to purchase, install and train pilots for separate avionics systems to be used in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, an outcome industry says will tip the equipage cost-benefit scales in the wrong direction.
Pierre Sparaco's “The End of Redundancy,” which addresses the possibility of one-man or unmanned cockpits (AW&ST June 24, p. 20), brought to mind a venerable joke: In the future, airplanes will be flown by one pilot and a dog. Why the dog? To make sure the pilot doesn't touch anything. Zurich, Switzerland
Germany has retired its long-serving fleet of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs after 40 years of operation. The last day of flight operations took place on June 25. Despite the introduction of the Eurofighter into service with the Luftwaffe back in 2006, the Phantom remained in front-line operation, providing an armed quick-reaction alert capability to potential aerial threats in German airspace.
If some joker had mislabeled a box set of the Coen brothers' movies as a management textbook, it would explain much of the history of European unmanned air system developments. It's a good story and the bickering among the participants produces classic quotes, but by the time the Stranger or Tommy Lee Jones delivers his closing speech, you are sometimes left wondering what the whole thing was about. My impression at the Paris air show was that some kind of direction may be emerging from the chaos.
Shenzhou 10, China's longest human mission, ended safely early June 26 with a parachute landing in Inner Mongolia. Touchdown of the mission's return capsule with its crew of two men and a woman came at 8:07 a.m. local time (8:07 p.m. June 26 EDT), 15 days after it was launched from the Jiuquan launch site on a Long March 2F rocket. Astronauts Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping emerged from the lander, smiling and apparently healthy. Nie, the mission commander, was ending his second spaceflight. Wang is China's second female astronaut.
