Aviation Week received three honors at the Aerospace Media Awards in Paris on June 16. The Best Social/Digital Media Award was accepted by Multimedia Manager Rupa Haria, one of the leaders of Aviation Week's increased emphasis on digital and social media. That includes a tablet edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology, videos, photos, blogs, social media and an air show app.
David Shrum has become general manager of Reston, Va.-based Qinetiq North America's Defense Solutions unit. He was vice president/division manager for modeling, simulation and training at the Camber Corp. and had been vice president of land forces at Northrop Grumman's Electronics Systems.
Bell Helicopter is attempting to reinvent the JetRanger and reenter a market it left behind five years ago. Juggling development of the Bell 525 super-medium and V-280 Valor, the company's tiltrotor candidate for the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift requirement, Bell has added the Short Light Single (SLS), revealed at the Paris air show here, in a bid to regain market share lost to types such as the Robinson R66 and Eurocopter EC120 that have leaped into the gap created when JetRanger production ended 2.5 years ago.
Harry “Hap” McSween, a Chancellor's Professor and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has been named the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Professor of the Year. McSween is known for his research of meteorites and Mars. The award honors one SEC faculty member from the 14 conference universities “whose record in research, scholarship and service places him/her among the elite in higher education.”
A “discussion draft” of a two-year NASA reauthorization bill is running into bipartisan opposition in its originating House space subcommittee, illustrating how lawmakers' divergent opinions about NASA spending are inhibiting progress. Democrats are complaining about cuts in Earth Science funding. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), the panel's vice chairman, promises to vote against the bill unless more money is provided for the Space Launch System program in his district.
Paul Dolan (see photo) has been named vice president of the Commercial Aero and Military Strategic Business units of Chromalloy, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was acting head of the Commercial Aero unit and manager of the company's military contracts.
William J. Hanks, CNS Engineer U.S. Army Fixed Wing Project Office (Huntsville, Ala. )
The Viewpoint “WAAS: Vital for NextGen and It Needs Help” (AW&ST June 10, p. 58) describes the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) as being in need of expansion to help NextGen. I believe Ernest Edwards's terminology is a little misplaced. WAAS is a Space-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) to GPS which already covers North America and cannot be expanded there.
CSeries customers assembled here by Bombardier to talk up the aircraft say they are comfortable with the program's progress so far, as the company aims for a first flight by the end of this month. “On performance and timing, we are very confident we will get what we contracted for when it is wanted,” says Nico Buchholz, Lufthansa executive vice president for group fleet management. Lufthansa has 30 110-seat CS100s on firm order for subsidiary Swiss.
NASA has picked a new class of astronauts—four men and four women—as it pares its corps of government space travelers to meet the reduced requirements of operating the International Space Station and perhaps beginning to reach out beyond low Earth orbit. The agency intends to employ 45-55 astronauts for the foreseeable future. The corps reached an all-time high of 139 in 2000, when NASA was launching 5-6 shuttle missions annually and beginning to staff the station full-time. The new astronauts will join NASA 's 49-member “active-status” astronaut corps.
Jun Tsuruta (see photos) has been named senior director of maintenance procurement for Hawaiian Airlines. He was senior procurement project manager for Gulfstream Aerospace and had been director of supply chain/strategic sourcing at Lockheed Martin. Bill Meredith has been appointed director of the project management office. He was vice president for health-care consulting at Teampraxis and Datahouse Consulting.
International Aero Engines (IAE) will begin building the first V2500-E5 test engine for Embraer's KC-390 tanker/transport this week. The joint venture plans to deliver three flight-test engines to the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer this year and three more in the first quarter of 2014. The KC-390 is scheduled to fly in the second half of next year. The V2500-E5, which is almost identical to the V2500-A5 for the Airbus A320, is scheduled for civil certification in the third quarter of 2014.
Manolo Centeno (see photo) has been promoted to director/leader of the operations consulting practice at Sabre Airlines Solutions, Southlake, Texas, from project leader for the operations practice.
France has signed off on a long-awaited €1 billion ($1.32 billion) purchase of 34 Eurocopter NH90 utility rotorcraft for its army. Meanwhile, certification of Eurocopter's EC175 medium helicopter is expected to be held up at least four months as the company tries to fix its troubled Helionix avionics system. First customer deliveries are now not expected until early 2014.
Do you remember Michael O'Leary's ironic remark about the envisioned one-pilot flight crew? Ryanair's chief executive last year claimed direct operating costs could be significantly reduced by eliminating the first officer on commercial flights
Reauthorization of the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA)—and its federal indemnification coverage and potential mandates over seeking informed-consent waivers from launch participants and crew—could be hot topics as U.S. lawmakers and industry prepare to update the nearly decade-old law. The Republican chairman of the House space subcommittee, Rep. Steven Palazzo (Miss.), says he is eager to work for reauthorization and he knows that industry has a long list of desired changes, including the Federal Communications Commission's regulatory reach into space.
Rolls-Royce may lack the weight of General Electric or Pratt & Whitney in the U.S. military market, with a mixed bag of programs, but its diverse installed base could prove beneficial as defense spending comes down. Accounting for 20% of overall Rolls-Royce revenues, the defense business is split roughly 50:50 between production and services. The majority of revenues come from mature engine programs. Only about 5% stems from development work, so the company's main focus is on upgrading existing engines.
