I would like to add to the comments from readers in the last few issues as to how Aviation Week can improve. Concentrate more on the aerospace industry's motivating achievements and less on end-user financial squabbling. As an ex-patriot Englishman who came to the U.S. in the mid-sixties—a “can-do” attitude era—the culture contained a vibrant aerospace industry and we followed its many achievements (and sometimes failures) via the weekly in-depth updates in Aviation Week.
Thomas A. Surran has been appointed president of the Commercial Systems Div. of Flir Systems, Portland, Ore. He was CFO and succeeds Andrew C. Teich, who is now president/CEO. Jeffrey D. Frank has been named vice president-global product strategy.
Boeing is optimistic that a new wave of international sales will fill out production of the C-17 at its Long Beach, Calif., facility for the balance of 2014 and beyond. Boeing discussed sales prospects at the delivery of the first of 10 C-17s to the Indian air force on June 11. The aircraft, the 254th C-17 to be delivered, will be followed by four more for India by year-end and a further five in 2014, the first full year of production without any deliveries to USAF.
Spirit AeroSystems is not the only major supplier spun off from a major aircraft manufacturer to be in trouble. EADS subsidiary Premium Aerotec is replacing most of its executive board as the company struggles with inefficiencies in the ramp-up of key programs, particularly the Airbus A350.
Four major commercial aircraft are scheduled to make first flights in 2013. From top to bottom are the Airbus A350; Bombardier CSeries CS100; Boeing 787-9, the new stretched variant of the 787; and Mitsubishi Regional Jet. This year's Paris air show will be a tale of two industries, as rising demand for commercial aircraft contrasts sharply with slumping defense budgets in Europe and the U.S. Elsewhere in this issue, we examine new CEO Larry Lawson's plans for aerostructures supplier Spirit AeroSystems (page 38).
Halldor Sigurdarson has been appointed CFO of Eastern European charter operator Small Planet Airlines. He has been an executive at Air Atlanta and Excel Airways.
As it prepares for the 737 MAX, Boeing is adding more automation and fuselage buildup capacity at its Renton factory south of Seattle. But it is keeping options open for the transition of the new airplane into the existing 737 Next Generation final assembly line.
An Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL air-launched rocket is in final preparation to send a NASA scientific satellite into polar orbit to study a poorly understood region of the Sun's atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) (see image) will combine an ultraviolet telescope and a multi-channel imaging spectrograph to study the interface region between the visible surface of the Sun and its upper atmosphere, which is the source of most of the Sun's UV radiation.
The Pentagon has finally signed a $6.5 billion, five-year contract with Bell-Boeing for the next 99 V-22 tiltrotors—92 MV-22s for the Marine Corps and seven CV-22s for USAF Special Operations Forces. This second multi-year deal covers work through fiscal 2017 and will save $1 billion, compared to buying the 99 aircraft in annual procurements, according to program officials.
Big shows are made for big news, and while there is no golden rule in the air transport business that says new product launches are best saved for major air events, Boeing hopes this year's gathering at Le Bourget will be the perfect venue for the go-ahead of the 787-10X.
The already relentless pace of the Trent engine program for the Boeing 787 is accelerating to new levels as Rolls-Royce ramps up flight- and ground-test development work on new and major derivatives of the Trent 1000.
There is little doubt that the Air France-KLM Group is in bad shape; its shares are trading at a fifth of their value in the company's glory days in 2007. Of all the elements contributing to Air France-KLM's debt (close to €6 billion, or $8 billion) and losses (a €530 million operating loss for the first three months of this year), the culture of complacency was probably the most damaging.
John H. Schmidt (see photo) has been named managing director for Accenture's North American aerospace and defense practice. He was a senior executive with the company's communications, media and high-tech industry group.
In 2011, a Chinese aero-engine industry executive told Aviation Week that, if necessary, the country would muster its resources and develop the CJ-1000 commercial turbofan on its own, so determined was it to end its reliance on Western imports. Two years later, it looks like all those resources had better be mustered. The industry's attempt at luring U.S. and especially Western European help is looking increasingly bleak, though it has secured Russian assistance and has employed expert Western engineers.
Bill Boisture, CEO (Wichita, Kan. ), Beechcraft Corp. (Wichita, Kan. )
Recently, Bill Sweetman started out writing a Commentary on his view of required reform in the acquisition and protest process (AW&ST April 15, p. 18). However, he ventured far outside his area of objective expertise to wrongfully discredit our company, our products and our people. He irresponsibly used Beechcraft Corp. as a vehicle to make his point, but did not bother to inform himself of publicly available information.
Fastjet has already faced more than its fair share of troubles in trying to establish a pan-African low-cost operation. Now its chairman has resigned, and auditors are questioning the airline's reliability.
NASA's long-lived Opportunity rover is rolling toward a new destination at Endeavour Crater on Mars, following one of the nine-year mission's most striking discoveries, a rock rich in clay minerals that points to an early, biologically friendly era dominated by water with a neutral chemistry. Opportunity's internal examination of the rock Esperance in a region known as Cape York on the crater's rim has produced findings strikingly similar to those from rock analysis by NASA's Curiosity rover at the Yellowknife Bay region of distant Gale Crater.
When Japanese industry launched Mitsubishi Aircraft and the MRJ in 2008, the regional jet was intended to enter service late in 2013 as the only aircraft in its class with the decisive advantage of an advanced new engine. In accepting the cost and risk of the unconventional geared engine and in adopting a long, slender wing optimized for modest cruise speed, the developers were betting on high fuel prices.
The most lethal-looking U.S. aircraft on the Paris flight line this week is the Iomax Archangel, a heavily armed Thrush 710P crop-duster. There are two large airlifters on show but neither is from the U.S.
The goal, as the engineer from St. Louis explains, is to give decision-making to the fighter pilot by providing information with large-format animated graphics. The instrument panel becomes one sheet of glass. It can display a classic map, a perspective view or both at the same time. In perspective view—ideal for battle management—the threat envelopes of surface-to-air missile systems resemble 10-mi.-high mushrooms, and a suggested avoidance path weaves among their stalks.
