Robert D. Starr has been promoted to senior vice president/CFO from vice president/treasurer of the Kaman Corp., Bloomfield, Conn., effective July 1. He will succeed William C. Denninger, who plans to retire.
Space shuttle astronauts Curt Brown, Eileen Collins and Bonnie Dunbar have been inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Brown flew on six missions. Collins is the first woman to pilot and command a shuttle, and Dunbar was a mission specialist and payload commander.
China's aero-engine development effort keeps looking bigger. It turns out that four indigenous high-bypass turbofans are being developed, not two, as previously thought. A major turboshaft, exhibited two years ago, is now revealed as a candidate engine for a new tactical airlifter, the Y-19. And an engine is in the works for a medium-large transport helicopter in the class of the AgustaWestland AW101.
Cameron Dryden and Jamesha Parks (see photos), both Northrop Grumman Corp. Aerospace Systems employees, received top awards at the 39th annual National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) conference. The awards recognize excellence among technical professionals, corporate, government and academic leaders, and university and pre-college students. Dryden received the NSBE Distinguished Engineer of the Year award. He is the systems and services business area manager, developing and manufacturing electro-optical and opto-mechanical equipment for industry and government.
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Composite airframes were important in defense systems before the Boeing 787 made them a household word. The basics of building even 80-ft.-long single-piece composite wingboxes have been conquered. The challenge now is to increase manufacturing process rates and reduce production costs, a subject of interest to everyone working in the field, whether on military or commercial programs.
Honeywell Aerospace expects to grow rapidly in India using a strategy of “manufacturing in India, for India,” to support the country's drive for organic manufacturing. Pritam Bhavnani, president of Honeywell Aerospace India, discussed the company's plans with Aviation Week's Jay Menon. AW&ST: What new initiatives will Honeywell pursue in India?
Daniel Bangs has been appointed general manager of the U.K.-based Doncasters Group's Storms Forge in Farmington, Conn., and New England Airfoil Products division in Springfield, Mass. He succeeds Tony Dalby, who has resigned.
The aborted merger of EADS and BAE Systems last year reignited talks about a long-awaited wave of consolidation among prime aerospace and defense (A&D) contractors. After all, Europe still has four major shipbuilders, four missile manufacturers and three combat aircraft primes, while the larger U.S. defense market has essentially two players in each of those categories. The speculations were underpinned by a basic but deeply erroneous assumption: “Bigger is better.”
Jennifer L. Vogel has been named to the board of directors of American Science and Engineering Inc., Billerica, Mass. She is a former senior vice president/general counsel/secretary/ chief compliance officer of Continental Airlines.
Virtual reality has become a commonplace engineering tool for major aerospace manufacturers, where three-dimensional visualization systems are routinely used to aid design reviews.
The price of EU carbon dioxide allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading System hit an all-time low April 17 after the EU Parliament defeated a proposal that would have led to regulatory intervention to curb a supply glut.
Boeing is courting airlines for firm launch orders of its proposed reengined, rewinged 777X derivative, following board of directors' approval on May 1 of the overall design and program plans. The new twinjet is a radical revamp of the 777, more ambitious in scale than even the development of the 747-8, and is designed to open new space in the long-haul, high-capacity market, compete with the Airbus A350-1000 and replace the 747-400.
This week, Aviation Week publishes two editions. The Airbus photo on the cover at the far right shows an A350 moving down the final assembly line in Toulouse. Advances in manufacturing technology are key to industry efforts to drive down costs and push production to the unprecedented rates Airbus is seeking with its next widebody (see page 42). Elsewhere in both editions are reports on China's engine plans (page 24), airborne tankers (page 30) and SpaceShipTwo (page 35). Our MRO Edition includes additional articles.
Composites manufacturing is proliferating through the supply chain, but the technology is far from new. Carbon fiber was introduced into aircraft production in the 1970s, and it will have taken more than 40 years of researching, testing and scaling up to reach the levels of composites manufacturing expected when the Airbus A350, Boeing 787 and Lockheed Martin F-35 reach full-rate production.
Cargo carrier National Airlines says Flight NCR102, the Boeing 747-400F that crashed and burned on departure from Bagram AB, Afghanistan, on the morning of April 29 local time, had stopped there only for fuel and that “no additional cargo or personnel” were picked up. The aircraft, N949CA, was en route to Dubai from Camp Bastion in the southern central section of the country, “carrying military vehicles out of Afghanistan” via Bagram, according to the airline.
The European Commission's decision to suspend its Emissions Trading System (ETS) for flights into and out of Europe for a year was published in the EU's Official Journal on April 24. Consequently, the “stop-the-clock” decision is now in force, and aircraft operators do not have to surrender carbon dioxide allowances and project credits to account for their emissions on flights operated out of Europe in 2012.
Last week's Washington Outlook column was finished before Congress moved in less than 24 hr.—start to finish—to undo air traffic controller furloughs demanded by sequestration. Not only did we not see the necessary lawmaking coalescing so quickly, neither did most lawmakers—many of whom had already flown out of town for a one-week vacation from Capitol Hill.
Aviation takes an iterative approach to safety. The logic is that even the most thorough analysis and testing will not uncover all the “unknown unknowns” of a new technology or design.
