GE Aviation, which developed its Winnipeg Engine Testing, Research and Development Center to take advantage of the Manitoba city's winters for cold-weather testing, is celebrating its first anniversary, with updates that will allow the facility to test year-round (AW&ST April 23/30, 2012, p. 84). Owned by GE Aviation, but operated by StandardAero, the facility underwent a $7.5 million upgrade over the summer.
Lawmakers came up with a budget penalty bad enough to prompt themselves to deal with taxes and entitlements. Until now, the consequences of the $85 billion budget penalty known as sequestration were largely an academic exercise, but the looming closure of FAA contract towers is already making that tangible (see p. 18).
Bombardier has powered up the first CSeries as it moves toward an initial flight of the new narrowbody airliner by the end of June. The first aircraft, flight-test vehicle FTV-1, has left the final-assembly line near Montreal and begun avionics and subsystem ground- testing. Five aircraft will be involved in 12 months of flight-testing for the initial 110-seat CS100 variant, targeting entry into service by mid-2014. Aircraft FTV-2-4 are in final assembly.
Eclipse Aerospace has powered up the first Eclipse 550 as it returns its iconic very light jet to production. The Albuquerque, N.M.-based company has received an amended production certificate from the FAA and plans to begin deliveries of the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F-powered Eclipse 550 in the third quarter. The 550 is an updated version of the EA-500, more than 260 of which were delivered by Eclipse Aviation before it went into liquidation.
Eric Byer has been named senior VP of Alexandria, Va.-based Obadal, Filler, MacLeod & Klein. He was VP-government and industry affairs at the National Air Transportation Association.
I'm all for prizes and competitions to spur innovation (AW&ST March 4/11, p. 48), but encouraging several organizations to drop a number of rovers, along with their transports, onto the Moon with no scientific goal is madness. There is already far too much junk on that body, thanks to decades of Soviet and U.S. missions. And the newly space-capable nations such as India, Japan and China will soon be adding a lot more. (Boldly going where man has gone before.)
Also, USAF Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Merchant has been named director of global reach programs in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition at the Pentagon. He was program executive officer for weapons at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center of Air Force Materiel Command, Eglin AFB, Fla. He will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Scott W. Jansson, who was aviation commander for the Defense Logistics Agency, Richmond, Va. Brig. Gen. Michael J.
A new NASA mission to bring an asteroid closer to Earth in time to meet President Obama's goal of landing humans on one by 2025 would do more than bring the mountain to Mohammed. It also would add relevance to some of lawmakers' favorite NASA programs—the Orion crew vehicle, heavy-lift Space Launch System and commercial human spacecraft. NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for the mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon.
A backlog of foreign repair station applications created by a byzantine U.S. congressional mandate is forcing airlines to reconsider both expansion and contract maintenance strategies, because desired stations don't have FAA-approved shops to work on U.S.-registered aircraft. (Credit: Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings)
Veronique Creissels (see photo) will become head of communications for Airbus in Toulouse, starting in June. She is head of group communications at Vallourec.
Both Chromalloy and Honeywell are seeking an FAA approval that would allow them to act on behalf of the agency to approve certain types of engineering data, such as major alterations or repairs.
Mario Aleman has been appointed trade compliance manager of Sherwood, Ore.-based Aviatrix. He was a trade compliance analyst at Cooper Bussman Components.
Is the recent decline in the average age of aircraft retirements an illusion when it comes to determining the economic life and valuation of the jets—or does the false impression come from the reports that dismiss its significance? Avolon, the Dublin-based aircraft leasing company, argued in a report a few months ago that the years-long decline is misleading. Now Boeing is out with a similar study that presents its case for why the dip is a blip, not a trend.
I am in disbelief that no one seems ever to include in the evaluations of lithium-ion batteries any study of their simple carriage as cargo (AW&ST March 25, p. 35). The only fatal accidents involving lithium-ion batteries were in those situations where they were carried inert in large quantities, not in operation or being charged and discharged. I know Aviation Week has mentioned those cases in previous reports (the UPS 747-400 and the Asiana 747 accidents come to mind).
April 16-18—Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exposition Conference and Exhibition. Shanghai. See www.abace.aero/2013/ April 17-18—SMI's Second Annual Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Conference. Copthorne Tara Hotel, London. See www.isrconference.com or call James Hitchen +44 (207) 827-6054. April 17-18—Civil Avionics Forum 2013. Shanghai. See www.galleonevents.com/avionics2013/en/home.html
Boeing has expanded its investments in Brazil's infrastructure as part of its bid to win the country's long-delayed F-X2 fighter competition with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The company and the state of Pernambuco signed a preliminary agreement last week to cooperate on training for welders and development of other critical assembly skills in support of ship building for Brazil's petroleum, oil and gas industries. The agreement is among those Boeing has made in an attempt to have the Super Hornet beat out the Dassault Rafale and Saab Gripen NG.
Mexico's Satmex 8 is en route to its operational geosynchronous slot after an International Launch Systems Proton rocket orbited it March 26 in a 9-hr., 13-min. mission flying from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch puts the big Russian rocket back in business after a Dec. 8 anomaly left a Russian telecom satellite in a low orbit. Based on SS/L's 1300 bus, the 5.5-metric-ton spacecraft will be operated by Satelites Mexicanos of Mexico City, providing video content and distribution, broadband services and cellular backhaul from its position at 116.8 deg. W.
