Aireen Omar (see photo) has been appointed CEO and executive director of AirAsia Malaysia, succeeding Tony Fernandes, who retains his title as group CEO. Omar was the group's regional head of corporate finance, treasury and investor relations.
That Ryanair's CEO has a way of showing his contempt for regulators is no longer news in Europe, so it is perhaps par for the course that the carrier is launching a takeover attempt of Aer Lingus just as overseers look into whether the existing shareholding relationship is problematic. Nevertheless, the move creates renewed uncertainty about the future of Aer Lingus and its shareholding structure, as the airline is hoping to ride the structural changes it has made in recent years into a more profitable future.
Michael Dergance (see photo) has been named VP-sales and marketing of Turbodesign Technology of New York. He was director of software sales for Concepts NREC.
Marco Laos has become quality assurance manager for Heads Up Technologies, Carrollton, Texas. He was director of quality engineering at St. Jude Medical.
The U.K. defense ministry has awarded BAE Systems a £15.5 million ($24.2 million) contract to convert two BAe 146-200QC (Quick Change) to military aircraft for passenger and freight transport to offload more mundane tasks from airlifters. The aircraft were previously operated by TNT Airways. The work is to be completed by March 2013.
Members of the House are trying to reinstate a rule to allow a business write-off for aircraft and other major purchases in the year the purchase is made, rather than to spread the expense over many years. The write-off, known as “bonus depreciation,” expired last year but a new bill, sponsored by Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), would retroactively allow companies to use that write-off for all of 2012.
Although Central and Eastern Europe are experiencing faster growth than any other part of the continent, many of the region's airlines are still old-school national carriers. Now many of them are trying to find a new model.
Embraer's year-old Phenom business jet factory in Melbourne, Fla., has earned its FAA production certification. The Brazilian airframer has been shipping Phenom 100s from Melbourne since last December under the type certificate of its Brazilian-made aircraft. The Florida aircraft are assembled from components made in Brazil.
Bill Kozane and Todd Romanski (see photos) have been appointed international market managers at Sifco Applied Surface Concepts, Independence, Ohio. Both men have had longtime sales roles at the company.
Kenn Ricci, chairman of Flight Options, has received the William A. Ong Memorial Award from the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Association for “extraordinary achievement and extended meritorious service to the general aviation industry.” Y.H. Cho, Hanjin Group and Korean Air chairman and CEO, has been honored as a “Treasure of Los Angeles” by the Los Angeles Central City Association for his legacy of business and philanthropy there.
It may surprise you to know that a retired astronaut agrees with the recent editorial “How to Nip 'New Space' in the Bud” (AW&ST May 28, p. 66) about our present approach to human flight being too costly. (And I'm sorry that some astronauts act as little more than NASA cheerleaders.)
Rainer Ohler has been appointed head of corporate communications of EADS, Leiden, Netherlands. He was senior VP-public affairs and communications at subsidiary Airbus.
The European Commission has called on the U.K. and other EU members to make good on their commitment to implement new rules to ease the arms trade among EU members. The U.K., as well as Belgium, Luxemburg, Poland and Finland, so far have failed to advance any measures to implement so-called Directive 2009/43/EC. The implementation deadline was June 30, 2011. Denmark also has been criticized for moving forward only with partial implementation of the rule.
One must question the term “private” when applied to the SpaceX venture. All NASA rockets have been purchased from private corporations but launched from NASA facilities. SpaceX received about $400 million to develop Dragon and a $1.6 billion contract for International Space Station cargo deliveries for which they use NASA launch facilities. How is that any different then Boeing, Lockheed or Douglas?
Tail-mounted interconnected engines as proposed by reader David Stutman (AW&ST May 28, p. 10) are in contradiction to the “Engine Isolation” spirit of Federal Aviation Regulation 25.903. Closely-mounted engines are more prone to mutual destruction, especially by rotor burst, and should certainly not be mechanically interconnected. This may be the reason why tail mounting is not in fashion anymore, except for small business jets. Binyamina, Israel
Alex Shikany has been named director of market analysis at the Association for Advancing Automation, Ann Arbor, Mich., succeeding Paul Kellett, who will retire in January.
Engineers at Astrium plan to examine ways to use technology developed for Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the Columbus laboratory module on the International Space Station under two €6.5 million ($8.19 million) contracts from the European Space Agency. Results of the work, set to run until the end of 2012, are intended to support decisions on development of European space vehicles at the ESA ministerial meeting in November.
Lunar explorers may find it easier than expected to mine water ice at the Moon's South Pole, if a new interpretation of laser altimeter data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is correct. Mapping the floor of Shackleton Crater at what NASA describes as unprecedented detail, scientists calculated that unusually bright laser returns from the crater floor may be caused by ice mixed with other material there. As much as 22% of the surface material in Shackleton could be ice, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.
Every day, hundreds of aircraft traverse the world's busiest oceanic airspace over the North Atlantic, spending most of their journey out of range of existing surveillance technology. A planned global satellite-based service could change that, bringing the advantages of air traffic control to this vital corridor as well as to other areas lacking surveillance coverage.
The U.S. Air Force is gearing up to set another round of firsts with the pending third launch of the Boeing X-37B, but what those milestones may be will remain as much of a mystery as it has been with the recently completed second flight. Looking relatively pristine after its fiery reentry through the atmosphere, the second X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-2) completed a record-breaking 15-month classified mission with a textbook autonomous landing at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on June 16.
On the Ares defense blog, International Editor Robert Wall takes note of “Close Air Support With a French Flair,” which highlights France-based LH Aviation's work on a close air support (CAS) version of its LH10 Ellipse. Comments included: Sintra who notes: CAS with the LH10 Ellipse? Talk about “macho” pilots! That aircraft weights roughly the same as a Citroen 2CV.
