The Airline Intel column by Lee Ann Tegtmeier, “Engineering Driven” (AW&ST April 25/May 2, p. 20), correctly characterizes a current industry problem. As a reliability engineer for a major original equipment manufacture (OEM) component supplier I am acutely aware that there is a readily apparent disconnect between the reliability requirements that aircraft manufacturers flow down to OEM component suppliers and the lack of data coming back from the operators, which prevents the suppliers from supporting these requirements.
Managers on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program will spend the summer identifying sources of funds to finish the complex observatory, but they already know it will not fly before 2018—at least three years later than the best previous public guess.
June 6-9—White Eagle Aerospace's Short Courses: “Fundamentals of Electro-Optics and Infrared Sensors.” June 13-14—“Directed Infrared Counter Measures.” Both at Wingate by Wyndham Hotel, Oro Valley, Ariz. Call +1 (520) 219-0526 or see www.whiteeagleaerospace.com June 7—ATI Short Course: Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Applications. Hilton Garden Inn, Dayton, Ohio. See www.aticourses.com
In investigating the Nov. 4, 2010, inflight uncontained failure of a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 on a Qantas Airbus A380, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) isn't just trying to determine the cause of the incident. It also is looking at “missed opportunities” to have detected a manufacturing flaw that set in motion the events that led to failure.
Jamie Rose (see photo) has been appointed chief brand manager for Dallas-based Business Jet Center. She was executive flight solutions manager at sister company Business Jet Access.
Full-service airlines in the Asia-Pacific region will be creating off-shoot carriers, with completely different brands than the parent, in an effort to capture growing segments of the market. Thai Airways International will be launching a full-service short-haul carrier, tentatively named Thai Wings, that will be a business unit of the group. And it is working with Singapore's Tiger Airways to introduce a low-cost short-haul carrier, Thai Tiger.
KAI will deliver 16 T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainers to Indonesia in 2013 under a $400 million contract. The deal further deepens defense technology ties between the two countries. It is a breakthrough for KAI, whose previous attempts at exporting the T-50 have failed. In this case, it prevailed over the Russian Yakovlev Yak-130 and the Czech Aero L-159B. KAI will fully build the 16 aircraft and fly them in South Korea before dissembling them for dispatch to Indonesia, where they will be reassembled and undergo final acceptance trials, says an industry official.
A year after European air traffic management was thrown into chaos by the eruption of an Icelandic volcano, a new volcanic ash cloud is demonstrating that regulators still have not determined how to respond most effectively.
Air Marshal N.A.K. Browne, India's vice chief of air staff, will be the next chief of air staff following the retirement of P.V. Naik on July 31. Browne is a fighter combat leader, who has also been an instructor at the Indian air force's Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment.
The latest statistics from Airports Council International show that Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, headed by Aviation General Manager Louis Miller, has retained its crown as the world's busiest airport. Miller, former executive director of Tampa International Airport, has only been on the job six months, but he has worked hard to repair the relationship with its largest tenant, Delta Air Lines, and keep a $1.4 billion international terminal under construction on time and on budget. Miller spoke with AW&ST Online Managing Editor Benet J.
Boeing is battling perceptions that Airbus won some key points in the latest round of World Trade Organization disputes. The WTO's appeals ruling did reverse some aspects of a preliminary ruling in the U.S. case against European subsidies of Airbus and its parent company, EADS. But influential publications, including this one, missed some important distinctions (AW&ST May 23, p. 41). One failure was confusion over the WTO legal terms “prohibited” and “actionable,” says Robert T. Novick, Boeing's outside counsel.
Efforts continue to deploy the troublesome C-band antenna reflector on Intelsat's New Dawn satellite, although the spacecraft's Ku-band antenna has been deployed and is undergoing on-orbit testing, according to Intelsat. Ku-band antenna deployment had been on hold while Intelsat and spacecraft manufacturer Orbital Sciences Corp. diagnosed the C-band problem (AW&ST May 16, p. 14). If C-band capability can't be established, “we have over 20 other satellites covering Africa, so we have other resources upon which to draw,” the company says.
After battling instrument delays, NASA's National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System's (Npoess) Preparatory Project satellite has cleared its last major pre-launch hurdle—a two-month-long thermal vacuum test—and is on track for an Oct. 25 liftoff from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Ball Aerospace, which based the 13.5-ft.-tall, 4,700-lb. satellite on its BCP 2000 bus, expects to ship it to Vandenberg in mid-August.
Masten Space Systems will fly a series of suborbital demonstration flights from Cape Canaveral, Fla., under a $400,000 contract from Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency focused on space and related technologies. The contract will include multiple flights of Masten's vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing reusable suborbital vehicle, called Xaero, which also is one of two vehicles picked by NASA for suborbital research missions (see p. 17).
NASA will fund research payloads on test flights of a pair of commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicles later this year as its microgravity flight opportunity program moves beyond parabolic flights in aircraft. Vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles under development by Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., and Armadillo Aerospace of Heath, Texas, will carry four payloads.
John Blatchley has joined Avantair, Clearwater, Fla., as Northeast U.S. sales director. He was responsible for Piper aircraft sales at Columbia Aircraft Sales.
China's growing submarine fleet worries many countries in the Asia-Pacific region and will lead some to boost their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities. The Malaysian navy uses six Westland Super Lynx helicopters for ASW but wants to buy rotorcraft with more capability and plans to buy six, a senior Malaysian navy official told Aviation Week on the sidelines of the Imdex Asia naval defense show here last week.
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines will help Boeing Commercial Air Services develop an automated identification system for airline parts, components and equipment using a combination of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and Contact Memory Buttons. Boeing is developing the Component Management Optimization tool in conjunction with Fujitsu for airlines to speed up line-maintenance checks of the status of components and equipment.
A month into his role as Ultra Electronics' chief executive, Rakesh Sharma sat down in his office with International Editor Robert Wall to discuss the business environment, innovation and cybersecurity, which generates 15% of the company's turnover. Sharma oversees 25 diverse businesses with €710 million ($1 billion) in revenue in 2010. He also explains the link between chocolate candy and saving the lives of soldiers in Afghanistan.
Mike Kahmann is the new managing director of New York-based CIT Aerospace, Business Aircraft. He was senior vice president-transportation finance. John Morabito has been promoted to senior vice president from director of the company's Financial Institutions Group.
Boeing is studying a potential hybrid engine update for future 737 derivatives as part of its strategy to stay ahead of the Airbus A320NEO. Concepts under mid-term evaluation include upgrades of the CFM International CFM56-7B with elements of the more advanced Leap engine, including re-fanning with a composite fan of the same size or larger diameter.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is making it clear that everything is on the table militarily if Washington really is going to redirect $400 billion over 12 years in defense spending, although he is also making clear what programs and actions in his view must go forward. “We must buy a new tanker. We must buy a fifth-generation fighter. We must replace the ballistic missile submarines toward the end of this decade. . . . The Army must reset after Afghanistan and the Marine Corps as well, but to a lesser extent.”
