Search Results for: Lockheed

A Monday report in the Wichita Eagle cites “rumors” that Cessna’s parent company Textron could be for sale. The news drove Textron stock up-though it still rests far closer to the bottom of its fluctuation curve than the top. According to some observers in the finance sector, Lockheed Martin could be among the potential buyers-though […]

There is frost accumulating inside the windows of my cockpit. I reach a gloved hand up and scrape a clear opening in the ice. The long, graceful lines of the left wing extend almost 50 feet into the impossibly thin air surrounding us. Normally when I fly, I’m off the surface of the planet, but […]

No one at the Lockheed Skunk Works would ever have envisioned the U-2 still being the cutting-edge platform for Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions more than half a century after its first flight. But over the years, the Air Force has invested close to $2 billion on enhancements to both the airplane […]

Some might suspect sour grapes, but at an economic summit earlier this week, Senator John McCain questioned whether his rival in last November’s presidential election really needs $11.2 billion worth of new helicopters. In 2005, then-President Bush pressed for upgraded rotorcraft for the presidential mission. In light of the September 11 attacks, John Young, assistant […]

The building that houses the Oakland Flight Service Station is nothing remarkable — just a square concrete structure at the northern end of Oakland Airport’s North Field. But it’s surrounded by history. Old, clapboard buildings from World War II line the airport frontage road that leads to the station. And side streets still carry names […]

For all the fuss made about California’s huge population, almost two-thirds of its 36.5 million people are squeezed into just 8 percent of the land. That leaves an awful lot of open spaces in between, as anyone who’s ever flown — or driven — between San Francisco and Los Angeles can attest. But my friend […]

Everyone knows that there is less flying going on, but Lockheed Martin is using the reduced numbers to justify cutting back on Flight Service Station facilities. The company announced last week that five satellite stations will close in February. Facilities due to shut their doors include those in Oakland, San Diego, Denver, Albuquerque and Macon, […]

I thought I had covered the whole subject of the controller/pilot interface pretty thoroughly. In the January 2008 issue (“The Controller Failed to Inform…”), I used two accidents to illustrate the perils of depending on the controller to keep out of weather and away from high terrain. In the July issue (“Saved by the Controller”) […]

Lockheed Martin, which operates the flight service briefings under contract to the government, has introduced a program designed to save time on phone briefings and when filing flight plans. Pilots can set up a personal profile that, based on the telephone number called from, will automatically populate the briefer’s screen with boilerplate information such as […]

Bill Warlick has had an interesting career. He began flying at 14, graduated from NC State in Aerospace Engineering, joined the Navy, instructed in T-28s, and flew several tours in the P-3 Orion – the Navy’s patrol version of the Lockheed Electra – before spending three winters flying ski-equipped C-130s in Antarctica. He did stints […]