CAPITOL HILL: The chairman of the board of the Aerospace Industries Association, Pratt & Whitney President David Hess, expressed guarded optimism today that industry is getting through to Congress about the danger of sequestration. “We’ve been very active — Marion [Blakey, AIA’s CEO], and the AIA staff, and the member companies of AIA — [conveying]… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens and his fellow defense industry executives struggled to stay on their “sequestration kills jobs” message while they dodged repeated questions from Democrats about whether revenue increases were needed to avert the sequester. An exasperated Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, concluded the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As jetlagged aerospace executives and defense reporters head home from a frankly discouraging Farnborough Air Show, Washington is gearing up for storm of stop-sequestration events this coming week. What it will actually accomplish is an open question. Sequestration has hardly been a quiet topic this past week, with a pointed, partisan, and unproductive exchange… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Just when United Technologies’s Pratt & Whitney subsidiary seemed to have put the troubles with its F135 engine for the Joint Strike fighter behind it, there comes news that the company violated the so-called Tianamen sanctions and illegally sold engine control software to China for use in an attack helicopter. Perhaps worse than the… Keep reading →

HARTFORD, CT: Aircraft engine maker Pratt & Whitney proudly predicts it will double its revenues this decade from $12 billion in 2010 to $24 billion in 2020 — but the company admits it will have to get through some lean years first. On both the commercial and military sides, key Pratt & Whitney programs are… Keep reading →

PRATT & WHITNEY ENGINE PLANT, MIDDLETOWN, CONN.: [updated 9:05 am Wednesday with comment from Pratt & Whitney President David Hess] This factory builds jet engines for high-performance fighters — an engine a week for the F-35 alone — but the armed forces might want to take a look at an innovation on Pratt & Whitney’s… Keep reading →

Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off from Earth on July 8 and is the final space shuttle mission, ending a very successful program which has brought so much pride to the United States for more than three decades. Similar to when the Apollo program ended in 1975, this final flight is truly a… Keep reading →