Model Airplanes

That is, if faithful Catholics were allowed to glimpse Pope Francis’ dominion only from the rooftop of a refined gift shop across the street.

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  Article source: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/place/article/Polished-visitor-center-at-Apple-headquarters-is-12393680.php

By Dominic Gates / The Seattle Times

Kevin McAllister was plucked from the executive ranks at GE a year ago to become the first outsider to lead Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

He has in his hands the industrial future of the Puget Sound region: As the CEO of the company’s commercial division. he will take the lead on when, how and where to build Boeing’s next all-new jet.

Within 18 months, Boeing may launch the plane that will become the 797. With a fresh design and a new manufacturing system, it could be built anywhere.

McAllister knows the stakes for this region.

He grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a blue-collar steel town that suffered a massive industrial decline due to overseas competition.

In his first one-on-one press interview since taking over, he cited Bethlehem’s former steel mills, now replaced by casinos and a retail and entertainment complex, as a reminder that “if you don’t reinvest in your future, good things don’t happen.”

Laying out a familiar CEO-style list of Boeing priorities, McAllister said he wants “a faster, nimbler Boeing.” It must deliver airplanes on time, rolling out existing jets and developing new models. It must be a leader in technology.

And it must continue the long-standing drive to squeeze out costs, from Boeing’s own operations and those of its suppliers.

“We have to fund our future,” McAllister said.

If that all works out, Boeing will be positioned to launch the all-new airplane program.

But will it be here?

McAllister brings a new emphasis on reaping after-sales revenue through selling parts. That shift could

Article source: https://www.heraldnet.com/business/jetliner-chief-mcallister-pushes-for-faster-nimbler-boeing/

By Tom Vogt / The Columbian

A legacy of America’s first licensed airplane pilot is slowly taking shape inside a Vancouver warehouse.

The project is a full-sized replica of a 1912 Curtiss Pusher biplane — an aircraft that made Northwest aviation history 105 years ago when Silas Christofferson flew from the roof of the Multnomah Hotel in Portland to Vancouver Barracks.

When finished, the replica under construction at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is scheduled to go on display in June 2018 at Pearson Air Museum.

It’s a fitting destination, since the area around the museum grounds is pretty much where Christofferson ended his 12-minute flight on June 11, 1912.

“There are no original Pushers” they could duplicate, team leader Mike Daly said. So when team members started in the spring of 2016, they relied on plans that had been part of an earlier project, a scale model of the Pusher several team members helped build for the museum.

The aircraft was designed by Glenn Curtiss.

“We started with the original Curtiss Pusher design that we had scaled down for our model,” Daly, a Vancouver resident, said. “We found archive images of the Christofferson flight and found some differences in the tail surfaces. And it had 14 wing sections instead of 12.”

“I think Silas added 10 feet of wing to get more lift off the hotel,” Dennis Darby said. Darby, a Portland resident, is a manufacturing engineer.

While archive photographs of Christofferson’s 1912 flight are on display at Pearson Air Museum, they don’t really illustrate the size of

Article source: https://www.heraldnet.com/northwest/volunteers-re-create-plane-that-made-historic-1912-flight/

Jim Lee still enjoys a challenge, even after 28 years in business and having his company named Kansas’ exporter of the year.

Next year, for instance, Lee Aerospace will start producing heated forward windows for airplanes, to go with the unheated windows, fuselages and other parts it now makes.

“That’s just the next step in sophistication in the window world,” Lee, the company’s owner and president, said.

Lee started the business in 1989 after working for Cessna and a company owned by his father. At the time, Lee Aerospace’s chief product was cabin windows for the Boeing 737. It employed 11 people and was located in about 5,000 square feet at Harry and Meridian.

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Today, about 230 people work in its 160,000-square-foot plant in northeast Wichita, making windows and other components for about 30 different models of aircraft, primarily in the business jet market.

In addition to selling windows to aircraft manufacturers, Lee installs replacements, inspects and evaluates windows around the world for owners of the multi-million-dollar planes.

“We send guys to Dubai. We’re sending a guy to Hawaii in a week or two. I need to see if I can get on that trip,” Lee joked.

Lee also assembles fuselages for the Viking Twin Otter airplane, which are shipped to Calgary, Canada for final assemblage. And it produces sheet metal and composite products such as cockpit floorboards and main aircraft entry doors.

“We try to diversify to keep

Article source: http://www.kansas.com/news/business/small-business/article187301168.html