Model Airplanes

Renato Vaghi, who was appointed Piaggio Aerospace’s CEO nine months ago, said the Italian aircraft manufacturer is refocusing on business aviation. “Last year, we restructured as a clearer [more focused] company,” he told AIN. “We’re going through a big transformation.”

Part of this restructuring includes spinning off its engine business, which makes components and assembles for the PW206 and PW207 under license from Pratt Whitney Canada, as well as manufactures parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s F-135 engine. That will leave Piaggio purely as an aircraft company, with the P.180 Avanti Evo turboprop twin as its commercial product and in-development Hammerhead UAV on the defense side.

Since taking over in August, Vaghi said Mubadala-owned Piaggio has been ramping up operations at its new production facility at Riviera Airport in Villanova d’Albenga, Italy. According to Vaghi, the company currently has a 1.5-year backlog for the Evo and plans to increase the production rate to 30 aircraft per year by 2020.

The first-ever Evo was delivered from this facility in October, while the first Evo for a U.S. customer—West Coast Aviation Services—left the plant at the end of last year. A special-mission version of the turboprop is now being prepped at the facility to be delivered “in a few days,” he said. On Monday, Piaggio announced the sale of the first Evo in the UK; this airplane will be handed over in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, Piaggio has been working to improve customer support. “We’ve started

Article source: http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2017-05-22/piaggio-renews-focus-business-aviation

In December 2013, the Washington legislature granted $8.7 billion in tax breaks to help guarantee that Boeing would build the new 777X airliner in Washington, instead of another state. 

There was a second piece: The machinists union would have to agree to extend its contract by eight years, which led to a highly contentious debate and failed on the first of what turned out to be two votes. 

For their part, the governor, legislature, and others said the 777X was critical to maintaining jobs. But no requirement was placed in the law. 

Since then, Boeing’s job numbers have declined and another recent legislative session underwent efforts to tie the continuation of the concessions to Boeing to specific job targets.

We set out to verify if Boeing has met its obligations.

Our sources:

Legislation passed and signed by Governor Jay Inslee 

The 2016 Washington State Aerospace Economic Impacts Study

Boeing’s own job numbers

The law states: “Incentivising a long-term commitment to maintain and grow jobs in the aerospace industry in Washington state by extending…aerospace tax preferences.”    

Those tax credits are “contingent upon the siting of a significant commercial airplane manufacturing program in the state of Washington.” 

Boeing is not mentioned specifically, because the state’s constitution precludes any direct aid to a specific company.

Article source: http://www.kgw.com/news/local/verify/verify-boeing-jobs-and-tax-incentives/442245884

You could call Dave Mason a “model” citizen.

Mason was recently asked to construct a 1/350th scale model of the USS Texas, which was the first ship served on by Charles R. Ware. The model was unveiled on May 12 as part of the USS Charles R. Ware exhibit at the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum.

The USS Ware was a U.S. Navy destroyer in service from 1945 to 1974. The ship was named in honor of Lt .Charles R. Ware, who joined the Navy from Athens in 1929 and served until 1942, when he was reported missing in action. Ware was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism in the Battle of Midway during World War II. The annual USS Ware reunion will be held from June 1-5 in Athens.

Mason is a member of the McMinn County Radio Control Association. Through his membership with the group, he was asked to build a scale replica of the USS Texas. The ship is more detailed than the models Mason usually builds and designs, but he eventually decided he could handle the project.

“I would have liked to have done it the way it would have been when Ware was on the ship,” said Mason. “It actually went through three major renovations, but the information is not out there to do it.”

Mason had pictures of the ship, but nothing with precise enough measurements to match the scale at the time Ware was a crew member. So, Mason decided to build the ship according to

Article source: http://www.dailypostathenian.com/news/article_3180b148-3fc7-11e7-8086-10604b9f0f42.html

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa need to get their budgets in order, diversify their economies and look after their poorest people, the IMF said.

According to the IMF’s regional economic outlook, tf they do that, there is no reason why the region cannot have the strong growth needed to meet the aspirations of a young and growing population.

That, at least, is the three-pillared prescription from the IMF as expressed by one of its top Africa researchers, Celine Allard, in an official IMF blog post and podcast.

Allard co-authored the Fund’s regional economic outlook.

It found that sub-Saharan economic growth hit only 1.4 percent last year, the lowest level in two decades and well off the five to six per cent rates normally reached.

It was also well below the population growth rate.

“This is a quite broad-based deceleration because we see about two-thirds of the countries having slowed down last year, which is quite substantial,” she said in the podcast.

While some of the reasons for the slowdown are beyond the region’s immediate control, low global commodity prices, drought etc, Allard said some problems are down to a lack of governmental response.

“Part of the deteriorated outlook is a reflection of limited policy adjustment in the region,” she said.

Hence, the first pillar: renewed focus on debt reduction, fiscal policy to raise domestic revenues, and greater exchange rate flexibility.

Allard noted that some of the countries in the region that had kept growth up, such as Senegal and Ivory Coast, had run up large budget deficits

Article source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/imf-offers-3-pillared-prescription-african-growth/