Penton's Aviation Week Announces Finalists of 58th Annual Laureate Awards, Honoring Outstanding Achievements in Aviation, Aerospace & Defense

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Finalists of the 58th Annual Laureate Awards, honoring extraordinary achievements in the global aerospace arena, were announced yesterday.  The awards will be presented on Thursday, March 5, 2015 at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, by Penton's Aviation Week, the largest multimedia information and services provider to the global aviation, aerospace and defense industries.

"Since their debut in the 1950s, Aviation Week's Laureate Awards have shined a spotlight on the industry's greatest innovators and achievers," said Aviation Week & Space Technology Editor-in-Chief Joseph C. Anselmo. "We recognize both the finalists and the winners for their vision and for inspiring others to strive for progress."

The finalists in each category are:

Civil Aviation

• Airbus A350 program head Didier Evrard, for rigorous execution of the certification program for the new widebody airliner.
• Boeing 787-9 program, for the first application of drag-reducing hybrid laminar flow control in a production commercial airliner.
• Mitre Corp., for the Houston metroplex airspace redesign, in collaboration with the FAA, NATCA and other stakeholders.
• Southwest Airlines Chairman, President and CEO Gary Kelly, for AirTran integration and moves to grow business traffic and international expansion.

Defense

• BAE Systems, for fully stealthy test flights of the UK's Taranis unmanned combat-aircraft demonstrator.
• Northrop Grumman, for the highly automated assembly line producing center fuselages for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
• U.S. Army and Boeing, for successful live-fire trials of the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator.
• U.S. Ground-Based Missile Defense team, for overcoming a complex problem preventing ballistic missile intercepts in the Ground-based Missile Defense system.

Space

• European Space Agency, for the Rosetta mission to rendezvous with and enter orbit around a comet for the first time.
• European Union, for launch of the first dedicated satellite for the Copernicus Earth observation and environmental monitoring mission.
• Indian Space Research Organization, for reaching Mars on its first attempt with the Mars Orbiter Mission, at a fraction of the cost of previous missions.
• NanoRacks CEO Jeff Manber, for turning a commercial toehold on the International Space Station into a growing business.

Business Aviation

• Robert Bass, for his continued financial backing of efforts by Aerion to develop a supersonic business jet.
• Embraer, for certification of the Legacy 500, an all-new mid-size business jet and its first fully fly-by-wire aircraft.
• Nextant Aerospace, for bringing new technology to business aviation at less cost by remanufacturing business aircraft.
• Pilatus Aircraft CEO Oscar Schwenk, for launching the PC-24 jet in the same versatile mold as the successful PC-12 turboprop.

Technology

• GE Aviation head of additive-manufacturing strategy Greg Morris, for transition of the new technology into production engines.
• Mitre Corp., for developing a ground-based sense-and-avoid system enabling unmanned-aircraft operations in civil airspace, working with the U.S. Air Force and others.
• U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and Qinetiq, for the Magic Carpet flight control and guidance technology that makes aircraft-carrier approaches easier.
• Rockwell Collins, for the MultiScan ThreatTrack radar with enhanced weather hazard detection to increase safety and improve ride quality for passengers and crew.

Innovation

• AHRLAC Holdings, for development of the first fully indigenous African-designed and -built military aircraft.
• Raytheon and Saab, for their different approaches to bringing gallium nitride power electronics to military radar and electronic-warfare systems.
• Rockwell Collins, for expansion of its Pro Line Fusion civil avionics system into military aircraft and unmanned aerial systems.
• Textron, for business innovation, led by private-venture development of the Textron AirLand Scorpion military jet.

In addition, Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented to David Thompson, Chairman and CEO of Orbital Sciences, and John Leahy, Airbus Chief Operating Officer – Customers.

Produced by Aviation Week, the Laureate Awards is one of the industry's premier events, attracting hundreds of industry pioneers and thought leaders from around the world.  For more information visit http://www.aviationweek.com/laureates and on Twitter follow @AvWeekEvents, #AWLAUR.

About Aviation Week
Aviation Week, a division of Penton, is the largest multimedia information and services provider for the global aviation, aerospace and defense industries. Industry professionals rely on Aviation Week for analysis, marketing and intelligence. Customers include the world's leading manufacturers, suppliers, airlines, business aviation operators, militaries, governments and other organizations that serve this global market. The product portfolio includes Aviation Week & Space Technology, AC-U-KWIK, Aircraft Blue Book, Airportdata.com, Air Charter Guide, Air Transport World, AviationWeek.com, Aviation Week Intelligence Network, Business & Commercial Aviation, ShowNews, SpeedNews, Fleet and MRO forecasts, global maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) tradeshows and aerospace & defense conferences.

About Penton
Penton drives performance for more than sixteen million professionals each and every day. They rely on us to deliver: Insights, information & workflow tools to inform critical business decisions; networking & community to engage them with industry peers & partners; and data & marketing services to advance their business performance & deliver ROI.

Penton is a growth company with a track-record of strong performance and success and is backed by its co-owners: MidOcean Partners and U.S. Equity Partners II, an investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP.

For additional information on the company and its businesses, visit www.penton.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Meredith Fortunato
Marketing Communications Manager
Aviation Week
347.392.8822
[email protected]

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