Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

Mitsubishi Aircraft on Monday named 35-year company veteran Yasuhiko Kawaguchi executive chief engineer, effectively replacing chief development officer Alex Bellamy as head of the SpaceJet M90 program as part of a wider reorganization largely precipitated by the Covid-19 crisis. Mitsubishi said Kawaguchi played a “critical role” in U.S.-based flight-test management. The company recently closed its offices in Renton, Washington, and significantly scaled back operations at its engineering and test center in Moses Lake, Washington, after halting flight testing of the M90 and shelving development of the 76-seat M100.

 


MHI said it would more than halve funding for the SpaceJet as it reported program impairment losses from its recent acquisition of the Bombardier CRJ program and development costs for the 2019 fiscal year totaling ¥263.3 billion ($2.46 billion), compared with total expenditures of ¥85.1 billion in 2018. This year it plans to pare SpaceJet development spending from ¥140.9 billion to ¥60 billion as it addresses Covid-19-related pressures throughout the wider enterprise.

 


“The company’s priority will be on obtaining type certification for the SpaceJet M90,” Mitsubishi Aircraft said in a statement issued Monday. “To maximize the efficiency of type certification flight tests in the future, this fiscal year Mitsubishi Aircraft will focus on reorganizing, improving the current design at the aircraft-level, and validating data earned by over 3,900 hours of flight test.” Plans now call for the development of the M100, long beset by a series of major delays, to extend into at least 2021, marking the sixth certification postponement for the program.

 


Under the reorganization, Mitsubishi Aircraft president Takaoki Niwa will continue to manage the overall business of the company. As before, board member Keisuke Masutani will continue to assist with corporate management and fellow board member Hiroyuki Tatsuoka will support the overall development and technology.

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News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

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