ABX Air's board of directors is reviewing an informal offer by AStar Air Cargo to acquire that carrier. Both ABX and AStar provide lift for DHL and operate primary hubs at Wilmington, Ohio. The initial offer of $7.75 per share of common stock may be inadequate as ABX's shares climbed to a July 2 close of $8.09. A meeting between AStar's Chairman, President and CEO John Dasburg and ABX Air's Chief Executive Joe Hete, scheduled in late June, was canceled at ABX Air's request to allow the board to consult with advisers.
A foreign-ownership provision added by House Democrats to the Transportation Committee's FAA reauthorization bill would complicate the next round of U.S.-European Union open-skies negotiations, planned for next spring, and might threaten a provision of the first-stage deal that takes effect in March 2008. Bill language would withdraw U.S. certification from an airline if U.S. citizens were not in control of marketing, branding, fleet composition, route selection, pricing and labor relations, among other things.
Members of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee want to add $30 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) account in Fiscal 2008 for the restoration of climate sensors that the Pentagon cut from the planned civil-military National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (Npoess) last year to keep it within congressional cost-overrun limits.
Regarding the Pentagon program review of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (AW&ST June 11, p. 26), the failure of Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force to field a reliable stealthy cruise missile is difficult to fathom. Reliable cruise missile and fuze technologies have been around for decades, and GPS technology is routine in many different fields. Lockheed Martin's failure to integrate these technologies into a successful weapons system is incomprehensible, particularly when two similar systems are in service in Europe and at a lower cost.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris and Noordwijk, Netherlands)
An orbiter for the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover mission and an ESA role in Russia's Advanced Crew Transportation System are among the options member states' space ministers may consider as they craft a road map for the agency's next three years.
Boeing's P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft completed its critical design review with no U.S. Navy request for action by the company. Production of the first test aircraft is to begin later this year. Testing will be conducted at NAS Patuxent River, Md. The program is to produce 108 aircraft beginning in 2013.
The pilots of the Cessna Citation II 550 (N550BP) medical flight that crashed June 4 after departure from Milwaukee General Mitchell airport had reported an emergency and an intention to return to the field, according to the NTSB. One crewmember reported runaway trim, and preliminary cockpit voice recorder data indicate the flight crew had difficulty with directional control of the aircraft shortly after takeoff. Radar data show the aircraft in a climbing right turn after departure. It then leveled off at 3,900 ft. and began another climb.
The Mars rover Opportunity--poised on the rim of 2,500-ft.-wide Victoria Crater--will begin its dangerous descent in mid-to-late July after passage of a massive Martian dust storm, which is also affecting Spirit on the opposite side of the red planet. Going into the 230-ft.-deep Victoria will be a high-risk operation "but the science is compelling and the exploration is compelling, so we're excited about this," says John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
Five people were injured when the nose gear of an Air China Boeing 767-200 retracted during boarding on July 1. One passenger and one crewmember of the Dubai-bound flight sustained slight injuries. Most of the 148 passengers were already on board.
North Dakota's Air National Guard has flown its first unmanned aircraft mission from Fargo. The aircraft itself was located out of the U.S., but an official of the 119th Wing wouldn't give any details of the location, objectives or length of the mission. UAV missions are being flown in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and western Pacific. However, the cockpit containing the sensor operator, pilot and intelligence analyst is in Fargo.
Michel Toutant has become president/chief operating officer of Rolls-Royce Canada Ltd. of Montreal. He succeeds Pierre Racine, who plans to retire. Toutant was vice president-strategic operations for Rolls-Royce Energy Systems Inc., Mount Vernon, Ohio.
Timothy J. Hannigan (see photo) has been appointed vice president-business development for the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Herndon, Va.-based Technical Services Sector. He was vice president-operations and government services for DynCorp International.
Charlie Guthrie (see photo) has been appointed vice president/chief technology officer of Insitu Inc., Bingen, Wash. He was Western U.S. director of advanced capabilities development for Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems.
Robert Seto has become program manager for the Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. team and Chris Crumbly deputy program manager for subcontracts for the Ares Instrument Unit at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Seto was vice president of engineering/chief of staff for Rocketplane Kistler. Crumbly was deputy manager of propulsion systems engineering and integration at NASA Marshall's Shuttle Propulsion Office.
NASA will reuse the "mother ships" from the Stardust and Deep Impact missions for new scientific investigations, including one to characterize the makeup of extra-solar planets and perhaps find Earth-size planets around nearby stars. The previously unplanned missions, which also will revisit a comet nucleus for the first time and add a new comet to the list, will afford substantial savings because the spacecraft already are in space.
The shape of a Chinese competitor to western civil aircraft companies is becoming clearer, with plans to float an Avic I business called Avic I Commer- cial Aircraft Co. Ltd. (ACAC). In contrast to Avic I's status as a conglomerate of secretive state companies, ACAC would be listed on at least one foreign stock exchange. It is to include the ARJ-21 large regional jet.
The outcome of the Persian Gulf war in 1991 provides the perfect answer. Imagine fighting that war without the benefit of Joint Stars, F-15E and F-117 aircraft, and instead having used F-105s and A-7s, and nothing in place of Joint Stars. Fielding the latest technology allows American forces to win quickly and decisively, which translates to fewer battlefield casualties and reduced equipment losses. Making do with equipment that is likely equal to that used by the enemy is not good enough, and the only answer is to field superior quality equipment.
Astronomers at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Mass., used a 0.64-meter Ritchey-Chretien telescope to capture this image of the International Space Station as it passed overhead at an altitude of 350 km. (217 mi.). The tail of the space shuttle Atlantis and its three main engines are clearly visible between the two large solar array wings on the main station truss, while a Russian Progress cargo vehicle can be seen docked to Russia's Zvezda service module.
European economic ministers meet this week, with the Galileo satellite procurement debacle on the agenda, potentially including discussion of a revived competition to run the satellite-navigation franchise. European officials and industry are trying to steady the multi-billion-euro program, following a decision in June to ditch an overall public-private partnership approach to funding and running Galileo.
The Canadian Airports Council has asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Bush to settle a nettlesome security issue over rescreening of baggage from flights originating in Canada. The U.S. does not recognize Canadian screening standards and requires re-screening of bags connecting through U.S. airports. CAC says re-screening is unnecessary and adds to minimum connecting times for trans-border travelers.
China Eastern Airlines, the financially weakest of the country's Big Three carriers, expects to report a modest profit of 200 million yuan ($26 million) this year, compared with last year's loss of 2.78 billion yuan. Official media report that the company has received approval for Singapore Airlines and that company's state majority owner to buy 25% of the Chinese airline.
After 20 years of secrecy, the overall design of the 15-ton U.S. National Reconnaissance Office Lacrosse space-based radar and its remarkable 25-ft.-dia. imaging radar antenna are revealed in images of Lacrosse-2 at 400 mi. altitude taken by a Russian military ground-based telescope.
Researchers will converge on Costa Rica this month for a three-week study of the ways tropical storms pump chemical compounds into the stratosphere, using satellites, aircraft, balloons and ground radars to look at storms from all angles. Organized by NASA's Earth Sciences Division, the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) campaign will focus on the transitional layer between the troposphere and stratosphere. In addition to the Aura, Aqua, Calipso, CloudSat and other spacecraft, TC4 will employ a NASA ER-2 aircraft that can fly to 70,000 ft.--3 mi.
A rich heritage in building wing and fuselage structures and assemblies for civil and military programs didn’t prepare Vought Aircraft Industries for the sweeping commercial changes that spread across aerospace in the post-Sept. 11 downturn of 2001.
