Capt. Kenneth Udcoff suggests Washington Dulles International Airport is an acceptable alternative to Reagan Washington National Airport as it is "easily accessible to travelers" (AW&ST Feb. 20, p. 10). Are you kidding? It costs about $50 for a taxi downtown and the cheaper solutions take way too long. In contrast, within minutes of arriving at National I'm riding on a cheap Metro ticket on my way to the Mall. There's no comparison, unless you're going to build a high-speed dedicated rail link from Dulles to Union Station.
The Arab Satellite Communications Organization's first fourth-generation spacecraft, Arabsat 4A, is likely to be declared a total loss, according to industry officials. They said options to boost the spacecraft to geostationary orbit have been found unfeasible because of the low perigee and poor inclination at which the satellite was left by an International Launch Services Proton M launcher on Mar. 1 (AW&ST Mar. 6, p. 16).
David Hughes (Washington, Brussels and Maastricht, Netherlands)
The upcoming ADS-B demonstration in Indonesia includes a new business model that may prove interesting to other nations as this type of technology begins to make greater inroads in Asia, North America and Europe.
HONEYWELL SEES CONSIDERABLE LEGS FOR THE SALE of its software-only upgrade to EGPWS, the Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS). This provides audio alerts to warn pilots of a possible error, such as turning onto the wrong runway, by simply reminding the pilot of the name of the runway onto which he is turning. The RAAS system is not mandated, but runway safety is a high priority with regulatory authorities in Europe and the U.S., and many airlines and airports see preventing runway incursions as a key objective.
Britain and France signed a memorandum of understanding last week, to have their defense ministries work together to develop a common baseline aircraft carrier design. The pact covers the demonstration phase.
Chile-based LAN Airlines is continuing to expand in Argentina. LAN Argentina, a subsidiary that began service last year, increased its capacity nearly 50% during the quarter ended Dec. 31 and still managed to achieve load factors of nearly 75%. The Buenos Aires-based operation plans to serve 10 destinations with 14 aircraft by year's end. Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Linenberg predicts LAN Argentina will reach $300 million in revenue and breakeven status this year.
Jim Hamant has been named vice president-product production and distribution and David Schoen vice president-technology development for Bethesda, Md.-based Iridium. Hamant was engineering manager at Orbital Sciences, while Schoen was vice president-technology development for Orbcomm.
SES Global has issued a 650-million-euro, inaugural, five-year, 4% bond as part of a 2-billion-euro medium-term note program. Initially pegged at 500 million euros, the issue was increased after strong investor reaction.
The U.S. NTSB is recommending the FAA require a terrain awareness and warning system be installed on all U.S.-registered turbine-powered helicopters seating at least six passengers. The recommendation stems from the Mar. 23, 2004, night crash of an Era Aviation Sikorsky S-76A++ into the Gulf of Mexico about 70 naut. mi. southeast of Galveston, Tex. All eight passengers and two pilots were killed. The NTSB determined the probable cause was the flight crew's failure to identify and arrest the descent into water.
Three months after losing telemetry with its Hayabusa asteroid mission, the Japanese space agency JAXA has reconnected to it and is methodically warming up its systems in preparation for the start of its return to Earth early next year.
The City of Chicago is interested in exploring the leasing of Midway Airport to a private entity for revenue development. The city was behind an amendment adding Midway to a bill in the Illinois State Senate that extends tax exemptions to a lessor if the city were to engage in a lease.
A helium leak forced Arianespace controllers to scrub the planned Mar. 9 launch of a heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA with a pair of communications satellites on board. Another launch attempt was tentatively scheduled for Mar. 10. Held on the ground were the Spainsat military communications satellite and Eutelsat's Hot Bird 7A television and radio broadcast platform. Before that, a series of technical issues--most recently an inadvertent umbilical disconnect that forced a vehicle rollback--repeatedly delayed the mission from its original Feb. 21 launch date (AW&ST Mar. 6, p.
Twin NASA/German spacecraft that measure subtle changes in the mass of the terrain below have detected major melting in the ice sheet that covers most of Antarctica. The discovery by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) suggests a global warming trend is already contributing to a rise in sea level worldwide. The data show that between April 2002 and August 2005, Antarctica lost 152 cu. km. (36.5 cu. mi.) (±80 cu. km.) of ice, enough to raise global sea level about 1.2 mm. (0.05 in.), or about 13% of the actual observed sea level rise during the period.
The U.S. and Japan have completed the first test flight of a Raytheon Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) missile defense interceptor fitted with a Japanese-designed enhanced nose cone. The hardware has been under development as part of a cooperative effort that began in 1999. The flight of Joint Control Test Vehicle-1 took place Mar. 8 from the USS Lake Erie operating in the U.S.'s Pacific Missile Range Facility. The clamshell design eliminates the need for the SM-3 to maneuver to eject the nose cone. The missile was launched at 3:45 a.m.
It's an absolute wonder when, in this global Babel of diverse languages and cultures, a real example of international cooperation such as the Cape Town Treaty emerges.
The U.S. Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a $21-million contract for phased depot maintenance and special structure inspections for up to seven P-3 patrol aircraft for Pakistan under the foreign military sales program.
Mail/express carrier TNT is planning a share buyback and a spate of small acquisitions in Europe and Asia in an attempt to reinforce its position in the market and ward off rumored takeover attempts by FedEx, UPS or private equity firms. The actions will be financed through the sale of the company's logistics unit, which is expected to bring in 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion). TNT posted revenues of 13.1 billion euros last year, including 3.3 billion euros for the logistics business.
Malaysia Airlines wants to become the second member of the SkyTeam airline alliance from Asia, after Korean Air. MAS has turned to founding member Air France for support. Meanwhile, the airline is trying to turn around continued losses with a restructuring that includes opening direct flights on Mar. 26 from Kuala Lumpur to London, Sydney, Perth and Frankfurt. Currently, those flights hopscotch through three other destinations. MAS is decreasing its 10 European destinations to London, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome.
Astronaut Eileen Collins has been named to receive the 2006 National Space Trophy from the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation. The award is presented annually to an individual who has excelled in furthering national goals in the field of space. Collins won the award as NASA's first female space shuttle pilot and commander. She also was commander of the return-to-flight STS-114 mission in 2005.
An ESA science team has validated a new evolution model of Titan, based on data supplied by the Cassini/Huygens joint mission with NASA. Researchers now believe that most of Titan's methane supply might be frozen in methane-rich ice and periodically released by cryovolcanism. The ice is thought to form a crust over an ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia a few tens of kilometers below the moon's surface.
Sagem's Defense and Security Div. has inaugurated what it claims to be the first civil facility in France authorized to operate acceptance tests on unmanned aerial vehicles. Located in Montlucon in central France, where Sagem's Sperwer tactical UAVs (see photo) are assembled, the facility will train pilots and house two aircraft recently acquired for test and demonstration. To date, 16 Sperwer systems and 90 UAVs have been sold. Three of the six countries operating the system--Canada, the Netherlands and France--are preparing to deploy Sperwers to Afghanistan.
Access to markets, engineering and financial resources is driving a wave of cooperative ventures between Russian aerospace companies and their Western and Asian partners. The verdict is still out on whether these ventures will prove profitable or if government regulations and clashing business cultures will doom them (see pp. 60-64). Images on the cover show a sampling of these undertakings: (clockwise, from top) the Brahmos cruise missile, Proton launcher, Russian Regional Jet, Sukhoi Su-30 and Beriev BE-200. AW&ST file photos.
Airbus is adjusting its product strategy and portfolio, but more changes may be in store. The modifications are taking place across the product line, from the veteran A300/A310--on which Airbus has decided to cease production--to the company's newest product, the A350, which continues to evolve.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
Portfolio rationalization--real or imagined--continues to color corporate earnings at European aerospace companies. Cobham plc, a diversified aerospace group based in the U.K., used its release of corporate earnings last week to let it be known that additional divestitures of business units are pending. And executives at EADS found themselves fielding questions about acquisitions, divestments and its own ownership structure (see p. 44).
U.S. government lawyers are holding up deliveries of aircraft engines and other military hardware by demanding that contractors certify that metals in every component were made in the U.S., all the way down to screws and wires.
