Robert Wall (Paris), David A. Fulghum (Washington)
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to call for early elections has added a new twist to the ongoing campaign to find a new chief executive for the country's largest defense and aerospace company, Israel Aircraft Industries.
A GROWING MARKET IS EMERGING for airborne embedded training systems because of the potential for cost savings when advanced training scenarios can be played out in a virtual manner. This eliminates the need for "aggressor" aircraft to fly as real-world opponents against pilots being trained, or for any aircraft involved to fly over a ground-based instrumented test range. BVR Systems Ltd. of Israel has just received a contract to provide its new In-Flight Electronic Warfare simulator (IFEWS) to the Israel Air Force.
Austria plans to make better civil-military cooperation a priority issue during its European Union presidency, the country's defense minister, Gunther Platter, told the Western European Union assembly last week. Austria plans to propose creating a liaison body of NATO and U.S. military staff to help coordinate response in the case of national catastrophes or other emergencies.
Cathay Pacific Airways has signed a strategic partnership with government-owned air traffic control provider Airservices Australia (AsA). The agreement includes development of a communications protocol and a flight crew operational awareness program, which involves visits to each other's technical facilities. According to Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Philip Chen, the partnership goes beyond the standard supplier-user relationship, in that it is a collaborative effort to optimize airways system capacity.
Lockheed Martin's en route communications gateway has been deployed at all 20 air route traffic control centers in the U.S. now that the final system has been declared operational at Miami. The equipment transmits surveillance data from existing radars and other legacy sensors to ATC facilities.
News Breaks 18 Iranian C-130 crash shows need for vast safety improvements 19 FAA certified Bell TR918 Eagle Eye unmanned aircraft 19 U.S. Central Command in Iraq to get two new Global Hawks 20 Boeing Phantom Works again trying to demo X-50A rotor/wing helo 20 France awards future close combat system demonstrator World News & Analysis 24 New radars becoming radios that can be used as anti-insurgent weapons
USAF Maj. Gen. Ronald F. Sams has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and appointment as inspector general of the Air Force. He is director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance/deputy chief of staff for air and space operations at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon.
Management of ATA Airlines envisions the carrier, now in Chapter 11 reorganization, to be the instrument that will take passengers of its partner Southwest Airlines beyond the continental U.S. Connecting flights are being planned to Hawaii from Oakland and Los Angeles. Flights to the Caribbean would connect through Orlando, Fla., and possibly through Puerto Rico's San Juan International Airport. Chicago Midway Airport, where Southwest acquired ATA gates, might serve as a base for international flights.
Miami-Dade police are investigating events surrounding the shooting of an airline passenger by federal air marshals at Miami International Airport. The incident occurred Dec. 7 on the Jetway of American Airlines Flight 924, which was boarding for departure to Orlando. The man, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, of Maitland, Fla., had flown in earlier from Ecuador and was taking the connecting flight, said a Homeland Security Dept. official. Shortly after the man boarded the flight, he claimed he had a bomb in his carry-on bag.
Airbus officials, furious about preliminary International Civil Aviation Organization-issued guidance on A380 wake-vortex separation, are planning to combat what they view as unsubstantiated and broad restrictions. And it's not just a matter of semantics. The ICAO standards, issued Nov. 10, will affect the flight test program and are therefore unduly burdensome, argues Fernando Alonso, Airbus vice president for flight tests.
A major series of upgrades to the U.S. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites will boost the amount of detailed imagery and other data transmitted by these high-altitude spacecraft.
ITT DEFENSE LTD., A BRITISH SUBSIDIARY of ITT Industries of the U.S., has developed a radio control display unit that can control two ARC-201 Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (Sincgars) VHF radios from one console. The 1-kg. (2.2-lb.) Export Radio Control Display Unit is similar to the one used by the British Army to control Bowman radios (which are similar to Sincgars) in the Merlin EH101, Lynx and Chinook helicopters. The ERCDU uses the same man-machine interface as the ground VHF Sincgars to reduce training requirements.
British Airways is renewing for 10 additional years an engine maintenance contract originally signed a decade ago with the General Electric Co. Under the contract, valued at $2.3 billion, GE's Nantgarw, Wales, facility will perform an estimated 800 overhauls or repairs on the carrier's Rolls-Royce RB211 and CFM56-3/5 engines.
After the company emerged from bankruptcy, the common stock of Loral Space & Communications began trading on the Nasdaq national market last week. The company issued 18.7 million shares, which opened at $29.10.
The European Aviation Safety Agency has issued a type certificate for the Turbomeca Arriel 2S2 helicopter engine, which will power Sikorsky S-76++ heliocopters. FAA certification is slated for mid-month. The first engine is to be delivered early next year.
One thing missing from the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) effort to redesign the U.S. air traffic control system over the next 20 years is the participation of air traffic controllers, and current contract talks between the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. are the reason.
Airbus is still evolving major structural elements of its A350 twin-widebody as it moves toward the quickly approaching design freeze milestone early next year. The latest set of iterations now emerging aim at reducing drag, boosting speed and better positioning the aircraft maker's newest product offering in the competition against the Boeing 787.
China's decision to wield its economic muscle by placing a massive aircraft order with Airbus has provided a timely boost for the European aircraft maker. But the long-term implications of the deal are not yet clear. By next July, Airbus expects to complete an economic feasibility study to determine whether it makes sense to establish a narrow-body final assembly line in China. The prospect of A320-family aircraft being put together in China was announced as part of Beijing's decision to buy 150 of the aircraft type for six of its airlines.
While not exactly on a par with the 1993 dinner between then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin and a small group of defense-industry chiefs--a.k.a. the Last Supper--a dinner meeting on Nov. 5 between Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and six defense company CEOs nonetheless provided ample food for thought, if not indigestion, industry insiders say.
What began as a one-of-a-kind collaboration between the Defense and Commerce Depts. to develop a single polar-orbiting weather satellite system is shifting to an effort to mitigate a coverage gap in weather data and contain program cost, which has swollen at least 50%. The timing is bad for development problems with the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (Npoess), as politicians in Washington are trying to find a way to clean up the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina and prevent widespread disaster in the future.
While catching up on recent issues, I looked at the Earth's shrinking north polar cap, read about the changing face of Mars and learned how that planet's south polar cap has shrunk in recent years. Could there be a common denominator for both planets' polar ice caps shrinking during the same period? If both planets have experienced warming recently, then could it be solar warming instead of global warming?
Lufthansa's archrivals in the German domestic and leisure markets are gaining strength through closer cooperation and pose a renewed threat for the network carrier's European operations. DBA, formerly British Airways subsidiary Deutsche BA, and Air Berlin last week said they are beginning to cooperate more closely in marketing and sales. The two airlines will link their respective web sites, on which they offer one another's flights. Air Berlin has a similar arrangement with Austrian low-fare airline FlyNiki, in which it holds a 25% stake.
The Master Executive Council of Delta Air Lines' Air Line Pilots Assn. unit voted unanimously Dec. 8 to conduct a strike authorization vote among the membership. Delta asked U.S. Bankruptcy Court last month to reject the current contract so it can impose $325 million in annual cuts, adding to the $1 billion per year the pilots agreed to last year. The court hasn't ruled, and if the question remains unresolved through Dec. 16, bankruptcy law allows the company to impose the cuts unilaterally.
David Pritchard, Canada-United States Trade Center (State University of New York at Buffalo)
In the editorial "I Dream of Genie" (AW&ST Nov. 14, p. 66), you showed symptoms of "offshoring deficiency disorder." You failed to mention that 90% of the Boeing 787 is outsourced, even after the U.S. government gave Boeing $1.8 billion in NASA money for the High-Speed Civil Transport program to develop the U.S. industrial base. Also, the technology transfer from Boeing to Japan with the 787 wings shows that U.S. taxpayers are indirectly subsidizing the Japanese aircraft industry.
Mitsubishi Electric Corp. has signed a contract with the Indian Space Research Organization to develop and manufacture a lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery for the Insat series of satellites for long-distance telecommunications, radio and television program distribution, meteorological and Earth observation, and data relay. One of the Insat platforms will be configured with the Japanese Li-ion battery to provide full payload power requirements of 2,500-5,000 watts during eclipse.
