Computer network attack and exploitation are subjects as closely guarded as stealth was 20 years ago. But they are also now the primary tools in combating what senior U.S. Army officials identify as their number-one target--the wireless communications networks used by insurgents and terrorists. With these mobile systems, insurgent leaders command forces that often operate free of any nation's control, moving at will across borders.
Shmuel Fledel has become vice president-maintenance and engineering for El Al Israel Airlines. He was president/CEO of Cyclone Aviation Products Ltd., a member of the Elbit Systems Group.
Boeing expects to begin an ambitious series of FAA-sponsored over-water flight trials aimed at accelerating modernization of oceanic air traffic control and capturing major fuel savings with more flexible routing.
Susan Sloan has been appointed vice president-performance excellence, Kevin T. Neifert vice president-engineering, Dina A. Hyde vice president-supply chain and Robert D. Kern vice president-program management, all for Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, El Segundo, Calif.
Bradley D. Mottier (see photo) has been appointed president/CEO of GE Engine Services, Evendale, Ohio. He succeeds Dan Heintzelman, who is now vice president-energy services for GE Energy. Mottier was president/CEO of Engine Services subsidiary Unison Industries.
Christopher E. Comargo has been promoted to director of the Avionics and Support Systems Dept. from manager of the Integrated Diagnostics Section at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
James Gilmore, former Virginia governor and chairman of a commission on the domestic response to weapons of mass destruction, heads to U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) headquarters this week to discuss a number of post-Hurricane Katrina issues with top officials there. Northcom is the military liaison and coordinates work with the Homeland Security Dept., an organization Gilmore's commission did not recommend creating. The former governor said Adm.
The first fatal accident involving a certified Columbia aircraft occurred Oct. 7, when a Lancair 400 (285JB) crashed under unknown circumstances in mountainous terrain in Southern California. According to the FAA preliminary accident report and data released by Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp., the aircraft departed Gillespie Field in San Diego at 11:21 a.m. local time with three people on board. Local weather about 1 hr. before departure included scattered clouds at 6,000 ft. and a broken cloud layer at 10,000 ft. with 10-mi. visibility.
Airclaims has taken its Space Trak digital library of launcher and satellite pedigree and performance databases to the Web. A source for satellite operators, launchers and insurers that want key failure and insurance loss data, Space Trak has 90 company and organization clients, ranging from Arianespace and EADS Astrium to the FAA. Until now the data came on CD-ROMs distributed monthly.
The transport committee of the European Parliament has endorsed a plan to establish an EU-wide blacklist of carriers banned from flying in the airspace of the 25 EU members. The full Parliament will consider the issue Nov. 15, with a vote by the EU Transport Council set for early December. A series of crashes in August put the blacklist initiative on the front burner for European politicians.
Scientists with a photographer's eye took this remarkable picture of the moon Dione in front of Saturn and its rings as the Cassini spacecraft flew past on Oct. 11. Shadows of the C and B rings are cast onto the planet's northern latitudes.
Northwest Airlines is cutting to the chase in its newly launched Chapter 11 reorganization, asking U.S. Bankruptcy Court to throw out union contracts the carrier has tried unsuccessfully to renegotiate.
Delta Air Lines pilots--who already agreed to $1 billion in concessions--now are weighing an airline-proposed accord that seeks $325 million more in labor cost savings this year.
India must quickly improve capacity, air traffic control and infrastructure of its airports--"most of which are not up to international standards"--if it is to compete with the challenge posed by China, warns International Air Transport Assn. Director General Giovanni Bisignani. He links lack of infrastructure with overcrowding of routes. Making a case for air traffic management reforms and route restructuring, Bisignani says 80% of the flights between Europe and Asia are now funneled through only two crossing points between India and Pakistan.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) expects the first launch of its Falcon I rocket in the first two weeks of December from U.S. Air Force facilities at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, CEO Elon Musk says. The payload will be the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Foxsat 2, which was developed for USAF.
Alcatel Space engineers say they have demonstrated cooling levels close to absolute zero on the Herschel far-infrared/submillimeter telescope, marking yet another key milestone in the European Space Agency mission now set for a late 2007 launch. Assembly of the 3.5-meter monolithic silicon carbide mirror was completed last month (AW&ST Oct. 3, p. 17).
The long-running trend of declining airline insurance rates is being interrupted, with the rate of decline either slowing or in some cases premiums increasing, according to a market review by AON. The insurance firm says the air transport sector will suffer collateral damage from the recent U.S. hurricanes. "Underwriters will try and end this year's run of premium reductions, which have averaged 7% for liability and hull insurance combined," it states.
Frank Morring, Jr. and Michael Mecham (Fukuoka, Japan)
NASA's International Space Station partners are working with the U.S. agency to move their expensive ISS hardware forward in the dwindling space shuttle launch schedule, to give it a better chance of reaching orbit. If it doesn't get there, the impact on President Bush's space exploration plans could be dire. Bush needs international cooperation to make his plan work, and that will be hard to come by if he doesn't deliver the goods to the station.
Raytheon Aircraft Co. (RAC) is improving customer support for Beechcraft and Hawker owners. The domestic and international parts distribution system is being overhauled to use a customized approach. Since implementing a series of major improvement programs in the past four years, RAC has gone from being rated among the worst in customer support to equality with Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.--a premier builder of large-cabin business jets.
USN Rear Adm. (lower half) (selectee) Tony L. Cothron has been appointed chief of staff of the National Security Agency in Washington. He has been commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, also in Washington.
A fall in demand after the Oct. 1 terrorist bombings in Bali has prompted Japan Airlines to cut its frequencies to Indonesia. Instead of thrice-daily services, JAL will operate a single Tokyo flight serving Jakarta and Denpasar (Bali). JAL also will cut daily Osaka to Denpasar flights to three times a week. Regular services will resume in late December.
I may not care for the idea of flying on board a plane that rotates nose gear 90 deg. before tucking them into the fuselage. But so be it, that's the prerogative of its Airbus designers (AW&ST Oct. 3, p. 43). I do, however, question the wisdom of granting airworthiness approval to air transports that cannot dump fuel in an emergency. Orbiting the Los Angeles area for 3 hr. to bring a transport down to a safe landing weight might be a reasonable strategy for stuck landing gear, but what happens in the case of a cabin fire or other emergency?
A Cosmos 3M carrying multiple payloads is due to lift off on Oct. 27-28, following correction of a power failure on an Iranian imaging satellite, Sina-1. The booster also will carry Topsat, an experimental U.K. military payload to study the feasibility of delivering low-cost, relatively high-resolution imagery; BLMIT-1, a Chinese spacecraft that will be part of Surrey Satellite Technology's Disaster Monitoring Constellation; SSETI-Express, an ESA-sponsored student payload; and Russian experimental telecom satellite Mozhaets-5.
