Are defense stocks headed for a tumble? They typically outperform the broad market in an election year, and they've trounced the Standard & Poor's 500 Index thus far in 2004--mostly on the strength of healthy military businesses' receipt of equally healthy military spending. For months, however, some large institutional investors have been voicing concerns about the Pentagon's ability to sustain spending.
Swiss International Air Lines' executives are convinced the prolonged financial crisis that has plagued Switzerland's born-again flag carrier is on the wane. "We are no longer in emergency care," Chief Executive Christoph Franz said, last week, after releasing the company's results for the first half of 2004. Revenues decreased to SF1.4 billion ($1.1 billion), down from SF1.7 billion, the result of rapid downsizing, but losses decreased to a low SF33 million, down from SF333 million in January-June 2003.
NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope has spotted what scientists believe are several primal clouds of hot intergalactic gas merging into a galactic cluster (see image). "We may be seeing hot intergalactic gas in a relatively pristine state before it has been polluted by gas from galaxies," says Q. Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts.
Shortly after the crew of an Air Tahoma Convair 580 reported engine problems, the cargo aircraft crashed into a grove of trees at 12:50 a.m. Aug. 13, 1.2 mi. from Runway 36 at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The first officer, Michael Ray Gelwicks, 36, of Memphis, Tenn., was pronounced dead at the scene. The pilot, who has not been identified, was seated on a bench, talking on a mobile telephone. He was treated for unspecified injuries at a nearby hospital and released.
The ScanEagle UAV being developed and built by Boeing and The Insitu Group recently completed a 16-hr. 45- min. mission, with the air vehicle taking off and landing on a ship. Boeing estimates it is the longest UAV mission with ship-launch and recovery.
The good news: a commercial wide-body aircraft has a decent chance of surviving a man-portable surface-to-air missile attack; the bad news: there are large numbers of early versions of such missiles in circulation. Moreover, more modern designs have started entering the black market for arms. Russia developers are devising even newer systems, although those may still be years from becoming a real threat to commercial air traffic.
Now that the public's demand for low-cost air travel is shaping the business model that airlines are forced to live with, the time may have come to abandon some of the costly attributes of their aircraft. It has become almost impossible to tell business travelers from the most casual of vacationers. So why spend money on dressing up the aircraft cabin? Since food is no longer a drawing card, eliminate the galleys. Vendors can sell lunches to passengers waiting to get through security. The ubiquitous computer games and cell phones make entertainment systems unnecessary.
Seizing on the FAA's peak-hour flight operations cap at Chicago O'Hare International Airport (see p. 48), the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. predicts similar restrictions at other busy airports unless the agency starts hiring controllers to relieve the spike of retirements widely expected in a few years. Terming Chicago "the proverbial canary in the coalmine," the union says 14 of 70 fully trained controllers at the Chicago terminal radar approach control facility are eligible to retire now and 21 more will become eligible by the end of 2005.
I'd like to know what gives Elon Musk and Space X the credibility to question what Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne has accomplished. Rutan quietly made a spacecraft that meets the requirements of (and may soon win) the Ansari X-Prize (AW&ST June 28, p. 30). Musk has built a "rocket" that so far has only made a trip to Washington on the back of a truck for a press conference. Since the Falcon's launch has been postponed indefinitely from February 2004, Space X should spend more time working on its rocket and less time on interviews and press conferences.
From the outside it's just another used Cessna 208B. But on the inside, the aircraft with the code name "Poobah's Pup" is helping redefine and accelerate air-to-ground warfare and lay a foundation for introduction of new speed-of-light weapons. Flying as a surrogate unmanned aircraft about the size of a Predator UAV, it carries a compact, 88-lb. combination electronic/communications-intelligence-collecting payload as part of an experiment generated by L-3 Communications and the U.S. Air Force.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Volney J. Warner has been named deputy commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. He has been director of strategy and analysis for the U.S. Joint Forces Command. Warner will be succeeded by Col. Doyle D. Broome, Jr., who has been assistant division commander for support for the 82nd Airborne Div., Ft. Bragg, N.C., and was chief of staff of the U.S. Army Aviation Center, Ft. Rucker, Ala.
Tom Burbage has been appointed executive vice president/general manager for program integration for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the Fort Worth-based Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. He was executive vice president/general manager for contract execution and has been succeeded by Bob Elrod, who was executive vice president for Lockheed Martin aeronautics programs.
United and American Airlines will be the only carriers cutting back flight operations at Chicago O'Hare International Airport this winter, just as they are today, but this time their competitors will be limited in how much they can take advantage of it.
USN Rear Adm. (lower half) Timothy J. McGee has become commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, NASA Stennis Space Center, Miss. He has been deputy/vice commander/assistant chief of naval research at the Pentagon in Washington.
Baumer Electric has introduced an ultra-miniature programmable analog laser distance sensor that delivers highly accurate, non-contact measurements in extremely small operating environments. At 12 X 37 X 34 mm., this self-contained matchbook-sized sensor requires no external control units, signal conditioners, or other electronics and can be mounted directly on dynamic components, according to the company. Baumer Electric Ltd., 122 Spring St. C-6, Southington, Conn. 06489. 100 on www.AviationNow.com/oic
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Startup company Reveal Imaging Technologies Inc. in Bedford, Mass., is developing a computed tomography, explosives detection machine that's much smaller than the ones now certified for U.S. airports. It should be ready for explosives detection system (EDS) certification testing at the Transportation Security Laboratory near Atlantic City, N.J., this fall, with pilot tests in airports to follow. Data have already been gathered on checked bags at New York JFK International Airport (see photo).
Alcatel has delivered the second flight-article Helios II high-resolution optical imager to EADS Astrium for the Helios IIB satellite set for launch late in 2009. The second-generation instrument duplicates the imaging system to be launched by the end of the year on the Helios IIA spacecraft. Program manager on the twin defense satellites is France's DGA procurement agency, with the French space agency CNES as system prime contractor and EADS Astrium as prime on the two satellites. Belgium and Spain are partners in the system.
Think of aviation maintenance, think of John J. Goglia. Think of safety, think of John J. Goglia. In 1995, he became the first licensed mechanic to become an NTSB member. Since then, the outspoken Goglia's voice has been heard above the others in safety board probes, doggedly raising industry awareness of the role of maintenance in accidents. Anyone who's attended an NTSB accident hearing is familiar with how he sizzles witnesses in the quest to find out what went wrong and how to make it right again.
Having reached what was earlier believed unreachable, the Mars rover Spirit--clawing its way up a Martian hillside--is beginning a high-resolution panorama of the Gusev valley floor below and using its robotic arm to sample high-terrain bedrock in search of evidence of water. "We are doing 'Martian mountaineering,'" says Steve Squyres, the rover principal investigator from Cornell University. "We are doing some pretty serious rock climbing with this vehicle."
A group of four investment funds has tentatively acquired Intelsat Ltd. for $3 billion cash, or $18.75 a share, and about $2 billion in existing debt, continuing a trend that has seen two other satellite operators picked up by private equity funds this year.
Aerospace has long recognized the potential of putting a portable computer in the hands of inspectors and technicians as they work the flight lines of military and civil aircraft. For inspectors, particularly when they must contend with unexpected issues that arise in non-routine inspections, such units offer the immediate luxury of being able to quantify labor and parts requirements as they arise and feed them directly into the company's maintenance management computing system.
The head of Boeing's airport security program, Tony Swansson, says the company is interested in developing fully integrated airport systems. Boeing was hired by the Transportation Security Administration to get all of the explosives detection system (EDS) machines installed at airports by the Dec. 31, 2002, deadline.
Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is trying to limit a shift of larger aircraft types from the Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe region's unpopular Kansai International Airport to Osaka's old Itami airport, which is considered more user-friendly.
