Defense ministers from 14 NATO countries have agreed to provide a multinational airlift capability to support the out-of-area deployment of alliance forces. A memorandum of understanding, agreed to in Berlin in May, was signed at the NATO summit in Istanbul last week.
Hamilton-Sundstrand and its U.K.-based FR-HiTEMP and Carleton Life Support Systems divisions will provide a nitrogen generation system for Boeing's 7E7 mid-sized jet. The system will pump nitrogen into the unfilled space in fuel tanks to reduce flammability, which is believed to have caused the loss of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996. Although the tanks have been used on military aircraft, Boeing's application of the technology on the 7E7 will be the first for a new design commercial jet, the company says.
Basis of rankings: Rankings are based on the sum of scores computed for ratios that support the three weighted airline performance measures (see notes on p. 57). The higher the cumulative score, the higher the ranking. Numerical results for performance measures are presented as percentiles within each peer group spanning 15 years. The percentiles are presented to define relative airline performance and facilitate comparisons with other carriers. Performance measure percentiles will not sum to total score results. Airlines are ranked only on the basis of their peers.
U.S. responsibilities for worldwide military cyberwarfare shifted in mid-June, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created a new Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations and named USAF Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege, Jr., as its first commander. Raduege remains director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. Because the new unit was made a Strategic Command component, Raduege is also Stratcom's deputy commander for global network operations and defense.
USMC Brig. Gen. (ret.) Michael Wholley has been appointed NASA general counsel. He succeeds Paul G. Pastorek, who is returning to private practice in New Orleans. Wholley has been executive director of the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.
Col. Joseph Lanni has assumed command of the U.S. Air Force's 412th Test Wing at Edwards AFB, Calif. He succeeds Col. C.R. Davis, who has been promoted to brigadier general and named deputy program director for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Lanni was director of the F/A-22 Combined Test Force.
Gilbert Cormery, one of France's most talented aerospace engineers of the past several decades, died in Toulouse on June 30. He was 82. After participating in the development of several civil and military aircraft produced by Aerospatiale's predecessors, SNCASO and Sud-Aviation, Cormery in the 1960s was appointed deputy chief designer and later chief engineer of the Concorde program's French arm. He played a key role in development of the Franco-British supersonic transport, including envisioned derivatives.
An 11-lb. Malat-built unmanned aircraft is being touted as the first to fly in the crowded airspace of a major western European city after it demonstrated its low-level surveillance capability above Amsterdam (see top photo).
Pentagon acquisition officials have approved the revised F-35 Joint Strike Fighter schedule, which includes a delay of the first flight to 2006 and slips the in-service dates for the U.S. Marine Corps two years to 2012 and the U.S. Air Force to 2013.
Officials of the Bennett-Davis-Naka- zawa marketing service will more than double its office space in July to accommodate an increasing amount of aerospace and defense business. The Mesa, Ariz.-based company claims it is the only business of its kind that focuses exclusively on aerospace. Other clients include Kaman Aerospace Corp. and Wulfsberg Electronics. All three of the company's owners have years of aerospace marketing experience, chiefly with Boeing.
Two Israeli-built Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicles have begun flight operations for the U.S. Border Patrol over remote sections of Arizona in an attempt to increase security along the volatile border. The initiative includes the permanent deployment of 200 more Border Patrol agents bringing the total in the sector to 2,000. In addition, four helicopters are being added to the 11 already operating there.
Boeing opened its U.S. East Coast integration center last week, the latest product of a five-year effort to show the value and potential of network-centric operations and warfare. Carl O'Berry, who is leading Boeing's strategic architecture organization, said the tradition-breaking aspect of the facility was demonstrating how kill chains can be built in real-time and then changed in milliseconds by commanders who then, at a moment's notice, take the combat assets of other commanders and fight with them.
A small explosive detonated on a Turkish Airlines aircraft after passengers departed after landing at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport on June 29. The Associated Press reported that three aircraft cleaners were injured; one lost a finger while trying to open an object resembling a wallet that was booby-trapped. Later in the day, U.S. President George Bush departed a NATO summit via the same airport.
The international Cassini spacecraft went face-to-face with Saturn's rings last week, grabbing the sharpest pictures yet of their complex dynamic behavior in a closeup pass that will not be repeated during the course of the four-year mission. The spacecraft also took once-in-a-mission close-up magnetic observations that are required to decipher the planet's unusual magnetic field that defies normal understanding.
Three cheers for America's first private- enterprise (non-NASA) astronaut, SpaceShipOne pilot Michael Melvill, and the team that launched him into space. I find it ironic, though, that Patricia Grace Smith, the FAA associate administrator for space transportation, who witnessed the event, was most willing to give commercial astronaut wings to Melvill but deny him airline pilot wings. At age 63, Melvill is too old for the airlines, according to FAA's anachronistic Age 60 mandatory retirement rule for commercial pilots.
The Italian government will provide troubled Alitalia with a guarantee of up to 500 million euros, paving the way for a consortium of banks to loan money to the airline. Alitalia would have to pay back the money within a year, but the cash would allow the carrier to continue operating while drafting a new organization plan. The loan is being submitted to the EU antitrust authorities, who originally suggested the idea, and will be watched closely in Brussels.
The Congressional Research Service is raising questions about the Army's long-term helicopter modernization plans. The new report could fuel concerns among several congressional committees, which are unhappy about the lack of data from the Army on some of the helicopter initiatives the service wants to pursue following the demise of the RAH-66 Comanche. CRS wonders if the Army plan is affordable in the first place, suggesting officials should evaluate whether modernization actions can be postponed. CRS has its own ideas.
A Russian Mi-8 MTV-1 heavy-lift helicopter, UTair airline-operated for the United Nations, crashed on a jungle-covered hill in Sierra Leone on June 29, killing all 24 people on board. UTair of Siberia, formerly known as TyumenAviaTrans, operates two super heavy Mi-26 and seven Mi-8 MTV-1 helicopters in Sierra Leone for the U.N. and is one of the largest providers of transportation to the organization worldwide. The aircraft had 2,100 flying hours including 200 since the latest overhaul.
Ten days from now, on July 15, Southwest Airlines will announce that the second quarter of 2004 was the 53rd quarter in a row in which it turned a profit. Almost certainly, this profit will have been great enough to send cumulative operating earnings since the terrorist attacks of September 2001 past $1 billion.
Bill Zoeller has been named president/CEO of Montreal-based Air Canada Technical Services. He was vice president/ chief operating officer and has been succeeded by Ron Elvidge, who was vice president-engine and component maintenance.
Germany also took a major step toward buying 68 additional Eurofighters--all in the Tranche 2 configuration. The parliamentary defense and budget committees last week cleared the way for Germany to move toward signing on for the next step in the multinational fighter's development and production program.
With the ink on a space alliance agreement with Alcatel barely dry, Finmeccanica is already exploring other opportunities to expand its aerospace and defense business, notably in the aerostructures area.
Bell Helicopter Textron has reached an agreement separately with Korea Aero- space Industries Ltd. and Mitsui Bussan Aerospace Co. to collaborate in development, certification and marketing of the Bell 427i light twin-engine helicopter. Bell has received 42 orders, and company officials expect another 20 by the end of this year.
Basis of rankings: For 2002 and 2003, scores were computed for ratios supporting the four weighted performance measures for aerospace/defense companies. "Most-improved" rankings are based on the overall percentage change over the two years. Numbers are rounded to the nearest tenth. Companies are ranked only among their peers.
The U.S. revokes the authority of 12 pilots working for foreign airlines to fly into the U.S. after finding that nine have ties to terrorists, two were using falsified passports and one had a criminal background. Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson tells government and industry officials at a security seminar here that this information turned up in a second check, more robust than the first, of data on hundreds of thousands of pilots and other crewmembers. He says the U.S. will have to monitor crew lists more closely in the future. The U.S.
