Northrop Grumman is planning to establish a new UAV production facility in Mississippi for production of the pending Fire Scout helicopter. Groundbreaking is scheduled for next month.
Now that the FAA's airport grant program has shed a 2003-04 drain on its resources--stopgap funding for baggage-screening equipment installations, now being budgeted by the Transportation Security Administration--along comes what Transportation Dept. Inspector General Kenneth Mead terms the agency's next "major emerging issue," this time of its own making.
SN Brussels Airlines and Virgin Express, following lengthy behind-the-scenes talks, admit they are thinking of forging closer business links, perhaps even a merger. Last week, the companies signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to place both carriers under a common umbrella. SN Airholding, Brussels' parent company, would hold a 70.1% stake and Richard Branson's Virgin Group, the remaining 29.9%. The two airlines would coordinate and "optimize" route systems but retain corporate identities. According to the LOI, Virgin has until Dec.
EDS' $2.05-billion sale of its UGS PLM Solutions business unit to three equity firms last week should give the company greater flexibility to work with other major software integrators. PLM Solutions markets the Teamcenter product life-cycle management (PLM) software portfolio commonly used by aerospace and defense contractors.
Boeing has set up two new units to reflect changes in NASA's structure and focus. To go after business growing out of President Bush's new space exploration policy, the company is opening a Space Exploration Systems office in Washington. Charles Allen, who previously managed Boeing's Orbital Space Plane program office in Huntsville, Ala., will head the new unit. Boeing has already developed some notional concepts for meeting NASA's exploration goals (AW&ST Feb. 2, p.
You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.AviationNow.com/conferences or call Ryan Leeds at +1 (212) 904-3892/+1 (800) 240-7645 (U.S. and Canada Only) Apr. 19--FAA/JAA Regulations: Collision or Harmonization, Atlanta, www.aviationlearning.com/mro. And, Apr. 21-22--Blended Training Solution Experience, Atlanta, www.aviationlearning.com/mro Apr. 20-22--MRO USA/MRO Latin America/MRO Military. Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta.
As part of a program restructuring to address weight concerns, Pentagon officials have scrapped plans to revise the development order of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and instead are focusing on making the test program more efficient.
With passenger traffic continuing to rise, Russian airline leaders are beginning to think the industry may finally have turned the corner--provided unresolved fleet modernization problems can be addressed.
Jeremy Attree has become managing director of the U.K.-based sales office of Reveal Imaging Technologies Inc., Bedford, Mass. He headed the European division of Vivid Technologies and had been director of security for QinetiQ Ltd.
Ulyanovsk, Russia-based Aviastar has rolled out its last Antonov An-124-100 Ruslan superheavy freighter. The aircraft, an upgraded model featuring extended maximum takeoff weight (from 392 metric tons to 402) and maximum payload weight (150 metric tons, compared with 120 for the basic version) was delivered to outsize cargo specialist Volga Dnepr. Like other Russian air transport programs, its production was virtually halted in 1994, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but assembly has continued using parts already in stock (see p. 45).
General aviation is an incessant caller at Washington Reagan National's door--and won't stop knocking until it regains the right to operate at the airport, shuttered to it since Sept. 11, 2001. The reasons for wanting to return are basic: to stem devastating financial losses and to boost the nation's economy, regional business and tourism. GA leaders argued their cause in testimony on Mar. 16 before an aviation subcommittee hearing set to consider the reopening of the airport.
After posting record 2003 net earnings of $83.6 million, LanChile is positioning for expansion in the international market. A partnership with Iberia added Brussels and Milan late last year. Affiliate LanPeru has started new flights from Lima to Buenos Aires and Quito and is planning flights to Caracas, Bogota and Mexico City, complementing already established routes from Lima to Santiago and Guayaquil. LanChile will add four Boeing 767-300s in 2004, and is increasing its 767-300 fleet to 15. Two Airbus A319s were delivered in December.
India has signed a $1.1-Billion contract with Israel Aircraft Industries for three Phalcon airborne warning and control systems aircraft (AW&ST Sept. 22, 2003, p. 27). The U.S. had pressured Israel to postpone the sale but later relented; the deal recently cleared Israel's Ministerial Committee for Defense Affairs. An Indian defense ministry official said delivery will be made over 44 months.
New factual information from Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council (ASC) on the inflight disintegration of China Airlines Flight 611 revives disturbing points about how repair doublers can complicate maintenance inspections. The ASC update found 29 cases of delayed or overdue inspections for corrosion or deterioration of parts on the 23-year-old Boeing 747-200, and focused on a surveillance inspection for cracks in the fuselage bilge area where the breakup is believed to have originated.
With the clock ticking on the U.S. presidential election, European nations are considering a stepped approach to negotiating a transatlantic aviation deal with Washington. The end of this month will see the next round of talks. Discussions resume on Mar. 29 in an attempt to thrash out a consensus between Brussels and Washington on an umbrella pact to replace the existing bilateral agreements between European Union (EU) states and the U.S.
After nearly 40 years of claiming that the Great Wall of China can easily be seen from the Moon, the Chinese government has acknowledged the truth and ordered that its school textbooks be edited to remove the assertion. Astronauts and cosmonauts have been telling the Chinese for years that the Great Wall is virtually invisible from low-Earth orbit, let alone the Moon. But it wasn't until China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, reported after his 14-orbit flight that he couldn't see the wall that the government switched its stance.
NASA will rely on a cold-gas thruster that consumes less than 1 watt of electricity at peak operations for its Space Technology 5 smallsat constellation testbed. Built by Marotta Controls Inc. of Montville, N.J., the thrusters weigh less than 70 grams and produce thrust in the 0.105-2.360-Newton range, either continuously or pulsed, opening and closing in less than 5 millisec. The thrusters will control a constellation of three 47-lb.
US Airways will have what amounts to an extra year to shed costs and reduce losses under a narrowly won restructuring of restrictive covenants in the $900-million federal loan guarantee through which it emerged from bankruptcy protection last spring.
Former astronaut Robert Cabana has been appointed deputy director of the NASA Johnson Space Center. He was director of flight crew operations and has been succeeded by Kenneth Bowersox, who recently commanded the sixth expedition to the International Space Station. Cabana succeeds Brock (Randy) Stone, who is retiring.
Russian titanium maker VSMPO is completing talks on acquiring a titanium smelter facility in the U.S. VSMPO already supplies titanium semi-products to Boeing, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney and other U.S. companies for civil aerospace uses and owns part of a U.S.-based titanium fabricator, National Forge & Machining. A stateside site would permit access to the U.S. market for military products.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking in a few months for the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (Capps II). Acting TSA Administrator David M. Stone told a House Aviation subcommittee last week that he wants to keep the public informed of how the data will be used. However, airlines have said they will decline to provide data unless ordered to do so by the government owing to privacy concerns.
You can now register ONLINE for Aviation Week Events. Go to www.AviationNow.com/conferences or call Ryan Leeds at +1 (212) 904-3892/+1 (800) 240-7645 (U.S. and Canada Only) Apr. 19--FAA/JAA Regulations: Collision or Harmonization, Atlanta, www.aviationlearning.com/mro. And, Apr. 21-22--Blended Training Solution Experience, Atlanta, www.aviationlearning.com/mro Apr. 20-22--MRO USA/MRO Latin America/MRO Military. Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta. May 17-19--Aerospace & Defense Finance Conference. CS First Boston Headquarters, New York.
Loral Space and Communications has completed sale to Intelsat of in-orbit Telstar 5/6/7 and 13, and Telstar 8, which is due for launch in the third quarter of this year. The $977-million deal includes rights to the 77 deg. W. Long. orbital slot formerly occupied by Telstar 4.
William H. Pickering, one of the pioneers of the U.S. space program and a longtime director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, died Mar. 15 of pneumonia at home in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. He was 93.
