India is set to provide satellite imaging and aerial services for digital mapping of the Maldives, according to a Memorandum of Understanding signed in late January. India's National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) in Hyderabad will also assist in setting up a center in Male, the Maldivian capital, for maintaining the geographic information system and for using satellite remote sensing data for thematic studies of land and oceans.
Dan Flood (see photo) has been promoted to general manager of Continental Maritime of San Diego, a subsidiary of the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Newport News Sector. He was vice president-business acquisition. Flood succeeds Dave McQueary, who is retiring.
The O'Hare Modernization Plan, a proposed $6.6-billion makeover that has attracted strong criticism from local communities and former FAA executives, has taken a step forward with Chicago's naming of a program management office for the project's $2.9-billion first phase.
So much for the Wall Street skeptics who predicted defense spending--or more specifically, funds earmarked for weapons systems modernization--would lose steam this year. The $144 billion the Bush administration has requested for Fiscal 2005 represents a 7% increase over the Fiscal 2004 weapons request and about 3% over the amount Congress enacted (see p. 22). It also exceeds most bearish analysts' views from last year.
Atlas Air and Polar Air Cargo have arranged for $50 million in debtor-in-possession and exit financing and hope to continue offering global cargo services under a restructuring plan. The cargo operators and parent, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings of Purchase, N.Y., sought protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy Jan. 30. The companies asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida to allow it to pay salaries and make payments for fuel and other operating necessities during the bankruptcy-protection period.
The FAA has certified Honeywell's Runway Awareness Advisory System (RAAS), an audio warning system that can be purchased as a software add-on to the company's Mark V and VII enhanced ground proximity warning systems (EGPWS). No additional equipment has to be installed in the cockpit except the EGPWS, which must have a GPS receiver. The Runway Awareness Advisory System provides an audio warning that announces when the aircraft is approaching a runway, when it is aligned with the runway for takeoff and when the runway is not long enough for a particular aircraft.
Britain is being forced to revisit its assumptions as to its choice of a Joint Strike Fighter variant amid concern over performance aspects of the short takeoff and vertical landing version of the fighter. Worries over weight growth and its impact on the potential performance of the F-35B is resulting in the British Defense Ministry re-examining the rationale for its selection. The JSF will provide the platform for the navy and air force's Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA).
Ducommun's Aerostructures business has won a $24-million follow-on contract for AH-64 Apache helicopter main rotor blades. The contract covers continued support for original equipment and replacement blade requirements.
The International Space Station has been in orbit long enough for the photographs its crews regularly take of Earth's surface to reflect changes in topography over time. One dramatic example is this image of the Upsala Glacier in the southern Andes mountains of Argentina's Patagonia. The third-largest glacier in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Upsala withdrew some 4 km. (2.5 mi.) to the north from its terminus in Lake Argentino between the late 1960s-mid-1990s.
Domestic carrier Japan Air System is to resume full service this week after obtaining substitute aircraft from parent Japan Airlines Group and leasing replacement JT8D-200-series engines from Pratt & Whitney. A series of cracked high-compressor stator vanes on the JT8D-200s prompted a grounding of most of JAS' Boeing MD-81/-87 fleet (AW&ST Jan. 26, p. 37) and resulted in an approximately $4.7-million loss for the carrier. In all, 596 flights and 40,000 passengers were affected.
The Maryland Aviation Administration has contracted with Environmental Tectonics Corp. to perform airport certification and emergency drill training at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Your editorial on President Bush's space plan was excellent but, like the plan, failed to address the aeronautics side of NASA. Even though speed is the airplane's primary attribute, Kim Pedersen correctly decried the lack of significant speed pro- gress since the l960s (AW&ST Jan. 26, p. 6). At the same time, range continually is being increased. The result is flights that will reach 20 or more hours, which will subject passengers to nearly intolerable physical and mental discomfort.
France will audit the Dassault Rafale fighter program to evaluate the feasibility of maintaining current delivery timetables and the effect of cost overruns engendered by previous stretchouts in the introduction schedule. The French government insisted the audit would not impact the total number of aircraft to be ordered (294), or the service entry dates for the first operational air force (2006) and nuclear strike squadrons (2008).
Officials of Bell/Agusta Aerospace Co. plan to resume flying the BA609 on Oct. 29, launching an aggressive three-year certification program aimed at delivering the first aircraft to a customer late in 2007.
William J. Allison (see photo) has become chairman of Montreal-based CMC Electronics Inc. He was vice president/general manager of the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Navigation Systems Div., Woodland Hills, Calif.
The final three Bombardier Global Express aircraft for the British Royal Air Force and army's 800-million-pound ($1.47-billion) Airborne Stand-off Radar intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition program have now entered the modification program, joining the first two. Aircraft two through five are now at the Raytheon Systems Ltd. Broughton site in north Wales. The first aircraft is being modified at Greenville, Tex., and will be delivered in 2005. All five aircraft are to be handed over to the air force by 2007.
NASA Ames Research Center is providing the seed money for a new West Coast joint university program to explore advanced concepts for air traffic management.
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A prototype system delivered to the U.S. Air Force's C2 Transformation Center at Langley AFB, Va., is improving the integration of GPS and satellite-overflight information with air operations. Both air and space battle managers now have simultaneous access to Air Tasking Orders and Space Tasking Orders, enabling more cohesive mission planning.
Douglas Barrie (London), David A. Fulghum (Tallil Ab, Iraq)
Britain is working toward setting up a joint Predator unmanned aerial vehicle unit with the U.S., one of a raft of moves emerging from a top-level military meeting that included USAF Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. British personnel are soon to begin training in using the General Atomics Predator UAV, with the possibility they will then be deployed to form a U.K.-U.S. operations unit in Iraq.
The X-43A hypersonic testbed is set for a Mach 7 flight this month (see p. 17), but NASA's funding for additional flights is uncertain under the Fiscal 2005 Bush budget. The new exploration systems office, which took over funding for all advanced launch systems under the president's new space policy, will review the technology to see if it meets potential exploration needs. NASA officials are meeting with Pentagon types to see if there's a way for X-43A to continue under the National Aerospace Initiative, says NASA aeronautics honcho Vic Lebacqz.
A Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS launched an SES Americom cable television satellite on Feb. 4, lifting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:46 p.m. EST after technicians recovered from a tricky first-stage pressurization problem. The AMC-10 satellite, also built by Lockheed Martin, was to serve U.S. markets from 135 deg. W. Long. following successful completion of the mission, which was arranged by International Launch Services.
Last year's administration initiative to increase draw-downs from the aviation trust funds to finance FAA operations--and thus reduce general-fund appropriations--will accelerate in the 2005 budget year. The outflow totaled $9.6 billion in Fiscal 2003 and $11.5 billion in Fiscal 2004, and the Fiscal 2005 proposal is $12.7 billion.
Bowing to the budget impacts of war, domestic security and an unprecedented federal deficit, the FAA intends to make do with nearly half a billion dollars less than it expected in near-term air traffic control system modernization funding during the year that begins Oct. 1.
