Growth of regional jet service at Louisville International Airport spurred the Louisville Regional Airport Authority to build six new gates that are scheduled to open this spring. A complex of three gates each are under construction in Concourse A and Concourse C. Each has a holding room with seats for 180 passengers and will be equipped with boarding bridge. A baggage valet service will be offered in each holding room exclusively for the regional jet passengers. The airport authority plans to open the gates to common use by airline tenants.
I found it strange that your article on the British Beagle-2 (AW&ST Dec. 1, 2003, p. 57) stated that the Mars lander carried with it the hopes for what would be an extraordinary gift to humanity--the discovery of life signatures on another planet. From a scientific standpoint, isn't it ill- advised to have such a vested interest in a specific outcome from scientific exploration? Shouldn't our goal to be to discover truth--whatever it may turn out to be--rather than to find things that support truth as we want it to be?
A U.S. Air Force C-5 Galaxy transport leaving Baghdad International Airport Jan. 8 at 6:20 a.m. was hit by either ground fire or a missile shortly after takeoff. The strike caused the No. 4 engine to explode. The crew declared an inflight emergency and landed safely. None of the 11 crewmembers and 52 military personnel on board were injured. The aircraft was assigned to the 22nd Airlift Sqdn., Travis AFB, Calif. Initial reports attributed the explosion to hostile action. A C-17 also suffered an engine explosion attributed to ground fire Dec. 9.
There is good news and bad news on the front lines of commercial aviation in these days of high alert in the war against terrorism. Intelligence gathering appears to have improved with U.S. and European nations coming up with specific and credible warnings to avert possible attacks.
President Bush is set to announce a new human space exploration agenda this week that would steer NASA away from using the space shuttle to service the International Space Station, by developing a new modular space vehicle for a return to the Moon in 9-12 years to practice for an eventual landing on Mars.
ADP Paris airports authority has selected Sagem to supply biometric identification systems, based on fingerprints, that will be used to screen the total of 90,000 airport, airline and contractor employees who work at Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Douglas Barrie (London)
Engineers have not given up hope of establishing a communications link with Europe's Beagle 2 lander, but are already shifting most of their attention to the accompanying Mars Express orbiter, which was inserted into Martian orbit last Dec. 19 without a hitch.
Beth Van Emburgh has become manager of government and industry affairs for the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Assn. She was a manager of international and domestic noise and emissions policy issues for the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Assn.
US Airways took--and survived--a big chance in 2003: a dramatic expansion of its international flying when most U.S. competitors were pulling down their overseas service. The Arlington, Va.-based carrier built up capacity in its transatlantic and Caribbean markets by 12.1% during the year, in which it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and it found enough passengers for an 11.6% increase in traffic. Its load factor in international service fell 0.4 percentage points, but the drop was to 77.7% from 78.1%, so the routes remained profitable.
Hupp Aerospace/Defense has been awarded a two-year contract with three one-year options to provide maintenance kits for U.S. Army's AH-64 Apache attack helicopters.
The Federal Communications Commission has approved a request from Intelsat to extend the date for an initial public offering mandated by the Orbit Act from Dec. 31, 2003, until June 30. CEO Conny Kullman said Intelsat planned to focus on closing on a deal to acquire a fleet of North American satellites from Loral, cleared by a bankruptcy court in late October, before conducting the IPO.
Even as Sri Lanka is considering helicopters for lease to transport troops to the troubled Tamil Tigers rebel-dominated Jaffna peninsula in the north, India has offered more than $10 million to upgrade the main supply center for the region, the army's Palali air base.
The Pentagon is moving quickly on a multibillion-dollar network-centric infrastructure program that includes space- and ground-based bandwidth expansion, information assurance and initiatives to make its global command and control systems "web enabled."
Scaled Composites rolled out the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer here on Jan. 8, revealing an around-the-world contender that combines the fuel capacity of a rocket with the low-drag aerodynamics of a glider.
Domestic travel in India is expected to get a boost since its aviation fuel tax has been halved to 8% and a 15% ticket tax has been scrapped. The moves should help cut airfares 15-25%.
In a drive to reduce tensions between their respective countries, the leaders of Pakistan and India held talks last week that were accompanied by stepped-up free-trade agreements within the region. One early payoff of this normalization drive is the resumption of direct air links between the two countries. As of Jan. 1, India lifted its two-year-old ban on airspace use that was imposed following an attack on the Indian Parliament. That attack was blamed on Islamic terrorists.
The U.S. Air Force is about to field an all-weather version of its 5,000-lb. bunker buster, but there are growing indications that more work needs to be done for the service to be able to destroy an adversary's best-defended targets. After an expedited development program, U.S. Air Force B-2A pilots should have the first EGBU-28 bombs at their disposal before the end of the year, says the service's program manager Rick Holder. USAF plans to have 243 of the weapons, which would supplement the laser-guided GBU-28.
Proposed flights between Taiwan and Beijing for a 15-day holiday period surrounding the Jan. 22 Lunar New Year are likely to be scrapped because Taipei has refused to grant Chinese carriers reciprocal rights. An official at Taiwan's Ministry of Transport (MOT) said the government is not ready to permit Chinese carriers to operate such flights. Taipei also has rejected Beijing's proposal for point-to-point flights rather than those routed through Macau or Hong Kong.
As a person who was introduced to the world of aviation through the Boeing 747, I am disappointed in Boeing's recent performance in the commercial aircraft market. Boeing used to be a source of inspiration, innovation and pride to many. That Boeing management had to go to such lengths and use unethical means to ensure a government contract is just testimony to the company's loss of confidence in itself.
Ideal Aerosmith Inc. has won a contract from Rockwell Collins to build a Dynamic Hot Bench to support the company's Common Avionics Architecture System contract with U.S. Special Operations Forces for avionics upgrades on their MH-47, MH-60 and A/MH-6 helicopter fleets. The bench will allow the avionics to be connected as if they were in the aircraft.
Senior Editor Craig Covault wears 3D glasses to view stereo imagery from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where he and Senior Engineering Editor Michael A. Dornheim are reporting on the mission (see pp. 24-28). In his 32 years at Aviation Week & Space Technology, Covault has covered Russian Mars missions and the U.S. Viking Mars lander development at the NASA Langley Research Center. Covault also reported on U. S. planetary mission planning for 20 years from Washington.
Edo Corp. has won an additional $33.5-million contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics for continued production of Edo's weapon delivery system for the U.S. Air Force F/A-22 Raptor. The order covers 43 aircraft.
Concepts and experiments that could fundamentally change the way the U.S. Defense Dept. handles logistics and the supply chain in the information age form one of the key focuses of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation.
Faced with a broad range of surface-to-air threats in Iraq and other locations, U.S. Army special operations pilots are clamoring for new tools to improve the survivability of their helicopters.
The current crop of U.S. low-cost airlines has been among the darlings of Wall Street and the scourge of the legacy hub-and-spoke operators. As they have expanded market share, the low-cost carriers have all but turned the domestic airline industry on its head. Is there no barrier to slowing or perhaps even arresting their growth?
