Holger Hatty has been appointed a member of the executive board of Deutsche Lufthansa in charge of network management, information technology and purchasing. He succeeds Ralf Teckentrup, who has been named to the executive board of subsidiary Thomas Cook. Hatty was senior vice president-corporate strategy.
NASA's Stardust spacecraft is communicating with Earth via a series of multiple antennas provided by New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory (PSL). Working under contract with Lockheed Martin Astronautics, PSL personnel have designed and built five of the six telecommunications antennas as well as the locator beacon antenna for the sample return capsule, according to the University.
The U.S. Army lost several helicopters during the Iraq war as a result of accidents and shootdowns, but it is still unclear as to how large the toll actually is. So far, the Army has had to write off seven AH-64 Apaches, three UH-60 Black Hawks, seven CH-47 Chinooks and six OH-58 Kiowa Warriors, but that number could grow, says Maj. Gen. Joseph Bergantz, the service's program executive officer for aviation. Four additional Apaches, nine Black Hawks and four Chinooks are being examined to determine if they can be salvaged.
The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) has added homeland defense to its long list of services and is expanding its arsenal of tools. Jeppesen will provide FliteMap, a flight planning and moving map application, to aid in the ever-increasing missions. It is being integrated into the Boeing Visual Computing Network. Jeppesen's RasterPlus charts will provide electronic government-issued VFR charts as an overlay to base vector data. Multi-information layers include cities, roads, terrain and surface features. Satellite imagery and detailed airspace depictions will also be available.
Trib Singh, president/CEO of New Jersey-based Hi-Tec Systems, has won the 2003 Small Business Entrepreneur Award as presented by Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta. Singh was cited for leading his company in supporting FAA research initiatives in fields of air traffic management, aviation safety, transportation security and facilities engineering. Hi-Tec was recognized for developing models that serve as the foundation for an initiative on Systems Approach to Safety Oversight.
BAE Systems will provide additional technical and maintenance support for the U.S. Air Force Space Command's AN/FPQ-16 perimeter acquisition radar attack characterization system under a five-year, $37.7-million agreement. The additional work will be performed through September 2008 at Cavalier Air Force Station, N.D.
The NASA Stardust spacecraft literally had to fight its way both in and out of the head of comet Wild 2 on Jan. 2, when the vehicle was buffeted by 10 million comet-dust impacts while imaging what researchers described as "a horrendous body" that will rewrite the textbooks on the nature of comets.
Yves Gleizes, head of French armaments agency DGA, will step down as part of a plan to overhaul the organization and tighten its relations with the general staff. The defense ministry said the plan--to be made public, along with Gleizes' replacement, in the coming weeks--would seek to streamline program management and improve coordination with international partners, notably through the European Union's new defense procurement agency.
U.S. Army Col. (ret.) Michael Alvis has been appointed director of ground-based programs for Thales North America Inc., Alexandria, Va. After retirement from the Army, Alvis was under contract to develop and implement the service's first general officer strategic leadership program.
Jon Karkow (left) shows the small canopy of the Virgin Atlantic Airways GlobalFlyer to Senior Engineering Editor Michael A. Dornheim. Karkow is the Scaled Composites project engineer in charge of the around-the-world aircraft, which was rolled out from the company's Mojave, Calif., facility on Jan. 8 (see p. 50).
A Russian Vozdukh carbon dioxide scrubber was the prime suspect in a slow leak on the International Space Station that engineers in Moscow and Houston were struggling to trace. The leak was so slow it wasn't noticed for more than 10 days after it started, and at its present rate is not considered a threat to an upcoming extravehicular activity by ISS crewmembers Michael Foale and Alexander Kaleri. The pair have used a sensitive sound probe to search for the leak, without success, as of last week.
Europe's Rosetta comet rendezvous mission is set for launch on Feb. 26, after a one-year delay due to an Ariane 5 EC-A launch failure in December 2002. The launch campaign began on Jan. 5, and the window will extend through Mar. 17. Rosetta will visit the comet 67P/Churymov-Garasimenko in August 2014.
The federal government's drive to build up the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve is prolonging the airline industry's red-ink bath and should be slowed down, Air Transport Assn. CEO Jim May says. The reserve, historically in the range of 500 million barrels, stands at nearly 640 million barrels and is continuing to rise toward the current limit of 700 million, and the energy bill before Congress would authorize one billion barrels.
Revenues remained flat at $6.15 billion in 2003 at the 36 satellite operators that make up the fixed satellite service (FSS) industry, Euroconsult said, while direct-to-home (DTH) satellite pay TV revenues grew 27% to $33 billion for the 54 companies that make up that industry. The strong euro buoyed overall FSS industry figures because SES Global and Eutelsat, two of the largest operators, trade in the European currency. FSS profits held firm behind cuts in operational and capital expenditures, and the latter was expected to grow slightly this year.
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Boeing rang in the New Year with confirmation of WestJet's previous order for seven 737-700s and Cathay Pacific's plans to add up to 13 747-400 freighters to its cargo fleet. The company wrapped up 2003 with 281 deliveries from its commercial airplane factories, one more than its official estimate. The forecast this year is 275-290 deliveries. Boeing reports a virtual sellout in the lower range of its offerings. It doesn't expect a real boost in deliveries until 2005, by which time the U.S. market is expected to be firm again.
The European Union may attempt to establish a consensus position on the controversial issue of armed sky marshals, with the EU's new Irish presidency moving to make this highly sensitive subject a priority. The EU directors general for aviation will meet this week in Brussels to discuss the implications of U.S. security requirements. Ireland took over the presidency of the EU at the start of January.
I find it interesting, amusing and ironic that the U.S. Air Force leadership is concerned that the cost of KC-767s will cause other deserving modernization programs to be shorted--something the F/A-22 program has been doing for more than a decade (AW&ST Dec. 1, 2003, p. 29). Evidently, increased fighter utilization for missions such as Homeland Air Defense (HAD) will exhaust F-15 and F-16 airframe fatigue lives before a sufficient number of F/A-22s and F-35s come on line.
In a bid to strengthen its "nationalist" campaign for the new U.S. presidential helicopter program, Sikorsky has tapped Vought and other team members to supplant some of the foreign component builders of its S-92.
Smart, precision-guided weapons may still be the rage after demonstrating their worth in recent conflicts, but as military researchers look to the future they view them as largely passe. New developments promise enhanced lethality, accuracy and utility.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands has begun a four-year term as secretary general of NATO. He said his priorities would be to continue the transformation of NATO to meet new threats, and to improve the dialogue between Europe and the U.S.
Patricia N. Vercelli has become general counsel and William R. Houck director of risk management of Washington-based Universal Air Travel Plan Inc. Vercelli was a senior associate in the Washington office of Philadelphia-based law firm Drinker, Biddle & Reath and succeeds Ralph Kaiser, who has been promoted to president/chairman. Houck was senior vice president-global alliances for TheoFinance plc in London.
BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman Corp. and United Airlines are off and running on efforts to show how military countermeasures systems might protect passenger jets from shoulder-fired missiles. The two-year, $122-million effort will start with the three teams conducting $2-million studies to demonstrate that their systems are suitable for use in airline operations. BAE Systems plans to use laser technology from its advanced threat infrared countermeasures system now in development for the U.S. Army.
Spot Image has launched development of an automatic ortho-image production system designed to reduce the cost and delivery time of digital elevation models (DEMs) and other 3D products. Dubbed Andorre, after the French acronym for digital orthorectification shop, the system will draw on feasibility and prototype studies performed in 2001 in cooperation with France's National Geographic Institute. Backed by public funding, it will initially process data from the HGS imager on Spot 5, but will eventually handle data from other sensors as well.
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