SIMULATION UPGRADE CAE will upgrade motion and aural cue systems on eight simulators for the U.S. Air Force C-130E/H. The simulators are located at Little Rock, Pope, McChord and Dyess air force bases, as well as the Minnesota Air National Guard base. In addition, CAE will upgrade the digital radar landmass system on two C-130H devices at Dobbins AFB, Ga.
Optimism reigns at Airbus. According to company executives, net backlog gain this year will exceed 250 aircraft, the airline industry is creeping back to the black, and the A380 mega-transport is matching contractual specifications.
MEGATROPIQUES STALLED French and Indian officials still hope to save a planned joint mission, MegaTropiques, which would collect critical information on climate change in the monsoon region. India is to provide a microwave sounder called Madras for the project, which would be launched in 2006 if French financing difficulties can be overcome (AW&ST May 5, p. 25). Officials at the French space agency CNES remain optimistic that a solution can be found. India might resurrect its indigenous Climatesat-1 project if the problem can't be resolved.
TUI IN CHINA German travel giant TUI continues to expand its business travel subsidiary TQ3, despite a tough market that has forced competitors like Thomas Cook to reef their sails. On Dec. 3, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder inaugurated a TUI affiliate in China, first announced last year (AW&ST Nov. 18, p. 24). The Hanover-based company also said it would set up a fully owned TQ3 affiliate in France by January 2005. TUI reported third-quarter earnings of 501 million euros for its tourism activities, close to last year's result of 519 million euros.
Paul P. Bollinger, Jr., has been named president of the Virginia-based Air Traffic Control Assn. He was vice president-aviation client services for the HNTB Corp. Bollinger succeeds Gabe Hartl, who has retired.
USAF Maj. Gen. (ret.) William A. Anders, a former astronaut and executive with General Electric, Textron and General Dynamics, is one of the four people who will be enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, Dayton, Ohio, on July 17. The others are: America's first licensed woman pilot, the late Harriet Quimby, who received her certificate in 1911; the late Jack Ridley, a pioneering flight test engineer and pilot who was the project engineer for the Bell X-1 flight that broke the sound barrier in 1947; and Patty Wagstaff, an air show headliner and three-time U.S.
Contract negotiations in the airline industry are underway, and more are scheduled in the coming months. Those carriers that have proactive, non-adversarial labor relations action plans will do far better at the negotiating tables than those that either have no programs in place or have waited to put them in place until shortly before negotiations are to begin. Efforts to foster communication, consensus and teamwork must begin the moment a company signs a labor agreement, not just before it is faced with negotiating the next contract.
BOEING ANYWAY U.S. Air Force investigators are likely to review every Boeing program that was touched by Darleen Druyun, the fired Boeing executive whose portfolio included the C-17, F-15E and JDAM before she retired from the Pentagon and joined the company. That would delay any possible progress on a 767 tanker lease or purchase until spring or summer, an Air Force official concludes. However, there is no glee among Boeing's rivals.
Mark A. Fried has become president of Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics' C4 Systems. He was president of General Dynamics Decision Systems, Scottsdale, Ariz. Fried succeeds Gerard J. DeMuro, who is now executive vice president of General Dynamics Information Systems and Technology.
Richard Chrenko claims that "budding engineers would much prefer to spend their careers helping their fellow men rather than building the next better weapon to kill them" (AW&ST Nov. 10, p. 6). His pious views on the ongoing militarization of the aerospace industry may be fashionable in tiny, neutral Switzerland. For the U.S., however, the choice is clear: build the next better weapon to kill terrorists, or get used to planes flying into skyscrapers.
SPEED BUMPS Speed restrictions on Japan's highways are being credited for renewed demand for air cargo services. Japan Airlines (JAL) has experienced a 5% gain and All Nippon Airways (ANA) a 9% increase in domestic air freight through October, compared with a year ago. In related news, JAL's share of the domestic market is growing at ANA's expense. During April-September JAL's share increased 3% while ANA's declined by the same amount. Although ANA has been the dominant domestic carrier, JAL's merger with Japan Air System has given it an advantage.
Supersonic parachute, like the one that will lower each Mars Exploration Rover to within 30 ft. of the Martian surface, is tested in the NASA Ames Research Center's 80 X 120-ft. wind tunnel. The 47-ft.-dia. nylon chute, which was developed by Pioneer Aerospace Corp. of South Windsor, Conn., will open at Mach 2, five miles above Mars. It will slow each rover to 167 mph. before braking rockets fire on the lander backshell at the base of the 79-ft.-long suspension lines. The three rockets should further slow the airbag-encased rovers to 30 mph.
Frank T. Tobin, Jr., has become vice president-homeland security of Thales North America Inc., Alexandria, Va. He was senior vice president of the Spectrum Solutions Group.
From the 1960s through the early '80s, most new commercial aircraft were sold at, or very close to, list prices. The purchase of MD-80s by American Airlines (see photo) in 1984 was a defining event for the market's dynamics, shifting pricing power from the seller to the buyer. Since that event, there has been a growing discount off the list price and widening of the difference between list and appraisal prices of aircraft. As an example, in 1990 the appraised value of a Boeing 767-300ER was about 10% less than the average list price.
Mary Ann Benischek (see photo) has been promoted to vice president-Situational Awareness Systems within the Baltimore-based Navigation Systems Div. of the Northrop Grumman Corp. She was program director for the Electronic Systems Sector's enterprise resource planning initiatives products.
The first Boeing Delta IV Heavy Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle is expected to be rolled from Boeing's Horizontal Integration Facility to Launch Pad 37 at Cape Canaveral about Dec. 10 for several months of testing before launch, which is now set for about July. The vehicle has three RS-68 oxygen/hydrogen-powered boosters joined three abreast. The vehicle's Pratt & Whitney RL10-powered upper stage recently was added to the front of the center core. Its first mission will carry a simple U.S.
I SPY The Defense Dept. plans to review the adequacy of changes it made to its intelligence apparatus in Iraq in the late summer to make it more relevant for counterinsurgency operations, says Pentagon intel chief Steve Cambone. Steps included streamlining operations to disseminate intelligence faster and increasing staffing at the joint intelligence organization. The new team will try to determine what more can be done. But intel officials also are trying to correct longer-term problems, in particular shortfalls in human intelligence collection.
The two NASA Mars Exploration Rovers poised to descend on supersonic parachutes like scientifically armed commandos will be operated by a Jet Propulsion Laboratory science and engineering battle staff on both tactical and strategic Martian surface operations.
The diminutive Beagle-2 lander is due to settle on the surface of Mars in the early hours of Dec. 25, carrying with it the hopes for what would be an extraordinary gift to humanity--the discovery of life signatures on another planet. The 73-lb. lander will address "the magnetic question, Is there life on a second planet in the solar system?" said Colin Pillinger, a British Open University researcher who has championed Beagle 2 and is the project lead scientist.
Training systems and simulators being developed to support the F/A-22 and Joint Strike Fighter will rely heavily on computers, software, and networked simulators. The JSF will even go global with web-enabled computer instruction and a multi-national network of simulators. This doesn't mean human instructors will be entirely out of the picture in either ground training classrooms or the air, where formations of single-seat jets flown by students and instructors will fly in close proximity.
Dr. Marie-Helene Favreau, an executive of the Center of Excellence for Our People at Pratt & Whitney Canada, Longueuil, Quebec, has been inducted into the New York-based YWCA Academy of Women Achievers. Favreau was recognized for her leadership in activities related to both the medical profession and initiatives such as planning and coordinating protective measures for employees and their families during the recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
I was an air traffic control specialist for many years at first-tier towers in the Northeast U.S. with more than 17 years front-line, live-control experience. I now work at a VFR facility subject to outsourcing. Despite their credentials, education and experience, Robert W. Poole, Jr., and Dorothy Robyn are drawing wrong conclusions about ATC privatization and outsourcing VFR control towers (AW&ST Nov. 3, p. 74).
