Joseph Gurman, NASA project scientist for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., has accepted for his group the Laurels for Team Achievement Award of the International Academy of Astronautics. The award recognizes "the team of scientists, engineers and managers for the development and operation of a world-class mission leading to substantial advancements in understanding the Sun and the solar-terrestrial relationship."
I am surprised there has been no discussion in your magazine on a development that discourages air travel: the increase in the number and frequency of obnoxious, specious and patronizing public-address messages at airports. For those of us who make it through the belt/shoe/laptop gauntlet and need to wait for a delayed flight, there is the additional insult of being subjected to 1984-like abuse by owners of airport innerspaces.
With its debt load sharply reduced, SES Global is in a position to renew its quest for future growth, after a period of slack sales, company officials say. The Luxembourg-based company reported a 10% drop in revenues for the first half of the year to 642 million euros ($751 million), largely due to exchange rate fluctuations, and a slight decrease in its earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization (EBIDTA) margin to 80.1%, from 80.8% for the same period last year.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Robert W. Cone has been named director of the Joint Center for Lessons Learned at U.S. Joint Forces Command, Norfolk, Va. He has been director of the Joint Advanced Warfighting Program and Joint Lessons Learned Team at the Institute for Defense Analysis, Suffolk, Va.
THE FAA'S LONG-AWAITED RULE GOVERNING OPERATIONS of fractional ownership programs will become effective on Nov. 17. The new Subpart K regulations include major changes that affect managers and operators of fractional ownerships, as well as significant changes for operators flying on-demand missions under FAR Part 135. Existing fractional ownership operators have until Dec. 17, 2004, to comply with the rule; new fractional programs must do so before beginning flight operations.
Tom Macdonald (see photo), the Navair V-22 Integrated Test Team's chief test pilot and a retired U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, has received the Society of Experimental Test Pilots' Iven C. Kincheloe Award for 2003. The award recognizes accomplishment in the conduct of flight testing. It was established in memory of USAF Capt. Iven C. Kincheloe, Jr., who died in 1958 during a test flight in an F-104 Starfighter. Macdonald has nearly 700 hr. of flight time in the V-22.
TEACHING TO THE TEST The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) gave some candidates for airport screening jobs final exam questions and their answers prior to the test, the Homeland Security Dept. Inspector General reports. The IG's investigation was prompted by a Jan. 26 article in Newsday of Long Island, N.Y., about security screeners at LaGuardia Airport. TSA did an in-house probe, but U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) was not satisfied with the no-fault findings.
All those bellowing old pilots who cite multiple [i.e., I got mine] reasons to increase the retirement age past 60 should put their money where their mouths are. Write the new rule to apply only to those pilots hired on or after the rule-change date. This will flush the system of old-rule pilots who all kept advancing because of the age 60 rule, and set the stage for the new-rule pilots to have a level playing field for their careers.
Gordon P. Locke (see photo) has become senior vice president-marketing and sales of Hawaiian Airlines. He was vice president-marketing and enterprise development for Rosenbluth International.
You said the 7E7 is Boeing's first new product since the 777 in 1990 (AW&ST Sept. 15, p. 31). Wrong: the 717 came in the late 1990s--as a McDonnell Douglas legacy design. (The reader is correct--Ed.)
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS On the bad side, an F/A-22 pilot declares an inflight emergency, causing the Air Force to convene a safety investigation board. Returning one of the stealth fighters from a maintenance site at Palmdale to Edwards AFB, Calif., Sept. 19, the pilot encountered an "unexpected response." The aircraft is said to have lost significant altitude and was barely recovered, but landed successfully. Col. Joe Lanni, USAF's F/A-22 test honcho, won't confirm that account, citing the ongoing investigation.
The European Space Agency is planning more than $1 billion worth of missions for its Aurora solar system exploration program, including a return to the Moon.
WORKING TOGETHER The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is discussing a series of cooperative agreements with Russia's Rosaviakosmos, including a framework accord that would allow local companies such as EADS to collaborate with Russian ones on Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system. Russia is already discussing cooperation on Galileo within a European Union framework, particularly at the research level, and recently reiterated a long-standing offer to become an associate member of the European Space Agency, which is responsible for Galileo development.
HUBBLE SERVICING NASA still hopes to mount a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope "in the 2005 timeframe," but not before it gains some experience inspecting (and perhaps repairing) the shuttle thermal protection system in orbit to prevent a recurrence of the Columbia accident. Like Columbia's final mission, flights to the telescope can't divert to the space station in an emergency.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) will turn over the management of 93 faltering airports to local municipal or provincial governments by the end of the year--eight months ahead of schedule. The country's main hub, Beijing Capital International Airport, and those in the Tibet Autonomous Region, will continue to remain under CAAC, the country's aviation regulator. But the agency sees fiscal hope in letting local authorities plan the future of the others.
The National Business Aviation Assn.'s 56th Annual Convention was strong on content but weak on confidence that the industry is about to enter a long-awaited rennaissance. Overall, the mood of the event was one of caution about the future of business aviation. Airframe and engine manufacturers, as well as suppliers and service providers, are hopeful that signs are valid indicating an economic recovery may be underway.
As a longtime news junkie with a decades-long special interest in technical organizations, I was struck by two recent seemingly unrelated stories that received considerable attention in the national media. In one, NASA senior managers were taking body blows because they had not received information about the potential impact of insulating foam striking the wing of the space shuttle Columbia. In the other, the U.S. airline industry achieved record high levels of flight safety.
U.S. Army and Navy aircraft accident rates and related casualties increased for the second year, reversing a trend of safety improvement for Pentagon aviation. In Fiscal 2003, which ended Sept. 30, the Army confronted its worst aviation safety year in recent history. The total number of accidents, fatalities and accident rates are at the highest level in more than a decade.
France has approved full-scale development of the Pleiades sub-1-meter imaging constellation, part of the planned Orfeo joint optical-radar surveillance system to be deployed in cooperation with Italy.
The desire for daytime survivability has led U.S. Army and Air Force researchers to reconsider the comparative or additive advantages of various types of stealth. For many of the unmanned aircraft and ground vehicles that will make up the Boeing-integrated Future Combat System (FCS), the Army appears to have chosen to focus on small size and silence.
Bombardier President and CEO Paul M. Tellier said the current production rate for aircraft and component manufacturers threatens to outpace the financing available to customers, and this disparity is like a storm cloud on the Canadian aerospace industry's horizon. Speaking to the Aerospace Industries Assn.
E-MAIL ALOFT II Meanwhile, rival inflight e-mail service provider Tenzing said it will offer its own system tailored for the executive jet market. Designed for laptop users, the Tenzing system connects through the aircraft's existing communications system. "If you have a phone on board, Tenzing can provide you with e-mail," commented CEO Alan McGinnis. Passengers use their existing e-mail addresses and connect with standard RJ-11 jacks (AW&ST June 16, p. 114).
Insurance and space industry officials are concerned that rapidly escalating in-orbit satellite failures will foster a climate of litigation that ultimately could harm insurers, manufacturers and satellite operators alike. In-orbit glitches have affected a large number of current U.S., European and Japanese-built satellites and payloads (AW&ST Dec. 9, 2002, p. 40). But concern has centered around generic failures that beset entire bus families, with power failures the most common.
JAVELIN STRIKE Australia will buy Javelin antitank weapons after using the one built by a Raytheon/Lockheed Martin joint venture during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the companies said. The letter of agreement with the U.S. Army provides for a $60-million deal.
