AirTran Holdings raised $139.3 million in a public offering of 8,650,000 shares of its stock, plus an additional 466,000 shares purchased by underwriters. The company said it would redeem $35 million of 11.27% senior secured notes held by Boeing Capital Loan Corp., buy warrants held by Boeing Capital to buy 1,000,000 shares of AirTran stock, and allocate the rest of the proceeds to working capital and capital expenses, including aircraft buys.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened an investigation of Hawaiian Holdings Inc., the holding company for bankrupt Hawaiian Airlines, and several of its officers in connection with a May 31, 2002, tender offer. The company indicated it will cooperate with the probe.
Mark Davis has been named vice president-logistics for Milwaukee-based Tracer1s. He was an executive with America West Airlines, Evergreen Aircraft Sales and Leasing and Unical Aviation.
NEW INDY TERMINAL Ground has been broken for a mid-field terminal building at Indianapolis International Airport, a key element in a $974-million upgrade project that also includes a concourse and parking garage, road work and airfield improvements. Site preparation will involve moving more than 1 million cubic yards of soil from existing stockpiles and on-site excavation. The new terminal, which will replace the existing one built in 1957, will be located between the two main runways. Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum of St.
Jonathan Ogg has become director of education of the Colorado Springs-based Space Foundation. He was a teacher of high school biology and Earth and space science in Illinois and Colorado.
The company received an STC for the AutoPower system, a full-authority automatic throttle system for Bombardier CRJ100/200s. It provides takeoff-to-touchdown dual-servo control of thrust levers in harmony with aircraft flight control system vertical modes and navigation target speeds. The flight management system thrust management table-based N1 limit and target calculations as displayed on the engine indication and crew-alerting system N1 fan speed displays. AutoPower benefits include: improved climb performance and payload/range potential, according to the company.
IRANIANS SEIZE RECEIVERS Iran's Bassij Militia has seized about 2,000 small direct-to-home type television dishes that could be used to receive TV transmission from Western broadcasters. The people who were building the dishes either have been arrested or are being sought by police in Tehran. The Iranian government bans the use of direct-to-home TV dishes, but about 3 million households still use hidden dishes to receive TV signals, according to the Agence France Presse (AFP). It said that in recent years Iranian police have seized about 70,000 dishes.
SUMMER OF THEIR DISCONTENT The U.S. could be approaching air traffic gridlock within a decade, even when all of the ATC upgrades in the FAA's 10-year Operational Evolution Plan are completed, opines Boeing's air traffic management mogul, John Hayhurst. By 2012, delays are projected to routinely top those of that summer of our passengers' discontent, 2000. Use the current lull to transform ATC, Hayhurst urges, pushing for a "network-enabled" system. Of course, obtaining money from Congress to get started won't be easy, what with the growing budget deficit.
The Series ZD solid-state relay is a plastic xi-pin DIP designed for commercial, military and aerospace applications. The 1A, 80 Vdc. relay utilizes a power FET switch and offers an extended temperature range (-55 to +125C). The ZD features short-circuit/overload protection to prevent damage to system components, assemblies and system wiring; optical isolation to keep control circuits from load transients and eliminate ground loops and signal ground noise; and low off-state leakage current for high off-state impedance.
Andrew H. Smith has been named engineering manager/chief design engineer for Meggitt Silicone Products, McMinnville, Ore. He was engineering director for the Haskon Div. of Kirkhill-TA.
Mike Hoeffler has been named vice president-DD(X) program at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), Tewksbury, Mass. He succeeds Jack Cronin, who has been named president of Raytheon Systems Ltd., the company's U.K. subsidiary. Hoeffler was his division's head of strategic planning. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. (ret.) Peter C. Franklin has become vice president of the IDS Missile Defense Strategic Business Area. He was deputy director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
Among potential pitfalls of the new regulations about machine-readable passports for travelers under the visa waiver program, the author forgot financial and psychological aspects (AW&ST Sept. 15, p. 36).
John S. Woodbury has been appointed director of government systems for the Maritime Telecommunications Network, Miramar, Fla. He was director of Navy programs for the Harris Corp.
Bombardier's Challenger 300, now being delivered to customers in the green configuration, will still resemble the business aircraft they ordered four years ago. The then-named Continental had its official launch at the Paris air show in 1999. The corporate jet has seen its schedule slip by about six months and its payload with full fuel capacity has declined slightly. However, the twin-engine business jet appears to be meeting all other initial goals, including range, price and field performance.
CHECK SIX NASA was poised late last week to delay the target for the space shuttle's return to flight from next March to at least mid-July to better accommodate program changes and vehicle inspections required in the wake of the Columbia accident. Among the work that could be added is the time-consuming removal and precautionary inspection for corrosion of components in the nose cap of Atlantis. The prevention of corrosion caused by Florida's seaside environment is a never-ending battle.
Rebecca Cox has been promoted to senior vice president-government affairs from vice president, Mark Moran to senior vice president-technical operations and purchasing from vice president and Jennifer Vogel to senior vice president/general counsel/corporate compliance officer from general counsel, all for Continental Airlines. Henry L. Meyer, 3rd, has been appointed to the board of directors. He is chairman/president/CEO of Cleveland-based KeyCorp. He succeeds Donald L. Sturm, who has resigned.
ATLAS V TUNNEL TESTS Lockheed Martin is pushing ahead with the heavy-lift version of its Atlas V rocket and has just held a program requirements review for the heavy-lift version. The vehicle will mount three Russian Energomash/Pratt & Whitney RD-180-powered Atlas V main stages for extra power at liftoff. The company is also completing work on the mechanics of holding the three big rockets together during launch.
European Space Agency managers have struck a deal with their counterparts in Russia to fly experiments on two unmanned Foton spacecraft. Joerg Feustel-Buechl, ESA director of human spaceflight, says the missions--one of which might be a Bion life-sciences flight--will help whittle down the hundreds of experiments awaiting a place on the International Space Station, and could include reflights of some work lost in the Columbia accident.
What is the problem in trimming a little money from a program? It just means the program won't reach fruition quite as fast, right? Not always. The trouble is, timing can be critical on some projects. There may be no better example of an arena in which a relatively small delay can have a huge impact than planetary exploration.
Coalition interoperability issues, "blue-on-blue" engagements, time-critical targeting, revamping the guided-weapons inventory and the perennial issue of bandwidth are within key lessons emerging from the U.S. military's short conventional war against Iraq. John Wilcox, the U.S. assistant deputy undersecretary of Defense for precision engagement, spelled out the Pentagon's view of some of the essential lessons to be drawn and, ideally, implemented following the conflict.
Mary Rogozinski, manager of onboard systems planning for United Airlines, has been elected president of the McLean, Va.-based World Airline Entertainment Assn. (WAEA). Other new officers are: vice president, Amy McHaney, senior analyst for inflight entertainment hardware for American Airlines; and secretary, Sue Pinfold, senior manager for entertainment for Spafax. Sylvia Arndt, CEO of Inflight Productions USA Inc., remains treasurer.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (ret.) Peter M. Cuviello has been appointed vice president-information infrastructure for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, Gaithersburg, Md. He was the Army's chief information officer/deputy chief of staff/director of command, control, communications and computers.
A Zenit-3SL lifting off from the Boeing Sea Launch Odyssey last week placed a 8,998-lb. Boeing 601HP built for PanAmSat Corp. and Japan's JSAT Corp. into an orbital slot between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast. Called Galaxy XIII/Horizons-1, the spacecraft has two payloads. Its 24 active C-band transponders will operate as Galaxy XIII to support PanAmSat's domestic U.S. cable business as a replacement for Galaxy IX.
CHANGE OF COMMAND As visa security increasingly turns up conflict between convenient travel and aviation business interests vs. protection against terror--witness the past few months' controversies over transit-without-visa and visa-waiver programs, for example--the balance of influence accelerates toward security. The Homeland Security and State Depts. have reached agreement on how to transfer responsibility for visa policy and oversight to Homeland Security, mandated by Congress, and the change will be dramatic.
