W. Stewart (Bud) Orr has been appointed vice president-U.S. government marketing for London-based Smiths Aerospace. He was vice president-government relations and business development for North America for Lucas Aerospace/ TRW Aeronautical Systems and had been director of marketing for Rolls-Royce.
Improving battery technology is raising questions as to whether fuel cells are the device to use for "perpetual" flight--staying up for weeks or months with solar power and getting through the night with stored power.
GPS TEAMING In a bid to upstage Boeing, Lockheed Martin has signed Raytheon, General Dynamics and ITT to its team to vie for the next-generation global positioning satellite, GPS-III. Earlier this year, they formed a partnership with satellite-buider Spectrum Astro. The USAF GPS Joint Program Office is set to award two contracts for requirements definition soon. Raytheon brings satellite control systems expertise, GD the communications system, and ITT the digital processor, atomic clocks and civil navigation signals. ITT is on both teams.
BRUSSELS BY NIGHT In the next few days, Belgium's transport minister, Bert Anciaux, is scheduled to submit to the government and civil aviation authorities an unorthodox plan set to cut noise nuisances generated by nighttime operations at Brussels-Zaventem Airport. Out-of-use runways would be reactivated to facilitate revised takeoff procedures that would distribute unwanted decibels over a significantly expanded noise footprint.
Anver Corp. has developed a powered vacuum lifter with powered tilt and adjustable cups and cross arms that hang below a hook for handling such awkward loads as radar or microwave antennas. The ETL series of vacuum lifters are offered in 115 volts AC or air-powered models that mount on any hoist and have a remote pendant control, according to the company. They feature vacuum suction cups that adapt and pivot on adjustable cross arms that also adjust along the main beam.
TRAINER IN TEST South Korea's air force has begun flight tests of the lead-in fighter trainer version of the Korea Aerospace Industries/Lockheed Martin T-50. The fighter trainer includes an APG-67(V)4 multimode radar built by LockMart's Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems and an internal General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products 20-mm. gun. The radar is the latest version of a system that is operational with Taiwan's Indigenous Defensive Fighter. The gun is a three-barrel variant of the six-barrel M61 20-mm. cannon, standard on U.S. fighters.
The British Defense Ministry has provided the Pentagon with a classified briefing on the performance of its Storm Shadow cruise missile, which was used during the war with Iraq.
The good news is that the shipping clerk who sealed himself in a crate and traveled as human air freight last week from New York to Dallas didn't plan to harm anyone. The bad news is that Texas-based Kitty Hawk Cargo claims it was following all current cargo security procedures required by the Transportation Security Administration.
Created in late 2001 on Sabena's ashes, SN Brussels Airlines posted its first profit last week, a milestone in the young carrier's quest for early financial credibility. Although SNBA's net earnings for the second quarter are roughly 2.9 million euros ($3.2 million) on 128.1 million euros ($143.5 million) in revenues, achieving such a milestone signals that the carrier could be solidly profitable earlier than company founders predicted.
Satcom operators in Russia are moving ahead in the next stage of an ambitious fleet renewal and expansion plan as the country continues to pull out of a long economic slump.
To evaluate the mini-controversy about whether the State Dept. should extend the deadline for carrying machine-readable passports as a condition of visiting the U.S. without a visa (see p. 36), let's apply the style of Socratic monologue that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld uses so effectively:
Richard Blaze (see photo) has been named general manager of the Bedford, Mass., facility of Signature Flight Support. He held the same position at Signature's facility at Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, Conn. Tony Tracy has been promoted to general manager of the facility at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Tex., from operations manager for Signature at Nashville (Tenn.) International Airport. Michael French has been named operations manager at Signature's Denver Centennial Airport facility. He was an aviation consultant and operations manager at St.
DHL Worldwide opened a new sorting facility at its North American hub near Cincinnati last month, a $213-million project in stride with the latest trend in airport development. The local airport authority issued special facility bonds backed by DHL parent Deutsche Post, the German post office, which resulted in A-level ratings for the bonds by Standard & Poor's and other rating agencies. DHL selected Airis Holdings LLC to act as third-party developer, a practice now becoming commonplace for cargo facilities at airports worldwide.
Daniel G. Montgomery has become a senior director in the corporate advisory and restructuring practice of New York-based Kroll Zolfo Cooper. He was executive director of the U.S. Air Transportation Stabilization Board.
Earl Lawrence, vice president-industry and regulatory affairs for the Experimental Aircraft Assn., Oshkosh, Wis., has received the Robert J. Painter Memorial Award from ASTM International and the Standards Engineering Society. He was honored for work in establishing consensus industry standards for light-sport aircraft.
In charting its technological future, the U.S. military plans to make fewer investments in new weaponry and spend more on intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) payloads that will be packed into a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft, along with the communications needed to make them real-time war-fighting tools. An expression of that fundamental change is that the military's primary goal for reconnaissance has shifted from recording battle damage to making it the key element in very precise targeting.
Navy planners have decided on where to base the service's 11 East Coast F/A-18E/F Super Hornet squadrons. Eight fleet squadrons and the fleet replacement squadron (120 aircraft) will operate from NAS Oceana, Va. Two squadrons (24 aircraft) will be home-based at MCAS Cherry Point, N.C. An outlying field also will be constructed in Washington County, N.C., to support training, in particular carrier landing practice.
SUPPLYING SOLUTIONS The University of Maryland's Supply Chain Management Center and the Center for Public and Private Enterprise will work with the Defense Dept. and subcontractors to design a management system--modeled after private sector successes--for the military's High-Mobility Rocket Artillery System (Himars). The $2.5-million contract will cover a prototype to utilize Internet, wireless and other portal technologies. The objective is a supply chain to mitigate shortcomings of the logistics/support systems that plague the military.
LESSON LEARNED As a result of the investigation into the Nov. 12, 2001, crash of American Airlines Flight 587 and other incidents, the NTSB has asked the FAA to beef up inspection procedures for aircraft that encounter severe turbulence or extreme inflight maneuvering (AW&ST Nov. 4, 2002, p. 47; Nov. 19, 2001, p. 32). Flight 587, an Airbus A300, lost its vertical stabilizer and rudder after experiencing lateral accelerations in excess of 0.4g.
Capt. (ret.) Raymond L. Weigle (San Rafael, Calif.)
I agree with your editorial that the $10-20-billion price tag for equipping the airline fleet with countermeasures for surface-to-air missiles would be a backbreaker for the struggling airlines, as well as the federal budget (AW&ST Aug. 18, p. 74). The security gaps must be addressed; but most of them probably would involve only one aircraft at a time. It is important to consider the magnitude of each threat.
W. Jean Floyd (see photo) has become senior vice president/general manager and Bhavesh Patel senior director of finance for the Columbia, Md.-based Transportation Management Systems Div. of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Floyd was head and Patel assistant director of Orbital's Technical Operations Group.
Banks and other investors have raised $7 billion in commercial communications satellite financing over the last year, an impressive figure indicating a recovery is underway in the satcom industry, Mark Piegza, a managing director at Bank of America Securities, told the Euroconsult meeting here. Financial investors "actually like this sector," Joseph Cohen, a managing director for Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking, told the group, despite the dismal satellite market performance over the last 18 months.
K.C. Ihlefeld has been named vice president-aircraft sales, acquisition and management and John Messina director of customer support in the Stratford, Conn., office of PrivatAir.
The FAA has designated Poland and Bulgaria as Category 2--countries with civil aviation authorities that don't comply with international safety standards. Until they restore Category 1 standing, their airlines will be able to maintain current service to the U.S. under increased FAA surveillance, but they won't be allowed to change or expand service except through wet-leasing with a carrier from a Cat. 1 country.
