6 Correspondence 8 Who's Where 10-11 Market Focus 13 Industry Outlook 15 Airline Outlook 17 In Orbit 18-19 World News Roundup 21 Washington Outlook 51 Inside Avionics 53 In Defense 54 Classified 56 Contact Us 57 Aerospace Calendar
Boeing Co.'s military business continues to gather momentum and soon will become the dominant source of the corporation's revenue. As this sea change continues to play out, one can't help but wonder how much of a drag the commercial side of the business will be on the corporation's market valuation.
U-36A CRASH A U-36A, a Japanese naval version of the Learjet 36A, crashed May 21 near the the U.S. Marine Corps Iwakuni AB, near Hiroshima, during touch-and-go training. The aircraft ran off the runway during takeoff, shearing the fuselage. All four crewmembers on board were killed. The navy bought six U-36As for training support missions.
Charles S. Stees has become chief financial officer of Denver-based Space Imaging. He was vice president-marketing, sales and strategic planning for Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, Newtown, Pa. Mark E. Brender has been promoted to vice president-corporate communications from executive director of government affairs and corporate communications, based in Reston, Va.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS' INTERSTATE ELECTRONICS CORP. (IEC) will create and test a high-performance GPS anti-jam capability under contract from the Office of Naval Research. The company's design will use scalable multi-element space-time-adaptive processing (STAP), a multi-element adaptive antenna and powerful digital signal processor to null jamming signals. STAP is a technique for processing signals that uses both spatial and time filtering to develop a weight, which is applied to incoming data in the beam-former.
MORE COMBAT POWER The U.S. Navy and its sister service, the U.S. Marine Corps, are trying to figure out how to get more operational use out of their large- and small-deck aircraft carriers. Under a new concept being worked on by the Navy, maintenance on aircraft carriers following one of their regular six-month deployments would be better scheduled to ensure it can be done in a shorter time to make the ship available for emergency deployments.
James W. Hlavacek has been appointed vice chairman of the ATA Holdings Corp., parent of American Trans Air. Hewas executive vice president. Gilbert F. Viets has been named chairman of the Audit Committee of the board of directors. He succeeds Robert A. Abel, who has resigned as committee chairman but remains on the board. Viets is a clinical professor in the systems and accounting graduate program at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. William D.
PARIS AND BEYOND Upgraded facilities and enhanced public transportation between the city's center and Le Bourget airport are being planned by a joint venture of Gifas French aerospace industries association and CCIP Paris chamber of commerce and industry.
The first piece of the U.S. Air Force's emerging electronic attack architecture should be ready in four to six years, but the path to using the B-52 in a standoff jamming role still faces several hurdles.
As a former Australian air traffic controller and now senior search and rescue officer, I disagree with some of the content of "Privatizing ATC Is A Bad Idea." ATC in Australia is run by Airservices Australia, which is a government enter- prise, and is not privatized, contrary to Elliot Sclar's Viewpoint. In part, his article states, "In Australia, excessive demands on controllers have led to a series of strikes, while failures with new technology have led to radar blackouts and major traffic disruptions." This is not true.
A SIGNIFICANT STEP TOWARD INCREASING THE POWER of fiber lasers is a fiber amplifier developed by Northrop Grumman, which has produced 155 watts from a single, slender optical glass thread. The energy that emerges--infrared light with a single polarization--offers the possibility of combining coherent output from a number of amplifiers to deliver high laser power. Fiber amplifiers offer weight and efficiency savings, and their optical efficiency cuts waste heat that needs to be rejected, scientists at the Redondo Beach, Calif., facility said.
AIRBUS SELECTED BARCO TO DELIVER 18-IN. MODULAR RUGGED flat-panel displays with surface acoustic wave touch-screen technology for use in visualizing test data on board its A380 during the flight-test program. General Dynamics, U.K., recently picked Barco to provide more than 300 displays in the same product line for the Defense Ministry's Bowman Combat Infrastructure Platform.
Joseph Sprague has been named Washington-based managing director of government affairs for Alaska Airlines. He was director of sales for the state of Alaska.
SUPPLY-SIDE DOWNER While some industry observers believe the darkest days have passed for U.S. airlines, the same may not be true for their equipment suppliers. The parked aircraft fleet last month increased by a net of 57 passenger jets, to 2,186, or about 13% of the worldwide fleet, according to the most recent Airclaims data. In fact, the fleet has expanded for the last four consecutive months, and J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph B. Nadol, 3rd, expects the number to increase further before leveling off at some point this summer.
INTEGRATED POWERHEAD DEMO Boeing Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power has hot-fired an advanced liquid oxygen turbopump incorporating an oxidizer-rich preburner that is a step toward new rocket engines twice as efficient as those now in use. Conducted at Stennis Space Center, Miss., under the Air Force Research Laboratory Integrated Powerhead Demonstration (IPD) program, the test was the first of nine planned to showcase such state-of-the-art rocket engine technology as hydrostatic bearings and new materials that can handle oxygen-rich environments.
UPTURN FOR ELBIT Elbit Systems reported a revenue increase of 8.8% to $202.2 million for first-quarter 2003, compared with the same quarter last year. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2003 was $56.9 million, as compared with a gross profit of $52.3 million in the first quarter of 2002. Backlog increased to $1.7 billion, with 63% of that work for orders outside Israel. Approximately 80% of the company's backlog as of Mar. 31 is scheduled to be performed in 2003-04.
Vernell Jackson, vice president-supply chain services in the Bellevue, Wash.-based Shared Services Group of Boeing, has been named to the board of directors of the National Minority Supplier Development Council.
SATELLITE SPAT Despite several renamings, program stops and starts and schedule adjustments, the U.S. Congress' General Accounting Office still doesn't think the Pentagon has it right when it comes to developing a system to track ballistic missile warheads in space. The Space Tracking and Surveillance System (the offshoot of the Reagan-era Brilliant Eyes constellation) is being designed to track warheads and cue missile defenses using space-based infrared sensors. The Pentagon expects to spend about $3 billion through 2009 on the system.
Tunnel to Safety Using perspective-flight-guidance concepts, the Boeing Helicopter Div. of Philadelphia, and NASA Ames Research Center here are exploring symbologies for primary flight displays to reduce pilot workload and boost mission performance. The beneficiaries will be low-speed aircraft that make steep departures and approaches in congested air spaces.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] June 10-11--NASA Ames Research Center Symposium. Santa Clara (Calif.) Convention Center. Call +1 (650) 604-1412 or see www.human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/eas June 10-12--NASA Second Century of Flight Conference. Williamsburg (Va.) Marriott. Call +1 (800) 639-2422 or see www.aiaa.org/events/tgir
Fuel Flow A few features had to go, but in the end Boeing's only near-term chance of selling 100 or more 767-200ERs closed the price gap between the Pentagon and the aerospace giant, and cleared the way for a $16-billion lease for airborne refuelers.
Elizabeth Young has been appointed to the board of directors of Seattle-based ASI Entertainment Inc. She has been vice president/general manager of aeronautical communications at SITA.
John D. Schumacher, NASA's assistant administrator for external relations since June 1995, has been named the agency's chief of staff. He will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of agency headquarters, and will help Administrator Sean O'Keefe and other senior staffers shape agency policy. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate and lawyer, Schumacher oversaw development of the bilateral and multinational agreements that govern International Space Station operations. He succeeds Courtney Stadd, a political appointee who is returning to the private sector in July.
INDRA WILL DEVELOP A NEW FLIGHT DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM for the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre under a contract from Eurocontrol. The system will be created entirely in Spain, using its own technology, according to the company, and is slated to be operational in 2007. Eurocontrol expects it to boost interoperability with older systems and future advances, and looks for safety enhancements from increased medium-term conflict detection and trajectory prediction, mapped in four dimensions onto the airspace structure.
