WORKHORSE Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Pegasus launch team is preparing for a busy spring. Through June, three of the winged Pegasus XL rockets are to be fired into orbit from the company's L-1011 drop aircraft. One will be staged from Cape Canaveral; the other two will be launched off Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The Cape mission will go on Apr. 28 with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) spacecraft (shown). The ultraviolet space telescope will seek star-forming galaxies to help astronomers understand how and when stars form.
RUSSIAN REVIEW The Ilyushin Il-112V is in the forefront for a Russian air force light transport aircraft requirement. The bid committee is expected to make a formal announcement soon. The service is also stepping up efforts to acquire a medium-lift aircraft with the Tu-330 and the Il-214 in the running.
USAF Brig. Gen. Charles B. Green, who has been command surgeon for Headquarters Air Mobility Command (AMC) and U.S. Transportation Command at Scott AFB, Ill., will become commander of the 59th Medical Wing (Wilford Hall Medical Center) and lead agent for Defense Dept. Health Services Region 6, Lackland AFB, Tex. Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Loftus, command surgeon for Headquarters U.S. Air Forces Europe at Ramstein AB, Germany, will succeed Green. Brig. Gen. (select) Kip L.
Although it has yet to be formally launched and its engine selected, the proposed A400M airlifter is now scheduled to make its maiden flight during the first quarter of 2008, a full year later than planned.
USN Rear Adm. (ret.) Philip A. Dur, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ship Systems Sector, Pascagoula, Miss., has been selected as one of America's 50 most important Hispanic executives in technology and business by Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology magazine. He had been vice president-program operations of the Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Sector.
President Bush has signed legislation authorizing a memorial to the crew of the space shuttle Columbia in Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery. The law calls for the Army to spend as much as $500,000 on a monument and permits NASA to supplement that amount with private funds. The memorial will be near that of the crew of the shuttle Challenger, which was lost in January 1986.
Terri Ragsdale has been appointed air medical market manager for American Eurocopter, Grand Prairie, Tex. She was vice president-customer service for Rocky Mountain Helicopters.
Kim Wiemuth has been appointed managing director of team resources and corporate communications for Kitty Hawk Inc. of Fort Worth. She was director of marketing and corporate communications/director human resources for North American operations for Worldwide Flight Services.
Stanley W. Kandebo (Dayton, Ohio), Pierre Sparaco (Angerville, France)
CFM International expects to manufacture about 720 powerplants this year, and projects that while an upturn in the transport business is unlikely before 2006, the company should continue to deliver no fewer than 600-650 engines a year for the foreseeable future.
CMC Electronics has received an order from Swiss International Air Lines to supply the satellite communications antenna system for its dozen A340 aircraft. Deliveries are scheduled to be completed by January 2004.
B-52 operators have used their new targeting pod for the first time to drop precision ordnance in combat, capping a sometimes frustrating effort by the Air Force Reserve Command to field the Litening-2 targeting system on the veteran bomber. Earlier this month, one of two pod-equipped B-52s dropped two 500-lb. GBU-12 laser-guided bombs on a radar and command complex at an airfield in northern Iraq. The crew also used the targeting pod to survey an area before dropping a Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) against a dispersed target complex.
Despite a "stunningly incompetent defense" by the Iraqi military, there are important lessons to be drawn from the conflict, says the Pentagon's top force-transformation official.
With recession at home, war in the Middle East and a tourist-stopping disease from Asia already slowing things down, it may seem odd but some of the biggest names in software are expanding their product lines for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul operations.
John E. (Jack) Riley, the NASA Mission Control commentator who described the Apollo 11 crew's first steps on the Moon, died Apr. 17 of cancer in La Porte, Tex. He was 78. Riley was one of several NASA Mission Control commentators--the "voices of Apollo"--who broadcast Apollo mission events around the world. He joined NASA in 1959 and spent 33 years with the agency. Riley was awarded the presidential Medal of Freedom as part of the Apollo 13 team.
Joel M. Chusid has become Pasadena, Calif.-based managing director of sales and marketing for the Americas for China Eastern Airlines. He was vice president-sales and marketing for American Eagle.
ON TO PLUTO NASA has cleared Southwest Research Institute and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to begin building the New Horizons probe and related ground equipment for a January 2006 launch to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The move marks a turnabout for the Bush administration, which like its predecessor tried to kill New Horizons only to see it gain unrequested funding from Congress (AW&ST May 20, p. 64).
Boeing had a net first-quarter loss of $478 million on revenues of $12.3 billion, reflecting the fact that strong performance in defense wasn't enough to offset fewer airliner deliveries, a drop in value of assets acquired and a need to shore up the company's financing arm.
May 5-8--Aerospace Medical Assn.'s Annual Scientific Meeting. Convention Center, San Antonio. Call +1 (703) 739-2240, ext. 106 or see www.asma.org May 6-8--American Helicopter Society International Annual Forum & Exhibition. Phoenix Civic Plaza. Call +1 (703) 684-6777 or see www.vtol.org May 7-8--Royal Aeronautical Society Flight Simulation Group Conference: "The Impact of Computing Advancements on Flight Simulators & Training Devices." Hamilton Place, London. Call +44 (207) 670-4353, fax +44 (207) 670-4349 or see www.aerosociety.com
Raytheon Co.'s Daniel P. Burnham will retire on July 1, relinquishing his job as chairman and CEO and passing the baton to William Swanson, who is president. After several months of soul-searching, which he initiated with the board of directors, Burnham said he decided that it was time "to go smell the roses with his wife." He is 56. "Decompression" will be his first order of business. After that, he would like to serve on several boards, which more than likely will be the extent of his involvement in the aerospace/defense industry.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has awarded Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. a seventh contract to provide aft fuselages, wing leading edge flaps, most of the left-hand wing boxes, stores management systems and various avionics equipment for Japan's F-2 close air support fighter. The $160-million contract covers eight aircraft and brings to 65 the total number that Lockheed Martin has supported.
BLENDED WING The Air Force's E-8 Joint-STARS wing, a "blended" organization of regulars and reserves, should be the "model" for changing the balance between active duty and reserve forces, says Thomas F. Hall, the assistant Defense secretary for reserve affairs. Such a reorganization would keep deployment demands--eight mobilizations in the last 11 years--from falling on the same people in every emergency. "Hundreds, not thousands" of positions would be shifted between the reserve and active duty forces.
Russia and Indonesia have signed an agreement on weapons sales and cooperation in defense and space, which is intended to fill a gap in supply following a decision in 1999 by the U.S.--the traditional source of equipment for Indonesia's armed forces--to cease supplying military hardware. The accord initially will provide for the delivery of two Sukhoi Su-27 and two Su-30 fighters this October.
AIRSPACE RESTRICTIONS LIFTED The FAA has lifted some of the more stringent airspace restrictions that it placed around U.S. cities on Mar. 18 in response to a heightened terrorist threat level. Under Notam 3/2974, New York and Chicago airspace limitations will revert to those in effect prior to Mar. 18 (AW&ST Mar. 24, p. 35). The more severe requirements for Washington airspace remain active.
Sikorsky Aircraft has selected the Silicon Graphics (SGI) Origin 300 compact supercomputer to support engineering modeling on the Comanche helicopter and other programs. Sikorsky runs Fluent computational fluid dynamics simulation and visualization software on SGI Octane2 workstations and Origin 300 server.
Susan Baer, general manager of Newark Liberty International Airport for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and former manager of its LaGuardia Airport, has received the New Jersey State AFL-CIO's Business Award.
