On Jan. 19, 1972, I was flying a mission over North Vietnam when I shot down my first MiG. This was the first MiG kill in over two years for the U.S. When I got back to the ship, the flight deck was alive. There were arms waving and hastily made signs of congratulations. Before I could climb down out of the cockpit, Willie White, my ordnanceman, nearly knocked over Admiral Cooper, leaped up on the F-4, shook my hand and said, "Mr. Cunningham, we got our MiG today, didn't we?" There were tears of excitement in his eyes, and rightfully so.
This electronic monitor measures bi-axial shocks and impacts on the surface of products or shipped containers, and time-stamps the exact time of impact. The information can then be used as solid documentation to assign liability for excessive handling that caused in-transit damage. The information can also be used to determine how or why rough handling took place and lead to corrective measures to reduce future damage. The monitoring drive is an electronic, self-contained, battery operated, one-time-use device that can fit onto any shipping container.
A recent decision by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to award a contract for construction of a Martian sounding radar underscores the high priority the agency is placing on the Mars exploration program (AW&ST Mar. 3, p.19). The Sharad radar, to be built by Alenia Spazio, will participate in the search for subsurface water and ice on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, set for launch in August 2005.
This spring, NTSB investigators plan additional tests to help determine the probable cause of the Nov. 12, 2001, crash of American Airlines Flight 587--teardown and CAT scans of the Airbus A300-600's autopilot and yaw damper actuators, and a static test of the left side rear main attachment lug from an A310 tail fin box. The latter is to demonstrate behavior of the lug under tensile load conditions to which the accident aircraft had been exposed. Flight 587's vertical stabilizer departed the aircraft shortly after takeoff from New York JFK airport.
Todd Kallman has been appointed vice president-corporate strategy and development for the United Technologies Corp., Hartford, Conn. He was vice president-finance/chief financial officer of UTC's Hamilton Sundstrand subsidiary. Kallman succeeds Michael Dumais, who held the post on an interim basis and remains vice president-business development. Kallman, in turn, has been succeeded by David Nord, who was vice president/controller of UTC. Nord has been succeeded by Gregory Hayes, who was vice president-financial planning and analysis at Hamilton Sundstrand.
To facilitate the push of ground forces into Iraq and satisfy their massive resupply needs, the U.S. Marine Corps has built an impromptu airfield near the border with Iraq as a temporary base for KC130 transports and a dozen or more attack and support helicopters.
BAE Systems in the next few weeks will cut an additional 1,005 jobs in military and civil aircraft units. The downsizing results from the Nimrod program's restructuring and lower workload in regional aircraft asset management, according to company executives. BAE recently concluded an agreement with the British defense ministry to reorient the maritime reconnaissance-and-attack Nimrod MRA4, a decision that, in the next two years, will significantly reduce work levels of production facilities at Woodford and Warton.
Ed Glasgow, technical vice president for the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., won the Engineer of the Year Award from the San Fernando Valley (Calif.) Engineers' Council. He was cited for technical excellence consistently applied in an innovative fashion across multiple programs. Fourteen other LMAC engineers also were recognized: Eufracio Benavides, William E. Harrison, Paul Holder, Tami Power, Brian Quayle, Douglas Shape, Eric Underwood, Richard Burton, Robert Besedick, Scott Jones, Dan Klotz, Brian Matheson, Randolph McCall and John Schoorl.
China's Changhe Aircraft Industry has flown a new version of its Z11 helicopter powered by a Turbomeca Arriel 2B1A turboshaft. The new single-engined Eurocopter A-Squirrel derivative, to be certified by year-end, will replace an existing version powered by an Arriel 1D. Its introduction is part of an effort to meet the rapidly expanding demand for civil helicopters in China (AW&ST Feb. 25, 2002, p. 75).
Lockheed Martin Corp. received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a new ceramic for net-molded ceramic rocket nozzle throats destined for solid rocket motors. The company initiated an advanced materials technology development project in 1997 as part of an ongoing independent research and development program.
This rotary transmitter provides a way to send electrical measurement signals from a rotating part to a stationary measurement system or personal computer. They are commonly found in research and development laboratories for measurement and duration testing on rotating test items and objects under working conditions. The transmitters are used in the measurement of temperatures and mechanical values on rotating parts of turbine engines, turbo-compressors, propellers, motors, gearboxes, machine tools and other machines.
James W. Coon has been appointed director of legislative affairs for Boeing Commercial Airplanes within Boeing Washington Operations. He was director of government affairs for the Washington-based Air Transport Assn.
Frank Morring Jr. (Stennis Space Center, Miss., and New Orleans)
NASA has already started planning how it will return the shuttle fleet to flight, pushing for a speedy recovery from the Columbia accident and kicking off a long-term shuttle upgrade program that industry says would cost at least $400 million a year for the next seven years.
What have 100 years of aviation and aerospace meant to me? Today, as we find ourselves crossing the threshold into the next century of flight, I can fly around our planet on the greatest fleet of commercial aircraft in the world in less time than it took Lindbergh to cross the ocean. I have had the privilege to be a proud member of the most significant airborne fighting force in history. And, I have had the opportunity to see our Earth in a manner that had been reserved for the eyes of dreamers only. All this with a third of a century to spare.
On Mar. 30, SAS plans to launch a new no-frills operation to beat back a strong challenge from Ryanair, EasyJet and other low-cost carriers (AW&ST Mar. 17, p. 25). The operation, called Snowflake, will cover four 150-passenger Boeing 737s initially, serving 15 Central and Southern European destinations.
One of the unintended consequences of homeland security is the further regulation and restriction of model rocketry. The unintended consequence of the Safe Explosives Act is that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms now has regulatory jurisdiction for the transportation of explosives in the U.S., and has ruled that model rocket motors are explosives. UPS is no longer shipping model rocket motors and many in the transportation industry are reviewing the compliance costs to determine if they also should stop.
Aerospace is for me emblematic of this country. The U.S. is the industry's birthplace and has generated many of its finest achievements--the noblest, such as the Apollo lunar missions, and the most practical, today's efficient global air transport net. It is a business that must draw on a very wide spectrum of skills and resources, not only leading-edge tools, materials, analysis and processes, but also marketing, financial and political skills if product success is to be achieved. Hence, aerospace products have become shorthand for a country's economic capacity.
Air Transport Assn. data make clear what anecdote has suggested: The U.S. airline industry stumbled badly in February in its attempts to restore passenger traffic to pre-Sept. 11 levels.
The Internet, embraced initially by airlines as a way of reducing travel-agent ticket transactions and commissions--and thus distribution costs--has turned into a villain, analyst Jamie Baker of J.P. Morgan Securities commented Mar. 18 at the FAA's aviation forecast conference. Nowadays everyone, including business travelers who used to pay the highest fares, can use the web to find the lowest prices. And revenue management systems haven't kept pace with the ready availability of price information, Baker remarked.
Taiwan's China Airlines, which has had a series of maintenance issues, including a suspected fatigue-related failure of a cargo door in the loss of a Boeing 747-200 last year, has named Singapore Airlines Engineering Co. to restructure its engineering maintenance division. SIA Engineering was selected from a number of foreign bidders and is to assist in daily operations as well as work with the carrier on its overall systems, policies and processes. Eight SIA Engineering senior executives are to be sent to Taipei to oversee the contract.
The new design of a mobile hydraulic floor crane with barrel lifter-dumper can hoist and dump 55-gallon metal drums as well as plastic-tapered drums. The design of the gripper with a safety hook will retain a tapered plastic drum in the inverted position. The dumping is activated by 180-deg. rotation of the barrel to the inverted position. The rotation can be operated five different ways: 360-deg.
John Dasburg, the former president and CEO of Northwest Airlines, is returning to the airline business as chairman and CEO of DHL Airways. He's expected to invest in the air cargo operator, taking as much as a 5% share of its common stock.
Larry Glasscock has become senior vice president-express services for AirNet Systems Inc., Columbus, Ohio. He was senior vice president of Evercom Systems.
