Pilots of cargo aircraft would be permitted to carry firearms in their cockpits, under legislation introduced Feb. 13 by House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica (RFla.). Young and Mica pressed successfully last year to allow pilots of passenger aircraft to carry firearms.
In 1979 I became a new hire at Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage, N.Y., as a weights and mass properties associate engineer. My first project was the wing subcontract for the space shuttle program. Shuttle wings were built in a vertical position, leading edges up, trailing edges down. Each is 30 ft. tall. Unlike aircraft wings, they hold no fuel, just some systems lines. The wings are huge empty aluminum structures built with a multispar, swaged truss tube-braced construction. At their root, they're about 5.5 ft. thick.
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Hope has faded for resolution of one of Japan's noise nuisances. The government's plan to use an uninhabited island south of Hiroshima as a practice landing field for U.S. naval forces met a quick end within weeks of its proposal. The government was trying to shift night-landing practices from Atsugi AB near Tokyo, where residents complain--and sue--over jet noise. But opposition from Hiroshima residents was intense.
L-3 Communications' ocean systems division, ELAC Nautik of Kiel, Germany, will supply 20 long-range active sonar systems for the NH-90 helicopter for the Italian and Dutch navies under a $32-million contract.
There are two troubling operational facets of the shuttle loss. First, there were no apparent crew survival options available for impact damage. Solutions had been discussed but not implemented. Second, the methods of ascertaining and limiting impact damage were not adequate. Hugh Coleman Kelso, Wash.
WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP Surplus aircraft may stymie recovery by airframers Will take airlines several years to absorb all of Stage 3 aircraft that are parked, says Boeing exec 18 French authority lifts Air Lib's license After negotiations with potential savior collapse 19 Loan guarantee confirmed for US Airways Thanks to increased estimates of profitability 19 THE SHUTTLE LOSS Growing evidence points to Columbia wing breach
A caption in the Feb. 10 issue (p. 32) incorrectly identified a spacecraft docked with the International Space Station. The spacecraft is a Soyuz rescue vehicle. A Progress is docked at the aft port of the Zvezda service module, which is obscured by a solar array in the photo.
The Air Force has awarded Boeing a $33million contract to develop and integrate an GPS-antijam capability into the Joint Direct Attack Munition. Pentagon planners are increasingly concerned about the impact of low-cost jammers on the effectiveness of GPS-guided weapons.
Harris Corp. completed installation of the Weather and Radar Processor (WARP) for the FAA in December at all 20 of the en route centers in the lower 48 states, and it should be installed in Alaska by April. The system consists of a processor unit and software to provide Nexrad weather radar returns to air traffic controllers on their Display System Replacement screens. The reflectivity returns provide indications of moderate precipitation (1 in. of rainfall/hr.), heavy (2-4 in./hr.) and very heavy (4 in. and above/hr.).
Transatlantic aerospace/defense cooperation is going to continue due to the need for coalition military ops and the growing reliance on network-centric ops, according to Boeing Chairman and CEO Philip M. Condit. Coalition forces have to do more than just operate together, they must be networked, he said. "You can't play in the game unless you're hooked into the network." While it isn't clear what this means for the U.S.' NATO allies yet, this issue will be fine-tuned in the years ahead. European companies naturally have a strong interest in penetrating the U.S.
Cosmologists have scarcely been able to contain their excitement at the all-sky portrait of the cosmic microwave background delivered by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). Released last week, the image displays tiny temperature differences in the Universe a mere 380,000 years after the Big Bang with a resolution 35 times greater than with the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) a decade ago (see images). From its vantage point at the L2 Lagrange Point 1.5 million km.
Sweden's CTT Systems, which manufactures the dehumidifying Zonal Drying System to control "plane rain," received its first order as "buyer-furnished equipment" from Boeing. The order, to equip 20 737-700/800s for the Netherlands' Transavia Airlines, will begin on deliveries this spring. The order was placed after CTT and Boeing devised modifications to the Zonal Drying System so they became optional, rather than retrofit, equipment
Telesat has selected Astrium to supply a 56-transponder C/Kuband telecom satellite to replace Anik F1, a Boeing 702 spacecraft whose performance is being degraded by a solar array concentrator defect. The 4-metric-ton 10-kw. EOL Anik F1R will provide phone, data and Internet access services to Canadian, U.S. and Mexican customers from 107.3 deg. W. Long., starting in mid-2005 when F1 is expected to begin suffering significant service degradation.
As we mourn the Columbia loss, we must resolve not to lose sight of the future. While the glories of NASA are of the past, that is where the current "nickel-and-dime" approach to the NASA budget and space exploration must be relegated. While anemic funding may not have been a direct cause of this tragedy, it cannot be com- pletely excused.
Increasing the capacity of the U.S. National Airspace System will hinge on new operating concepts as much as the widely touted use of satellites and digital communication. The changes will revamp how aircraft are separated, how precisely their flight paths can be controlled in the vertical and horizontal dimensions, and how aircraft operate on runways and taxiways. These approaches include: * Aircraft separation by time instead of distance. Time-based metering will increase airspace capacity in the terminal areas surrounding airports.
Jeffery Barrie has been named vice president-global sales at BAX Global Inc., Irvine, Calif. He was vice president-global sales for retail and the Southern U.S. Richard Charles has been appointed London-based regional sales director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.He was an account director. Asok Kumar has become Bangkok-based managing director for Thailand. He succeeds Raymond Lee, who has returned to Singapore to become director of business development for Southeast Asia and operations director for the Hewlett-Packard account in Asia.
AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, is rapidly approaching the same critical juncture where US Airways and UAL Corp., parent company of United Airlines, found themselves just prior to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Boeing is set to lose its lock on USAF's unmanned combat air vehicle project. "Getting competition back on the Air Force is a very high priority," says Dyke Weatherington, who oversees unmanned aircraft for the Pentagon. Defense Dept. officials believe competition is the best way to control cost, and they expect to foster it in such areas as sensors and ancillary equipment. Moreover, Boeing's competition in the Navy UCAV program, Northrop Grumman, is about to fly its X-47 Pegasus demonstrator for the first time, says a Navy program official.
The French parliament was expected to ratify late last week a plan to cut the government's stake in Air France to 20%, from 54%. However, the privatization would not be implemented in the short term, owing to the economic downturn and the resulting weak stock exchange values.
United Airlines, early in its Chapter 11 reorganization, and US Airways, which thinks it still is on track to emerge from it by April, reported heavy 2002 losses and made clear, in numbers and deeds, that solving labor-cost problems remains the key to their survival.
