Northrop Grumman Corp. will soon have a new chief executive, Ronald D. Sugar, and his agenda will be very different from that of his predecessor, Kent Kresa, whose vision in the early 1990s was to transform what was then "The B-2 Company" into an enterprise built around network-centric warfare--a concept that was still in its embryonic stage a decade ago.
Stephen J. Cabot states: "Soldiers, police officers, firefighters and air traffic controllers are forbidden to strike. Similarly, airline personnel, as part of an essential industry, should be in the same category." He argues that while airlines are corporate entities, their employees should be nationalized. But government employees enjoy guaranteed pensions and have almost complete job security.
There was much discussion last year between NASA and the Defense Dept. about cooperation on a reusable launch vehicle (RLV), but no money changed hands. That may yet change, indicates Ronald Sega, the Pentagon's R&D honcho. The issue will be revisited as part of the Fiscal 2005 budget deliberations that are just now getting started. By the time NASA and Pentagon RLV discussions were moving forward, the military already had completed most of its Fiscal 2004 budget planning, so there was no room for an RLV.
Two Langley Research Center Mach 6 wind tunnels are being configured to help in the investigation of thermal and aerodynamic factors surrounding the Columbia reentry accident.
Airport fees and profits are riling members of the International Air Transport Assn. as its members are only beginning to emerge from the Asian economic slump and face record red ink in the rest of the world. Exhibit A for IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani is Tokyo's Narita International Airport, the country's main international gateway, which he said has refused to budge on a fee dispute for more than a year.
CESSNA AIRCRAFT CO. has delivered three Citation Bravo business jets to The Company Jet--a new fractional operator based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Two additional Bravos are scheduled for delivery this year, according to Cessna. The Company Jet manages aircraft for its clients within a specific geographic area.
Is there much to fear from a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on the Internet? That's where many computers start transmitting large amounts of data to critical Internet nodes, hoping to overwhelm them and topple communications. Eric M. Mantion, the senior analyst for networking technology at the Instat/MDR market research firm, asserts that a well-orchestrated DDOS attack would cause only 1-2 days of trouble, and more damage could be caused by "loss of confidence" than by the attack itself.
The prototype Bombardier Global 5000 business jet is scheduled to make its first flight this week from company facilities near Toronto. Following about 25 hr. of initial flights in Canada, the airplane will be transferred to Bombardier's Flight Test Center in Wichita, Kan., to begin a 350-hr. certification program. A second airplane is scheduled to fly about six weeks after the first, according to the company.
Martin van der Mandele has become head of Rand Europe, Leiden, Netherlands. He succeeds David Gompert, who is returning to Rand's Washington office as vice president emeritus. Van der Mandele was a senior fellow in Rand's Santa Monica, Calif., headquarters and had been managing director of the Dutch office of Arthur D. Little. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill has been named to the board of directors. He had been board chairman before becoming Treasury secretary.
In a desperate struggle for survival, Air Lib executives plan to appeal a French court's decision to force the independent carrier into bankruptcy. However, there's almost no chance that an 11th-hour reprieve will be granted to a company that never achieved profitability and accumulated massive losses.
Commercial aerospace suppliers who sell products and services to both airframe manufacturers and airlines through the aftermarket are beginning to sense that UAL Corp., parent company of United Airlines, eventually may be forced into liquidation.
Goodrich Corp.--one of the most acquisitive aerospace companies--will make no major transactions for the next two years so management can concentrate on what may well be their biggest merger-related challenge thus far: integration of the former TRW Aeronautical Systems (AS) business.
Inside North America, call Edith Roman Associates, Inc. at: (800) 223-2194; Fax (845) 620-9035. Outside North America call The Prospect Shop at: 020 8481 8730; Fax: 020 8783 1940
The French national space agency CNES is getting a professional manager, Yannick d'Escatha, appointed by the government to head the troubled agency, as recommended by a blue-ribbon panel last month (AW&ST Jan. 27, p. 27). D'Escatha, formerly co-CEO of state-owned electric utility EDF, will be tasked with drawing up an initial list of measures to meet the most severe shortcomings, due to be released by the panel Mar. 6. Research Minister Claudie Haignere must deliver a revised space road map to the government on Mar. 19
U.S. airlines and the FAA, both strapped for cash for the foreseeable future, are settling further into a year-old trend toward cautious, lower cost approaches to increasing the capacity of the National Airspace System (NAS).
The United Nations and Saudi government have agreed to a French proposal to deploy two high-flying supersonic Mirage IV reconnaissance aircraft to Saudi Arabia to reinforce U.N. weapons inspection teams (AW&ST Feb. 10, p. 18).
The safety of Iran's transport fleet again came into question when a Russian-manufactured Ilyushin Il-76MD crashed in southeastern Iran Feb. 19, killing all of the estimated 302 people on board. Some 284 of the victims were members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The IRGC, whose members are assigned to protect the country's leaders, is part of the country's armed forces.
SN Brussels Airlines, Sabena Belgian World Airlines' successor, expects to achieve profitability by the end of the year, according to company officials. Since its formation in mid-2002, it carried 2.67 million passengers and gradually expanded its route system to 38 European points and 13 African destinations. Average load factor, however, remains below 50% in an indication that capacity exceeds market needs.
Approximately 180 Fokker F70/F100s are projected to change hands in the next few years and are potential candidates for the newly established Total Care Package--a Fokker Services, Rolls-Royce joint venture. The Dutch-built 70-100-seat regional jets are powered by Rolls-Royce Tay turbofans. The first transaction involves 17 F100s that Germania acquired from US Airways. They will undergo extensive maintenance and cabin reconfiguration and return to service this year.
Inside North America, call Edith Roman Associates, Inc. at: (800) 223-2194; Fax (845) 620-9035. Outside North America call The Prospect Shop at: 020 8481 8730; Fax: 020 8783 1940
Crisis and NATO--the words are almost coterminous. If the alliance wasn't thrown into a convulsion at least once a decade, the bodies politic of Washington and the capitals of Western Europe would sulk for lack of a good schism. For President Bush, read Ronald Reagan; for Chancellor Schroeder, insert Helmut Kohl; replace Iraqi missiles with the Pershing II, and wind back the clock to the 1980s. Same old NATO, same old spats.
The U.K.'s Beagle 2 lander is targeted on the Martian Isidis Planitia, a valley floor located at 11.6 deg. N., 90.75 deg. E., European Space Agency officials revealed. The 68-kg. (150-lb.) lander was due to be delivered to Intespace in Toulouse, France, this week for integration testing with ESA's Mars Express probe. The probe and lander are to be shipped to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in early March, for a May-June launch. A six-month exploration campaign is due to begin soon after Beagle 2's planned landing in December.
The dispute between the U.S. and France and Germany over Iraq threatens to spill into other areas. In a sign that long-term relations may have been harmed, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his panel would hold hearings over whether to realign the U.S. troop presence in Europe, which numbers 100,000 military personnel, with more than 71,000 in Germany.
