NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center teams led by program manager Phil Sabelhaus and chief scientist Claire Parkinson and TRW's overall Earth Observing System effort led by program manager Martin Mohan, with Dana Southwood as the Aqua program manager, for a smooth introduction of the second satellite in NASA's EOS following its May 4 launch.
As maintenance, repair and overhaul suppliers contemplate "a flat to declining market" (AW&ST Jan. 6, p. 41), the current industry downturn offers opportunities for specialization and expansion.
Kay Yong, managing director of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council (ASC) accident investigation agency, for continued efforts to enhance safety in the region, particularly on runways. The effort emerged from Yong's work as chief investigator of the Oct. 31, 2000, crash of Singapore Airlines Flight 006 at Taipei's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport. Yong's work in human factors led the ASC in January 2001 to adopt a "no- blame" approach to accident investigation. The final SIA006 report labeled the accident "aviation system failure" and detailed deficiencies.
Marion C. Blakey, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and now FAA administrator, for enhancing safety by defining training deficiencies on the use of rudder and issuing recommendations on the proper use of rudder on all transport aircraft, shortly after the Nov. 12, 2001, crash of American Airlines Flight 587. In that accident, the vertical tail assembly of the Airbus A300-600 detached from the aircraft shortly after its departure from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 265 people. The board's Feb.
Roy P. Lindquist has become director of homeland security products for the OSI Systems Security Group, Hawthorne, Calif. He was program manager for the U.S. Customs Service's Applied Technology Div. for initiatives related to non-intrusive inspection of large cargo along U.S. borders and at seaports
I find amazing the technical effort being expended on inerting fuel vapor (AW&ST Jan. 6, p. 37). The complexity, and I assume cost, of some of the solutions boggles the mind, and some appear to take a lot of electrical energy to operate. In the B/RB-36 of the 1940s, carbon dioxide was used; a container in each wing held about 200 lb. of dry ice, which was vented into the tanks--enough to last for 35-40 hr. The purpose then was to prevent explosions from incendiary rounds that punctured the tanks in attacks.
Link Jaw, founder/president of Scientific Monitoring Inc., has been named to a one-year term as an honorary commander at Luke AFB, Ariz., by Brig. Gen. (select) Philip Breedlove, commander of the 56th Fighter Wing. Jaw's company develops software tools to enhance jet engine maintenance. Previously, he worked for AlliedSignal Aerospace, Link Flight Simulation Systems and Flight Safety Flight Simulation Systems.
Dassault Aviation says it is "puzzled" by Indian press reports that New Delhi might be interested in procuring eight Rafale naval air fighters for the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to be acquired from Russia (AW&ST Jan. 27, p. 40). Dassault said it had been unable to confirm the reports, and surmises that they might be intended to drive down the price of MiG-29Ks being tendered to equip the carrier.
Helo Protection Sweden plans to equip its NH-90 multirole helicopters with a self-protection system developed by Saab Avionics and South Africa's Avitronics. The electronic warfare suite will include four chaff and flare dispensers, built by Saab. The ultraviolet-light-based missile warning system is supplied by Avitronics, which is partially owned by Saab. Each helicopter will feature a Multi-Sensor Warning System consisting of missile-, laser- and radar-warning receivers, each with four sensors.
Although Capt. Steve Roach (AW&ST Dec. 2, 2002, p. 8) correctly asserts that the airlines are labor intensive and it is the employees who make airline travel occur, the rest of his argument is hollow.
Unfunded homeland security demands are taxing the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which, along with its intelligence agency counterparts, is in the middle of a difficult balancing act to deal with the military's operational requirements, domestic concerns and the need to modernize.
China's People's Liberation Army shrouds its manned space program development in secrecy, but officials are starting to acknowledge the military space benefits of the new program. Huang Chunping--head of the Long March 2F booster program--noted in a People's Daily commentary the excellent performance of U.S. navigation, reconnaissance and military communications spacecraft, and told his readers that future Chinese developments should strive for similar capability.
Key members of Congress are skeptical about President Bush's plan to create a Terrorist Threat Information Center (TTIC) to fuse and analyze terrorist-related information. One concern: the new organization could degrade intelligence-gathering and analysis conducted by the Defense Dept. and other intelligence organizations, says Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.). And the senior Democrat on the panel, Carl Levin (Mich.), has reservations lest the TTIC duplicate the CIA's counter-terrorism center.
The U.K. has extended the management contract of its military nuclear facilities, the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) to 25 years from 10. A 10-year award was initially let to a team of Lockheed Martin, Serco and British Nuclear Fuels--known as AWE Management--in 1999. The new agreement is valued at approximately $8.6 billion.
WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP Ryanair adding base in Sweden Will be carrier's eighth after Italian site begins operation this week 20 Delta launching new low-fare subsidiary called Song Designed to go head-to-head with JetBlue in marketplace, services 21 LAURELS 2002 Aviation Week selects annual Laureates and Laurels Legends Also announces Laurels nominees in six categories 24 WORLD NEWS & ANALYSIS U.S. primes buoyed by weapons purchasing
The Russian air transport industry carried nearly 27 million passengers last year, an increase of 8% compared with 2001, when 25million passengers were handled. The results, however, represent a decline when compared with the 2000-01 period, when a year-over-year 14.8% increase was reported. Aeroflot Russian Airlines carried the most passengers last year, 5.5. million, about 330,000 fewer than in 2001. Novosibirsk-based Siberia Airlines, carried 2.7 million passengers--an increase of 41% compared with the previous year.
As a labor-relations attorney who has regularly negotiated union contracts on behalf of employees throughout the U.S., I have witnessed how the inordinate growth of labor costs has had far-reaching negative consequences on the economic well-being of regional and national airlines.
The Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor was suspended from flight briefly last month due to a leak that emptied one engine of oil while on the ground. While the oil problem itself should ultimately not be serious, the military's review of the incident highlights the fact that in some situations a single-engine failure will cause the V-22 to crash. While conventional helicopters also have vulnerable zones, these situations are more complex to handle on a V-22 because of its highly loaded rotors and tiltrotor configuration, which effectively prevents autorotation.
Moving from the Transportation Dept. to the Homeland Security Dept. won't free the Transportation Security Administration from its most dogged congressional critic. The House Appropriations Committee is reorganizing itself to set up a homeland security subcommittee, and the chairman will be Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), to whom the TSA answered last year in Rogers's role as chairman of the transportation subcommittee. The 45,000 ceiling on personnel, which the TSA has circumvented by hiring "temporary" employees, came from Rogers.
apan's National Space Development Agency and National Aerospace Laboratory expect to hold the second phase of their high-speed flight demonstrator program this spring and summer (AW&ST Sept. 16, 2002, p. 63). The NASDA/NAL team conducted three flight demonstrations on Christmas Island last October-November using a 450-kg. vehicle powered by a Teledyne Continental J69-T406 engine to gather basic flight parameter data. Phase 2 shifts to Kiruna, Sweden, for control technology and transonic range flight development studies.
The troubled Fiat group is expected to jettison its aero engines arm. FiatAvio's focus will now be on its core automotive businesses. The decision is reviving interest in consolidating Europe's aero engine industry. "It remains fragmented; getting players closer would have a favorable impact but [how to achieve this] hasn't been determined yet, Snecma Chairman/CEO Jean-Paul Bechat recently pointed out.
European Space Agency spending will fall this year, as the Earth-observation program rescopes to smaller projects and science teams transition to new "cornerstone" missions following the launch of Envisat and Integral last year. Outlays for approved programs will drop 6% to 2.59 billion euros ($2.8 billion), excluding programs financed by third parties, according to Francois Petitjean, who heads the agency's budget office. Total authorized expenditures will drop 11% to 2.84 billion euros.
The Defense Dept.'s preoccupation with network-centric warfare, a mere process in war fighting, is overshadowing military aviation in the "next century of flight" (AW&ST Dec. 16, 2002, p. 47). Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper warned against the network-centric hype by saying he is "looking for the killing solution" (AW&ST Nov. 11, 2002, p. 33).
