Former astronaut Eugene A. Cernan's notion of placing a high school student into space ignores those of us who have been chasing the dream our entire lives (AW&ST Dec. 23, 2002, p. 62).
Orbital Sciences Corp. has received $50 million worth of contract modifications from Boeing to develop, test and produce interceptor boost vehicles for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's ground-based midcourse defense system. The contract now extends through 2007 and has increased in value to $450 million. Orbital has optional orders for production of 50 interceptor boosters worth an estimated $535 million.
Tired of unruly passengers, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is raising fines for such offenses as smoking, drunkenness, use of cell phones in flight, sexual harassment of the crew, violence or loud behavior, to 500,000 yen ($4,270).
Regarding the article on the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center (AW&ST Jan. 6, p. 46), I hope program operators have carefully considered the effect of these maneuvers on the aircraft fatigue life. In view of the recent loss of several firefighting aircraft engaged in similar operations, this risk demands an in-depth study. Other aircraft have had their service lives shortened by being used extensively at low altitude, involving much turbulence and aggressive maneuvering. They were designed for higher altitude with smoother air and less maneuvering.
Steven Baker has been named deputy aviation director of the Miami-Dade Aviation Dept. He was deputy general manager of Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport.
Predator attrition is continuing at a relatively high pace, with Iraq once again managing to shoot down one of the reconnaissance drones operating in the southern no-fly zone. However, Iraq's last two Predator downings were of UAVs operated by the CIA, not the military. On the other hand, the Pentagon has also suffered considerable Predator losses, with 27 of the 75 bought having crashed or been shot down. The Air Force is buying about two per month to replenish downed aircraft and to boost its inventory.
Continental Airlines and SNCF French railways next week are scheduled to implement a code-share agreement covering 13 French points including Avignon, Bordeaux, Marseilles and Montpellier. The joint venture will enable Continental's transatlantic passengers to catch a TGV high-speed train at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport to their final destination. TGV trips will add miles to the OnePass frequent-flier program, an indication that a truly intermodal accord has been inked.
Eiichiro Sekigawa (Tokyo), Michael Mecham (San Francisco)
As North Korea continues to defy the Western Powers over its nuclear program, Japan has begun preparing for one of its most ambitious space challenges, the piggyback launch of its first two reconnaissance satellites. The satellites, which are expected to be launched on an HIIA rocket in late February or early March, are the first set of four. The second pair is to be launched this summer.
Northwest Airlines, reporting "disappointing" financial results for 2002, said it intends to keep squeezing costs until they fall in line with what it believes is a permanently changed revenue environment. The carrier has given itself a couple of years' breathing room on capital expenses by deferring aircraft deliveries, but it faces pension obligations it hasn't yet resolved how to handle.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. and the Delta-Northwest-Continental alliance went eyeball-to-eyeball last week, and nobody blinked. They'll meet again in court. Rejecting key conditions the department said were needed to prevent the alliance's prospective code share from being anti-competitive, the third-, fourth- and fifth-largest U.S. airlines said Jan. 21 they will implement the deal "as soon as practicable." The Transportation Dept. retaliated immediately, saying it would launch a formal enforcement proceeding to challenge the carriers.
Lufthansa Technik is continuing its international expansion through additional joint ventures and is likely to make a major move into the Rolls-Royce engine maintenance business in the next few months.
French space policy and national space agency CNES need to be radically overhauled to improve the efficiency of Europe's space effort and restore confidence in its launcher program. That's the inescapable conclusion being drawn in the wake of a highly critical blue-ribbon commission's report on the agency. The report was presented on Jan. 17 by a panel headed by former European Space Agency science director Roger-Maurice Bonnet.
Mar. 10-11--European Transport Leaders Conference. Landmark Hotel, London. Mar. 12-13--Toulouse Symposium. Toulouse (France) Congress Center. Mar. 27-28--Defense Budget Conference. Holiday Inn, Rosslyn, Va. Apr. 15-17--MRO 2003 & MRO Latin America. Broward County Convention Center, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. May 6-8--Aerospace Defense & Finance Conference. Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York. May 14-16--Homeland Security Summit & Exposition. Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington, Va.
Network-centric warfare (NCW) has become a centerpiece of U.S. military transformation efforts. Although they rely on the power of information technology to tightly link sensors, command and control elements and "shooters," high-impact networks also depend on good organization and structured processes (see p. 50). Cover design and F-15E photo by Jim Haseltine. Background, British AWACS aircraft and radar operator photos courtesy of U.S. Navy; Global Hawk photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force.
Thales' Dutch unit has landed a 51-million-euro ($54-million) contract to provide five additional Goalkeeper target detection and tracking systems to the South Korean Navy. The fully automatic systems, intended for a landing ship and three KDXII Batch 2 destroyers, brings the number of Goalkeepers supplied to Korea to 14. Thales Chairman/CEO Dennis Ranque said defense helped boost sales 10% last year, to an estimated 11 billion euros, and a similar showing is expected in 2003.
After reading with amusement the ideas for random approaches and flare dispensing systems being used by airlines, your Jan. 6 edition (p. 46) contains the solution to all of our security problems. The airlines can all adopt the same flight profile as the C-130 Hercules on a combat low-level mission. Many of us old Hercules pilots were flying these profiles before they were taught or even legal.
Operations planned for Iraq are expected to be far different from those employed in Afghanistan, according to those who have read a Rand report on lessons learned from the Central Asian conflict. The report is being vetted around the Pentagon for comments but has not yet been published. "Afghanistan will not be a template for what follows," said a Navy official who had been briefed on the report. "Analysts think that Iraq, with its much more conventional Army structure, will require very different preparations."
Seeing a need for a slightly larger bus for experimental satellites, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries says it will introduce one in 2005. Called Smart Sat-1, the spacecraft is intended for small-scale space experiments, including the inter-satellite optical communications research that Japan has been pursuing for some years. MHI considers Smart Sat-1 a good candidate for in-orbit repairs, as well.
call toll-free (U.S. only): (800) 525-5003. From outside the U.S. call: (609) 426-7070; Fax: (609) 426-7087 Single copy U.S. $6.00, elsewhere $8.00. Special subject issues U.S. $12.00, elsewhere $14.00. Annual Aerospace Source Book issue $49.95 worldwide.
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes visited Russia earlier this month, signing a further bilateral agreement expanding already large-scale cooperation between the two countries' defense industries. While, reportedly, no new arms deals were inked, the visit cleared the way for completing several long-awaited contracts, including the acquisition of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov.
Eurocopter, which seeks to develop more business in the Americas, will establish additional production facilities in the U.S. but in the longer term is expected to abandon its plant at Grand Prairie, Tex. The Franco-German company unexpectedly has selected Columbus, Mo., as the location of new industrial facilities, in a move believed to be the prelude to withdrawal from Texas.
Network-centric warfare concepts are expected to transform U.S. military forces from an Industrial Age elephant well-suited for the Cold War to an Information Age cheetah (see p. 50).
