Ake Svensson, who has been head of Saab Aerospace, Linkoping, Sweden, has been named president/chief executive of the Saab Group of Stockholm, effective July14. He will succeed Bengt Halse, who will remain as chairman of Saab's Strategic Advisory Board. Irene Svensson has been appointed group information director. She was information manager of Saab Ericsson Space.
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Magellan Aerospace Corp. has received engine assembly contracts valued at up to $26.1 million. One of the contracts is for high-pressure cylinder assemblies for the AGT1500 engine for the U.S. Army's M1 Abrams Tank. The second contract calls for inner combustion liners for the F110 engine for USAF F-16 aircraft at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center. Work under both contracts will be performed over the next five years at Magellan's Middleton, Mass., facility.
The first U.S. Air Force Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle has been delivered by Boeing to Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The Delta IV, which is set to launch a National Reconnaissance Office mission in late 2003 or early 2004, will be the first large vehicle to lift off from SLC-6 since it was built for heavy booster operations nearly 40 years ago. Only small Athena vehicles have used the site.
Thailand plans to turn a popular resort destination on the country's isthmus into an international hub with a 30-billion baht ($750-million) upgrade as part of a broader plan to turn three regional airports into gateways.
The Titan Corp. has won a contract worth up to $54.8 million through December 2006 to support information technology services program needs for the Airborne Warning and Control System program office of the USAF Electronic Systems Center.
Paris police have determined that a baggage handler recently arrested at Paris CDG airport, for allegedly stashing arms in his car's trunk, was framed (AW&ST Jan. 6, p. 36). The incident nevertheless indicated the need to further tighten the airport's security measures.
Delta CEO Leo Mullin thinks the airlines' $4.2-billion package of security-cost relief has better prospects in Congress this spring than their bid for $4.6 billion in air-travel tax cuts (AW&ST Dec. 16, 2002, p. 21). "I can't handicap the specifics," Mullin said, "but I do think that anything related to security has a better chance, perhaps, than the others." Mullin sees "general acceptance" in Congress that security is a national responsibility.
Arthur Torwirt has become vice president of the Products Div. of the Denver-based Air Methods Corp. He has been a manager of engineering, program management and marketing projects. Torwirt succeeds Michael G. Prieto, who is now president/CEO of the Simplex Co.
In the current regulatory and investment climate--cautious, skittish, punitive--it's easy to understand why large publicly traded companies would opt to err on the side of caution when it comes to accounting-related matters. Such was the case with Raytheon Co. last Monday, when management decided to reveal that the corporation is under informal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Qantas and Airbus think they may have set a distance-without-landing record of 16,910 km. (10,484 mi.) on the delivery flight of the airline's second Airbus A330-200. With 16 crew and passengers on board, the aircraft (VH-EBB) flew directly from Toulouse to Melbourne, in 20 hr. 4 min., landing Dec. 25. According to Airbus, the A330 was fully fitted in standard configuration and had a maximum takeoff weight of 152,600 lb.
Concerning the recent article on American Airlines Flight 587 (AW&ST Nov. 25, 2002, p. 44) and a handful of recent letters (AW&ST Dec. 16, 2002, p. 8), some clarifications and corrections need to be made.
This year, Airbus is scheduled to deliver more commercial transports than Boeing, the crowning achievement of three decades of hard engineering work, relentless marketing campaigns and, of course, massive investment partly funded by taxpayer money.
Lufthansa has begun a three-month demonstration of the Connexion by Boeing broadband Internet access package with the system installed on a 747-400. The trial system uses two phased array antennas, but the production model will use a single mechanically steered array mounted in a bubble radome.
Correction: In the article "China Southern Extending IT Services to New Partner" (AW&ST Dec. 23, 2002, p. 43), the ownership of Sabre was cited incorrectly. The company is 100% investor-owned, and its stock is publicly traded.
Israel's first astronaut and a complex array of commercial and basic research experiments, including those from Israel, Europe, China and Japan, have begun a 17-day space mission on the shuttle Columbia following launch here Jan. 16, under heavy security against potential terrorist attack. That security included F-15 fighter patrols over Kennedy Space Center and central Florida supported by AWACS, Army Avenger surface-to-air missile systems cued by specialized ground radars, and robust sea and ground forces, including heavily-armed helicopters.
A day after Pakistan said its army's new strategic force command had received a nuclear-capable international ballistic missile, India test-fired this single-stage, short-range Agni-I surface-to-surface missile from a mobile launcher on Wheeler's Island in the Bay of Bengal. The 15-meter tall (49-ft.) Agni uses solid propellant and has a striking range of 700 km. (438 mi.). The 12-metric-ton vehicle is seen as a bridge between India's Prithvi-II (with a 250-km. range) and the Agni-II, which can hit targets at 2,000 km. An Agni-III with a range of more than 3,000 km.
Many aircraft are equipped with warning systems to point out nearby aircraft and mountains; nevertheless, operators worry that there may still be crashes because these systems are operated beyond their limitations or undone by human intervention. As a result, researchers have this year tested an improved system that combines traffic and terrain avoidance and compensates for field of view limitations. These features are expected to provide aircrews with earlier warnings and more options for avoiding or extricating themselves from perilous situations.
FiatAvio is expanding its role in the MRO market. It has contracted with Air Dolomiti to support its fleet of ATR turboprops by providing PW127E maintenance and support services. The contract, worth an expected 40 million euros, covers 10 ATR-42-500s and six ATR-72s for five years. FiatAvio is providing similar services on the PW120 family of engines for a number of Mediterranean operators as well as for PW100s for China Xinjiang Airlines and Alitalia Express.
Let the food games begin. America West earlier this month tossed the first morsel with the launch of a three-week trial program of selling food, from snacks to chicken Kiev, to coach-class customers. Northwest Airlines last week started a pilot food program offering gourmet sandwiches and salads on about 12 of the airline's domestic flights. Now Cardinal Technologies and Sabre Holdings have cooked up a joint offering: "Carry-on Cuisine," a meal-order service for business and leisure travelers, which last week began a trial run at Washington Reagan National Airport.
EADS has targeted the turnaround of its space activities as one of four top priorities in 2003. The European aerospace and defense contractor lost 100 million euros ($106 million) on its space business during the first nine months of the year, and expects to lose money again in 2003 and 2004, said Co-CEO Philippe Camus. The aim is to be back in the black by 2005. Antoine Bouvier, who heads EADS' launch vehicle/satellite affiliate Astrium, said the company is retrenching so it can be profitable with an output of just two commercial spacecraft per year.
The FAA is requiring initial and repetitive inspections of new and installed Stage 1 high-pressure turbine rotor disks in GE CF6-80A engines. The action stems from the uncontained failure of an HPT disk on an Air New Zealand Boeing 767-200 Dec. 8 that led to an emergency landing. There are about 3,400 -80A and -80C2 engines in service, according to GE.
The 11th and final Boeing section of the 356-ft.-long integrated truss for the International Space Station has been delivered to the Kennedy Space Center from the Johnson Space Center in Houston for launch to the ISS in about a year. Designated Starboard 6 (S6), the hardware has been used as a qualification unit. The final 45-ft.-long, 13-ton section was delivered by NASA Super Guppy aircraft in two sections, the main truss and a spacer. The final truss section is part of about 110,000 lb. of new station hardware in preparation at KSC for launch over the next year.
