Congress' latest continuing resolution lasts until Nov. 22, permitting federal agencies that don't have Fiscal 2003 appropriations yet to keep spending at Fiscal 2002 rates while lawmakers go home for the elections and return in mid-November for a lame-duck session.
After years of trying to improve its munitions procurement planning, the Defense Dept.'s process is still flawed and causing warfighters to complain of shortages of certain types of munitions, the General Accounting Office says.
Engineers and scientists at the second World Space Congress generally agreed that the next big steps in space, both for exploration and exploitation, must be an international effort that uses the International Space Station as a starting point. But after three days of closed-door meetings, their bosses could not agree on a destination for explorers or specific ways to take advantage of space to benefit the population of Earth. U.S.
The NTSB's hearing on the Nov. 12, 2001, crash of American Airlines Flight 587, set to begin next week, will likely raise more questions than answers, according to sources close to the investigation. For nearly a year, investigators have sought to determine what caused the vertical tail assembly to rip from the Airbus 300-600R after its departure from JFK International Airport and plunge the aircraft into a nearby residential area, killing 265 people--the second deadliest aviation accident in the U.S., according to the safety board.
North Korea seems to have made a clean breast of its intent to develop nuclear weapons, something that U.S. intelligence officials have suspected for some time. The North Koreans also have declared null and void the country's 1994 Non-Proliferation Treaty with the U.S. to freeze nuclear weapons work, and they claim to have the technology needed to build weapons of mass destruction that are even more dangerous. U.S. officials are uncertain whether either type of device has been weaponized or simply remains a laboratory project.
THALES ATM HAS BEEN SELECTED BY ITALY'S civil aviation air traffic services provider to install a remote control and monitoring system for the country's ATC facilities. The project is part of the Italian Civil Aviation Services to allow rapid response through maintenance groups at the regional centers. Designated Sistema Telegestione Nazionale, the system will be based in Rome and exchange data with more than 80 remote sites around the country using 16 regional facilities. The system is set to be completed in 2004.
Communications interoperability is more than a buzzword to Hugo B. Poza, Raytheon's vice president for homeland security--it's a sport utility vehicle. Not just any sport-utility vehicle, Raytheon's First Responder Vehicle is unique: A four-wheel-drive self-contained computer-controlled command and control center with wireless, cell and satellite communications that permit emergency workers at ``ground zero'' to talk to one another, even with incompatible radios.
Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science postponed launch of its Muses-C planetary surveyor from December to May 2003 because of a defect in an O-ring package on the spacecraft's M-5 launcher.
Sivaswamy Aiyer Ramachandran has become regional manager for Europe and North America for Qatar Airways. He was regional manager for the U.K. and Ireland for SriLankan Airlines. Ramachandran succeeds Gregory Epps, who has become manager of special projects at the airline's headquarters in Doha.
Congress has given the Pentagon the green light to provide extraordinary foreign military financing terms to Poland should the country buy Lockheed Martin F-16s rather than Dassault Mirage 2000s or BAE Systems/Saab JAS 39 Gripens (AW&ST Oct. 14, p. 31). Washington would allow Warsaw to defer payment on principal for eight years rather than five, and extend the loan period to 15 years total. Congress attached the approval of the unusual terms to the Pentagon's spending bill, since the foreign operations appropriations are unlikely to be approved before Nov.
Next year's merger of Cincinnati Machine and Lamb Technicon divisions of Unova Inc. will bring fresh focus on the aerospace component of the company's machining and aftermarket business. Production of Cincinnati's advanced composites and machining equipment for aerospace customers will remain in the Cincinnati area. Cincinnati Plus, the aftermarket, value-added service, also will be based there. Production of horizontal machining centers and cellular systems will be consolidated at Lamb Technicon, a specialist in the automotive segment, near Detroit.
The International Space Station crew is getting a little help from Timeliner software that was first used on board during this month's assembly flight 9A. Timeliner automatically activates and controls experiments on the station's new science glovebox, and may also be used for vehicle control, pre- and post-flight subsystem checkouts, handling of failures, and on the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module (AW&ST Sept. 9, p. 25). Developed by the Draper Laboratory, it is a script language that triggers actions based on time, system events or complex dynamic conditions.
The British Defense Ministry last week shrugged off BAE Systems' attempt to strong-arm it into renouncing its competition credo, in unveiling its defense industrial policy--a position paper underpinned by a recognition the U.K. defense-aerospace sector is inexorably being drawn closer to the U.S. BAE has been lobbying vigorously within the upper echelons of government for a relaxation of the Defense Ministry's support for a competitive approach to defense procurement. However, the document maintains, ``competition will . . .
Faced with deepening financial losses and no sign of early recovery in demand or revenues, Delta Air Lines plans to keep trying to control costs, maintain liquidity and exploit the few opportunities it can find. As it reported a net loss of $326 million and an operating loss of $385 million for the third quarter--both substantially worse than last year's third quarter and this summer's expectations--the carrier said it will defer mainline aircraft deliveries until 2005, ground its MD-11s, cut back further on capacity and lay off more employees.
First the Air Force promised its Predator UAV pilots real airplanes to fly. Now senior service officials are letting them credit as flight time the hours they spend remotely piloting the unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Both of these issues have been sore points since the UAV units were formed several years ago. There are now three squadrons at the Indian Springs auxiliary field north of Las Vegas, the force is expanding rapidly and the high-performance Predator-B will be introduced soon.
Recent upgrades to the U-2 could be a boon to United Nations' weapons inspectors, who hope to gain access to different reconnaissance assets and to be given sensitive satellite intelligence as they try to ferret out Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. For the anticipated reconnaissance activities, U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) ``must have its own intelligence assets,'' said Jonathan B. Tucker, a biological weapons inspector for the former inspection regime, the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM).
The Russian Ministry of Transport, in an effort to improve air safety, has banned Ilyushin Il-18 turboprop transport aircraft and Mil Mi-6 helicopter operations. According to aviation authorities, the move comes as a result of industry failure to correct technical malfunctions that investigators say caused two recent accidents. In November 2001, an IRS Aero Airline Il-18 crashed, killing 27 passengers and crew near Zakharyino, Russia, and in July, a Norilsk Airlines Mi-6 helicopter crashed on the Taymyr Peninsula, killing 21 people.
The Pentagon intercepted its target in the latest ground-based midcourse missile defense test. The target was launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., at 10 p.m. EDT on Oct. 14, followed by launch of the interceptor 22 min. later from a range in the Kwajalein Atoll. The exoatmospheric kill vehicle intercepted the mock warhead 6 min. later. This was the fifth intercept in seven attempts. The test for the first time involved an Aegis destroyer tracking the engagement with its powerful SPY-1 radar. The Pentagon plans another trial in 2-3 months.
William Overholt has been appointed to the Asia policy research chair at the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy of Rand, Santa Monica, Calif. He was a joint senior fellow at the Center for Business and Government and Asia Center at Harvard University.
Given the feeble condition of the U.S. airline industry--the sector is in the grip of a full-blown financial crisis that's without precedent--it may seem as though the prospect for recovery is remote. Rationally, however, that is not the case. The industry will recover, although it may look and operate very differently than now. Until then, investors who have a ravenous appetite for risk--large network carrier stocks are down by about 80% since the beginning of the year--have a decision to make.
General Electric is pursuing an initiative that, when ready for implementation early next year, should allow the company to cut its current 24-month schedule for launching, testing and certifying commercial powerplants to 18 months. GE says the drive to reduce cycle time by 25% will allow it to do more, with fewer resources, in shorter amounts of time. And, if properly executed, the plan should also increase product quality.
Federal Express plans to build a $300-million mid-Atlantic air cargo package sorting hub at Greensboro, N.C.-based Piedmont Triad International Airport, under terms of a 25-year lease signed last week. According to FedEx, the FAA estimates the hub will have a $7.5-billion economic impact on the region over a 16-year period. The hub is expected to create about 20,000 new jobs in the area and be operational sometime after 2006.
Military contractors, buoyed by rising defense spending, generally are meeting or exceeding Wall Street's third-quarter earnings expectations. Commercial aerospace suppliers, on the other hand, are reporting weak results that reflect depressed airline industry conditions. On the defense side of the business, the performance posted last week by L-3 Communications Corp. is likely to be one of the strongest year-over-year of any of the mid-size companies.
With an eye on bargain-seeking Asian tourists, Australian Airlines, Down Under's newest carrier, is set to begin operations Oct. 27 from Cairns, a Queensland jumping-off point for the recreational splendors of the Great Barrier Reef and a city that had been forsaken by the airline industry's establishment. ``Australian is a full-service international leisure airline, and Cairns is very much a leisure destination,'' CEO Denis Adams said.
One of the first signs of the US Airways/United Airlines' bonding surfaced last week with the carriers' introduction of interline e-ticketing. The arrangement allows passengers to use one e-ticket when an itinerary includes flights on both carriers. Rebooking flights on either carrier is now possible without first securing a paper ticket, as was previously required.
