U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has awarded a $626-million, four-year contract to Kwajalein Range Services for logistics support and integrated range engineering at the Kwajalein Atoll/Reagan Test Site. Kwajalein Range Services consists of Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin.
Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus has become secretary-general of the Brussels-based Assn. of European Airlines. He was corporate vice president-international relations for Lufthansa German Airlines. Schulte-Strathaus succeeds Karl-Heinz Neumeister, who has retired.
In an effort to become ``a performance-based, constituent-centric organization,'' the Transportation Security Administration plans to conduct ``customersatisfaction'' surveys this fall among airline travelers passing through security checkpoints at three not-yet-named airports. The TSA intends to ask about 3,750 passengers, chosen at random, to fill out postcard-sized surveys and mail them to the agency postage-paid. The surveys are to be distributed during two two-week periods, one in November and the other in December, at each of the three airports.
Airlines got some of what they are seeking--but not big-money relief from security taxes and costs--when the House aviation subcommittee marked up a relief bill Oct. 2. The panel supported limiting airline liability for third-party damages in a terrorist attack to $100 million, extending federal war-risk insurance through December 2003 at current costs, and broadening the insurance to cover passengers, crews and aircraft, not just third parties. The application period for federal loan guarantees, closed since June 28, would be reopened if the U.S.
Taiwan's recent lifting of a 50-year-old ban on direct investment in China's aviation industry could also be the catalyst in opening a direct air link between Taipei and Beijing. Taiwan's decision was welcomed by China, which in August opened local industry to foreigners and now views the Taiwanese as potential investors in its booming aviation industry. Under China's new policy, foreigners may acquire up to a 25% stake in a Chinese carrier and up to 49% in an airport or aviation-related facility.
Russian aircraft designer MiG is trying to hammer out a deal with engine manufacturer Saturn-Lyulka to supports its ambitions to instigate a flight test program on what was once its fifth-generation fighter prototype. The aircraft, dubbed the 1.44, has flown only twice, with the Russian defense ministry having eventually passed over the design in favor of a Sukhoi-led program. MiG, however, wants to continue to use the airframe as a technology demonstrator. Vladimir Barkovsky, first deputy general designer at MiG, said, ``The aircraft has had two flights.
The RAH-66 Comanche has completed first flight with its Helmet Integrated Display Sighting System, one of the milestones the managers set to ensure the program is moving along. Boeing and Sikorsky had to complete the flight this month but were able to do it early, on Sept. 24. The Pentagon is slated to review the program in the coming days to determine how it will proceed.
The U.S. Air Force has begun three months of testing electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems for the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor in the anechoic chamber at Edwards AFB, Calif. The aircraft used for the tests is the ninth preproduction V-22 built that was converted into a CV-22 by Bell Helicopter Textron. The Air Force plans to deploy the aircraft with its Special Operations Command, which specializes in day/night low-altitude force insertions.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) will take full control of Japan Aircraft Manufacturing Co.--Nihon Hikoki--by next April. Generally known as Nippi, the company began business in 1934 as a seaplane producer for the Japanese navy. Post-World War II, it performed overhaul work for the U.S. Navy and Marines and later became a subcontractor to KHI, Mitsubishi, Fuji and ShinMaywa.
U.S. regional airlines announced service on 127 new routes using jet aircraft during the first nine months of 2002, according to the Regional Air Service Initiative (RASI). The trade group, comprising the Regional Airline Assn. and some of the industry's suppliers, found in an analysis that: -- Although most major network airlines have increased the use of regional jet (RJ) service by affiliates to take traffic to and from their hubs during the past year, in place of larger aircraft, an increasing number of new routes were for non-hub, point-to-point services.
Iran has developed and successfully tested a helicopter-launched antiship missile as part of its ongoing aim of creating an indigenous guided-weapons industry. The missile, called the Fajr-e Darya, appears to be based on the obsolescent Italian Sea Killer antiship missile. However, while successful test firings of the missile have been carried out over the past two years, it is uncertain whether Iran intends to pursue series production.
There are usually several things going on simultaneously at meetings, and Obtree Technologies (www.obtree.com) is attempting to capture them with its Floodgate software. With the appropriate devices, it records speech, viewfoil slides, Powerpoint and other computer presentations, handwritten notes and writing on electronic whiteboards. These items are kept in synchrony so the meeting can be played back, and they are indexed and searchable.
Employees represented by the United Aerospace Workers at Boeing Helicopters' suburban Philadelphia plant voted 9-to-1 on Sept. 29 to ratify a new three-year contract, after going on strike from Sept. 14-21 (AW&ST Sept. 23, p. 37). The contract includes a $2,500 ratification bonus, but UAW employees now have to pay 5% of medical costs beyond the deductible, up from 0%.
A key, first-night maneuver for an attack on Iraq would involve aggressively pushing E-8 Joint-STARS ground-surveillance radar aircraft well into the western part of the country. During the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war, Joint-STARS orbits were kept inside Saudi Arabia. The tactic would allow the 200-250-mi.-range radar to better monitor dispersal of mobile Scud launchers and antiaircraft missiles. The two major Scud launch boxes for attacking Israel during the gulf war were located in far western Iraq.
USAF Gen. (ret.) J.B. Davis and Paul McManus have been nominated for the board of directors of Trans Global Services Inc., Hauppauge, N.Y. Davis was commander of Pacific Air Forces, U.S. Forces-Japan and the Fifth Air Force, before becoming head of safety for the then-ValuJet Airlines. McManus is chairman/CEO of the Washington-based Spectrum Group and former chief of USAF's House Liaison Office.
Cleaning out its regulatory attic, the Transportation Dept. tosses out 10 rule proposals, mostly because time has made them unnecessary. Two of the dust-covered examples dating from 1979 and 1980 were issued by the old Civil Aeronautics Board.
Landing accidents have been the cause of many losses of Predator unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Even experienced controllers have misjudged the distance to the runway because of the EO/IR sensor's under-the-nose position and narrow field of view. General Atomics, Predator's builder, might have a solution. They've landed a smaller IGNAT unmanned aircraft using an automatic landing system. Its differential GPS navigation system provides an extremely accurate cross-reference of the aircraft's position in space and in relation to the ground.
Boeing Satellite Systems overcame a faulty fuel valve in NASA's TDRS-I satellite, and brought it into geosynchronous orbit last week with an expected full 15-year lifetime. The valve prevented one of the two fuel tanks from being directly pressurized with helium, and could have stopped the BSS 601 model satellite from reaching geosynchronous orbit. But engineers were able to devise a plumbing workaround and have spent the last three months carefully raising it up to the proper orbit. The normal time to raise the orbit from geotransfer to geosynchronous is 10 days.
NASA will examine shifting shuttle management to a corporate ``space authority,'' similar to a ground-based regional mass transit authority, as part of assessments on how to restructure the shuttle program for an additional 20 years of operation. The concept would be structured to incur debt and ``float bonds'' to maintain, operate and modernize the shuttle system for the second half of its service life.
Exostar, the big e-marketplace backed by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Raytheon and Rolls-Royce, passed its 1,000th auction milestone Sept. 30. The company put a $1-billion value on the commodities and services offered since the auctions began 18 months ago. Exostar said the 12,000 aerospace and defense companies that use the site have averaged an 18% savings from prior purchase amounts.
G. Scott Hubbard has been promoted to director of the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., from deputy director for research. He succeeds Henry (Harry) McDonald, who has been named distinguished professor of computational engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
After years of steadily improving safety performance, the Pentagon suffered a setback in the last fiscal year in which far more aircraft have crashed and more troops have died than has been the recent norm. The Army witnessed the most negative trends, with the number of accidents in Fiscal 2002, which ended Sept. 30, almost three times the 2001 level. The service's accident rate also soared, reaching 2.56 serious, or Class A, incidents per 100,000 flight hours, up from 1.02 the year before. The accident rates don't count aircraft shot down in combat.
Virgin Atlantic Airways will install 8 X 8-in. Rockwell Collins DU-7001 active matrix liquid crystal displays in the 12 Boeing 747-400ERs that it has ordered. First delivery is slated for early 2003.
