Russian flag carrier Aeroflot achieved a net profit of $47 million in the first half of this year on sales of $663 million. The airline carried 2.5 million passengers during the period with load factor averaging 66.6%. Aeroflot officials expect profit for the year to reach $75-80 million. The carrier's financial welfare resulted from management efforts to improve efficiency, revise its route structure and cut unprofitable destinations.
Plans are afoot at Northrop Grumman for a new use for the Global Hawk flagship UAV. Equipped with a new less-than-1-ft.-resolution MP-RTIP radar, it is pitched as a homeland defense aircraft that would patrol 100 mi. off the coast looking for cruise missiles. Perhaps most intriguing, however, is that cueing could be provided by some sort of multispectral sensor that picks up ionic disturbances caused by the launch of such weapons, officials said.
Thales posted net earnings of 88 million euros ($86 million) for the first half, up from 14 million euros in the same period last year, on revenues of 5 billion euros (+15%). Operating earnings rose 8% to 297 million euros, paced by defense electronics activities. Predicting 10% growth in revenues and a 5-10% increase in operating earnings for the full year, the defense contractor said it will be well positioned to benefit from a planned boost in military spending in France, one of its key markets (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 28).
Mark M. Little, vice president of General Electric Power Systems' Energy Products, Schenectady, N.Y., has been named executive conference chairman for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Turbo Expo 2003: Power for Land, Sea & Air.
GPS developments are being aimed at improving the system's resistance to interference and jamming. The Defense Dept. joint program office decided this year to add the ability to increase transmitter power beyond specification limits in near-term satellites, and is funding jam-resistant receiver technologies. Production go-ahead for the next generation of spacecraft, Block IIF, may occur next month. And a massive reworking of the ground system that controls GPS is underway.
EADS MRO unit Sogerma will be forced to lay off 300 personnel as a result of soft airline demand and loss of military business, notably a French army C-130 maintenance contract. Last week, French defense procurement agency DGA awarded a 10-year 185-million euro ($180-million) award for on-condition maintenance of CFM 56-2 engines to Air France Industrie, in partnership with Snecma Services. It covers about 100 powerplants on C-135 tankers, AWACS aircraft and DC-8 transports.
John Charlesworth, director of product engineering for Atlanta-based World- span, has been elected to the board of directors of the OpenTravel Alliance.
Brian Peters has been appointed to succeed Robert Gillespie in February as president/chief operating officer of Bombardier Capital. Gillespie is expected to retire. Peters, who was chief financial officer, will be executive vice president in the interim.
Boeing 737 operators have been checking their aircraft for a faulty batch of hydraulic components that the FAA has ordered be immediately inspected to ensure safety of flight. Emergency airworthiness directive No. 2002-19-51 addresses the flight control modules (FCMs) in 737s, and was issued Sept. 13 after the FAA received several reports of sluggish flight controls due to failed FCMs. Fifteen were found to be defective, four in flight and the rest on the ground, an FAA official said. None caused accidents.
Jeff Forsbrey has been named director of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for U.K.-based FLS Aerospace. He was general manager of sales for Europe for Pratt & Whitney.
AdZone Research is one of the main companies monitoring the Internet, primarily to measure advertising statistics and other marketing information. But the company is trying a new area--trolling the net to track and monitor information targeted by security forces. It has formed a Global Defense Group and brought on advisers such as Jonathan R. White, an expert on Middle Eastern terrorism who has studied Al Qaeda, and signed an agreement with Raytheon to help display AdZone's wares to the government.
The European Space Agency is developing a satellite system architecture in cooperation with industry that could help meet the ambitious goals of its revamped science program while lowering the costs of telecom, Earth observation and other future spacecraft.
Mark A. Erwin has been appointed president/CEO of Guam-based Continental Micronesia and parent company Air Micronesia. He was senior vice president-airport services for Continental Airlines. Erwin succeeds Bill Meehan, who has become vice president-Cleveland hub for Continental.
ZIP Air Inc., Canada's newest low-fare airline, had received all required Canadian government approvals as of late last week in preparation for its Sept. 22 launch. The Calgary, Alberta-based carrier will inaugurate service with a fleet of six Boeing 737-200s and up to 15 daily nonstop flights between major cities in western Canada.
United Airlines, British Midland Airways and their Star Alliance partners have asked the U.S. Transportation Dept. to extend by six months, from Oct. 4 to Apr. 4, 2003, the expiration of their approval for immunity from U.S. antitrust laws (AW&ST Feb. 4, p. 42). Approval is conditioned on an open-skies agreement between the U.S. and the U.K., and the extension would keep the potential for antitrust immunity alive for more government talks. If the U.S.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has completed its Mobile Command Post (MCP) that will allow emergency teams to coordinate communications during emergencies. The MCP is about the size of a bus, and features real-time data collection, satellite communications, video conferencing, computer workstations and networking capabilities. The vehicle can accommodate 12 people, and provide life support for more than a week, according to airport officials.
Michael A. Grasso (see photo) has been promoted to vice president-business development for Lockheed Martin Aircraft and Logistics Centers, Greenville, S.C., from director of homeland security initiatives for Lockheed Martin Technology Services.
Air Force and Lockheed Martin officials think they have a fix for the F-22's tail-buffet problem. But that's apparently not what's really important to the service's leadership. Instead, Air Force Secretary James Roche and Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper announced with great fanfare the redesignation of the air-superiority fighter as the F/A-22. The idea is to highlight that the airplane can also drop two 1,000-lb. bombs. The brass believes the old designation handicapped its ability to make its case for the fighter during Pentagon budget deliberations.
USAF officials at Eglin AFB, Fla., have redirected a falling bomb to hit within 25 ft. of a moving ground target. Late last month a 1-ton, inert JDAM--modified by adding a data link--was launched by an F-16 flying at 20,000 ft. and 5.3 naut. mi. from the target, which was the second vehicle in a convoy of six moving at 18 mph. A surrogate fourth-generation JSF radar was triangulated with an E-8 Joint-STARS ground surveillance radar to track that vehicle. It was further refined with a NIMA terrain database. The updated location was relayed to the modified JDAM in flight.
This is the first in a series of editorials dealing with the most vexing problems facing aerospace and aviation--and the opportunities these problems present. It appears that Aviation Week & Space Technology's series of articles during the past three years on ``Aerospace in Crisis'' has helped trigger serious industry introspection. Some companies and a few leaders of the industry have launched initiatives to rectify deficiencies that are undermining aerospace and create an environment that will foster development of the aerospace workforce.
Robert T. Hinaman has been named a managing director in the Washington office of Quarterdeck Investment Partners. He was managing director for global mergers and acquisitions for the Chase Manhattan Bank in London and Frankfurt.
John Lawson, retired president of Bombardier Business Aircraft Sales, has been named to the board of directors of International Water-Guard Industries Inc., Burnaby, British Columbia.
Boeing Satellite Systems plans to offer an upgraded BSS 601 satellite next year, making newer technology from the larger BSS 702 spacecraft available in a medium-size satellite. The working name of the new version is 601+, and it is to include later-generation avionics and xenon-ion propulsion system (XIPS) thrusters from the 702, as well as triple-junction solar cells with a higher power-to-weight ratio. The 601+ would be able to provide 10 kw. to the payload versus 8.5 kw.
The United Nations is poised to repeat the mistakes of the 1990s by sending understaffed, poorly supported weapons inspections teams into Iraq, former U.N. arms inspectors say. To make matters worse, they say the ground rules that replaced theirs would hamper the work even more, with new restrictions on who may serve as inspectors and on intelligence sharing. David Kay, the U.N.'s former chief nuclear arms inspector, said the peak number of inspectors and support personnel in Iraq in the last decade was about 150, a similar number to those being assembled now.
Lockheed Martin and International Launch Services (ILS) are completing the Atlas V launch contract for a Greek-owned satellite. The satellite will represent the first commercial payload for the Atlas V to be booked following the evolved expendable launch vehicle's initial flight in late August. The Greek mission, set for launch at Cape Canaveral in early 2003, also will be a demonstration of how ILS is able to switch payloads quickly to its Russian Proton partner to facilitate customer launch schedules.
