Criteria for judging airline applications for a government loan guarantee are reasonably straightforward, if complicated--Is the airline likely to be able to repay the loan? What concessions has it gotten from employees, suppliers and creditors? Is it offering equity?--but when you're seeking a whopping $1.8-billion guarantee like United Airlines is, a little political support never hurt. Rep.
Alcoa has agreed to acquire Fairchild Fasteners from Fairchild Corp. for $657 million in cash. The company manufactures fasteners used in commercial and military aircraft. The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of this year.
Gleason Corp. and Kyoto, Japan-based Kashifuji Works Ltd. plan to develop, sell and service hob sharpening equipment worldwide. The agreement gives Gleason the exclusive rights to the sales and service of Kashifuji hob sharpening machines throughout much of the world, and on a non-exclusive basis in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. The agreement is an extension of an alliance that began in 2000 with the joint development and marketing of cylindrical gear production machines in Asia. Gleason Corp., 1000 University Ave., Rochester, N.Y. 14692.
On the 10th anniversary of the first regional jet's appearance at Farnborough, regional aircraft manufacturers plan to highlight their 70-seat product lines--Canada's Bombardier Aerospace's CRJ700 twinjet and Q400 twin turboprop will be on display, as will Brazilian competitor Embraer's 170 twinjet. When Bombardier Aerospace brought the first customer regional jet to Farnborough in 1992--the 50-seat CRJ100 in Lufthansa CityLine livery--a highly pessimistic industry predicted gloom, doom and a requirement for only 400 aircraft within the decade.
The incremental rotary encoder MOD 700 Series is a miniaturized encoder suited for integration into motors or other tight package constraint applications. Comprised of an OAD and OptoASIC configured into a small caliper, the MOD 700 is 17.7 mm. X 9.6 mm. X 8.89 mm. and features resolutions as high as 2,540 PPR. It can be surface mounted onto PCBs. BEI Duncan Electronics, 15771 Red Hill Ave., Tustin, Calif. 92780.
DOUGLAS BARRIEMICHAEL A. TAVERNAANDY NATIVI ( LONDON PARIS GENOA)
European defense officials and industry leaders are attempting to devise a strategy to stem a decade-long slide in research and development spending and to find ways to use available funds more effectively. European investment in military research and development is, according to senior European industrialists, barely a quarter that of the U.S.
The next generation of airpower includes development of small aircraft that will be launched from other unmanned air vehicles or cruise missiles. One entry in this new class of small UAVs is Raytheon's SilentEyes. In its prototype configuration, it is 18-in. long and less than 2.75 in. in diameter, making it the right size for dispensing from the ALE-50 decoy dispensers, for example. It's big enough to carry a gimbaled, infrared or color CCD camera that compresses the picture so it can be passed via a 1-watt UHF transmitter for line-of-sight distances up to 100 naut.
George Cooper has been appointed vice president-aircraft communications for Geneva-based SITA. He succeeds Elizabeth Young, who has retired. Cooper was CEO of TomorrowFirst and had been director of U.K., African and European business for British Airways.
Marc Schonckert has been appointed director of public relations for Luxembourg-based Cargolux Airlines International. He was manager of corporate communications at Arbed.
Keith H. Smith has become senior manager for international trade and tax policy in the Washington office of the United Technologies Corp. He was director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs of the U.S. International Trade Administration.
The controller on duty at the time of the July 1 midair collision over southern Germany has acknowledged partial blame for the crash, as German investigators continue to examine flight and cockpit voice recorder data to establish the sequence of events. The controller told Swiss media that at the time of the crash he was ``part of a network of people, computers, monitoring and transmission equipment as well as regulations.
Gulfstream Aerospace recently rolled out the first production Gulfstream V-SP from its Savannah, Ga., facilities. The airplane, serial No. 5001, was painted in a special scheme reflecting Gulfstream's participation as a sponsor for the First Flight Centennial celebration planned for December. The GV-SP is a derivation of the Gulfstream V long-range business jet, with a range of 6,750 naut. mi., a cruising speed of Mach 0.80 and a maximum operating altitude of 51,000 ft. It is fitted with the Gulfstream Enhanced Vision System as standard equipment.
SFK Aerospace was created by the combining of five businesses: Sarma, Saint-Vallier, France; Ampep, Avon, England; MRC Bearings, Jamestown, N.Y.; SKF Avio, Villa Perosa, Italy; and Chicago Rawhide Americas, Elgin, Ill. As a whole, the group does business with General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, Snecma, Boeing, Airbus and others. The new company has more than 2,000 employees, and eight industrial sites and seven repair stations worldwide.
The erratic flight path in bad weather conditions of a Swiss International Air Lines' Saab 2000 twin turboprop, which ended in a crash landing at a former military air base, is raising questions about the newly formed carrier's operating procedures. None of the 20 crewmembers and passengers were injured, but the aircraft suffered severe damage. The BFU German accident investigation office has formed a team to determine the causes of the July 10 mishap. The Saab 2000, operating the Basel-Hamburg route as Flight 850, departed at 5:55 p.m.
Howard Kress has been named vice president-consumer e-commerce for Atlanta-based Worldspan's Worldwide Travel Distribution Group. He was vice president-sales of Atinera Americas.
The spat between BAE Systems and the British Defense Ministry over procurement strategy continued last week with each side adding to the debate. Defense ministers criticized the BAE position as ``shortsighted,'' while BAE maintained the procurement system is flawed, and places too much of development risk costs on industry. BAE CEO Mike Turner raised concern over the ministry's adherence to competition-driven procurement, with Prime Ministry Tony Blair at a meeting in June.
The company's Nichols Airborne Div. is offering a factory overhaul program for fuel pumps. As an original equipment manufacturer, the company says it overhauls the fuel pumps using the same tooling, test equipment and procedures as on new-production fuel pumps. The ``wet'' motor, installed new in all factory overhauled pumps, maintains explosion-proof design integrity and features an advanced magnetic system for long service life. A six-month warranty for overhauls and one-year warranty for factory rebuilts are offered.
John Rattray has been appointed director of sales and marketing for the Wicat Systems Div. of Faros, Lindon, Utah. He held the same position at CAE Inc.
Harris Corp. has won the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) contract to modernize, operate and manage the system used for communications between air traffic controllers and pilots, as well as for weather data. The Harris-led team will replace the FAA-owned multiplexing and switching networks and telecommunications services currently leased from multiple providers. FTI is to provide a highly secure, reliable network linking more than 5,000 sites.
Peter Himmelberger and Claude M. DeBruhl have been appointed senior vice presidents for technology and human resources, respectively, for DynCorp Systems and Solutions, Reston, Va.
As corporate misdeeds have mounted in the U.S. in recent months, all of the major aerospace/defense players have been able to remain above the fray. Until recently, that is. The watchdog Center for Financial Research and Analysis has accused L-3 Communications Corp. of questionable accounting practices in a wide range of areas, many of them relating to the treatment of mergers and acquisitions. Some leading stock analysts who have followed the company since its inception in 1997 and examined CFRA's charges dispute them.
The Taiwan Aviation Safety Council said it is willing to consider establishing a mechanism to represent families of victims of the 206 passengers and 19 crewmembers killed in the May 25 crash of China Airlines Flight 611, but the carrier denies media reports that it is being pressured to do so. Spokeswoman Tracy Jen acknowledged that victims' families have sought such a representative, but she insisted that the TASC has turned them down.
To increase the survivability of strike packages against increasingly capable surface-to-air missile batteries, Raytheon engineers want to take lessons learned from air-to-air combat and apply them to the lightning-paced contest of destroying air defenses. ``The air-to-air model is perfect,'' said Raytheon's Russell Haas, because it's an area where the U.S. military has successfully tied together standoff sensors, fighters, and weapons to attack before an enemy can.
New Zealand's Airline Pilots Assn. has called off a two-day strike that threatened to ground Air New Zealand last week and agreed to collective bargaining with the carrier's management. The two sides are at odds over how pilots will be used to staff flights of Air New Zealand's subsidiary carriers such as Freedom Air, and reduced status that senior pilots would suffer as a result. Meanwhile, Australia's securities commission has dropped an investigation of the carrier launched earlier this year over its handling of the collapse of its former subsidiary, Ansett.
