Bombardier Aerospace, under a five-year contract completed last week with Northwest Airlines, will provide heavy maintenance for CRJ200 and CRJ440 regional jets operated by Northwest Airlink carriers. The agreement covers C checks, which are performed every 4,000 flight hours, as well as structural inspections that are completed every two years. The maintenance will be performed at Bombardier's West Virginia Air Center at Bridgeport. The Northwest fleet of CRJ200/440s is expected to increase to 129 aircraft in the initial contract period.
The Transportation Dept. last week granted antitrust immunity to an alliance between United Airlines and British Midland Airways, subject to the U.S. and the U.K. coming to an open skies agreement within six months. The order also granted a request by American Airlines and British Airways to dismiss their previously filed application for antitrust immunity.
A narrow-width scissors lift for maintenance and warehousing, this lift features a 26-ft. platform height and extended-duty batteries. Model 2632E2 is 32 in. wide; with a stowed height of 72 in., the machine can pass through standard doors and be maneuvered in narrow-aisle applications. Power is provided by four 6-volt deep-cycle batteries, each with 245 amp-hour storage capacity, which means that operators can use the lift for multiple shifts between changes. It can be driven at full height at speeds up to 0.5 mph. The platform includes a 3-ft.
Frontier Airlines has grounded the crew of a Boeing 737 that strayed right off course while departing from Reagan Washington National Airport Runway 01 on Apr. 1, busting restricted airspace zones near the White House, then over the Vice President's residence as they turned back on course. Departures normally require a sharp left turn after takeoff to avoid the security-sensitive areas, although the FAA, for safety reasons, gives pilots the final say on the flight path taken. No word yet as to why the pilots missed the turn.
Rockwell Collins and the U.S. Air Force have demonstrated the ability to send e-mail messages via high-frequency (HF) radio from aircraft. HF radio is the traditional long-range communications system and is more widely deployed than satellite transceivers, but is subject to the whims of ionospheric conditions. A Boeing KC-135 was equipped with Rockwell Collins' HF Messenger kit, which allows a personal computer or other data device to send text and other types of files, including images, at up to 9,600 bit/sec. rates.
Struggling France Telecom is studying the disposal of its 23.1% stake in Eutelsat to help pay off debt and focus on core telecom activities. The move is motivated by a desire to avoid becoming a ``sleeping partner'' in Eutelsat as other telecom operators unload their stakes, a France Telecom executive said. Telecom Italia late last year spun off its Eutelsat holdings into a joint venture held 70% by Lehman Brothers (AW&ST Mar. 4, p. 18).
The European Space Agency has concluded an agreement with Astrium and 10 other companies to plan and promote the use of the International Space Station among commercial users. The agreement, which could involve up to 30% of European ISS resources, covers material sciences, technology, telecommunications, Earth observation, advertising and entertainment. Signatories include Intospace, which last year concluded a separate accord to market and sell commercial services on ESA's behalf (AW&ST June 11, 2001, p. 51).
THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY IS LOOKING at commercial-off-the-shelf supercomputers, based on a Power-PC based embedded cluster, that could be used for space-borne remote exploration and experimentation. COTS supercomputers offer 10-100 times the computing power of today's radiation-hardened computers, and can generally withstand the total ionizing dose during a 5-10-year mission, according to the lab.
Interest is growing in an open seat for sale on the Soyuz taxi flight to the International Space Station this fall, with would-be travelers lining up at Moscow's Institute for Biomedical Problems for a 14-day battery of tests designed to clear them for spaceflight. Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator and National Space Society head who is raising sponsorship funds, has gotten a tentative go-ahead despite a problem with gallstones. She's agreed to have her gall bladder removed.
Fairchild Dornier is believed to be considering filing this week for Chapter 11-like bankruptcy protection from creditors. The troubled German manufacturer has failed so far to find an additional investor to provide urgently needed funding. Its monthly cash drain reportedly totals $50 million, and company debt is about $800 million. Negotiations with potential partners, including Boeing, have not been fruitful, but a group of German aerospace companies is now considering submitting a joint proposal to participate in a rescue plan.
Britain's privatized defense labs, now known as Qinetiq, is looking to move into the U.S. market by setting up a subsidiary in Arlington, Va., under the banner of Qinetiq Inc. A number of partnering agreements are under discussion with U.S. defense companies. The U.K. integrated about 75% of what was then called the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency into the private sector to Qinetiq. The remainder, renamed the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, is retained by the state.
NASA has chosen two companies for $5-million studies of how they might use commercially available remote-sensing data to continue the observations provided by the Landsat satellites during the past 30 years. Resource21 of Englewood, Colo., and DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colo., will have nine months to refine their proposals, including business plans detailing how they would sell their data to other customers to help defray the cost to the government.
India's unmanned aerial vehicle, Lakshya, has been flown with a new engine developed by the country's Defense Research and Development Organization. The aircraft, which has a range of 310 mi., entered service with the air force in 2000 but was not seen by the public until January during a parade in Delhi. The UAV is to be operated as a target drone for fighter pilots, gun and missile crews.
Detection by the Odyssey spacecraft's Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) instrument suite of what could be substantial amounts of water ice just under the surface of Mars should help determine the planet's water cycle, according to project scientists. William Boynton, principal investigator for the GRS instruments at the University of Arizona, said the GRS team is trying to quantify the amount of ice detected in the planet's southern hemisphere.
A full-scale mockup of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was on display at the Indian DefExpo 2002. The 5,500-lb. missile is being developed by Brahmaputra and Moscow Rivers. Range for the Mach 2.8 missile is given as 157 naut. mi. BrahMos is a modified derivative of the Russian NPO Mashinostroenia Onix ramjet-powered antiship missile. The developers say the missile can be launched from a submarine, surface ship, heavy vehicle or aircraft.
Thomas J. Kelly, who led Grumman's development of the NASA Apollo lunar module (LM) in the race for the Moon, died Mar. 23 of pulmonary fibrosis at home in Cutchogue, N.Y. He was 72.
The accident rate of U.S. scheduled carriers in 2001 was down compared with 2000, although the year's 531 fatalities were the highest since 1977, when 579 people were killed in the on-ground collision of KLM and Pan Am Boeing 747s at Tenerife, Canary Islands. According to the National Transportation Safety Board's 2001 Aviation Accident Statistics released last week, scheduled U.S. air carriers operating under FAR Part 121 had 36 accidents in 2001, resulting in an accident rate of 0.317 per 100,000 departures.
The blowdown method of limiting rudder travel is more naturally in tune with structural loads than a variable stop, because blowdown in effect senses loads and restricts motions accordingly. Blowdown refers to rudder airloads being stronger than the actuator force, preventing full deflection at high speeds while allowing it at low speeds. Notably, blowdown is sensitive to sideslip angle, and the variable stop is not.
Alcatel Space has landed a French government contract to design ground segment architecture for observation satellite systems used by the country's military. The segment will cover France's Helios optical imaging system as well as the planned network of Franco-Italian radar and optical sensors, Cosmo-Skymed/Pleiades, and Germany's SARLupe radar surveillance satellites. Alcatel won a pair of Helios upgrade contracts earlier this year (AW&ST Feb. 18, p. 58).
New Jersey-based Heimann Systems has received a $7-million order from the FAA to deliver threat image projection-equipped X-ray systems for carry-on baggage screening.
With an eye on Earth's oceans, ice and clouds, NASA is ready to begin the second of three satellite missions it has planned to lead a 15-year effort to build a more comprehensive database for studying global environmental change.
The first production Tiger attack helicopter of the type intended for the German and French armies has been rolled out by Eurocopter. The unit presented on Mar. 22 is the UHT combat support version ordered by the German army. The multirole UHT can be equipped with Trigat or HOT antitank missiles, Stinger air-air missiles, rockets and a gun pod. The MTR 390-powered rotorcraft features mast- and nose-mounted Flir sensors and low IR/radar signature and noise levels.
Whatever happened to the explosive growth predicted a decade ago for satellite remote sensing? Even bearish analysts thought the commercial market for imagery and data would reach $2 billion per year by now. The bulls said, heck no, make it $20 billion! A new Rand study, commissioned by the Commerce Dept., says the worldwide appetite for satellite remote sensing products might crawl as high as $420 million in 2005. What went wrong? A decade ago, nearly every kind of risk--technical, market, international and policy--was underestimated, according to the think tank.
UAL Corp.'s recent decision to fold its Avolar subsidiary should not be interpreted as a sign that the fractional aircraft-ownership market is waning, according to business aviation officials and various industry observers. Rather, Avolar's failure before it even took delivery of its first aircraft is more of a commentary on the extraordinary challenge of raising large sums of capital to fund a startup--and, quite possibly, a gross miscalculation by UAL on just how much money would have been required to make the operation viable.
