EADS' revenues in 2001 increased 23% to $26.7 billion in revenues, including $17.7 billion for 80% of Airbus' sales. The cross-border company secured orders valued at $52.2 billion and backlog raised to $159.4 billion. c
NASA is planning management retreats to kick around ideas about unifying goals for the civil space program. Agency science guru Ed Weiler said, ``You don't go places anymore just to put flags and footprints down.'' Fixing the International Space Station program is Job One for Administrator Sean O'Keefe, but he only has two years to do it (see p. 34). After that Weiler thinks NASA should look for evidence of extraterrestrial life. To make his point, he imagines two paragraphs devoted to the 21st century in a history of humankind written 100,000 years hence.
Sikorsky's No. 3 S-92 is scheduled to return to flight test status this month after receiving rotor and tail modifications that will bring it into line with planned production versions of the transport/utility helicopter. The Nos. 4 and 5 S-92 prototypes have been flying with redesigned tails that reflect production aircraft aerodynamics, but the structural configurations of these assemblies differ from those planned for serial production.
Speeding up clearance of low-risk people and devoting limited screening resources to higher risks are central to the Homeland Security office's strategy at U.S. borders and should be applied at airports as well, according to a senior Administration official. In a U.S.-Canada pilot program, volunteers who cross the border routinely have been pre-screened and issued a photo ID. When they want to cross the border, they are waved through after an automated verification of their ID.
Computer Sciences Corp. plans to establish a software-development facility as well as a remote operations support center in downtown Montreal. It will occupy 50,000 sq. ft. in the second phase of E-Commerce Place, which was designed to attract information technology companies. Nearly 500 new jobs will be created. The provincial government's Investissement Quebec has played a key role in greatly expanding the number of non-Canadian aerospace companies doing business in Quebec.
Tokyo's Narita airport saw its Japanese passenger traffic fall 10% last year, the worst slide since it opened in 1978. The airport handled 22.2 million passengers, including 16.4 million Japanese. Foreign passenger counts dropped 1%. The slide began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and hit peaks in October and November when more than 40% fewer people flew. International cargo shipments fell 14% to 1.6 million metric tons.
Orbital Sciences Corp. and the NASA space science program scored a significant Pegasus mission success here last week, while the Kennedy center itself was given a major new role for long-term modification and maintenance of space shuttle orbiters. Both the $85-million Pegasus mission and orbiter modification decisions were time-critical, coming after substantial delays.
North Korea has tested rocket engines believed to be associated with the Taepo-Dong 2 intercontinental missile, reports the South Korea Times citing local military officials. North Korea has said it would hold off flight testing the missile, but continued its engine and other component development, U.S. intelligence officials note.
Despite the huge boost the Bush Administration seeks with its defense budget, the Pentagon can document only small progress on its modernization themes of transformation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, space and missile defense. Absent in the $379.3-billion Fiscal 2003 budget request for defense that went to Congress last week--or $396.1 billion when Energy Dept. and other costs are added--are major initiatives such as funding for a new Air Force tanker that has attracted a lot of attention.
United Airlines Chairman and CEO Jack Creighton last week commended the cockpit crew of Flight 855 for taking ``quick action in forcefully and immediately'' thwarting a passenger's attempt to enter the cockpit.
Irwin Price (see photo) has been appointed chancellor of the Daytona Beach, Fla., campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He has been chief operating officer of the residential campus there and was an executive dean at George Washington University. Price succeeds Thomas J. Connolly, who has taken a sabbatical to be visiting international professor of aviation psychology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand.
New York's LaGuardia Airport stinks. So say local residents, who fear the fumes and noise of jet aircraft, along with toxins from nearby power plants and cars on heavily trafficked roadways, pose serious health threats. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is to launch a study this spring on the effects of noise and air pollution on people living within a 5-mi. radius of the airport. It's the first federal study performed in five years, according to U.S. Rep.
International Space Station operations were disrupted for several hours Feb. 4 when two of three navigation data streams from a computer in the Russian Zvezda service module failed to maintain navigation data flow to a guidance and control computer on the U.S. side of the station. The malfunction generated erroneous data that caused a loss of U.S. gyro attitude control. This put the ISS in free drift, which had the effect of rolling the solar arrays off the sun and mispointing communications antennas.
The Assn. of Flight Attendants' bid to represent the 19,000 flight attendants at Delta Air Lines failed by a large margin but the union has contested the election, alleging the airline illegally interfered. In the Feb. 1 count, the AFA received 5,520 of the 5,609 ballots cast, which represented only 29% of the total eligible voters. The percentage fell short of the 50%-plus vote required by the National Mediation Board to certify an election. The board is investigating the allegation.
Alan W. Crellin has been appointed executive vice president-operations, K. Nigel Adams vice president-inflight services, Kerry J. Carstairs vice president-customer service centers, John C. Honor vice president-human resources and development, Jennifer C. McGarey vice president/deputy general counsel/secretary and S. Michael Scheeringa vice president-resource planning, all at US Airways. Crellin was senior vice president-customer service, and Adams was a dining and cabin services manager.
Boeing plans to decide what new technology to incorporate in the Sonic Cruiser design by the end of 2003, and set the firm design configuration for the high-speed transport the following year. Any delay in Boeing's launch of the program due to the current airline slump--or even slips in the technology and final configuration decisions--will not necessarily result in postponement of the aircraft's availability date, now set for 2008, according to company officials.
Vietnam Airlines has selected Pratt&Whitney PW4084D engines to power four recently ordered Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, in a contract valued at up to $145 million. Thales Air Traffic Management will supply a taxi control system/cooperative area precision tracking system for Fraport, Frankfurt's airport operator. Messier-Bugatti will equip up to 75 Airbus A320-series twinjets with wheels and carbon brakes for Brazilian airline TAM.
FLS Aerospace's largest shareholder, Potagua, intends to sell its 40% stake in the MRO provider. FLS chairman Ib Christensen resigned following the Potagua announcement.
Randy A. Moore (see photo) has been named general manager of Kaman Aero- structures, Wichita, Kan., and the Kaman Aerospace Corp.'s PlasticFab Inc. operations, also in Wichita.
NASA's Aeronautics Blueprint describes a ``technology vision'' that would use technological and educational advances to reshape future architecture of the U.S. aerospace industry. The report calls for new levels of cooperation between NASA, the Defense Dept., Transportation Dept., FAA, industry and academia to transform the agency's vision into reality. It also warns that the steady erosion of U.S. leadership in aeronautics, which is being directly challenged by international competitors, must be reversed.
The British Defense Ministry this week will begin to flesh out plans to sustain its defense aerospace research and technology, which carries fundamental implications for both national level programs and future international collaboration.
What appears to be a 2% decrease in the FAA's budget proposal for Fiscal 2003 actually is a small increase, and aviation money in the overall Transportation Dept. budget will grow nearly 20%, counting Transportation Security Administration (TSA) funds, according to department officials. The Transportation Dept.'s $59.3-billion budget request for Fiscal 2003, sent to Congress Feb. 4, includes $14 billion for the FAA and $4.8 billion for the TSA. The FAA is operating this year with $14.2 billion and the TSA with $1.3 billion.
Howard G. (Jay) Jones (see photo) has been named vice president-strategic planning for BAE Systems' Information and Electronic Systems Integration Sector, Nashua, N.H. He was vice president-business development for the Lockheed Martin Tactical Systems Co.
Dennis Bellar, cofounder/senior vice president of Advanced Laser Systems Technology, Orlando, Fla., has received the University of Central Florida's Professional Achievement Award. He was cited for his company's achievements in designing and manufacturing laser range finders for use on advanced remotely piloted vehicles, in nuclear-powered submarines and on several space flights.
Many surviving Al Qaeda leaders and soldiers have gone to Lebanon where they are forging a partnership with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, says Binyamin ben Eliezer, Israel's Iraqi-born defense minister. In Washington last week, he said, ``How many, what's the depth of cooperation, what they are going to do together, it's too early to answer.
