Aviation Week's Aerospace 25 Index last week posted one of its strongest gains in months--advancing nearly 4% for the week ending Jan. 30. And one of the best-performing component stocks was Raytheon Co.
Japan Airlines and Japan Air System will inaugurate a holding company, Japan Airline System, on Oct. 2 that combines their names as a step in their merger, but the new entity will preserve the better-known identity of Japan Airlines and the family JAL acronym for domestic and international branding purposes. The Japan Air System holding company will start operations with initial capital of 100 billion yen ($763 million) and just 100 employees.
Aviation Week&Space Technology has selected the following Laurels Legends for 2001. The Legends are previous Laurels winners or individuals picked for contributions to global aerospace over a period of years. The descriptions for the previous Laurels winners are excerpted from their citations in the magazine. The Legends also will be recognized at the Apr. 16 dinner. Welch Pogue
NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) ended almost a decade in orbit Jan. 30, when it reentered the atmosphere over Egypt and apparently burned up. Launched on July 7, 1992, the 7,000-lb. spacecraft examined more than 1,000 objects for the first time in extreme UV wavelengths before its instruments were shut down in December 2000. The reentry was uncontrolled, but there were no early reports of surviving debris striking the surface.
The Federal Communications Commission is slated to meet on Feb. 14, and odds are they will deal with the controversy of compatibility between ultra-wide band (UWB) communication devices and GPS receivers.
Capt. Kunietsu Sakuraba, a former managing director of Japan Airlines, chairman of Japan Aircraft Pilot Assn. and one of Japan's best known pilots, died Jan. 25 of cancer. He was 71. Sakuraba graduated from Japan's National Flight Academy and joined JAL in 1954. Before entering management, his flying career was mainly in DC-8s on international routes.
Stephanie W. Bergeron has been named senior vice president-corporate financial operations of the Goodyear Tire&Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio. She was vice president/treasurer.
Crossair hopes to promote its plans to establish itself as a long-haul carrier by choosing a new corporate identity. The airline has introduced the new global brand ``Swiss.'' The company's legal name will be changed to ``Swiss Air Lines'' later this year. Swiss Air Lines is a former name of Swissair, which went bankrupt in October 2001. Swiss plans to have finished all repainting work of its fleet by the end of 2003. It will have integrated 26 long-haul and 26 short-haul aircraft formerly operated by Swissair in April and continue to operate the current Crossair fleet.
The Air Line Pilots Assn. says US Airways has not backed pilots who questioned ``illogical security screening practices'' at Philadelphia International Airport. Since Sept. 11, two US Airways captains had been arrested by Philadelphia police, one for questioning a screening procedure and another for making ``statements about the incongruities in the security practices at airports,'' according to ALPA. US Airways fired the first pilot and suspended the second.
Japan's National Aerospace Laboratory has sent two unmanned, rocket-powered test vehicles of a supersonic transport to Australia's Woomera flight test range. Built for the NAL by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the vehicles are 11.5 meters (38 ft.) long and represent an 11% scale model of a supersonic aircraft that could carry 300 passengers. The test articles are to be reassembled at Woomera this month, with a flight-readiness test expected in May. Power comes from a NAL 735 rocket booster motor.
No survivors were found in the debris of a TAME Airlines Boeing 727-100 that crashed into the slopes of a Colombian volcano in heavy clouds while preparing to land in nearby Tulcan, Ecuador, on Jan. 28.
Add Delta Air Lines, America West and AirTran to the list of U.S. airlines that think they are making headway bailing out their financial boats. The three carriers reported varying fourth-quarter and full-year 2001 results and vastly different business conditions last week, but each said it expects to improve its position in 2002.
A new U.S. Navy missile to arm the MH-60 multipurpose helicopter is drawing strong industry interest as one of the few new weapons projects on the horizon.
The World Trade Organization ruled Jan. 28 that the Canadian government violated trade rules when it offered a $1.1-billion loan through Bombardier for the sale of regional jets to Air Wisconsin.
NASA's Odyssey spacecraft has reached its final mapping orbit at Mars and is scheduled to be fully configured to begin its science mission by Feb. 20, according to project officials at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The spacecraft completed aerobraking Jan. 11, during which its initial elliptical orbit around the planet was reduced by making 332 passes through the upper fringes of the Martian atmosphere. As a result, the spacecraft's propellant requirement was decreased by 440 lb.
Goodrich Corp. and Honeywell International have posted losses for the fourth quarter of 2001, with part of those results reflecting a sharp downturn in the commercial aircraft market. Although Goodrich's performance was better than some Wall Street analysts expected, the company still lost $54 million, or 53 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $73.1 million, or 72 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Frontier Systems logged the ``first flight'' of their unusual A160 Hummingbird unmanned helicopter that is built to fly much longer and farther than conventional rotorcraft. The aircraft took off from an airfield in Victorville, Calif.--the former George AFB--around 12:45 p.m. PST Jan. 29 and flew for about 20 min., performing several maneuvers and operating both autonomously and under manual control, said Darpa program manager Arthur Morrish.
All Nippon Airways plans to equip the business-class cabin of Boeing 747s with fully reclining sleeper seats on routes to Europe and the U.S. The installation, which includes a wheelchair-accessible lavatory, will require a 30% reduction in business-class capacity and cost about $76 million. ANA also plans to install cameras that allow the pilots to monitor activity in the passenger cabin. If successful, plans call for installing cameras in the entire fleet. In July 1999, a mentally unstable passenger broke into the cockpit and killed an ANA captain.
China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is completing final preparations at the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi Desert for the third unmanned flight test of the Shenzhou manned spacecraft design atop a Long March 2F booster. Chinese government-controlled news outlets are reporting how engineers and technicians at Jiuquan and the modern new Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center are working overtime to get the flight aloft.
Of the many proposals submitted to the U.S. Defense Dept. for combating terrorism, one of the more novel is a Homeland Defense Interceptor (HDI) version of the Javelin, a small fighter-type aircraft being developed by Aviation Technology Group (ATG) Inc. The Englewood, Colo., company proposed HDI as a high-speed ``airborne patrol car'' capable of destroying terrorist-controlled aircraft. It could be armed with short-range, wing-tip-mounted versions of the AIM-9 Sidewinder or an air-to-air variant of the Stinger missile.
THE U.K.'S ROYAL AIR FORCE IS SCHEDULED TO RECEIVE a Rockwell Collins system in June that will allow long-range early-warning data to be shared among air defense and command and control units. Weapons systems will have a better air picture and be able to keep it without having to compromise their positions by turning on local radars. The data are fed into the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) Link 16 network and distributed to command posts, which then supply the data to weapon systems in their air defense zones. Rockwell Collins U.K.
O'Keefe is mixing experience with fresh blood as he starts building his staff. Jeff Bingham, once chief of staff to former Sen. Jake Garn of Utah and longtime space station ``coordinator'' in NASA's legislative affairs shop, will now head it. Glenn Mahone, who high school band pal Bill Clinton appointed press secretary to Goldin, will be the chief of public affairs. Both men continue in positions they have held on an acting basis. O'Keefe turns fellow New Orleanian Paul Pastorek into a new space cadet by naming him NASA's general counsel.
Khalifa Airways is scheduled to inaugurate a weekly cargo service between its home base and Vatry Airport, a cargo-only facility northeast of Paris. An Airbus A300B freighter will be operated on the route. Khalifa's initiative is projected to significantly revitalize Vatry's business plan. Airport officials are convinced that the facility will attract a growing number of operators because of low landing charges and unlimited nighttime flight operations.
New projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggest the Administration's missile defense plan might cost upwards of $150-240 billion in the next quarter century, but they are decidedly iffy numbers. The CBO had to wade through a host of variables arising from President Bush's shift to a broad R&D program from his predecessor's blueprint for a limited land-based, midcourse intercept system. The current missile defense budget is $7.8 billion, but the Pentagon recently canceled the Navy Area Wide program, adding to the cost uncertainties.
The State Dept. and Pentagon have found a formula to allow exports of Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance drone. There was concern that the Missile Technology Control Regime effectively barred the U.S. from proliferating the technology. But State and Defense Dept. officials agree the U.S. could share systems like Global Hawk on a case-by-case basis with other NATO members, Japan and Australia. The Aussies are especially interested. Also watch for interest from Germany, where the UAV is expected to make an appearance later this year.
