Southwest Airlines plans to take delivery of four Boeing 737-700s and expand its route system to include service between Chicago and the West Coast. Beginning on Mar. 10, the carrier is to start two daily nonstop services between Midway Airport and Seattle with a flight to be added to Phoenix, according to Southwest. Service between Midway and Oakland, Calif., is set to begin on Apr. 7 with three daily round-trips. Southwest is scheduled to receive nine new 737s this year, bringing the total fleet to 362 airplanes.
The British Labour government was forced onto the defensive over airport capacity in the British Parliament last week. Senior government officials attempted to dismiss as ``speculation'' widespread daily media reports that its Aviation White Paper covered the potential creation of three new runways, including one at Heathrow. The government's aviation paper will be concluded later in 2002. A more immediate move to help to alleviate capacity issues was due on Jan. 27, with the Swanwick London Area Control Center going live.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. (ret.) Paul E. (Gene) Blackwell has been appointed vice president-Army C3 programs for Ray- theon Command, Control and Communications Systems, Marlborough, Mass. Blackwell's last Army position was deputy chief of staff for operations.
WHERENET CORP. AND THE IIT Research Institute (IITRI) are collaborating on a wireless tracking and identification system for increased airport security and have established a demonstration at IITRI's Lanham, Md., facility. Small active tags on objects or people radiate a 2.4-GHz. spread-spectrum signal that is detected by antennas and located from the time delay of arrival of the signal, or multilateration. The interval between tag transmissions can be set from fractions of a second to 5 min. At the latter rate, a tag battery lasts five years, according to the company.
France's civil defense authority has given a three-year contract extension to TAT Industries for maintenance of 28 aircraft, including Canadair CL-415 water bombers and Tracker firefighters.
Between the growing glut of parked aircraft, airlines' precarious finances and passenger traffic that remains extremely weak, it may take commercial aerospace up to five years to fully recover from the current U.S. recession and the punishing aftereffects of terrorist attacks last September. ``It's all a function of profits,'' said David Swierenga, chief economist of the Washington-based Air Transport Assn. ``If you're not earning money with the airplanes you've got, who wants more?''
Northrop Grumman is diving, technologically and financially, into the signals intelligence field with the idea of providing a new generation of collectors to capture radar signals and intercept communications from satellites and aircraft. The company is interested in unmanned, long-endurance UAVs such as Global Hawk. ``We're doing some advanced technology work, where we have some very attractive approaches to very wideband receivers,'' said Robert Iorizzo, president of Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems Sector.
While Boeing held its own financially in 2001 with a 13% increase in annual revenues, earnings during the critical fourth-quarter period dropped nearly 80% due largely to one-time charges related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. As difficult as the fourth quarter was for Boeing, the worst may be yet to come for its commercial aircraft unit.
The Navy has developed yet another unmanned aircraft plan. Under the latest version, the Navy will spend R&D funds on Global Hawk through 2004 and use the two vehicles to be delivered in Fiscal 2004-05 for experiments and to develop operations concepts. To be bought for its Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance requirement, the Navy Global Hawk would enter production in 2007. The Navy also has decided to support the development of a UCAV, an unmanned combat air vehicle, but only slowly.
Larry Stephenson (see photo) has been named global military program manager for Bearing Inspection Inc., Los Alamitos, Calif. He was global aeroderivative/industrial program manager.
Small to midsize companies looking for turnkey access to Internet procurement are being targeted by Commerce One, which makes e-procurement software, and Compaq Computer. The companies have teamed to provide the Procurement Express system, which has Commerce One software and Compaq servers and support. The system can hook into some of Commerce One's e-marketplace partners (www.commerceone.com), such as the SESAMi network in Asia and Deutsche Telekom's T-mart.
The Transportation Security Administration is receiving mixed reviews on Capitol Hill for its handling of the Jan. 18 air security overhaul deadline to begin ``screening'' all checked bags for explosives, and for its longer range planning.
The extension of Runway 6/27 at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport has been reduced to 1,000 from 2,000 ft. at the request of airlines, at least temporarily. The 2,000-ft. extension had been planned to enable operations of nonstop flights to Asia, a longtime goal. But ``the numbers don't add up for the airlines,'' according to an airport spokesman. The FAA recently approved the runway's extension as well as an all-new third north-south runway.
Initial U.S. airline financial reports on the fourth quarter of 2001 bring to mind an observation about last September's airline stabilization grant legislation by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). As the Senate was approving the $5-billion grant package little more than a week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, McCain criticized it as a ``one-size-fits-all bailout'' (AW&ST Sept. 24, 2001, p. 26). He was concerned that the bill provided for allocation of grants among airlines according to size, not need.
The British Defense Ministry this week will take the first steps in a process leading to a radical revamp of its air-to-surface weapons, along with eventually reducing the numbers of types of weapons in inventory.
Delta Air Transport (DAT), formerly Sabena Belgian World Airlines' regional affiliate, is soon expected to adopt a new corporate identity, in an indication that it seeks to reject links with past failures. Air Holding, a grouping of Belgian investors, agreed to inject 180 million euros ($162 million) in the revamped company. According to a newly approved business plan, profitability will be achieved by the end of 2003.
One wrinkle Air Force planners need to iron out before signing off on a tanker avionics design is deciding what other elements will be in the constellation. High on the list is Spaced-Based Infrared System (both high and low) and Spaced-Based Radar. SBIRS low is being reviewed to determine whether to stick with the current design or switch to one of two alternatives suggested by the National Reconnaissance Office. An Apr. 26 defense acquisition board meeting will be immediately followed by certification of the design to Congress.
Marshall O. Larsen, president/chief operating officer for aerospace of the Goodrich Corp., has been named chairman of the board of governorsfor 2002 of the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Assn. Vance D. Coffman, chairman/CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corp., was appointed vice chairman. Reelected association president/CEO was John W. Douglass, and George F. Copsey will remain secretary/treasurer. Also on the executive committee are: Daniel P. Burnham, chairman/CEO of the Raytheon Co.; Stephen L.
Varig Brazilian Airlines has formed Varig Engineering and Maintenance to perform MRO work. The new company will be based at Tom Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro. A Varig official said the facility will focus on heavy maintenance checks of transport aircraft, avionics work, airframe conversions, engine overhaul and painting.
Swantech has entered into a multi-year contract with Pratt&Whitney to provide its SWANview system for on-board evaluation on the USAF/NASA C-17 T1 aircraft. The system provides propulsion health management technologies to be flight tested under the C-17 Intelligent Vehicle System program funded by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and Pratt&Whitney.
Harding L. Lawrence, who retired in 1980 as chairman and CEO of Braniff International, died Jan. 16 at home in Mustique, St. Vincent, West Indies. He was 81. Lawrence brought the supersonic Concorde to the U.S., operating it between Washington Dulles and Dallas in the late 1970s, under a short-lived dry lease from British Airways. Braniff filed for bankruptcy in 1982.
MICRO-ELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS have reached the stage of development where Honeywell is offering to design and produce MEMS devices for other manufacturers. Honeywell's primary MEMS product has been precision accelerometers for aircraft navigation and missile guidance systems, but MEMS also serve as sensors for automobile air bags and for controlling ink jet printers. A growing application puts micromirror systems on a single chip as low-cost optical switches.
Driven by strong economic growth, Russian airlines last year recorded an estimated 14% jump in passenger traffic and a 10% increase in cargo haulage. The industry's performance, which followed a modest turnaround in 2000, was the first substantial improvement since the early 1990s. Russian carriers transported almost 25 million passengers and 603,000 metric tons of freight. Though detailed results will not be released until February, experts believe industry's financial figures also will demonstrate a substantial recovery.
Joseph Vreeman has become vice president/general manager for the BAE Systems commercial aircraft modification, maintenance and repair facility in Victorville, Calif. He was senior vice president-customer support for Fairchild Dornier in San Antonio.
