During the first weekend of the Winter Olympics, U.S. Air Force Reserve F-16 fighters intercepted three aircraft that had strayed into an expanded 45-mi. ``no-fly'' zone around the venue near Salt Lake City. North American Aerospace Defense (Norad) command officials said the intrusions and intercepts were ``low-key events, with no malicious intent.'' In two cases, private jets had not received proper FAA clearance to enter the special airspace. No details were available about the third incident, but it was considered benign.
Flight privileges will be restored by month's end for hundreds of general aviation pilots at three small Washington area airports under a measure endorsed last week by President Bush. The lofty approval process--a seemingly local issue requiring the nod of the commander-in-chief--signifies the concern at the highest government levels raised by the airports' nearness to what one FAA official called ``the constitutional assets of the U.S.''
Guy Johnson has been named executive vice president-sales and marketing and Larry Pesce vice president-product management and strategic planning for New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio. Johnson was senior vice president-sales and product management for the Americas and Pesce general manager of business development, both for Thomson Multimedia.
In an abrupt reversal of course, American Airlines and British Airways have given up their quest for transatlantic antitrust immunity and will try to develop their alliance further, however less profitably, without it. Bowing to a convergence of setbacks, the partners asked the U.S. Transportation Dept. Feb. 13 to dismiss their immunity application. Only eight days earlier, they had opposed--successfully--virtually the same motion from Continental, Delta and Northwest airlines, which fought the application every step of the way.
The battle by U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin to further cordon off its present share of the European fighter market moved closer to reality on Feb. 9 with the Netherlands decision to opt for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The determination was a body blow to Europe's indigenous fighter manufacturers, who had hoped to loosen Lockheed Martin's grip on its present European F-16 customers.
Arthur Lucas has been named senior vice president-engineering for Pratt&Whitney, East Hartford, Conn. He was senior vice president-research and engineering for Bell Helicopter. Lucas succeeds David E. Crow, who is retiring.
MITRE CORP. HAS ACQUIRED A LICENSE for its fourth Total Airspace&Airport Modeler (Taam), used for fast, gate-to-gate simulation, from Boeing subsidiary Preston Aviation Solutions in Melbourne, Australia. Taam is widely used by civil aviation authorities and research establishments, like Mitre, to analyze operations, redesign airspace, optimize the use of existing facilities and plan for the future.
America's leading aerospace and defense companies are back at it in their perennial lobbying campaign for easier and simpler controls on military exports. The CEOs of 39 companies, including Boeing and Raytheon, are pressing the White House to get behind their drive to speed up the ongoing review of the Munitions List, and impose strict export curbs only on technologies that are truly crucial to the preservation of national security.
The standoff between India and Pakistan continues to perturb U.S. intelligence officials, who fear the situation could explode into armed conflict that might escalate into the use of nuclear weapons.
SAAB WILL BE USING A SILICON GRAPHICS INC. Onyx 3400 graphics system to improve its presentation and maneuvering simulator for the JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft. The simulator in Linkoping, Sweden, is used in development work on the human-machine interface, with the goal of improving the flight experience of pilots during future upgrades. The Gripen is the first fourth-generation multirole fighter in service worldwide, according to Saab.
The war on terror and Pentagon-induced turmoil are once again creating a stir in the military's unmanned aircraft community. The Marine Corps now plans to send its Pioneer unmanned aircraft to the Afghan conflict, to complement the Air Force's Predator and Global Hawk UAVs and provide the first truly tactical system. Also, the Air Force wants to add the LR-100 electronic intelligence payload to all its Global Hawks to help find targets. The lone aircraft equipped with the subsystem crashed.
A 250,000-lb.-thrust hybrid propellant rocket motor, using both solid fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer, fires at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi during a mid-January test. The project is a joint effort between NASA and industry to develop safer solid propellant systems that remain inert until liquid oxygen is injected at the time of firing. Current solid rocket motors for both space launch and tactical and ballistic missiles must be handled carefully and protected against static electricity because the fuel and oxidizer are an inherent part of the propellant grain.
Researchers using the orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope have imaged a million-light-year-long gas jet erupting from the turbulence surrounding a supermassive black hole at the center of the quasar PKS 1127-145 (see image). At the same time, absorption of X-rays from the quasar by an intervening galaxy has allowed a separate research team to calculate the amount of oxygen in that distant galaxy when the Sun was being formed.
Like many single moms, Lanee Walsh held an office job. Then, in 1993 she was laid off from her marketing position. She had three children at home, no skill to fall back on and the need to get on a different track in terms of work and career.
EADS Co-CEO Philippe Camus has confirmed that talks are ongoing with Finmeccanica to establish a modified version of their planned aeronautical joint venture, Emac, encompassing only military aircraft activities. Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum in New York, Camus said an agreement on the new setup is still ``several weeks'' away. The initial plan, which also included Finmeccanica's civil aerostructures and cargo conversion work, was modified following the civil aviation crisis.
European defense officials are trying to convince their transport colleagues of the strategic importance of the Galileo satellite navigation system in an attempt to sway opinion before the latter meet again in March to vote development funds. Gen. Daniel Gavoty, who heads the space bureau of the French general staff, said senior brass from France, Italy, Spain and other countries have begun the arm-twisting campaign in belated recognition of the impact a negative vote might have on defense cooperation.
After five months of the war on terrorism, munition stocks are running low, aircraft are aging rapidly, and military aviation's safety record is deteriorating. ``Global tasking and the war against terrorism continue to stress our aviation force readiness,'' Navy Secretary Gordon R. England told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. ``As a result, the F/A-18 has been flown well in excess of planned utilization rates,'' he said. The same is true for SH-60 helicopters, F-14s and other aircraft.
Michael Girps has been named general manager of Jet Aviation Engineering Services, Spring Branch, Tex. He was group leader of systems engineering and acoustics development for Jet Aviation, Basel, Swit- zerland.
Finmeccanica/Alenia Aeronautica is joining Boeing's technology development program, setting the stage for the Mach 0.98 Sonic Cruiser. The Italian group last week signed an agreement involving research in structural materials. Alenia, Boeing's longtime European associate, produces airframe subassemblies for the 717, 757, 767 and 777 twinjets. Nevertheless, it recently signed on as a 4%-risk-sharing partner for Airbus' A380 mega-transport.
In the latest round of ``chicken,'' pitting a major airline against organized labor, unionized mechanics represented by the International Assn. of Machinists last week rejected a contract offer from United Airlines that would have boosted salaries by 37% over the next five years. (The mechanics have gone without a pay raise since 1994.)
MBDA has successfully fired the vertical-launch version of its Mica air-air missile, developed for naval air defense applications. The test firing was intended to validate the VL Mica's fully autonomous firing unit, designed to enable the missile to be installed in small combat vessels such as corvettes. The first units are to be delivered to a Middle Eastern client in 2004. A short-range, land-air defense version is being considered to protect high-security French targets from terrorist attacks.
Chastened by serious cost increases on several space programs, U.S. Air Force officials want to avoid a repeat performance as they develop a new space-based radar.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe picked a retired three-star Marine general who manages the safety, reliability and quality assurance contract at Johnson Space Center to be the Houston center's new director. Shannon Lucid, one of the nation's most experienced astronauts, will be the agency's new chief scientist.
John Lincoln, an influential expert in the field of aircraft structures, died Feb. 10 in Dayton, Ohio. He was 73. Lincoln was technical adviser for aircraft structural integrity for the Aeronautical Systems Center Engineering Directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. He also initiated and recommended structural research and development activities for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. As chief of the Structures Div., Lincoln directed major structural assessments of every aircraft in the Air Force inventory.
About halfway through its year-long deliberations, the U.S. Aerospace Commission plans to issue an interim report urging the government to restore what industry thought it already had gained--a financially healthy 10-year aviation system modernization program at the FAA, and export control reforms adopted in 2000.
