Jean-Paul Bechat, chairman/CEO of Snecma, has been elected president of the AECMA European aerospace industries association. He succeeds Rainer Hertrich.
TRW Aeronautical Systems has been awarded contracts worth $350 million to supply hydromechanical flaps, airbrake systems and electrical power generation and management for 400 Falcon 7X business jets.
For safety's sake, flight physiology training is being pushed in the general aviation sector, which will soon replace the military as the primary source for airline pilots. ``Such training makes a pilot better prepared to deal with potentially fatal inflight events,'' said Rogers W. Shaw, manager of the Airman Education Program for the FAA's Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI). ``The pilot learns how to recognize and recover from situations that place him in harm's way.''
XM Satellite Radio has launched its S-band pay-radio service nationwide, six weeks after rolling out the service in San Diego and Dallas/Fort Worth (AW&ST Oct. 1, p. 45). The satellite-delivered programming became available across the southern half of the U.S. in mid-October, with the northern half getting service this month. Meanwhile, XM competitor Sirius Satellite Radio plans to launch service in Denver, Phoenix and Houston on Feb. 14, 2002.
A Bell UH-1 equipped with a Pratt&Whitney Canada PT6C-67D turboshaft engine flew for the first time on Nov. 19 at Global Helicopter Technologies in Arlington, Tex. The new engine is part of an upgrade program by Pratt&Whitney aimed at commercial operators of the UH-1 worldwide. Company officials expect to obtain approval for the modification from Transport Canada in the second quarter of 2002, followed by FAA certification. Engines and kits for field installations are scheduled to be available in the second quarter of 2002.
France has announced it will reinforce its contribution to Europe's rapid reaction force to take into account lessons learned from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Afghan war. The additional contributions will cover C4IR, deep strike, planning and other capabilities, for which the French government recently agreed to provide additional financing.
The CC-100-SE encoder/server system for monitoring and surveillance is designed for applications requiring real-time remote control in security operations. It supports numerous camera packages that can be placed indoor or outdoor at manufacturing facilities, airports and other sites. Users can monitor a building via a basic Internet connection, mobile wireless and/or CCTV from anywhere in the facility or beyond. The system includes server/encoder hardware, plus compression, streaming and remote control software, as well as various robotic cameras.
The company proposes an Aircraft Cabin Surveillance System (ACSS) that would be based on a scalable, multi-use network architecture that could support both aircraft security objectives and operational business needs. The backbone of the ACSS is Spirent Systems' multi-port hub/adapter unit (HAU), which provides network connectivity between cameras and viewing devices. The HAU incorporates wired Ethernet, wireless 802.11B, and video signal connectivity to accommodate a range of wired or wireless camera display device configurations.
United Airlines' fractional operation Avolar will offer shares in a fleet of up to 15 Airbus Corporate Jets. Avolar will operate the airplanes under FAR Part 121 rules and use United captains as pilots.
An internal report delivered to FAA Administrator Jane Garvey just before Thanksgiving likely gave her a case of holiday indigestion. The report, put together by the team designing the FAA's Air Traffic Organization, the new performance-based group to manage the nation's airspace, is said to be rife with scathing comments on the agency's management of the air traffic control system. The report spotlights the deficiencies of top FAA leaders, the agency's silo-type management structure and its dearth of coordination, industry officials say.
As a Bronze Star winner with the Army in Vietnam, Tom Ridge was quite familiar with the hazards of combat at close range. As a former six-term congressman and governor of Pennsylvania, he also knew a thing or two about high-pressure politics. But not even those experiences fully prepared Ridge for the challenge of becoming the nation's first terrorism czar.
The Fifth World Conference of the Global Aviation Information Network scheduled for Dec. 5-6 in Miami will center on expanding collaboration and sharing safety data between airlines to reduce accidents.
The Pentagon hopes to conduct another intercept test of its National Missile Defense program this week. Set for Nov. 29, it will repeat the single-decoy scenario of the successful test in July, which was preceded by two test failures last year. So far the NMD program has scored two intercepts.
The CIA, struggling to rebuild its image after failing to catch wind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is being very aggressive and acting independently in the Central Asian theater, say U.S. officials who produce or control some of the key intelligence-gathering technologies being brought into play in Afghanistan. In an attempt to dampen rumors of inter-departmental problems, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld denied press reports last week that the CIA and Defense Dept. are competing in any way or aren't cooperating with each other.
Mail will be rerouted away from the ninth-floor administrator's correspondence unit at NASA headquarters while the room is decontaminated, following the discovery of ``trace amounts'' of anthrax there. The biohazard apparently found its way to NASA either from Capitol Hill, where the Hart Senate Office building is closed indefinitely for decontamination, or the Brentwood mail-handling facility, where two workers died of pulmonary anthrax. The anthrax spores were collected during precautionary sampling Nov.
Germania, a small German charter operator, is attempting to acquire Deutsche BA, British Airways' German affiliate. Deutsche BA, which operates 18 Boeing 737-300s, has constantly made losses since it was set up 10 years ago in a British Airways initiative to gain access to Germany's robust domestic market. Germania was established in 1978, operates five Boeing 737-700s and is being gradually transformed into a scheduled airline.
With virtually all airline stocks trading well below book value, last week's crash of American Airlines Flight 587 was the last thing the industry needed as it struggles to regain investor confidence.
One National Air and Space Museum Trophy (for recent achievement) goes to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory's mission team for the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft--the first to orbit and land on an asteroid. Another trophy (for lifetime achievement) goes to former Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. Talking about his return to space at age 77 as the oldest payload specialist, Glenn quipped at the awards dinner: ``It's not true that NASA wouldn't let me go on a space walk for fear I'd wander off.
SkyX Gateway Version 3.0 was written to address the limitations of Internet protocols when used over satellite networks. By transparently replacing TCP with a new protocol designed for long latency, asymmetric bandwidth, as well as high loss conditions typical of satellite networks, the SkyX Gateway can provide terrestrial-like performance over satellite links, according to the company. It provides loss-less compression ratios of up to 5:1, and is available in two models: the XR10 and XH45.
George Saling of Philip Morris Management Corp. has been elected to a two-year term as chairman of the Washington-based National Business Aircraft Assn. Jack Olcott was re-elected president and Lise Margin corporate secretary. Also elected were: vice chairman, Donald Baldwin of Coca Cola; and treasurer, Kenneth Emerick of GM Worldwide Travel Services.
