Strong evidence accumulated last week that an errant missile was responsible for bringing down Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 on Oct. 4, killing 66 passengers and 12 crew on board. The flight was en route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk, Russia, at about a 36,000-ft. altitude over the Black Sea.
Malaysia Airlines plans to eliminate 12 routes to Europe, South America, Australasia and East Asia beginning Oct. 28. As a result, the carrier will have eight surplus aircraft including three Boeing 747-400s and two 777-200s that have not been delivered. Managing Director Mohd Nor Mohd Yusof said there are signs that passenger bookings are on the rise, but he did not rule out additional changes to the route structure.
The Navy and Air Force are reassessing spending on missile programs. So far, the Air Force is coming out ahead. The Navy had shunned the Air Force-led Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile for several years, but was ordered to spend some money to make sure the F/A-18E/F could use it. The standoffish attitude is gone now. Speaking of Jassm, Rear Adm.
Tenzing Communications has created a strategic alliance with startup satellite operator AirTV that would allow the companies to jointly develop and provide live TV and high-speed Internet, and perhaps e-commerce services for airline passengers.
A new blueprint is emerging of how most aerospace/defense suppliers probably will work together in the future, and it has the potential to dramatically compress the time it takes to field new products and reduce life-cycle costs of everything from aircraft to spacecraft.
Moldite is a new lightweight, high-strength material suitable for a broad range of applications in aerospace and defense. The key to this thermal-set resin composite ``sandwich'' rests in its proprietary core. The material has an exceptionally high stiffness-to-weight ratio and offers an alternative to materials such as ultra high-strength steel and aluminum. With specific gravity for most Moldite structures under 1.0, the product will float on water.
China's Civil Aviation Administration has awarded Thales a $100-million contract to supply an integrated air traffic management system for the Northern, Eastern and Southern Area Control Center upgrade project. The system will include new en route control facilities at Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, approach and control towers at Beijing, Hongqiao and Pudong, and a remote center in Tainjin. Automatic dependent surveillance and controller-pilot data link also will be included. The system is scheduled to begin operating in 2004.
This square-to-round transition for a cooling process is typical of complex metal-formed components and assemblies being produced by the company for commercial and military applications. The product has a square base of 7 in., a height of 4.5 in. and a thickness of 0.06 in. It is made of 3003-0 aluminum. This component and others like it are manufactured using hydroforming, spinning, turning and milling operations to produce finished products of aerospace quality.
Six Japanese air force C-130Hs carried 36 tons of blankets, tents and other supplies from Komaki air base in Aichi Prefecture near Nagoya to the Chaklala air base in Islamabad, Pakistan, last week. In addition to the supplies, Japan dispatched 150 military personnel to help dispense them. The aid was the first mission by Japan related to the U.S.-led anti-terrorism raids on Afghanistan. Japan acted in response to an appeal by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
A request for proposals for the Next Generation Space Telescope's science package has been issued by the Space Telescope Science Institute for the infrared observatory's ground-based systems, antennas and receivers (see p. 80). Selection of a joint U.S.-European science team will begin early next month to operate the NGST's mid-IR instrument, which is being developed by ESA. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build and test the instrument using optics from ESA (AW&ST Mar. 20, 2000, p. 76).
The Mitsubishi LE-7A engine that successfully powered the first prototype of Japan's H-IIA will be modified for the second test flight early next year. It will include a new inducer for the engine's liquid-hydrogen turbopump. Pre-launch engine-test data showed an abnormal fluid phenomena that caused a premature shutdown of the earlier LE-7 in November 1999 on the last mission. The phenomena could arise again on the LE-7A for the H-IIA. The inducer consists of a set of rotating blades that suck up low-pressure liquid.
Tim Ostrosky (see photos) has been named director of sales for Racal Instruments, Irvine, Calif. Terry Smith has become vice president and John Rosenwald business development manager of Racal's San Antonio-based Military-Aerospace Test Group. Ostrosky was national sales manager for integration. Smith was director of automatic test systems for Sunset Resources. Rosenwald was lead technical consultant for automatic test equipment for USAF.
Lufthansa Technik will support Asiana's single-aisle twinjets over the next 10 years. The component support agreement signed covers the South Korean carrier's Boeing 737s and Airbus A321s.
About 13,000 aircraft mechanics at American Airlines approved a contract Oct. 5 that provides short- and long-term pay raises as well as increased benefits and retirement provisions. According to the Dallas Morning News, many of the mechanics, who are represented by the Transport Workers Union (TWU), probably will lose their jobs as American cuts up to 15,000 workers from its payroll in the aftermath of terrorist attacks last month. American already has secured a contract with the Assn.
Air Canada will introduce a no-frills alternative, Tango by Air Canada, modeled after the U.S.' JetBlue, to stimulate lagging traffic. Tango will operate 13 dedicated Airbus A320s on nonstop flights between major Canadian cities starting Nov. 1 and to Florida later this year. Air Canada had planned for the low-fare operation, but its introduction is being timed to meet changing consumer demand and boost traffic in the post-Sept. 11 business environment, said President/CEO Robert Milton.
Charles W. Mathews, who was program manager for the NASA Gemini program, which developed manned flight techniques for the Apollo landings on the Moon, died of kidney failure on Sept. 10 in Gainesville, Fla. He was 80. Mathews, an aeronautical engineer and graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, became Gemini program manager in 1963 and led the project through 10 manned missions flown by most of the astronauts who later traveled to the Moon. He subsequently held management positions in the Apollo program and headed NASA's office for space applications.
NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to expand its new aeronautical-mobile-satellite system (AMSS) to business jets and helicopters operating over the Japanese archipelago, according to a paper presented by company executives at the International Astronautical Federation congress in Toulouse, France. Launched on July 1, AMSS uses the NSTAR-a and NSTAR-b maritime and mobile-land-service satellites to deliver two-way voice and data to airline passengers over Japan. The system will replace a terrestrial service which has a more limited range that is restricted to altitudes above 15,000 ft.
Europe and Japan are jockeying for position should an upturn in the space-launch market later in the decade kick off a race to build reusable-launch vehicles.
Standards for certifying airport baggage screening companies and their workers have gotten tangled in the congressional debate over whether to federalize the process. (The bone of contention is whether the entire workforce should be civil servants.) Once upon a time, the FAA planned to issue standards the week of Sept. 10. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the agency said there would be a brief re-evaluation of the requirements. The question is who should screen passengers, and under whose supervision? Now, that's not for the FAA to decide. The latest wrinkle: Rep.
AAR Corp. has received more than $16 million in U.S. military orders since Sept. 1. The orders are for various types of containers, shelters and integrated-command posts, as well as for spare parts mainly to support U.S. Air Force tanker aircraft and U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy helicopters. In fiscal year 2001, government sales were about 16% of total sales.
France and Germany are proposing a joint mission to obtain a digital elevation model (DEM) of the world's land and ice surfaces using a constellation of passive microsatellites in tandem with a conventional-radar spacecraft. The mission, called the Interferometric Cartwheel, would feature X- or C-/L-band antennas on three or more 120-kg. (264-lb.) microsatellites rotating in an orbital plane within 50-150 km. (164,000-492,000 ft.) of a radar illuminator.
Russian Space Forces launched a Raduga-class military communications satellite on a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Oct. 8, according to Russian press accounts. The geostationary relay satellites are built by NPO-PM.
Innovation and new product development are the lifeblood of aerospace and defense. Hundreds if not thousands of patents are issued each year for advances in aerospace research and development, manufacturing, materials, information technology and myriad other disciplines.
American Airlines plans to complete installation of reinforced metal bars on cockpit doors early next month. Technicians will install the devices on more than 870 jets operated by American and TWA.
