A proposal to make Memphis International Airport a ``system leader''--a guinea-pig facility that demonstrates the integration of all major air traffic control advances--is the FedEx ``challenge'' to the FAA and the aviation industry that the FAA likes the least. The agency is untroubled when FedEx calls for strengthening the systems approach in the Operational Evolution Plan (OEP), injecting technology advances into the plan and speeding up the 10-year schedule. But the Memphis idea draws resistance.
Robert Paul has been named director for Boeing Shared Services Group at the company's new headquarters in Chicago, while Kristi Savacool will be vice president/general manager of the Boeing Shared Services Group-Puget Sound region in Seattle. Paul has been director of operations at the Boeing Center for Leadership and Learning in St. Louis. Savacool has been vice president-commercial airplanes information systems/chief information officer of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (BCAG).
The first version of the long-awaited analysis of alternatives for a replacement for the EA-6B Prowler electronic jamming aircraft has been briefed to a senior Pentagon review group. So far, ``it's a huge menu of options and it is left up to each of the services to choose from it,'' said an official familiar with the document. Some of the findings are that it would be cheaper to reopen the EA-6B production line than for the Navy to build an F/A-18 jammer, a G model nicknamed the Growler.
Honeywell, teamed with the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command in Huntsville, Ala., plans to develop a miniature, G-hardened inertial measurement unit and guidance navigation unit, both of which will take advantage of micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS), inertial gyros and accelerometers. One of the program's objectives is to devise and produce prototype IMU products that will survive greater than 20,000gs of shock in a 2-cu.-in.-or-less volume with an accuracy of 0.5 deg. per hr.
The debate about ballistic missile defense and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty boils down to this: conservatives put too much faith in deterrence (the threat of punishment) and liberals take too much comfort from arms control (restraint through verification). Yet, neither deterrence nor arms control, by itself, prevents war. Conservatives insist that weakness invites aggression, and that strength deters it. But strength can just as easily stimulate aggression, as the everlasting competition among sovereign states attests.
Open Channel Software (www.openchannelsoftware.com) is trolling to find software from universities or research labs that can be commercialized for the business market. The for-profit company is an arm of the nonprofit Open Channel Foundation, which serves as a repository and development community for open-source software, where the source code is publicly available. The foundation now hosts about 150 open-source programs.
Transport Canada last week levied its largest fine ever against Air Transat for maintenance infractions on the Airbus A330-200 involved in the Aug. 24 engines-out emergency landing in the Azores, and limited the other twins, A310s and Boeing 757s, in the charter carrier's fleet to 90-min. ETOPS authority.
Japan's army is now thinking of purchasing about 60 Boeing AH-64D Apaches with Longbow millimeter wave radar equipment to replace aging Bell AH-1S attack helicopters (AW&ST Sept. 3, p. 76). The unit cost of the aircraft is expected to be about 6 billion yen ($50 million). The army's original plan was to buy 80-90 helicopters to replace the 92 AH-1Ss that Fuji Heavy Industries built under license from 1977-98, but lack of funding forced a curtailment of the order. To date, the only official buy is of the first 10 as part of the 2001-05 defense plan.
Japan Aircraft Development Corp. and the country's three biggest aerospace companies, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Fuji, are expected to sign an agreement with Boeing under which two advanced technologies that they have developed--computational fluid dynamics and light-weight composite materials--are to be transferred to Boeing for use on the Sonic Cruiser high-speed transport. Both have been researched and developed by the three Japanese firms as part of their supersonic transport studies under grants from the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry.
Independent maintenance, repair and overhaul companies may not survive the current downturn in the global airline business unless they can reinvent themselves to find new opportunities in the increasingly competitive MRO market, industry observers predicted.
George M. Skurla, who led final checkout of NASA/Grumman lunar modules for the initial Apollo missions and became president of the Grumman Corp., died Sept. 2 at Melbourne, Fla., hospital of complications from a respiratory infection. He was 80.
Japan Air System has ordered three Airbus A300-600Rs to supplement the 19 already in its fleet. JAS also flies 17 A300B2/B4s. The 290-seat aircraft are to be delivered in August, September and November 2002. Also signing on the dotted line was Japan Air Commuter, a JAS subsidiary, for six Bombardier Dash 8-400 turboprops to replace Nihon YS-11s. The 75-seat turboprops are to be delivered before 2006. JAS' total order is valued at $458 million.
James K. Miller, a member of the technical staff of the Navigation and Mission Design Section of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has received the Mechanics and Control of Flight Award from the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Other recent AIAA award winners are: Von Braun Award for Excellence in Space Program Management, Han Hwangbo, vice president of Korea Telecom; Energy Systems Award, Subramanyam R.
AMONG THE APPROACHES TO RAPIDLY locating a signal that is interfering with GPS is one by Navsys Corp. Using the digital spatial processing capability of its high-gain advanced GPS receiver (HAGR), the technique combines signals from an array of up to 16 antennas to create a multi-beam pattern. A single aircraft can autonomously locate the signal by triangulating the angles of arrival as it moves. Raytheon Systems Ltd. in Harlow, England, is working with the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services to locate interfering signals using adaptive antenna technology.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. tentatively chose Polar Air Cargo to operate three weekly all-cargo flights between Seoul and Hong Kong, reallocating authority to serve Hong Kong from third countries, once exercised by Air Micronesia from Manila. The department selected Polar over Northwest and Evergreen International, which also would have operated through Seoul, and UPS and FedEx, which proposed service from the Philippines. FedEx has been authorized since 1996 to serve Hong Kong five times weekly from Subic Bay, and it sought one more frequency. The Transportation Dept.
July was the fifth consecutive month in which aviation delays logged by the FAA decreased from levels of the same month in 2000, but the gain came entirely from better weather. FAA-counted delays, in which any phase of flight takes 15 min. or more longer than scheduled, totaled 40,037 in July 2001, down 4,393 or 9.9% from 44,430 in July 2000. Weather delays were down 5,539, or 16%, to 29,072 from 34,611. Delays from all other causes increased 11.7%, to 10,965 from 9,819. The average length of delay was down, to 43 from 50 min.
Arno Peels has been appointed chairman of Thales Netherlands. He succeeds Rob Boswijk, who has retired. Peels was an executive at Philips Semiconductors.
Passenger traffic on U.S. airlines returned to the growth mode in August compared to the same month a year ago, but carriers stimulated traffic by lowering prices. Continental Airlines, one of the pacemakers with a 7.9% growth in the domestic market, reported its revenue per available seat mile (RASM), a measure of price level, dropped 12-14%. David A. Swierenga, the Air Transport Assn. chief economist, expected industry traffic growth of between 1-2%. That's better than July's decline of up to 1%.
Bell Helicopter Textron is laying off as many as 275 union and white-collar workers this month in the wake of sagging sales of commercial aircraft and program setbacks associated with the V-22 tiltrotor.
Lufthansa Technik Philippines is investing close to $100 million to expand the capacity of the former Philippine Airlines engineering facility at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport here. LTP is to become a heavy maintenance and overhaul specialist for Airbus A330/340 aircraft.
Gary R. Daniels has been named general manager at Dallas Love Field and Robert Grant general manager at Atlanta DeKalb Peachtree Airport for Signature Flight Support. Daniels held the same position at Chicago Midway Airport, while Grant was special projects manager for Raytheon Aviation Services, Wichita, Kan.
U.S. Air Force officials are starting to explore options for a new target drone in anticipation of dwindling supplies of the current system and the need for a more realistic threat representation. The QF-4, a modified F-4 that can fly unmanned and is instrumented for testing, represents the backbone of the Pentagon's full-scale target program. Several are shot down each year to assess the effectiveness of the military's new weapons. However, supplies are expected to run out by the end of the decade, forcing planners to debate how to replace the QF-4.
The Pentagon is struggling to persuade Congress that replacement of old equipment cannot wait any longer, but a new congressional analysis says that modernization decisions should not be based on the common assumption that aging systems are the root cause of higher operations and maintenance spending.
In a major milestone for the U.S. Air Force/commercial Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, the first test EELV rocket stage has been mounted on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
NASA's top staff and center directors probably are feeling a little battered. A rough and tumble number-crunching ``retreat'' was set here over the weekend. The Fiscal 2003 budget is in preparation and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is holding firm against a plus-up. So, lame-duck Administrator Daniel S. Goldin and Chief of Staff Courtney Stadd called on senior managers to squeeze the agency into the $14.985-billion top line set for the year.
