Roy Chappell, who is a member of the board of directors of the Friends of Meigs Field in Chicago, and two other Tuskegee Airmen have received Phillips 66 Aviation Leadership Awards from the Experimental Aircraft Assn. The others are: Beverly Dunjill, who is a member of the Chicago Youth in Aviation project board of directors; and Charles Nichols, a member of the executive committee of the Friends of Meigs Field. The award recognizes contributions to the community to build awareness and encourage a wider appreciation of general aviation, particularly among youth.
The Chinese National Space Administration and European Space Agency will study how the Sun affects the Earth's environment under an agreement that will see ESA instruments mounted on twin Chinese satellites. The agencies agreed to collaborate on the ``Double Star'' mission, a move they have been considering since last year (AW&ST Oct. 23, 2000, p. 38). The European instruments will be identical to those flying on ESA's Cluster satellites, which are studying the magnetosphere from four coordinated elliptical orbits.
Raytheon, BAE Systems and Applied Systems Technology each have won $3.5-million contracts from the U.S. Army to begin development of a signals intelligence sensor for the service's Shadow 200 tactical unmanned aerial vehicle.
Lord Corp. will manufacture main rotor elastomeric spherical bearings and Fluidlastic lead-lag, inter-blade dampers for Eurocopter NH-90 military helicopters. The contract covers 243 aircraft plus 55 options.
Bowing to the public's demand for courteous, punctual airline travel, Europe will adopt a code of conduct for good service and implement reduced vertical-separation minima to expand airspace capacity. Last week, the European Commission and the Assn. of European Airlines (AEA) agreed to establish new guidelines intended to meet ``the main sources of complaint and frustration expressed by large numbers of passengers [and to] change the impression . . . that they have been abandoned,'' said EC Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio.
Boeing has found two failure scenarios that could cause a 767's elevator system to push the aircraft's nose down without pilot input, prompting investigators working on the October 1999 crash of EgyptAir 990 to plan more tests, Aviation Week&Space Technology affiliate AviationNow.com reported.
Mario L. Guerrier has become director of the School of Aviation and Visitor Services at Miami-Dade Community College. He was chief of single integrated operations planning for the Arizona Air National Guard.
The U.S. Air Force may have to reduce its buy of T-6A Joint Primary Aircraft Training Systems next fiscal year as well as absorb higher prices thereafter as a result of the Navy's decision to stop participating in the program for several years.
Mark Whitman and David M. Deitch have been appointed vice presidents-business development, respectively, for the South Central and Northeast U.S. and Gary Gennari director of sales for the Eastern U.S. for Cincinnati-based Executive Jet Management. Whitman was service center sales manager for Galaxy Aerospace of Fort Worth, while Deitch was director of sales and marketing for Panolam Industries. Gennari was a senior account representative for FlightTime, Waltham, Mass.
Spurred by a growing portfolio of U.S. military communications satellite programs, Boeing Satellite Systems has leased a building next to its El Segundo, Calif., headquarters to hold them. The company's Defense Dept./Civil Programs building houses about 300 BSS workers. Among military satellite projects managed in the $7.6-million upgraded facility are the Ultra-High-Frequency Follow-On; Advanced Extremely High Frequency, and Wide-band Gapfiller Satellite.
Jean-Pol Poncelet has been named director of strategy and external relations of the European Space Agency. He is a member of the Belgian House of Representatives and has been Belgium's deputy prime minister, minister of defense and minister of energy.
The Planetary Society's solar sail suborbital test flight was foiled on July 20 by failure of the third stage booster to send a spacecraft separation command (AW&ST July 16, p. 42). The two solar sails did not inflate because of the separation failure. A search was underway for the booster and the Cosmos 1 spacecraft, which hit Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula after being launched by a Volna rocket from a Russian submarine. Existing plans to launch an orbital solar sail mission this autumn will continue though the flight may slip into winter.
TAM Brazil, which seeks to become a dominant player in the South American market, faces the difficult challenge of sustaining ambitious expansion efforts after the unexpected death of its president and owner Rolim Adolfo Amaro. Amaro, 58, died on July 8 in a helicopter crash near the border of Brazil and Paraguay (AW&ST July 16, p. 23). The charismatic boss leaves behind a financially sound carrier. But it remains to be seen if his successor, Daniel Madelli Martin, is capable of pursuing the strategic goals of the company with the same vigor.
The biggest U.S. airlines and the people who analyze them figure the carriers' dismal financial performance in the second quarter was due to a downturn in yields and an upturn in unit costs, especially labor costs. For the most part, they are right. But as usual, there is more to it than that.
The Air Force has found a home for the first 18 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles it is buying. But it is also holding out hope for getting more of the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, and they might go to another installation. Beale AFB, Calif., home of the U-2, beat Edwards AFB, Calif., Ellsworth AFB, S.D., Tinker AFB, Okla., and Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. They, and other locations, will be in the running for follow-on buys of the UAV.
Pluto is a complex world and a wonderland of exotic planetary physics. Its attributes include dramatic seasonal cycles, an atmosphere that escapes into space as fast as that of a typical comet, a complex melange of icy and organic (perhaps even including biotic precursors) surface constituents and the most variegated surface markings seen by telescope on any known planet except Earth. Pluto's moon Charon is fully half of Pluto's size, and strangely, far different in terms of surface appearance and composition.
Designers who wish to work with others over the Internet can do so with PTC's Pro/Collaborate service, which is free if they are maintenance-paying users of Pro/Engineer design software. Pro/Collaborate lets them create workspaces on the Web outside their company's firewall, where they can display their designs and specifications, and others can mark them up and store them back into the workspace. The service allows temporary access to software tools for a fee, and supports discussion forums.
The U.S. Navy explored advanced Network Centric Operations, a working-level application of ``information superiority'' theory, by acquiring, fusing and disseminating data to widely distributed players during this year's ``Navy Global'' wargame. The Title 10 or national-level annual wargame ran July 16-27 and was the third in the Navy's current five-year Global cycle. ``Navy Global'' has proven instrumental in shaping the sea service's
The number of ``near-miss'' incidents involving commercial air transports in U.K. airspace continued to decline in 2000, according to the U.K. Airprox Board. Only 14 serious risk-bearing incidents were reported, or 1.01 per 100,000 hr., compared with 16 in 1999 when the rate was 1.21 per 100,000 hr. But risk-bearing incidents involving military aircraft rose to 37 from 35, or a rate of 8.07 versus 7.13 per 100,000 hr. The trend comes despite an overall decline in the total hours flown by British military pilots.
Raytheon expects to finalize a detailed contract estimate in early August for completion of two Massachusetts construction projects on which Washington Group International (WGI) defaulted and Raytheon has performance guarantees, according to Phil LePore, president of Raytheon Technical Services. He was appointed to oversee the resolution of engineering and construction issues that have been a drain on finances.
The Malaysian government has launched a criminal investigation of the former management team of Malaysia Airlines headed by businessman Tajudin Ramli. The investigation centers on the price paid to Ramli last December when Malaysia's Ministry of Finance stepped in to save the airline after four years of mounting losses and widespread pilot defections. The ministry bought Ramli's 29.09% stake for 1.8 billion ringgit ($480,000), or $8 per share, more than twice its trading price.
Paul Soubry (see photo), president of Standard Aero Canada, has been elected president of the Winnipeg-based Manitoba Aerospace Assn. He succeeds Jim Sawyer, president of Boeing Canada Technology.
Updated ``Maple 7'' mathematical software is available from Waterloo Maple (www.maplesoft.com). The latest version has new differential equation solvers, complete units and dimensions management and better connection to the Web. The Maple Application Center is a trading spot for free software (www.mapleapps.com). . . . Northwest Airlines is connecting to its vendors and marketplaces with webMethods software (www.webmethods.com), which allows the carrier to deal with the variety of computer platforms of its trading partners.
WHILE U.S. COMPANIES AND GOVERNMENT regulators wrangle over the pros and cons of using ultrawideband devices for aerospace applications, the Pentagon is capitalizing on UWB technology for terrestrial purposes. In mid-July, the Defense Dept. awarded a $3-million, 15-month Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator contract to develop a through-the-wall surveillance radar for use in urban warfare. Time Domain Corp., one of several companies advocating targeted applications for UWB devices, will serve as prime contractor for the ACTD program.
American Airlines and Vietnam Airlines have signed a marketing agreement to code share between the U.S. and Vietnam over Paris and Tokyo. The first phase of collaboration will enable American to place its AA code on Vietnam flights between each of two points in Vietnam--Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City--and Tokyo Narita and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports. Vietnam will place its VN code on American flights between Paris and five U.S. points--Boston, New York, Miami, Chicago and Dallas/Fort Worth--and between Tokyo and Seattle, San Jose, Chicago and DFW.
