Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt no longer plans to link military procurement spending to industrial offset agreements negotiated with the armed forces' contractors. The Belgian aerospace/defense industry is now expected to acquire subcontracts on the sole merits of competitiveness, a policy viewed with growing concern, according to Gen. (ret.) Gui Vanhecke, director general of Gebecoma Belgian aerospace industries association.
President Bush named the director of the Energy Dept.'s Brookhaven (N.Y.) National Laboratory to be his science adviser. John H. Marburger, 3rd, former president of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, will take over the White House Office of Science and Technology.
President Bush chose public relations executive Marion Clifton Blakey to be a member of the National Transportation Safety Board and said he will nominate her to be chairman if she is confirmed by the Senate. Blakey headed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during Bush's father's term as President. Carol Carmody, vice chairman of the board, has been acting chairman.
In a complete policy reversal, the French government plans to float about one-fourth of Snecma's shares. An initial public offering (IPO) is tentatively scheduled for the third quarter. State-owned Snecma's partial privatization is expected to significantly advance slow-moving discussions about the long-overdue need to streamline and consolidate Europe's engine industry.
EDO Corp. has won a $38.5-million contract from the U.S. Navy for continued production of the universal exciter upgrade (UEU) receiver and a $3.2-million contract for production of UEU subassembly spares. The UEU is carried in the underwing pod of EA-6B aircraft.
Athena Technologies has signed a contract with Micro Craft to provide the GuideStar flight control system for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Organic Air Vehicle program.
NASA headquarters has picked HotJobs.com to keep track of job applicants. The company's Resumix 6 system works over the Web, has searching technology to pair employer with job seeker, and prevents unwanted eyes from seeing who's job-searching. . . . Rolled Alloys' e-commerce site (www.rolledalloys.com) has the usual order status and shipment tracking features, and customers can also download material test reports of the metals they have ordered as well as other metallurgical data. Quotes are placed online and the customer can revise them or buy online.
Paul H. Poberezny has been named to receive the 2001 Award for Meritorious Service and Myron W. Collier the John P. Doswell Award from the Washington-based National Business Aviation Assn. The award to Poberezny, who was founder/ chairman of the Experimental Aircraft Assn., recognizes contributions that have advanced aviation interests. Collier, a corporate pilot and writer on aviation for decades, will be honored for achievements in support of business aviation.
An Aster 30 surface-to-air missile tracked and intercepted a C22 target in a multiple-threat, electronic jamming environment during a May 31 test at the Landes Test Center in France. The test involved two high-performance C22 targets equipped with jamming systems that flew in formation toward the Aster battery. The hypervelocity ``hit-to-kill'' missile, launched with the two C22s approaching at 15-km. range, scored a direct hit on the first target.
Gary Glynn has been named senior vice president-sales and marketing, Paul Sapp senior director of engineering and Mike Tiffany director of marketing of Airshow Inc., Tustin, Calif. Glynn was vice president-marketing, sales and business development of the Airlines and Avionics Product Business Unit of Honeywell, while Sapp was a product development executive at Universal Avionics. Tiffany was a marketing executive for Xerox. Alan Bearden has been promoted to vice president-sales from senior director for airline sales.
Charles S. Abell has been sworn in as assistant secretary of Defense for force management policy. He was a professional staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel.
Just where $6 billion in a supplemental to the 2002 defense budget will actually be added to Pentagon programs is still being hammered out in Washington, but military and aerospace officials here are encouraged by the areas of the Administration's interest--intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, precision strike and unmanned aircraft.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said that an agreement setting the level of Russian aviation industry participation in the Airbus A380 development program is to be completed by the end of June, just prior to French President Jacques Chirac's scheduled trip to Moscow.
Bob Keane has become commercial director of the Resource Group Ltd. and head of the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Div. of Resource Aviation Management, Newport, England.
The Thuraya satellite-based, regional mobile communications system plans to launch full commercial service to more than 20 countries in July. The system, which began preliminary service in May, was built by Boeing Satellite Systems and Hughes Network Systems for Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co. of the United Arab Emirates. The system is scheduled to receive 235,000 handsets by the end of the year, although Thuraya officials maintain there could be a requirement for as many as 400,000 handsets in a year's time.
The Alenia Aerospazio/Lockheed Martin C-27J Spartan military transport has received its airworthiness certificate from the Italian Civil Aviation Authority.
B. Frank Rohrback has been named vice president/general manager for propulsion at the Gainesville, Va.-based Atlantic Research Corp. He was vice president/general manager of ARC's defense business.
Priorities for the U.S. Air Force under the Bush Administration will be deeply buried targets, improved sensor technology, even more precise aerial weaponry and a reinvigoration of the service's intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, say the service's new top civilian chief.
The FAA has named Charlie Keegan to lead the agency's 10-year airspace modernization program, called the Operational Evolution Plan. Keegan is a former air traffic controller with 22 years at the FAA, most recently as the head of the agency's Free Flight office. The OEP is an aggressive industry-wide effort to balance the growing gap between demand and capacity in the U.S. air transportation system.
A paradigm, if subtly progressive change, has been taking place at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. It is particularly noticeable in contrast to the HAL group of the 1990s, when production prospects were alarmingly low. But it also is evident in an attitude change in India's ministerial hierarchy and at the top levels of HAL's biggest customer, the Indian air force.
Lockheed Martin is set to receive an Israeli order for 52 more F-16Is. The deal involves options acquired by Israel, which expire at the end of the year, for additional F-16s as part of an earlier acquisition of 50 F-16s. A formal contract has yet to be signed. Delivery of this second batch of F-16Is would start in 2006 and run through 2009.
UAL disclosed initial orders from Gulfstream and Dassault Aviation for its new fractional ownership program and fleshed-out its ambitions for the venture, as Dassault unveiled a new top-of-the-line bizjet model. As revealed last week in AW&ST, UAL said it would purchase 58 Gulfstream GIV-SPs, GVs and GV-SPs worth $1.25 billion, including options, to fill the top end of its new business aircraft fleet. Deliveries, which include 35 firm units, will begin in the first quarter of 2002 and extend through 2006 (AW&ST June 18, p. 94).
The $4.5-billion, British-based ``New ICO'' Global Communications project, which literally had to reinvent itself after bankruptcy and the loss of its first spacecraft, has scored a major milestone with the launch of its first test satellite.
Boeing signed up Lufthansa for its Connexion high-speed onboard broadband service, making the German carrier the international launch customer, and the first to sign a real, if preliminary, contract. Lufthansa will install the Connexion system on a 747 for three months of trial operation. If trials are conclusive, it will then outfit its entire transatlantic fleet of 80 long-haul aircraft between 2001-03.
