John E. (Ted) Gordon has been named vice president-Washington operations and Perri A. Hite corporate secretary of Alliant Techsystems of Minneapolis. Gordon succeeds William R. Martin, who is retiring. Gordon was a corporate vice president of Litton Industries and head of its Washington office. Hite was assistant corporate secretary.
Continental Airlines took delivery of the first of 10 Boeing 737-900s on May 31. The twin-engine jet is among 36 new Boeing aircraft the airline plans to acquire this year. According to the company, Boeing also will deliver 15 737-800s to Continental. The -900 is configured with 149 coach and 18 first-class seats, and features a fourth lavatory in the middle of the cabin. Plans call for Continental to install a fourth lavatory in 59 737-800s in its fleet, and reconfigure the cabin to seat 18 in first class and 132 in coach.
William J. Wallach (see photos) has been promoted to president/general manager from vice president-marketing and sales, Carl E. Zlock to executive vice president from vice president-finance and administration, Bradford S. Walters to vice president-operations from director of program management and Donald R. Cohee to vice president from director of research and technology, all at ILC Dover Inc., Frederica, Del.
May traffic for nine U.S. major airlines fell 2% compared to volume for May of last year, but the nation's regional carriers showed solid improvements in spite of the sluggish economy. Seating capacity for the majors increased by 3%.
U.K. aerospace distribution service company Umeco is broadening its reach in North America with the $22-million acquisition of Fort Worth-based Abscoa. The inventory management and fastener distribution company, with a staff of 100 at three U.S. sites, is to be merged with Umeco's subsidiary Pattonair International. Pretax profits at Umeco rose 38% to $15.8 million in the fiscal year ending Mar. 31, on the back of a 72% increase in sales.
Another shoe may be about to drop in NASA's human spaceflight program, which has been scrambling to explicate how it plans to do the work it still has to do on the International Space Station with the funds it has available. Top managers huddled with White House Office of Management and Budget types at the Johnson Space Center last week to go over the books, and another meeting is set this week here.
Swissair Group Chairman/CEO Mario Corti has unveiled a recovery plan designed to shrink overhead and lower the troubled airline's direct operating costs. The far-reaching cost-saving plan, called Change 2001, will involve job cuts, although senior Swissair executives declined to specify how many positions would be eliminated. Less than a month from a self-imposed deadline for ending financial support to ailing French affiliates, it is still unclear if new investors can be found in time to save Air Liberte and AOM (AW&ST May 28, p. 40).
The Coalition of Airline Pilots Assns. gives the FAA ``thumbs up'' for announcing it will strictly enforce a 16-hr. flight/duty-time rule for pilots--but a ``thumbs down'' on the 1985 rule's relevancy to today's operations. The 26,000-member coalition says there is a critical need to first review and revise the regulations before enforcing them and is asking Congress to investigate why the FAA had not stipulated new rules. CAPA claims the 16-hr.
As the Bush Administration labors for a long-haul Asia policy, leading strategists are urging Washington to stiffen regional security bonds, fortify Japanese defense and cultivate India as an eventual strategic partner to offset Chinese regional dominance.
Boeing says it is prepared to make an immense investment in the nation's aging air traffic control system, boosting capacity and fundamentally changing the way pilots and controllers interact. But despite an implied rush to get started, officials are not yet ready to say when they'll begin building the program's backbone, a satellite-based communications, navigation and surveillance network, or how much it will cost.
ROCKWELL COLLINS' KAISER ELECTRONICS WILL SUPPLY 5-in. active matrix liquid crystal displays to Boeing for retrofit into USAF F-15Es and for new production aircraft for export. The color, flat panel AMLCDs will replace the current CRTs.
CONTRAN, A SYSTEM TO PREVENT BLOCKED RADIO TRANSMISSIONS, is up and operating on Britannia Airways, a leading charter operator, which has equipped its fleet of 32 Boeing 757/767 aircraft. The avionics division of BAE Systems produces Contran in Plymouth, England. The device is designed to prevent both simultaneous and unintentional VHF voice transmissions by listening and inhibiting a transmission if a conflicting signal is detected. It does give the pilot an override, which he can control through a double-key action of the press-to-talk switch.
Dennis Tito wasn't the only commercial payload Russia returned from the International Space Station in a Soyuz vehicle on May 6. Also on board were 300 toy ``aliens'' and at least three different promotional videos shot on ISS, including a Father's Day ad for Radio Shack that shows Expedition Two Commander Yuri Usachev receiving a gift from his 12-year-old daughter.
United Airlines, which operates a 100-aircraft Airbus fleet, recently ordered another Airbus A320 and two A319 aircraft. All three aircraft are scheduled for delivery in the second quarter 2003.
Robert Nitsch has been appointed chief operating officer, Vincent Campanella director of engineering and Leonard Swiontek senior program manager of Frequentis USA Inc., Rockville, Md.
More stealth capability is among the investment priorities for the Israeli military, along with non-lethal weapons for combating crowds of stone-throwers; directed-energy weapons for missile defense; reconnaissance satellites; intelligence gathering; and unmanned aircraft for reconnaissance and strike missions. While the Israel Air Force already ``has stealth,'' says David Ivry, Israel's ambassador here, its application so far has been to UAVs and standoff weapons. Israel is designing stealthy UAVs that would attack mobile anti-aircraft and ballistic missile launchers.
Stuart Rogers, an aerospace engineer at the NASA Ames Research Center, was cited for his work in the Advanced Subsonics Technology Program in receiving one of several Arthur S. Flemming Awards, which recognize contributions by U.S. employees. Shinyu Kevin Kuniyoshi,FAA program manager and senior engineer specializing in certification of transport aircraft, was honored for leadership in the first FAA-JAA joint certification of an aircraft, the Boeing 717-200. USAF Capt.
The only remaining prototype of the Antonov An-70 four-engine transport made its first flight last week after being repaired following a crash landing on Jan. 27. The accident was caused by powerplant equipment failure (AW&ST Apr. 9, p. 50). The Ukrainian-Russian military transport underwent repairs at the Polet aviation plant located in Omsk, Siberia, which cost the Antonov Design Bureau roughly $3 million. The An-70 is to return to Kiev for further flight testing which is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2002.
A PARK AIR SYSTEMS UPGRADE OF THE ADVANCED SURFACE MOVEMENT Guidance and Control system at Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport is giving controllers a better surface picture by fusing the tracks from three surface movement radars into a single mosaic display. The fusion avoids shadowing and false targets from construction cranes and new buildings and gives controllers one comprehensive picture, rather than forcing them to mentally integrate the information on two displays.
Military aircraft cannibalization is down somewhat, but there is mounting evidence the problem is systemic and its causes diverse. The aggregate Air Force cannibalization rate has fallen 15% since 1997, while the Navy's barely shrank to 8.8 from 8.9 cannibalizations per 100 flight hr. the past two years, following a high of 9.3 in 1997-98. The extent of Army cannibalization is unknown because the service has only partial data, but they suggest the problem is worsening.
Volga-Dnepr Airlines has struck an agreement with Atlas Air intended to help Atlas win oversize freight business from the U.S. government. Atlas will act as general sales agent for Volga-Dnepr, enabling the carriers to jointly sell space on An-124 transports to federal agencies. U.S. agencies already use Atlas for charter carriage. The agreement could later be expanded, perhaps to replace a joint venture agreement between Volga-Dnepr and HeavyLift of the U.K. dissolved earlier this year (AW&ST Feb. 12, p. 38).
Michelin expects to contribute significantly to the ongoing Franco-British effort to reinstate Concorde's airworthiness certificate with an all-new radial tire. Development and tests of the Near Zero Growth (NZG) tire have been completed and production could begin very rapidly, Pierre Desmarets, chief executive of the French manufacturer's aircraft tire unit, said late last week. He added that the highly resistant NZG, which would not blow up in the most extreme conditions, uses an unspecified new material that is being patented.
Wally K. Warner, chief engineering test pilot for de Havilland aircraft at Bombar- dier Aerospace in Toronto and project pilot for the Q400 Dash 8, has won the 2001 Trans-Canada (McKee) Trophy from the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute. He was cited for contibutions to the development and flight testing of the Dash 8 family since 1983.
Robert Andres has become director of the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. An associate professor, Andres also is director of the North Dakota NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.
