Top European spaceflight officials will meet in Paris this week to discuss how the European Space Agency can help bail NASA out of its $4-billion International Space Station shortfall, including whether Europe can take on the full task of building a crew rescue vehicle so the station crew can grow from three to six or seven.
In an industry in which consolidation is far from over and successful mergers can elude even the most sophisticated players, aerospace executives would be well advised to assemble a dedicated integration team almost as soon as they announce a new acquisition. That seems to be one of the most important lessons to emerge from M&A activity in recent years, based on a current survey by Boston-based Pittiglio Rabin Todd&McGrath (PRTM), a global management consulting firm to technology-based businesses.
Northrop Grumman has delivered the 10th E-8C Joint-STARS aircraft to the U.S. Air Force's 93rd Air Control Wing at Robins AFB, Ga. The Air Force has secured funding for a 15th production airplane, as well as additional money to begin long-lead procurement for a 16th E-8C, according to Northrop Grumman.
With the inking of agreements creating the new missile giant MBDA, the path is now clear for consolidation in the solid propulsion sector in which missiles are a major application.
A team of NASA/Langley Research Center officials has ordered a stand-down and in-depth review of test procedures at six of the facility's wind tunnels to ensure compliance with safety rules and integrity of the data collection process.
More bad news from NASA. The agency is preparing to cancel unmanned aircraft science mission programs. UAV supporters say that Ghassem Asrar, associate administrator for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, directed his staff to unofficially start termination proceedings. Program funding will most likely be redirected to ailing satellite programs with a portion set aside for the NASA Airborne Science Program to ``keep the General Atomics' Altair UAV program on track'' at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, a NASA official said.
Continental Express has signed on as the launch customer for SimAuthor's new airport familiarization system, AirportFam. The airline plans to use the PC-based workstation to eliminate the need for check pilots on training flights into airports with ``unusual operating requirements,'' saving $140,000 next year. Plans call for pilots to access the system in crew rooms at the airline's hub locations, reviewing approaches and sampled cockpit-to-tower transmissions before flying into Montrose, Colo., and the Satillo and Pueblo airports in Mexico.
J. Robert Anderson has been appointed to the board of directors of GenCorp, Sacramento, Calif. He is a former vice chairman/chief financial officer of the Grumman Corp.
Leaking out of the Pentagon are a few planning numbers being batted around by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's staff for possible acquisition spending through 2007. A $15.5-billion plus-up for C-17 would buy an additional 60 aircraft, leaving unfunded only the 15 special ops low-level airlifters the Air Force wants. The SecDef could seek another $11 billion for the F-22, which would cover the first few production blocks of the stealth fighter, but not approach full program funding.
The GE-P&W Engine Alliance has completed the second round of GP7200 core engine tests, accumulating about 163 hr. on the core that will serve as the heart of the alliance's propulsion offerings for the A380 mega-transport.
The Information and Electronic Warfare Systems (IEWS) segment of BAE Systems North America--formerly known as Lockheed Martin Sanders--is vigorously pursuing a renewed emphasis on innovation. As part of the initiative, the company will establish a major new R&D center near Washington. The impetus was a recent operational and strategic review in which management concluded the business wasn't living up to its heritage of cutting-edge technology. ``We were beginning to slip,'' IEWS President Walter P. Haverstein said.
RosettaNet (www.rosettanet.org) is an independent nonprofit consortium formed by a number of companies to develop open standards for e-business processes using the XML language. One RosettaNet member is PTC, and its latest version 5.1 of the Windchill collaboration software has new components to implement the standard.
A Hamilton Sundstrand veteran of electronic product development has been named CEO at Cordiem, the newly minted e-marketplace from United Technologies, Honeywell, BFGoodrich and nine international carriers. David J. Linton, former Hamilton Sundstrand vice president and general manager of electronic systems, will take control at Cordiem May 14.
President Bush's speech on missile defenses was short on specifics. At first blush, his address at the National Defense University seemed to go no further than the already well-known positions he staked out on the campaign trail (see p. 66). But is that really so bad? Missile defense is a hugely complicated matter--technically, strategically and politically.
Boeing is continuing to keep its foot in the door at the upper end of the commercial transport market with launch of another 747 model aimed at hauling heavier cargo loads or covering longer distances than the current 747-400F. The Longer Range 747-400 Freighter, with increased maximum takeoff weight, is designed to fly 530 naut. mi. farther, or carry an additional 22,000 lb. of payload with limited range, than today's 747-400F.
General Electric isn't letting Pratt&Whitney get ahead of it in designing and building stealth engines for high-performance aircraft. Aerospace officials say GE's increased-performance fighter engine program conceals major stealth upgrades. They contend that the best solution to engine stealth is neither the serpentine intake ducts chosen by Lockheed Martin for its Joint Strike Fighter candidate nor the large radar blocker on the engine face that Boeing designed.
The An-74TK-300, a new Ukrainian convertible freighter proposed by the Antonov Design Bureau, the Kharkov Aviation Production Enterprise, Motor Sich and Progress, has made its first flight. The freighter is a modified version of the An-74-200 STOL aircraft equipped with conventional underslung engines in place of the traditional An-74 overwing design (AW&ST June 23, 1997, p. 27).
In a horizontal bar graph entitled ``Projected Regional Jet Share of Fleets by April 2006'' (AW&ST Apr. 30, p. 58), the color coding was reversed. The red section of the bars should have indicated the number of aircraft in the non-regional portions of the airline fleets depicted, while the blue portion should have indicated the portion of regional jets.
The number of regional airlines may have decreased since the early days of deregulation, but passenger enplanements have spiked more than 800%, making this segment of the industry invaluable to the major carriers, the leader of the Regional Airline Assn. (RAA) told attendees at the group's annual convention in Tampa.
Bengt Hornsten has been appointed president/CEO of Saab Nyge Aero, Linkoping, Sweden. He succeeds Bjorn Sunden, who has become deputy managing director of Euromaint.
Douglas Carr has been named director of government affairs, Saundra K. Wirtz director of seminars, Ana Mirando director of financial/administrative services and human resources, Linda M. Eaton senior manager of office and support services and Elias Cotti director of technical operations, all for the Washington-based National Business Aviation Assn.
Sita's Common Use Terminal Equipment (Cute) also will be employed at more than 20 domestic airports in Norway, Denmark and Sweden to allow passengers to board aircraft without Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) staff at the gate. Cute includes a touch screen and turnstile, and passengers with frequent-flier cards can enter the boarding lounge via the turnstile. Data from Cute go into the load and balance system.
The FAA should install radar displays at all control towers where radar coverage of aircraft in the traffic pattern is available, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is concerned about the increase in general aviation and regional airline traffic at smaller, less well-equipped fields. Prompting the recommendation were a series of midair collisions under daytime VFR conditions between general aviation aircraft that were in communication with a tower.
