Boeing's formal site evaluation team is scheduled to visit the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex on Apr. 24-25, and Denver on May 1-2, as part of the company's survey of potential locations for its corporate headquarters. The team visited Chicago last week. Boeing officials expect to make a decision between the three sites this summer.
Optimism on the future of the Concorde continues to grow in France and the U.K. ``I am increasingly confident that Concorde operations will restart this year. But I couldn't specify as yet if it could be by the end of the summer or later,'' French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot said late last week. He stressed that Air France and British Airways should plan to restart supersonic operations on the same day.
Scaled Composites' Proteus high-altitude aircraft has completed a five-week government science mission throughout the Pacific Rim, capped by atmospheric measurements taken over the North Pole at 48,000 ft. For some missions, Proteus may serve as an alternative to NASA's ER-2 research aircraft, which are converted Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. The trip demonstrated the reliability and cost of the one-of-a-kind Proteus over an extended period and a range of conditions.
Executive Jet has ordered 50 Dassault Aviation Falcon 2000EX twinjets, just weeks after purchasing a similar number of Citations from Cessna Aircraft. The company also acquired six additional 2000s in the basic version, adding to 66 already on order. The 2000EX buy, which includes 25 options, is for the enhanced version incorporating the new ``EASy'' cockpit
NASA and the Air Force plan a nationwide review of aeronautics facilities--again. This time, swears NASA aerospace technology chief Sam Venneri, the sites that don't pass muster in terms of their usefulness to researchers will be put on standby and, after a few years, shut down completely if they haven't been missed. Overall 52 wind tunnels will be examined to ferret out marginal facilities that have survived past purges.
A mediator in the next few days will seek to reconcile the SAirGroup's and its French affiliates' divergent views in an 11th-hour effort to save ailing Air Liberte and AOM. The Swiss group is tentatively scheduled to decide on Apr. 25 whether to continue pouring bailout funding or abandon the two airlines.
Brig. Gen. John M. Urias has been named commanding general of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Huntsville, Ala. He was deputy commanding general for acquisition. Urias succeeds Lt. Gen. John Costello, who has retired.
Turkey's armed forces have suspended 32 major defense projects worth $19.5 billion as the nation struggles to overcome an economic crisis that has seen the Turkish lira lose 80% of its value against the U.S. dollar. The Turkish General Staff said it would ``reevaluate [the programs] in line with economic developments.'' The announcement provided no details on which projects were under review, however. Turkey had planned to spend $150 billion during the next 25-30 years on modenization programs and defense projects.
AIR Inc. predicts that pilot hiring in the U.S. will be strong this year--but will not match last year's record levels. In March, 1,515 new pilots were hired. The Atlanta-based airline career specialist forecasts 14,500 new pilot jobs in 2001. Last year, 19,030 pilots were hired.
The Airports Authority of India has received more than 40 bids from the private sector to manage ground handling services at major airports at Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. Currently, Air India, which earns $64 million annually from ground handling services, is the market leader. Its only competitors are Indian Airlines and the lone private sector player, Cambata Aviation. The move coincides with the final stages of Air India's privatization.
UNDER AN $18.9-million contract, Rockwell Collins will provide performance-based logistics support for the Navy's AN/ARC-210 radios, guaranteeing levels of availability at a fixed price per flight hour. Responsibilities will range from configuration control to obsolescence management and depot repair of the Collins radios, which are standard on most Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. The ARC-210 is a secure two-way voice and data VHF/UHF radio, with Have Quick, Sincgars and the UHF Demand Access Multiple Access satellite communications.
The first Boeing C-17 transport destined for the British Royal Air Force made its initial acceptance flight at Long Beach, Calif., last week, shortly after the aircraft received its military aircraft release from U.K. authorities. The first of four C-17s leased by the U.K. is to be delivered to the RAF on May 17.
AirLiance Materials, the two-year-old replacement parts and supply-chain partnership created by Air Canada, Lufthansa Technik and United Airlines at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, has added a faster parts-tracking functionality to its www.airliance.com Web site. AirLiance's core business is straightforward: the redistribution of surplus materiel, whether used, reconditioned or new, with full pedigree traceability. Toward that end, it spent 1999 establishing a computing infrastructure and hiring a staff of 100.
Maximo Villar has become head of the Americas office of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and Los Angeles World Airports. He was regional vice president for Discover the World Marketing Inc.
Clive Prentice has been named general manager and Ken Henley director of operations of the Raytheon Aircraft Services Ltd. facility at Broughton, Wales. Prentice was general manager of the company's ATC Simulation business at Burgess Hill, England.
How can the nation remedy the airline delay dilemma? Herb Kelleher emphasizes an, um, concrete solution--build more runways, and fast. The money is there, Southwest Airlines' soon-to-retire demigod said last week, ``but the political will to build more runways has been startlingly absent. . . .We need the recognition and declaration of a national economic emergency.'' Just getting wound up, he added, ``If 4,600 manufacturing plants sat idle for several hours each day for lack of electricity, it would be treated politically as an American economic crisis.
Joyce Wenger has become vice president/manager of the Transportation Research Div. of the San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp.'s Transportation Technology Group. She was vice president-business development of the Transportation Div. of the Battelle Memorial Institute.
Richard Everitt has been named CEO of the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services, effective June 1. He has been group planning and compliance director for BAA plc.
It will be easier for PTC Pro/Engineer CAD users to reverse-engineer existing shapes, because the company will incorporate technology from Raindrop Geomagic that automates the process of creating 3D models from scans of physical objects (AW&ST Jan. 29, p. 21). The Raindrop Geomagic technology will also be in PTC's ICEM Surf surfacing system. PTC plans to make the feature available in the next releases of Pro/Engineer and ICEM Surf. . . .
Pentagon apparatchiks are busy completing at least three major reports. The Defense Science Board is mulling precision targeting. Watch for it to recommend an acquisition program for a small-diameter bomb (once known as ``the small smart bomb''). That would be a 6-in.-dia. weapon to beef up the firepower of stealth aircraft, which must carry ordnance internally. The board is also pondering how to negate proliferation of deeply buried targets in Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Finally, the Defense Dept.
The U.S. military is increasingly turning to commercial-off-the-shelf software. One beneficiary in the aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) arena is Minneapolis-based Epicor Software Corp., which has landed contracts from the Navy to handle F-14 and F/A-18 airframe overhauls in Tokyo, Okinawa and Naples for its Impresa suite of enterprise resource planning tools developed for MRO activities. Last year, Epicor won a similar contract from the Air Force for landing gear, gas turbine and hydraulics overhauls at Hill AFB, Utah.
