Officials of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board were scheduled to break ground last week for the agency's new training academy at the George Washington University Virginia campus in Loudoun County. The facility, which is scheduled to open early in 2003, will house classrooms and laboratories dedicated to the process of investigating accidents. An accident simulation area also will be built.
THE FAA IS MANDATING INSTALLATION of emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) in almost all U.S.-registered business jets by Jan. 1, 2004. In its AIR-21 bill passed last year, Congress ordered the agency to remove an ELT exemption for turbine-powered airplanes by the end of 2001. The requirement allows operators to install ELTs that transmit on 121.5 or 243 MHz. The FAA, however, favors units that transmit on 406 MHz. because their signals can be detected more rapidly by satellites.
Tomas Chlumecky has been appointed Prague-based vice president-marketing for Eastern Europe for Vance and Eggles. He will continue as area sales representative for the Cessna Aircraft Co.
Regional airline revenue passenger miles totaled 6.89 billion for the third quarter, a 22% jump over the year earlier quarter, according to statistics released by the Regional Airline Assn. (RAA), whose members carry 97% of the total regional airline traffic. Passenger enplanements were up slightly to 22.31 for the period compared with almost 21 million in the third quarter of 1999. Average load factor remained steady at 60.6%, while the average passenger trip length in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands rose significantly to 309.2 mi., compared with 270.5 mi.
UPS AVIATION TECHNOLOGIES PLANS TO BUILD the first GPS navigation receiver capable of using signals from the FAA's Wide Area Augmentation System for precision instrument approaches with vertical and horizontal guidance, and of permitting descents to 250 ft. The receiver contains algorithms that use the signals from multiple GPS satellites for independent reliability and integrity monitoring (RAIM) and provide pilots with a warning if the signal becomes degraded or is otherwise unusable. UPS officials say the receiver's algorithms alone will determine horizontal integrity.
Air France will soon combine its three subsidiaries, Flandre Air, Proteus Airlines and Regional Airlines, into an as-yet unnamed regional airline. The unified carrier will operate 400 daily flights between 76 city-pairs with 80 aircraft. Projected annual revenues are $350 million. Headquarters for the combined carrier will be in Nantes, Brittany. Brit Air, also controlled by Air France, is not involved in the restructuring plan.
NASA has established a Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle program office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., as part of the agency's Space Launch Initiative. The program office, intended to identify requirements and develop technologies needed for second generation RLVs, is seeking proposals from industry and academic institutions to reduce associated technical and business risks for a launch system that could enter development in 2005.
AIRSYS ATM WILL SUPPLY A RSM 970S MONOPULSE secondary surveillance radar and air traffic control workstations to Turkmenistan under a turn-key contract for the Turkmenabat airport. The company has completed projects in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
ADAM AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIES HAS SET an introductory price of $695,000 for the first 20 production units of its centerline-thrust, twin-engine Adam M-309 business aircraft, which includes electronic flight displays and avionics. The all-composite, six-seat airplane is projected to have a range of 1,500 naut. mi., a useful load of 2,300 lb. and a maximum speed of 250 kt. at 20,000 ft. Two Teledyne Continental TSIO-550 piston engines power the M-309. FAA certification and initial customer deliveries are tentatively scheduled for 2003, according to President John C. Knudsen.
As more countries follow the U.S. lead of maximizing the effectiveness of weapons by tying them together through advanced communication systems, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is exploring ways to thwart those enhancements. To achieve that goal, Darpa plans to develop small, ground-based communications and radar jammers designed to disrupt enemy transmitters. At the same time, the systems must be smart enough to avoid impacting friendly communications.
The Pentagon Inspector General is investigating whether Lt. Col. O. Fred Leberman, commander of the MV-22 training squadron, ordered the falsification of maintenance records for the tiltrotor. An anonymous letter and audio tape containing the accusations were received Jan. 12 by the Navy secretary's office. Following a preliminary investigation by the Marines, Maj. Gen. Dennis T. Krupp, commander of the 2nd Marine Air Wing, relieved Leberman of his duties, which he assumed in June 1999.
Dan Flynn has returned to Exigent International Inc., Melbourne, Fla., as vice president/general manager of subsidiary Exigent Digital Telecom and Wireless Networks. He was vice president of the Commercial Div. of Exigent Software Technology Inc.
FedEx went for capacity and range in selecting the Airbus A380-800F for its next generation of freight aircraft over other possible contenders, including a possible Boeing 747X Stretch. Motivated by predictions of 7% annual air cargo growth for the next 20 years and constraints in landing slots at a number of major international airports, FedEx signed up as the launch customer with Airbus for what will be the world's largest long-range cargo aircraft.
Gary Warness has been named vice president of Howmet Aluminum, Darien, Conn. He was vice president/general manager of North American operations for York Refrigeration.
The Mir space station lost attitude control at least temporarily Jan. 18, delaying the planned launch that same day of the Progress M1-5 mission to deorbit the 140-ton station (AW&ST Jan. 15, p. 434). The Progress will be launched no earlier than Jan. 21 and the deorbit of Mir will be delayed into March. Mir attitude control was lost when an electrical problem resulted in disruption of the station's main computer and gyros. Mir has suffered the same attitude control problems before, and the malfunction was being cleared last week.
Alain F. Maca has been appointed to succeed Jan Jansen as general manager of New York John F. Kennedy International Airport Terminal 4, which is operated by international joint venture firm JFK IAT. Jansen has become the company's senior vice president at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Maca was deputy general manager.
Tokyo's municipal government is studying whether 30-40-seat helicopters can provide an air link between Japan and the Bonin Islands 620 mi. to the south. Plans call for flying visitors to Iwo Jima in regional jets and using helicopters for the 190-mi. flight to the Bonin Islands, which lack an airport. Proposals to build an airport in the Bonins have been defeated because of environmental concerns, forcing travelers to take a 25-hr. sea voyage to visit the volcanic island group. Helicopters would obviate airports, and Iwo Jima already has a 8,528-ft.
Senior military commanders who gathered here for the 10th anniversary of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war are skeptical about the survival of Lt. Cdr. Michael Speicher, the Navy pilot who was shot down on the first night (Jan. 16, 1991) of attacks on Iraq. His F/A-18 crashed west of Baghdad after being attacked by a MiG-25. ``The Iraqis would have used him as a negotiating tool,'' had he been found alive, one former senior military official said. If he survived the crash, ``I think he wandered in the desert and died. His remains would be hard to find there.
Recommendations to set new standards for aircraft noise and engine emissions were issued last week by the International Civil Aviation Organization's 18-member Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP). They include lowering current ICAO Annex 16 Chapter 3 standards by 10 dB. for new aircraft designs effective Jan. 1, 2006; establishing procedures to enable existing aircraft to meet the new standard; requiring more stringent noise standards for helicopters, and proposing new takeoff abatement procedures.
Klaus M. Knappik, president/CEO of SairGroup Logistics, and Anthony N. Charaf, senior vice president of Delta Air Logistics, have been appointed to the board of directors of the Cargo Network Services Corp., Garden City, N.Y.
India's successful test-firing of an increased-range Agni II intermediate-range ballistic missile last week sounded a nuclear alarm in the region. According to Indian press reports, the two-stage IRBM, fired from a mobile launcher at Chandipur, can carry a nuclear warhead about 2,000 km. (1,250 mi.). China expressed concern about a nuclear arms race developing in southern Asia, Japan called for a ban on further testing, and Pakistan viewed the firing as a threat. Pakistan had responded to the Apr.
The Bush team's enthusiasm for military dominance of air, land, sea and space is arousing concern that military strength can be as provocative as military weakness, triggering fresh arms races instead of deterring them. Incoming Secretary of State Colin L. Powell agreed at his confirmation hearing that the Administration's talk of unilateral ``full-spectrum dominance'' (see p. 26) could stoke fears in foreign capitals. ``For every action you take, every weapon you develop, somebody will probably respond in due course if they feel it threatens them,'' he said.
