Alaska Airlines faces proposed fines totaling $988,500 for alleged maintenance and operations violations. According to the FAA, in April an MD-80 was returned to service after heavy maintenance with several discrepancies that were either not resolved or improperly deferred. An audit later found 21 other aircraft that were returned to service with incomplete maintenance records.
With a Red Team acting as an over-the-shoulder review panel, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. say they are on target for an Apr. 7 launch of the space agency's next mission to the red planet.
Australia's leadership has released a defense white paper calling for an additional $255.5 million in spending for 2001-02 followed by another $511 million the following year, making it the biggest military spending increase in two decades. The added outlays are expected to permit a start on buying 4-7 airborne early warning and control aircraft, up to 30 combat helicopters and 100 replacement aircraft for its early model F/A-18s and F-111s. During the next decade, total spending is to increase by $11.9 billion.
Boeing's X-32A Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator has completed low-speed aircraft carrier approach demonstrations in its flight test program at Edwards AFB, Calif. During the tests, the X-32A made 97 approaches and 74 touchdowns on a runway outlined to simulate a carrier deck.
Renewed inspections of Iraqi weapons and missile sites are just around the corner, believes Hans Blix, the U.N.'s new Baghdad monitoring honcho. Here last week, he said, Saddam Hussein may come to realize that Iraq makes $1-2 billion per year in illegal oil sales, but with sanctions lifted could make $18-20 billion. UNMOVIC, as the latest inspector group is called, will have credibility, Blix avers, because it will accept raw intelligence from any country, but will do its own analysis and won't supply intelligence in return.
For all the talk about the Internet being the great leveler for international commerce, the view from the floor of aerospace trading exchanges is different. ``Asians want to do business with Asians,'' Partsbase Chief Operating Officer Andy Plyler says. His company has created a shared database with E-Turtle Co.'s Chinese subsidiary, AeroChina.com, to accomplish just that. Together, they provide a Chinese (aerochina.com) and English (partsbase.com) interface for buyers and sellers and will share revenues.
Helical machined springs enable designers to integrate multiple features and functions into single-piece components. These unique springs can be designed specifically to address requirements for rate, reactions at desired deflections, combined rates, modal properties, weight and inertial limits, plus other customer performance needs. The ability of machined springs to incorporate more than one spring coil set (multiple starts) in a given part provides a broad range of spring rates and functionality with a given size (envelope). Helical Products Co. Inc., P.O.
MD Helicopters Inc. has qualified three weapon systems for installation on commercial versions of its MD Explorer. Firing tests of a General Dynamics GAU-19/A .50-cal. Gatling gun, 2.75-in. (70-mm.) rockets, and a pod-mounted M2, .50-cal. machine gun have been conducted at Ft. Bliss, Tex. The GAU-19/A fires up to 1,300 rounds per minute, and the aircraft can carry seven rockets. Weapons are mounted on two independent stations using standard NATO bomb racks, and the aircraft can be converted in 20 min. to armed configuration, according to a company official.
The Arctic booster pack is a cost effective inlet preheater for plural component equipment. Its internal temperature probe and solid-state controllers complement existing primary heaters on most Gusmer spray units. The ABP provides added heat when needed for better mix and spray pattern control and has shown the ability to double the capacity of the primary heater for spraying high-temperature chemicals, such as polyureas, depending on flow rate. It has individual temperature controls for A and B chemicals.
The FAA's stopgap measure reallocating 159 slots to 13 carriers at LaGuardia Airport through a lottery may provide a short-term fix to ease congestion and delays. But what long-term solution will the agency offer once the slot exemptions expire on Sept. 15? The temporary fix takes effect on Jan. 31, 2001.
European Union foreign and defense ministers have approved the creation of three permanent high-level bodies to support a planned rapid reaction force, amidst renewed U.S. misgivings about the shape the force will take and its relationship to NATO.
Sue Birley and Paolo Scaroni have been named nonexecutive directors of BAE Systems, Farnborough, England. Birley is professor of entrepreneurship at Imperial College in London, while Scaroni is group chief executive of Pilkington plc.
Airbus Military Co. has selected the TP400 turboprop, combining the core of the Snecma M88 turbojet and Rolls-Royce three-shaft technology, to power the A400M airlifter. Although the selection was no surprise--the proposal resulted from the forced merger of competing Snecma/Rolls designs--it marked a milestone in the A400M program as it moves close to launch.
GE Aircraft Engines chief W. James McNerney, Jr., will become chairman and CEO of Minnesota Mining&Manufacturing Co., effective Jan. 1, when 3M's current head is scheduled to retire. That company's stock price surged 11% last week on news of McNerney's appointment. At GE, McNerney was replaced by David L. Calhoun, effective immediately. He had been executive vice president and chief operating officer since June. Analysts expect few, if any changes, in GEAC's business strategy.
Airports Council International reports steady growth in passenger and cargo traffic in most of the world's regions for August compared to the same month in 1999. Worldwide passenger traffic increased 4%, cargo 9% and aircraft movements 1%. August passenger traffic in the Middle East rose 6%; Europe 6%; Asia-Pacific 5%; Africa 4%, and North America 3%. Only the Latin America region showed a decrease--1%--for the month. In the January-August period, passenger traffic increased 6%, cargo 7% and aircraft movements 1% compared to the same eight-month period last year.
Heightened awareness of the runway incursion safety problem has resulted in better reporting of such events industry-wide, according to the FAA--and explains the increase from 321 incursions in 1999 to 398 this year (through Dec. 7).
A service which calibrates light measurement instruments in a certified NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) laboratory is being offered by International Light Inc. This company performs radiometric and photometric calibrations in accordance with the provisions of ANSI Z.540-1, ISO.10012-1 and meets ISO/IEC 17025. Featuring fully characterized primary standard detectors from NIST, the lab specializes in calibrating instruments which have been exposed to high UV light levels and other harsh environments to help them remain ISO compliant.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, discovering safety deficiencies in the detection and management of inflight fires in its ongoing investigation of Swissair Flight 111, issued a third set of recommendations related to the 1998 accident--this time pressuring industry to swiftly improve firefighting capability.
Legend Airlines and National Airlines have filed for bankruptcy protection while both startup carriers scramble to secure additional financing and construct new business plans.
Jerome J. Gaspar has become vice president-engineering and technology of Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was vice president of the Collins Displays Center of Excellence.
China Southern Airlines was scheduled to launch Boeing 777 service last week from Guangzhou, China, to Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. The airline plans twice-weekly service from its Baiyun International Airport hub to Melbourne, with continuing service to Sydney, and one direct flight weekly from Guangzhou to Sydney. China Southern President Wang Chang Shun said the new service will create an ``air bridge'' between the two countries upon which to build ``economic, trade and cultural exchanges.''
Labor and aerospace executives are struggling to find a middle way in their bitter dispute over aviation trade offsets, but both sides remain dug in as a White House commission begins the search for a durable compromise. At the commission's first hearing last week, labor demanded primacy for domestic job preservation. Industry insisted that its competitiveness in the international aviation market must take priority.
The U.S. Defense Dept. has awarded Iridium Satellite a $72-million contract for 24 months of satellite communications services. The contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of the contract to $252 million through 2007. Iridium Satellite is purchasing the operating assets of Iridium and its subsidiaries following a ruling last month by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Bridge funding for the F-22 remains hung up in the lame duck Congress, as the Republican leadership continues its two-month struggle with the White House to complete Fiscal 2001 appropriations. Congressional-White House talks were at such a delicate point last week that lawmakers refused to disclose the particulars of the F-22 language. But Rep.
