BFGoodrich will supply Hughes Space and Communications with an infrared Earth sensor assembly for the U.S. Navy's ultra-high frequency follow-on F-11 satellite, under a $2-million contract.
The opposing teams in the great aircraft manufacturers playoff each gained points last week when Qantas announced $4.6 billion worth of orders for a mix of 31 Airbus and Boeing aircraft as part of its 10-year fleet modernization plan.
Craig Arnold has been appointed senior vice president/Fluid Power Group executive of the Eaton Corp. of Cleveland. He was corporate vice president of the General Electric Co. and president of GE Lighting Services Ltd.
Dave Huber has become vice president-business development, Prodip Chaudhury director of new ventures and Jenniver Eller director of marketing of Milcom Technologies Inc., Orlando, Fla. Huber was business development manager and Eller a marketing and communications executive, both at Lockheed Martin Missiles&Fire Control. Chaudhury was director of product management and systems engineering of the Siemens Wireless Business Unit.
Eurocopter has revised its Australian Industry Involvement plan aimed at capturing Australia's Air 87 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter contract. ADI, an Australian subcontractor affiliated with Thomson-CSF, would build components for the Tiger helicopter for European and Australian aircraft and market the mission support system. Australian companies also would have an expanded role in pilot training, logistics/support services and infrastructure, and an effort would be made to include local small businesses in subcontract work.
Impulse Airlines and Virgin Blue, the two new low-cost carriers challenging the Ansett/Qantas duopoly in the Australian domestic market, are beating their own targets in terms of passenger numbers and load factors. Some market analysts, however, are doubtful about whether both new entrants will be able to survive in the long term. But a senior Ansett Australia executive made clear that ``we are taking them very seriously.''
Timothy Mapes has been promoted to managing director of Delta Express from managing director for marketing planning and communications for Delta Air Lines. He succeeds Paulette Corbin, who has been promoted to vice president-airport customer service for the Western U.S.
Vincent Lavoie (see photo) has been named vice president-research and development for DY 4 Systems Inc., Kanata, Ontario. He was director of engineering for Oerlikon Aerospace Inc. of Montreal.
Hill Aerospace and Defense has won a long-term contract from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command to repair and overhaul the main rotor blade flutter dampeners on UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.
Rolls-Royce and Northrop Grumman will supply WR-21 gas turbine engines for the British Royal Navy's Type 45 air defense destroyers. The WR-21 was developed in a U.S.-led program with British and French participation.
SINGLE-PHOTON TRANSMISSIONS also have cryptography applications, in the new field of Quantum Key Distribution. Los Alamos demonstrated QKD over 48 km. of optical fiber and is developing it for ``free-space,'' line-of-sight communications, such as from surface-to-aircraft and for re-keying satellites in low-Earth orbits. Low-error-rate transmissions have been achieved in the laboratory only at 205 meters, but outdoor tests of several kilometers are planned in the near future.
Globalstar has opened a new satellite ground station in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, in a move intended to improve access to satellite communications services through most of the Caribbean region. The Cabo Rojo facility is the 24th gateway in the Globalstar system following the recent start of service at the new Globalstar gateway in Ogulbey, Turkey. Globalstar earlier revealed that Globalstar do Brasil signed a contract with Itapemirim and is installing Globalstar phone units in 43 of the company's intercity buses, with initiation of commercial service on Dec. 1.
Paul Wengen has been appointed acting president of L-3 Space and Navigation, Teterboro, N.J. He has been senior vice president and was vice president/general manager of Lockheed Martin Naval Electronic Surveillance Systems.
The European Commission's competition directorate has approved the merger of helicopter manufacturers Westland and Agusta. The joint venture will be owned by GKN Westland and Finmeccanica, Agusta's parent company. In addition, Italy's Finmeccanica group, which owns a 25% stake in Aermacchi, plans to acquire the remaining 75% of shares in an effort to further streamline the Italian aerospace industry.
SKY COMPUTERS IS DEVELOPING a family of rugged Power PC-based embedded multicomputers specifically for defense use in airborne, ship and land-based weapon systems. The new systems--Merlin Xtreme1 and Xtreme2--follow the Merlin commercial line. The aim of the Xtreme line is to control life-cycle costs. The challenge is to provide a path to upgrade defense programs that may have a 40-year life, with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products that change on a 2-3-year cycle.
Raytheon is promoting a product called Silent Runner designed to prevent computer invasions from ``inside'' not ``outside'' a corporation's network. Hugo Poza of Raytheon's C3I branch says 75% of companies have experienced a security breach in the past year, and ``80% of the real hacking'' was from within. The mind boggles at what might be going on in an industry rife with teaming arrangements, transatlantic alliances and contractual firewalls.
Ryanair, the Irish low-fare carrier, is offering a means for travelers to exchange currency on its Web site, Ryanair.com, in a partnership with simplyfx.com, an independent provider of foreign currency in the U.K. Users of the Web site may order foreign currency or traveler's checks and pay by credit card directly online. The currency will be delivered to home or office by secure mail within 48 hr. after an online transaction, said Ryanair's commercial director, Sean Coyle. No additional commissions, transaction or delivery fees will be charged.
SANDISK'S NEW TRIFLASH embedded memory device will enter production in the first half of 2001, and will be available initially in 128-, 256- and 512-megabit capabilities, which translates into 16, 32 and 64 megabytes of storage. It is packaged in a thin, fine-pitch ball grid array that is 17 X 12 mm. in size and 1.2 mm. thick. SanDisk has been a leader in removable flash memory cards. TriFlash has a simple, high-performance serial interface, using the three input-output pins that are standard for secure digital and multimedia cards.
QUANTUM PHYSICS PRINCIPLES could lead to secure transmission of messages over open fiber-optic cables within 5-10 years, according to Stanford University researchers. Today, hackers with access to a fiber-optic cable could conceivably use beam splitters to divert streams of light and read confidential information without being detected. But scientists at Stanford and Los Alamos National Laboratory--building on the early 1980s research of Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman and others--believe it will be possible to send messages a photon at a time.
NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft doubled its own record for uninterrupted rocket thrusting on Nov. 28 by running for 29 days and 3.7 hr. The Hughes ion engine is boosting the trajectory to fly by the comet Borrelly on Sept. 22. It normally fires for a week then pauses while turning for Earth communications, but superior conjunction with the Sun degraded communications during the last month so the engine ran nonstop without Earth turns.
Gemini Air Cargo, an aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI) provider, is ``leaning toward'' the purchase in a few years of a stretched version of the proposed Boeing 747X over the other super widebody, the Airbus A3XX. In a recent speech in Washington, Gemini President and CEO William D. Stockbridge said that internal studies showed that the Boeing product offered greater cargo-carrying capacity for his Washington Dulles-based carrier that operates a fleet of DC-10s and MD-11s.
