Royal Air Maroc has agreed to acquire up to 20 Boeing Next-Generation 737s and two 767s in a deal valued at about $1.4 billion at list prices. The airline's fleet currently includes 28 Boeing 737s, nine of which are Next-Generation aircraft.The decision by Royal Air Maroc came after a six-month study by the carrier of available aircraft for its fleet expansion.
Rising costs have prompted NASA to kill a palm-sized rover for Japan's Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft-C (Muses-C) that is due for liftoff in November or December 2002 on a voyage to orbit the Asteroid 1998 SF36. The NASA rover was to be one of the most innovative uses of nanotechnology. It was to weigh just 2.5 lb. and put man's presence on an asteroid for the first time. After descending from Muses-C to the asteroid's surface, the rover was to transmit infrared images of its surface to Earth via the mother spacecraft.
After some preliminary rearrangement of its Joint Strike Fighter management last month, Lockheed Martin has now named an executive vice president as the program's new manager.
Gerald Wilson has been appointed to the board of directors of the SatCon Technology Corp., Cambridge, Mass. He is the Vannevar Bush professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and chairman of the science advisory boards of General Motors and Pratt&Whitney.
The European Space Agency has named the Sarcom consortium led by Radarsat International (RSI) as distributor for Earth Resources Satellite and Envisat data worldwide along with RSI's Radarsat-1 data.
Pro Air has abandoned its legal appeal of a rare FAA order that revoked its air carrier certificate and will work with the agency to restore the discount airline to operating status.
Eutelsat plans to develop a new satellite architecture, dubbed Ipsat, that would be specifically configured for supply of broadband and Internet applications.
The Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents more than 23,000 attendants at American Airlines, planned to begin informational picketing at 36 airports last weekend to protest the lack of a new contract with the nation's second largest airline. APFA officials and representatives from American have been negotiating for more than two years. In November 1993, the union called a strike against American that shut down operations for five days before President Clinton intervened.
Schiphol airport managers have detailed an ambitious expansion plan that would allow the Amsterdam facility to continue to compete effectively with London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gaulle and other leading European hubs. The airport is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' main base and an important European link for connecting traffic.
Aircraft manufacturing will remain a core business, but other divisions such as communications, space and its newly created air traffic management unit will become equally important, Boeing's top official said here last week. ``We need to do something other than make commercial aircraft,'' chairman and CEO Philip M. Condit said before a briefing on cabin air quality.
The FAA has issued an airworthiness directive calling for measurements of cracks in flap hinge fittings on DC-9 jets through the -50 series, including military C-9s. The directive mandates provisions of a Boeing bulletin issued in September that addressed reports of cracked flap idler hinge fittings at the lower, outboard stud location. The FAA said cracks could cause inadvertent extension of a flap.
MAN Technologie has finished hot qualification testing for ceramic body-flap bearings for NASA's X-38/V201 experimental reentry vehicle. The carbon-fiber-reinforced silicon carbide bearings weigh 50% less than traditional bearings and are designed to withstand the 1,600-deg.-C. temperatures and 4-ton dynamic loads generated during atmospheric reentry.
New radar-absorbing surfaces, which make repairing and modifying the B-2 easier, have triggered U.S. Air Force interest in adding two new weapon bays and exploiting other unused spaces in the stealthy, long-range bomber. USAF officials are considering converting two bays immediately outboard of the main wheel wells to carry decoy missiles, miniature missiles or--most interestingly--jamming missiles that could be fired toward enemy radar sites. Northrop Grumman would not discuss the subject, however.
Helen Tirone has been named vice president-sales of Barnes Aerospace, Windsor, Conn. She was director of business development for an aircraft logistics sector of the Lockheed Martin Corp.
Harold T. (Skip) Bowling has been appointed to the board of directors of Mercury Air Group Inc. of Los Angeles. He succeeds William G. Langston, who has retired. Bowling was president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics International before retiring.
U.S. Air Force Capt. Warren Sneed has been declared dead, ending a 48-hr. search of the Sea of Japan that began after his and another Misawa-based F-16C collided on Nov. 13. The other pilot was rescued shortly after the crash. After a safety inspection, flight operations in a joint U.S.-Japanese military exercise resumed from the base, which is 400 mi. north of Tokyo.
The Boeing X-32A Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator flew Nov. 15 for the first time in three weeks following a problem involving the hydraulic system, which resulted in the aircraft landing on a dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, Calif. Program officials said they have made an interim fix and plan to have a permanent solution in place by the end of the month. Under the interim fix, the landing gear are not being raised, but Boeing officials said the aircraft is now being used for field carrier landing practice, which does not require raising the gear.
Russia's Security Council has approved a long-stalled decision to eliminate some 600,000 positions from the defense payroll, clearing the way for modernization of the armed forces. The cuts concern 470,000 military positions and 130,000 civilian jobs at 12 federal ministries and agencies that field armed units. The reductions are to be carried out over a five-year period. Currently, 2.1 million servicemen and 966,000 civilian employees work for the Russian defense establishment.
Northrop Grumman is betting heavily on the U.S. Navy's unmanned combat air vehicle program and other emerging technology concepts to ensure the company's long-term business base. As part of its effort to win future development programs, Northrop Grumman is establishing a research laboratory as an incubator of new ideas. ``We've invested about $120 million in facilities in order to posture ourselves'' for the future, says Scott J. Seymour, sector vice president of Northrop Grumman's Air Combat Systems.
SIA Engineering Co., Singapore Technologies Aerospace and United Technologies Corp. have agreed to create a joint venture in Singapore to pursue turbine blade work using two advanced technologies--electron beam physical vapor deposition coating and turbotip plating. The endeavor will be capitalized initially at $13.2 million and allows UTC's Pratt&Whitney to reduce turnaround time and lower costs serving customers in the Asia-Pacific region.
