Continuing its emphasis on service-related businesses, Boeing has elevated three enterprises to the status of corporate business units with their leaders reporting directly to the Office of the Chairman. In addition, the leaders will become members of Boeing's Executive Council. The units are Connexion by Boeing, Air Traffic Management and Boeing Capital Corp.
Airlines are proposing lower cost alternatives to building Tokyo's third airport offshore, a la Kansai International. They are proposing expansion of either Narita or Haneda or both. The Ministry of Transport has reportedly agreed to include further expansion at Haneda in the Tokyo airport studies that are to be funded in the next fiscal year.
Ray Kolibaba has been appointed vice president-space systems for the Raytheon Strategic Systems, Aurora, Colo. He was vice president/general manager of Raytheon's Information Technology Systems, Landover, Md. Kolibaba succeeds Rick Ambrose, who has left the company.
Los Angeles County plans to buy two Sikorsky S-70A Black Hawk helicopters that have been modified to carry 1,000 gal. of firefighting liquids, and also serve as flying ambulances. Sikorsky calls the helicopter the ``Firehawk.'' The first aircraft is with the Army National Guard in Oregon, and Los Angeles will have the second and third Firehawk. Congress has funded two more helicopters for the Guard in California and Florida, plus three conversion kits.
The next economic recession may not hurt the business aviation industry as badly as it has in the past, according to a report by The CIT Group and AvData Inc. If a recession occurs during the latter half of 2001, current strong sales of new business jets, light aircraft and turboprops would begin to weaken as supply gradually outpaces demand. In addition, fractional ownership operators may choose to defer or cancel orders for new airplanes, which account for about 50% of the industry's production backlog. But the worst effect probably would not be felt until 2002.
Boeing has confirmed an order from Alitalia for six 777-200ERs, plus options on six longer range 777-300s. The 777 order replaces one for five 747-400s plus options on three more. Alitalia said the move was triggered by the collapse of its planned alliance with KLM.
Thomas Duxbury has been appointed project manager of NASA's Stardust mission to collect a comet sample and return it to Earth, which is being managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He was acting project manager and succeeds Kenneth Atkins, who now heads a JPL program to develop the leadership of its projects.
Jim Sweedyk (see photos) has been promoted to director of business development for the Interior and Structures Div. from director of marketing, sales and customer support for the Nordam Group, Tulsa, Okla. He has been succeeded by Brett Benton, who has been promoted from director of marketing for the Prism Div.
Raytheon has been dropped in the latest round of bidding for a 46% stake in the U.K.'s National Air Traffic System (NATS), which is to be partially privatized. Three consortia have been selected by the U.K.'s Transport Dept. to move to the next stage. They are Nimbus, led by the British management group Serco; Novares, which includes Lockheed Martin; and the Airline Group, consisting of eight of the U.K.'s major carriers. Boeing and Alenia Marconi Systems are reported to be seeking to join one of the three consortia.
Next month Boeing will begin using wind tunnels at the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center to augment its testing capability for future commercial airline designs and advanced development of the company's Joint Strike Fighter. The initial agreement calls for a three-year contract that includes an indefinite number of extensions, and could be worth up to $30 million annually for AEDC. ``It is good business for us to expand into the commercial realm and utilize these tunnels more,'' an Air Force official said.
Japan's growing enthusiasm for wine might well be measured in the veritable river of the 2000 vintage Beaujolais Nouveau that is being rushed to markets in Tokyo. By French law, the wine must be held in bond until public release on the third Thursday of November--meaning the 16th this year. To get ready, Japan Airlines has added three freighters to supplement four scheduled freighters and belly space on 13 passenger aircraft for this year's shipment. Its first freighter shipment of 100 tons--527,650 bottles for those counting--was due at Narita airport on Nov. 11.
Thomson Racal Defense will conduct a three-year study of counterstealth measures under a 3-million-pound ($4.3-million) contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense. The University College London and the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency are involved in the work, which will focus on innovative methods of detecting, tracking and classifying stealth aircraft, unmanned air vehicles and weapons. The study covers 10 individual projects including bistatic and multistatic radar systems.
The judges for Aviation Week&Space Technology's Fourth Annual Technology Innovation Awards bring a wide variety of experience in aerospace and defense. They are: Dee H. Andrews, a human factors expert who is technical director of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Warfighter Training Research Div., Mesa, Ariz. Anthony J. Broderick, a safety consultant who represents manufacturers, airlines and governments. He retired from the FAA as associate administrator for regulation and certification.
In a move enthusiastically anticipated by Russian government officials, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Nov. 4 to merge the country's two major state-owned specialized arms trading companies--Rosvooruzhenie and Promexport--into a single entity.
Threat Image Projection is on its way to becoming commonplace at U.S. airports, and the companies that use the technology in their baggage screening systems are working with the FAA to manage the vast amounts of data generated by the systems.
BAE Systems said last week that it will extend until November 2006 one of the industry's largest infotech outsourcing contracts with Computer Sciences Corp. The new deal is for $2.2 billion and completes an initial agreement signed in April to extend an existing $1.1-billion contract that was due to expire in March 2004. CSC will handle all of BAE's U.S.- and U.K.-based IT infrastructure. The contract means that 600 IT personnel that formerly drew paychecks from BAE will now receive them from CSC.
The MM series of short-stroke part formers includes high-speed, five-die part formers with quick-change features. They offer heavy, oversized frames of nodular cast iron with integrated gear train in oil-tight casings and oversized connecting rods, crankshafts, bearings and pitman for long life. The linear feed system allows accurate feeding of short cut-off lengths and adjustment of feed lengths without stopping operations. Transfer, preset outside the machine, changes quickly from straight to rotating movement for increased flexibility.
Insat-2B's loss of Earth-pointing capability has prompted the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to halt operations of the telecommunications satellite. The majority of the spacecraft's services such as TV and very small aperture terminal previously were transferred to ISRO's Insat-2C/3B satellite. Insat-2B exceeded its seven-year design life last July, and position-keeping fuel reserves are nearly depleted.
William J. McMillan has been appointed corporate executive vice president/chief financial officer of Vought Aircraft Industries Inc., of Dallas. He was vice president-business management for the Northrop Grumman Corp. Commercial Aircraft Div. Other new Vought executives are: Tom Risley, corporate senior vice president/chief operating officer; Margo Parker, corporate vice president/chief human resources and administration officer and former vice president- human resources and administration for Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems and Aerostructures Sector; Vernon H.
Improved asset management rather than just the buying and selling will be an early focus of Aeroxchange when it goes live in the first quarter of next year. Senior managers met at Aeroxchange's Dallas headquarters last week with FedEx Vice President Edith Kelly-Green, who has been named its interim CEO. They worked on details of how Version 1.1 ``is and how it works'' so they can ``go back to their members and spread the word,'' she said.
UPS AVIATION TECHNOLOGIES' automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) system, recently certified for passenger and cargo jets by the FAA, has a graphical range monitor that pilots can use to maintain precise spacing when following another equipped aircraft, speeding up departures and arrivals. ADS-B transmits an aircraft's identity, location and speed vector.
