EASTMAN KODAK HAS LICENSED its Organic Electroluminescence Display (Oled) technology to Lite Array Inc. Oled uses specially designed organic thin-film materials to convert electric current to red, green, blue or combined full-color images. The advantages of Oled over conventional liquid crystal displays is faster response time, higher brightness in a variety of lighting conditions, wide viewing angles, thinner displays and a wide operating temperature range, according to Lite Array.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS' INTERSTATE Electronics Corp. (IEC) unit will supply the flat panel displays for the robotic workstation (RWS) on the International Space Station. The displays provide a visual reference to control the Canadarm robot arm as it manipulates large payloads and performs complex tasks in space. Two RWS systems will be on board the ISS--one in the U.S. pressurized lab module and one in the Cupola--to build and perform maintenance on the station itself.
Lorrie A. Secrest has been named vice president-communications of the Boeing Space&Communications Group and Matthew J. de la Haye London-based corporate vice president-international communications. Secrest was vice president-public affairs for Iridium, while de la Haye was an executive in international strategic marketing and business development for Lucent Technologies Inc.
The FAA this month took the initiative--10 to be exact--in reducing runway incursions, the agency's No. 1 safety priority. FAA Administrator Jane F. Garvey mandated Runway Safety Program Office development of the ``Top 10'' list by Aug. 1. The actions flow from intense government-industry focus on this growing safety problem (AW&ST June 26, p. 66).
ATLANTIC AVIATION CORP. HAS ADDED A GULFSTREAM III and a Falcon 50 to the fleet of its Flight Services Div. in Teterboro, N.J. According to Atlantic Aviation officials, the Gulfstream will be based at Morristown, N.J., and the Falcon will operate from La Jolla, Calif. Atlantic's Flight Services Div. operates 24 turbine-powered airplanes for charter.
A new assessment of the F-22's development threatens to expose a need to extend the test phase and break a congressionally imposed cost cap levied on the program. As a result, the U.S. Air Force has launched a major review of the remainder of its F-22 engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase to manage an increasingly tight test schedule. At the same time, service officials are noting with concern the exodus of F-22 software engineers to other industries.
Lockheed Martin officials believe they may have turned the corner in their bid to recover from a series of program and financial missteps last year. One sign is that after months of retrenching, the company is willing to explore small acquisitions.
British Airways and Dutch carrier KLM reported moving closer toward a merger last week and agreed to extend the period for exclusive talks. But regulatory complexities continue to overshadow the discussions.
Lockheed Martin says this year has started off much stronger for its International Launch Services unit than 1999, when the Atlas program was thrown off track by problems with Pratt&Whitney's RL10 engine and a launch failure slowed down the Proton. ILS booked $1 billion in orders for the first half of the year, more than double what it achieved in all of 1999.
The NTSB is urging the FAA to remove about 600 General Electric CF6-series engines because of difficulties inspecting rotating components in the high-pressure compressor section. Safety board officials are aware of more than 10 failures of the HPC Stage 3-9 spools that have led to debris penetrating aircraft structure. Specifically, the NTSB is concerned that GE's fluorescent penetrant inspection procedure is ``inadequate to inspect the interior surfaces'' of the titanium alloy HPC spools.
Raytheon Systems Ltd. has been selected to provide a Successor Identification Friend or Foe (SIFF) system for 40 different types of British aircraft and naval vessels, a program estimated to be worth $150 million. Raytheon will provide the system and manage its installation on some 25 equipment types. BAE Systems, Marshal Aerospace, GKN Westland Helicopters and other manufacturers will receive separate contracts to fit SIFF systems on the remaining platforms.
A U.S. Air Force initiative to upgrade the avionics on older C-130s is pitting the major aerospace companies against each other in the hunt for the multibillion-dollar contract. But for one competitor--BAE Systems North America--the competition also serves as a litmus test to determine if the Pentagon will seriously consider it as a prime contractor even though the parent company is headquartered in the U.K.
By Honeywell's estimates, it's been ignoring about $100 million in annual avionics revenues by ignoring the potential of used equipment sales. It means to remedy this situation by combining an insider's knowledge of the avionics aftermarket with smart Web technology. The vehicle is AvionicsZone.com, a Web site Honeywell launched last month as a complement to the better known and bigger MyAircraft digital marketplace Honeywell is developing with United Technologies and BFGoodrich.
United's pain is American's gain. That's a rhyme PaineWebber's Samuel Buttrick used in a recap of second quarter airline earnings. In spite of United's operational shortcomings--cancellations and delays that packed a $50-million quarterly penalty--Buttrick still gave United (UAL) an ``attractive'' rating. American (AMR) came out as the top pick.
Pilots unfashionably refer to the experience as like looking through a pair of toilet paper tubes, but there's nothing funny about the drive to expand the 40-deg. field of view typically found in the current generation of night vision goggles (NVGs). Flight tests in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter of prototype Panoramic Night Vision Goggles (PNVG) with a 100-deg. horizontal field of view have shown promise at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, south of here.
Why the industry-wide interest in converting older 747-100/200/300 passenger transports into freighters? Boeing says its 747 Special Freighter modification can carry up to 101 tons of payload and offset total trip costs with a 50% load factor, based on an average 2,000-naut.-mi. domestic flight. The 747SF modification adds a side cargo door, lighter but stronger main deck and main deck cargo-handling and power drive systems. World cargo traffic is projected to rise an average of 6.4% a year for the next 20 years, compared with 4.8% for passenger traffic.
Michael J. Bowers has become vice president-customer service and station operations, Kevin Stocker director of human resources and Ruben Servando Valdez reservations manager for the Las Cruces, N.M., call center, all for Frontier Airlines. Bowers was director of customer service for Horizon Air. Stocker was manager of staffing and employee relations, while Valdez was the airline's city manager in El Paso, Tex. Peter De La Torre, who was the customer service coordinator in El Paso, has succeeded Valdez.
Robert W. Moorman has joined Aviation Week&Space Technology as the Transport Editor in the Washington bureau. He will cover the airline industry, including regionals, and safety issues. He was the Regional Editor at Air Transport World for 13 years prior to joining the magazine. Moorman had previously worked for Air Line Pilot Magazine and Professional Pilot Magazine and is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado.
Japan's three major airlines, All Nippon Airways, Japan Air Systems and Japan Airlines, plan to establish Kokunaisen.com in October as an independent company to operate a Web site for their domestic ticket sales. The site is scheduled to be activated next April. Each carrier will own a one-third share. Officials predict that the site will handle up to 10 billion yen ($93 million) in sales the first year, and project that 5% of domestic sales will be made through Kokunaisen.com within five years.
U.S. aviation lawyers say the fatal Concorde crash calls attention to a potentially grave legal development: criminal prosecutions taking precedence over safety in the conduct of accident probes. Legal responsibilities--if any--for the July 25 Concorde disaster will be determined by a 47-member panel commissioned by a French court (AW&ST Aug. 7, p. 28).
Army and Joint Staff officials are increasingly interested in using lighter-than-air craft to haul large amounts of equipment. The air transport systems might be useful to carry massive loads of oversized cargo, such as tanks, says Lt. Gen. Kevin Byrnes, the Army's assistant vice chief of staff. The air ships would go to a few intermediate staging locations, where the loads would be broken down into smaller loads, put on C-130s and transported to their individual units.
Techstar Demo Systems, Moorpark, Calif., is marketing an on-aircraft network server to host maintenance, crew and cabin applications as well as inflight entertainment systems on passenger transports. The server, which uses commercial off-the-shelf components, also can facilitate FOQA data download, on-plane intranet browsing, e-mail, credit card validation and Connexion by Boeing. Honeywell has placed an initial order for 50 production units, with deliveries to start next month.
NASA's 2003 Mars mission will comprise two separate surface rovers, instead of one. The rovers will be similar and go to different sites, which will be chosen in mid-2002. The first rover will cost $350-400 million to develop, launch and operate for the first 30 days, and the second rover will bring the total to about $600 million. The extra $200 million will come from other NASA programs over a three-year period, or about 0.5% of NASA's $40-billion budget over that period.
Gene Peterson has been promoted to vice president-regulatory compliance/chief safety officer from vice president-flight operations for Northwest Airlines. He succeeds John Kern, who is scheduled to retire later this year. Jeff Carlson, who has been managing director of flying/chief pilot, will succeed Peterson. Greg May has been appointed vice president-aircraft transactions. He was vice president-aircraft finance for Fleet Capital Leasing of Chicago.
