Robert B. Cook (see photos) has been appointed director of the Institute for Manufacturing and Sustainment Technologies and Thomas M. Donnellan associate director of the Materials and Manufacturing Office at Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory. Cook will assist the Naval Air Systems Command and industry in aviation-related manufacturing issues through the institute's Air Vehicle Technology Group efforts. Donnellan will direct overall air vehicle technology materials and manufacturing R&D efforts.
CAE has won a contract to upgrade the NATO E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System flight simulator at NATO's Geilenkirchen, Germany, air base. CAE will deliver its Medallion Image Generator and Series 600 Motion System.
Aerospan, the online air transport supplies marketplace, has entered beta (field) testing of Aerospan.com and will have the e-marketplace site online by late August, according to Senior Vice President Hal Chrisman. Aerospan is a 50-50 partnership between AAR Corp. of Wood Dale, Ill., a $1-billion airline parts, inventory management and logistics service company, and SITA Inc. of the Netherlands, the $1.4-billion airline telecommunications network provider. Aerospan has 15 major carriers in its ``focus group,'' Chrisman said.
Warbird pilots and museums are up in arms about Defense authorization bill language that would extend the Pentagon's authority to demilitarize equipment after it leaves the military and is in private hands. The provision is in the House's bill and would allow the secretary of Defense to force owners of ``significant military equipment'' to demilitarize such hardware at the owner's expense--for example, by rendering it unflyable. Museums and owners are concerned that it would be that much easier to destroy their valuable aircraft on political whimsy.
Australia and the U.K. have agreed to exchange information on their respective future strike aircraft programs--the British Future Offensive Air Strike program to replace Tornado GR4s and Australia's Air 6000 program to replace F/A-18s and F-111s. The agreement covers common requirements, concepts of operations and technology acquisition, as well as cooperative concept and technology demonstration programs.
The FAA has proposed to fine Boeing Commercial Airplane Group up to $1.24 million for failing to properly oversee quality control policies and procedures at suppliers and not reporting 737 fleet safety problems. The violations had no direct safety implica- tions for aircraft, the FAA said. The penalties could be reduced on appeal.
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency is championing an initiative to use the same information-age technology at work in commercial markets to spearhead a revolution in the U.S. intelligence community. NIMA's efforts are focused on how to quickly combine secret reconnaissance satellite and commercial imagery with geospatial data and other information, such as aircraft reconnaissance and electronic intercepts, for much more rapid dissemination of highly integrated intelligence products.
Parvin Kassaie has been appointed manager of the Educational Affairs Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. She was manager of the Center for Experiential Education and Service Learning at the University of California in Los Angeles.
Bill Barager has been appointed to the board of directors of the Arlington, Va.-based National Aeronautic Assn. He is Rosslyn, Va.-based vice president-government relations operations for Boeing.
Dassault Systemes/IBM's vast user base for its Catia software, a customer list that includes rival Boeing, put it over the top in a two-year contest to choose computing tools for design and manufacture of Airbus Industrie's future aircraft programs, including the bulk of the $12-billion A3XX transport and all of the $4.75-billion A400M military transport.
H. Giovanni Carnaroli has been named manager of consulting services and Diane D'Aubin technical services administrator for BACK Aviation Solutions, Manassas, Va.
The Sea Launch system, following its third successful mission, is boosting payload weight capability and trimming overall processing times as the international venture prepares for launch of a Thuraya communications satellite next month. The 8,067-lb. PanAmSat PAS-9 was launched on July 28 from the equator at 154 deg. W. Long., the third success in four attempts for Sea Launch. The satellite, launched at 3:42 p.m. PDT, arrived in geostationary transfer orbit about 1 hr. 45 min. later.
Now that Lockheed Martin has completed its acquisition of Comsat, it plans to turn around and seek a strategic partner to buy 15-20% of the business and then do a stock offering. The merger of the two was finally completed last week following approval by the Federal Communications Commission. It was accomplished in a one-for-one stock swap for the 51% of Comsat that LockMart did not already own. The exchange was valued at $790 million. The remaining 49% was acquired in a tender offer announced in 1998 and cost the Bethesda, Md.-based aerospace giant $1.2 billion.
A Hong Kong shipping company, Chu Kong Air Sea Union Transport Co. Ltd., has been awarded the right to operate the Marine Cargo Terminal (MCT) at the city's international airport. Long a dream in Hong Kong aviation, the marine terminal is intended to link air freight at the airport, which is located on an island, with shipping coming out of southern China's busy Pearl River Delta industrial region (AW&ST Mar. 27, p. 44). The MTC is to be built on a 3.5-acre (1.4-hectare) site next to a passenger ferry pier.
The incident highlights several industry concerns, among them finding the causes of clear air turbulence and the need for in-cockpit technology that would aid pilots in predicting--and therefore avoiding--turbulence and other hazardous atmospheric conditions such as icing and volcanic ash. The National Center for Atmospheric Research recently identified ``horizontal vortex tubes'' or horizontal tornadoes as one possible cause of clear air turbulence.
Boeing agreed to pay $61.5 million last week to settle a lawsuit by a whistle-blower who accused the company of selling faulty helicopter gears for the CH-47D Chinook. Brett Roby, a quality control engineer for Speco Corp. of Springfield, Ohio, which manufactured the gears, claims that Seattle-based Boeing knew the gears could develop cracks. Two CH-47D crashes resulted from the faulty gears, although there were no fatalities. Boeing denies the allegations but said it was settling the suit to avoid protracted litigation and would challenge the scope of the damages.
The U.S. Navy will make its Battle Force e-mail system work over ships' existing high-frequency radios with Rockwell Collins' HF Messenger software. The system will have wide area-type connectivity, and messages will be broadcast to all, multicast to a few, or sent point-to-point. . . . CargoLifter AG, the Berlin-based startup designing airships to carry heavy loads such as Airbus wings, has placed a $1.3-million order with Parametric Technology Corp. for its Windchill software.
The French government will not authorize Air France to restart Concorde operations until the investigators' remaining uncertainties about the events that led to the July 25 crash are further clarified.
The Transportation Dept. is confident the Internet will not make travel agencies disappear, even though airline Web sites are attracting increased bookings. The reason is simple: passengers are still finding the lowest available fares from travel agencies, according to Transportation's A. Bradley Mims. He adds that lots of fliers value their personal relationships with travel agents who can intercede when something goes wrong.
Timothy M. Shroyer (see photos) has been promoted to vice president-business development for TriPoint Global Communnications, Gastonia, N.C., from vice president-systems engineering at the company's VertexRSI facility, Santa Clara, Calif. Bernard Cahlander has been named vice president/general manager of that facility. He succeeds Louis Becker, who has retired. Cahlander was vice president-tracking, telemetry and control systems.
