Patrick Kahr has become managing director of passenger services for RepWorld Holdings Ltd., Pembroke Pines, Fla. He was vice president-South America, Europe and South Pacific of LanChile Airlines.
An EasyJet Boeing 737-300 experienced unexplained yaw on takeoff from Zurich and during the landing approach to London Luton airport on July 17. EasyJet grounded the aircraft and sent the flight data recorder to Boeing. After an initial examination of the FDR, Boeing engineers said they were ``confident'' that the yaw was not induced by the rudder, but had yet to identify a probable cause, according to EasyJet officials.
Jeffrey C. Lowe has become regional vice president-sales for Asia and the Philippines for the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga. He was director of Asia-Pacific sales for Bombardier Aerospace Business Aircraft.
ROCKWELL COLLINS HAS DEVELOPED A WEATHER RADAR--WXR-2100 MultiScanWeather Radar--that should give pilots a more complete picture of weather ahead of the aircraft while decreasing pilot workload by eliminating the need to manually control the radar's antenna tilt. With single-tilt operations a pilot cannot see weather at 180 mi. and 250 mi. together, but has to vary the tilt and then compare returns. This radar uses multiple beams to automatically provide optimal weather detection at all ranges.
The U.S. Transportation Dept.'s Library Technical Services has turned to the Web to make 40-year-old documents more accessibile. The department began using an electronic document management system in the 1960s to improve retrieval. The task of fetching earlier documents was turned over to Microsearch Corp. of Saugus, Mass., for scanning and indexing to make them also electronically available. Included were Civil Aeronautics Manuals, Civil Air Regulations and superceded Advisory Circulars.
Meanwhile, in Europe, FedEx is adding four all-cargo Airbus A310F twinjets to its Paris-based fleet and plans to take delivery of a fifth aircraft in September. They will operate nighttime courier flights between Charles de Gaulle airport and seven European points including Frankfurt, London Stansted and Milan. The A310F's maximum payload is 30 metric tons (66,000 lb.). FedEx's A310Fs are replacing significantly noisier Boeing 727-200 trijets and are expected to get a warm welcome from Charles de Gaulle airport's antinoise neighbors.
IBM WILL USE ITS ADVANCED COPPER CHIP TECHNOLOGY to manufacture next-generation Alpha microprocessors for Compaq. Instead of aluminum, IBM is using copper to interconnect the transistors in chips. Although copper is a better conductor, IBM had to overcome adverse interactions that altered the electrical properties of silicon. The microprocessors have circuit sizes of 0.18 micron, which will allow doubling or tripling the number of circuits on the chip. Processor, memory controller and cache memory will all be integrated onto a single piece of silicon.
Kathy Mullen, who was manager of alliances at Canadian Airlines, has been named global project director of the Oneworld Central Management Co. Ltd. Also appointed were: John McCulloch, vice president-marketing and Bob McNair vice president-information technology. McNair was general manager for e-commerce at Qantas.
Swedish Space Corp. has signed a contract with Saab Znyge Aero for two MSS 5000 Maritime Surveillance Systems to be integrated on Canadair CL-415 amphibious aircraft. The CL 415 can scoop up more than six tons of water from the sea or a lake for dropping on a forest fire. Saab Nyge Aero has received an order from Bombardier to modify two aircraft for search-and-rescue (SAR) and sea surveillance missions while keeping their capability to fight forest fires. The first two multirole aircraft will operate in the Mediterranean.
Teddy Iversen, a Maersk Air Boeing 737 captain, has been elected chairman of the European Cockpit Assn. Vice chairmen will be Capts. Jos Engels and Francesco Gentile, from KLM and Alitalia, respectively.
Chris Johnson-Pasqua has been appointed assistant general manager at the Long Beach Training Hub and Martin Schaaf assistant general manager at the Miami Training Hub, both for Seattle-based FlightSafety Boeing Training International. Johnson-Pasqua was manager of the 737 avionics group at Long Beach, while Schaaf was director of maintenance training for Northwest Airlines.
Capt. Hugh Schoelzel (see photo) has been named vice president-corporate safety of Trans World Airlines. He is a Boeing 757/767 captain and chief pilot for the Eastern U.S.
Josef Shinar, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, has developed a math-based pursuit-evasion theory he believes can help improve accuracy of the Pentagon's National Missile Defense system. Using game theory, Shinar has developed a guidance law that considers an incoming tactical ballistic missile's worst case evasive moves.
SKY COMPUTERS' 24-PROCESSOR MERLIN COMPUTER SYSTEM is being used by Huntsville, Ala.-based Simulation Technologies for real-time modeling and simulation of several guided missile programs at the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal. Initially, it is supporting hardware-in-the-loop testing of the RF seeker from a smart submunition missile program, but is expected to be employed in other ground attack and air defense missile test programs. Sky Computers' systems are also used for aerospace training and industrial automation.
Nine expressions of interest have been registered for the 46% of the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services being sold to the private sector. Aerospace companies BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Thomson-CSF have applied, as well as British services company Serco and two financial groups. An alliance of eight leading British airlines also submitted a joint application (AW&ST July 17, p. 25).
Paul Morse (see photos) has been named director of engineering for Lockheed Martin Sanders' Infrared Imaging Systems, Lexington, Mass. Larrie G. Cable has been appointed director of maritime information warfare for the company's Information Dominance Systems and Dan J. Gobel has become director of the Joint Strike Fighter electronic warfare program, both in Nashua, N.H. Morse was technical director for the company's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder program. He succeeds Nancy Aldrich, who has retired.
Paul Bollinger, Jr., (see photos) has been named vice president-aviation business development for the HNTB Corp. in its Alexandria, Va., office. Wilfredo Guzman has become associate vice president in the New York office. He was Northeast U.S. district development director for Parsons Brinckerhoff Aviation.
Aviation Partners Inc. (API) of Seattle continues to broaden applications for its blended winglets technology. The company, which says the winglets reduce fuel burn by 5-7%, just signed a $20-million contract with Hapag-Lloyd of Germany to outfit 24 of its 737-800s with API winglets. South African Airways, too, has committed to installing winglets on its 737-800s. API also is flight-testing its winglet technology on the Boeing 747 and is scheduled to begin similar work on the 737-300 in September and 757 and 767 by year-end, according to CEO Joe Clark.
Under growing pressure to protect its top-line product from Airbus' planned 555-seat A3XX, Boeing last month began briefing world airlines on three potential 747-400 derivatives that will offer increased performance and lower acquisition and operating costs.
Galaxy business jets, in conjunction with Flight Environments, have made changes to the aircraft's environmental control system as well as the installation of advanced sound absorbing materials between the fuselage skin and interior cabin panels. The sound proofing package has been placed in Galaxy 005 and will be provided to the rest of the Galaxy fleet. Inflight cabin sound measurements on 005 show sound levels to be consistent throughout the cabin, with an average in the low 70s for dBA. and in the mid-50s for SIL readings.
During the past year, aerospace leaders have been caught up in the whirlwind of excitement about doing business on the Internet. But a survey by Deloitte Consulting and Aviation Week&Space Technology shows that--with a few exceptions--aerospace manufacturers are stepping up to the Internet starting gate not so much as part of their overall business strategy but out of fear that their competition will get a jump on them.
Woody Cahall has been named vice president-aviation services and Ed Thompson vice president-member assistance of the Frederick, Md.-based Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn.
After decades of obscurity and neglect, unmanned aerial vehicles, including reconnaissance drones, decoys and remotely piloted aircraft, are again making an operational impact in a renaissance that began in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war and continued through the Bosnia and Kosovo air campaigns.
Do executive charter services feel a threat from Internet startups offering to sell unused time on business jets? Executive Jet CEO Richard Santulli doesn't think so. He recently dismissed the idea that the Web threatens his business. Web sites are not selling fractionals and the two businesses cannot be compared, he said.
