Officials from Brazil's Embraer recently demonstrated the company's 45-passenger ERJ-145 regional jet to Chinese airline and government officials in Shanghai. The demonstration tour also made similar stops at Chinese airline hubs Beijing, Chengdu, Kunming, Shenzhen and Urumqi. China wants to use regional jets to improve domestic feeder service as well as open new routes to remote western regions it has targeted for development.
Two British-built satellites were launched piggyback atop a Russian spacecraft on a Russian Cosmos 3M booster fired from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome June 28. The primary payload was the Russian Nadezhda-M navigation spacecraft, which also has the capability to relay transmissions from emergency locator beacons. The two small British piggyback spacecraft were built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.
Countering a Russian maneuver to split NATO on missile defense, the Pentagon has assured Europe the U.S. will cooperate with Moscow on theater missile defense and boost-phase intercept technology. ``We're fully prepared to work with the Russians on [TMD],'' Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told a gathering here last week of European NATO, military and diplomatic officials.
Carroll W. Suggs, chairman/CEO of Petroleum Helicopters International, has been selected to receive the National Aeronautic Assn.'s Katharine Wright Memorial Award. Suggs will be cited for the ``encouragement, support and inspiration she provided to her husband in the successful development of Petroleum Helicopters International, and for continuing contributions to the advancement of aviation safety, service and community relations.''
Despite jet fuel prices hovering at levels about 75% above where they were a year ago, the U.S. airline industry is experiencing one of its best operating environments in years, according to Merrill Lynch analyst Candace Browning.
Anear brush with bankruptcy two years ago molded Asiana Airlines from a once brash upstart challenger to Korean Air into a more conservative carrier. Now, instead of chasing market share around the globe, Asiana pursues high-yield regional routes. As 1999 ended, the carrier was again experiencing the double-digit growth rates to which it was accustomed prior to the collapse of Asia's economy in July 1997. ``In some months we achieved 15% growth,'' said Senior Vice President of Marketing Young Yoon Duk.
The PanAmSat PAS-9 spacecraft has been fueled and is ready to depart for the equator within about two weeks on Sea Launch, the first of three launch attempts planned this year by the international consortium. PAS-9, the first mission for Sea Launch since loss of the ICO Global Communications F-1 satellite last March, is set for liftoff late this month. The ICO mission, with a total value of approximately $200 million, was the third Sea Launch campaign and the system's first failure (AW&ST Mar. 20, p. 36).
Eric J. Speck has been appointed president of the Travel Marketing and Distribution Group of the Sabre Holdings Corp. of Fort Worth. John Stow is now president and Ellen Keszler senior vice president of Travel Agency Solutions. Nancy Raynor has become general manager of Sabre VirtuallyThere and Scott W. Smith general manager of Sabre Business Travel Solutions (SBTS).
A new Pentagon study of the Chinese military details the country's extensive modernization efforts ranging from obtaining a space-based reconnaissance capability to electronic warfare, cruise missile and surface-to-air missile upgrades. But analysts disagree about the validity of the report's final conclusions.
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)--which provided images released last month showing possible evidence of liquid water on the Martian surface during the recent past--is scheduled to continue its mapping operations through February 2001. Project officials said they are putting together a proposal seeking an extension of the mission that would possibly continue operations through at least February 2002. One concern regarding extending operations has been MGS' hydrazine supply to provide spacecraft stability.
VOICE COMMUNICATIONS FOR EN ROUTE AIR TRAFFIC over the Indian subcontinent will improve with a new VHF network that Park Air Electronics will provide. Four sub-networks with control centers at Chennia (formerly Madras), Calcutta and two at Mumbai (formerly Bombay) will each be connected to four remote radio sites. Simultaneous transmissions will be made from two radios to increase the area of coverage, using offset carriers to avoid interference. The radios will be Park Air's 5000 series VHF transmitters and receivers.
George Y. Ono has been appointed senior vice president/general manager of the M&M Machine&Tool Co. subsidiary of the Dulles, Va.-based Fairchild Corp. He was vice president-business development of the Compass Aerospace Corp.
U.S. airlines and the FAA are using a new set of mutually designed tools to avoid a repeat of last year's plague of schedule delays. Pilots of the major airlines are implementing a new procedure to break aircraft logjams at airports that occur in the aftermath of storms. Called Low-Altitude Arrival/Departure Routes (LAADR), the procedure was devised under an FAA-industry action plan dubbed the Spring/Summer 2000 Program.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China--reacting swiftly to the June 22 crash of a Xian Yunshu Y-7-100C which killed 51 people--has ordered all Yunshu and Tupolev aircraft to be taken out of scheduled passenger service by June 1, 2001. Xian Aircraft Manufacturing Co. in Shaanix, built the Yunshu Y-7, which is based on the Antonov An-24. The -100C version of the aircraft incorporates a series of cockpit modifications and winglets.
Pentagon-based missile defense experts say land- and sea-based boost-phase-intercept (BPI) weapons that are being talked about by the U.S. and Russia will be huge, expensive and will face some serious developmental problems. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization studied the issue in the 1990s and roughed out a life-cycle cost for fully deployed national defense systems: space-based laser, $20 billion; land- or sea-based missiles, $10-15 billion; airborne laser, $7-10 billion; and manned- or unmanned-based missiles, $3-7 billion.
Last week's successful launch of a Proton rocket gave another boost to Russia's ambitious civil telecom satellite renewal program, while providing further assurance that the Zvezda Service Module critical for the International Space Station will be launched in July as planned.
Any ambitions China has of becoming a great military power will have to wait until 2015-20 at the very earliest, and probably 5-10 years beyond that, a new Rand analysis predicts. Despite the forecast of a long, slow climb, Rand does not expect major internal strife to be the big factor holding China back. That disputes the view of some China hands that the mainland is bursting with political, social, generational and regional tensions that might prove strong enough to bring the country to its knees.
PASSENGERS ON COMMERCIAL AIRLINES could have inflight access to Internet, e-mail, voice-over-Internet Protocol and paging early next year with services provided by a consortium of suppliers. In-Flight Network (itself a joint venture of News Corp. and Rockwell Collins) is developing the new service with Globalstar and Qualcomm, and recently demonstrated the capability in flight over North America. The team plans to transmit broadband Internet data and entertainment to aircraft via geostationary satellites.
In 1994, when President Clinton directed that the weather satellite systems of NOAA and the Defense Dept. converge with NASA's Earth-observing system to form the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), he created a real test of interagency interoperability. ``It's worked well so far,'' reports George Barth of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Barth is a deputy program manager for the National Polar Platform (NPP), a Delta-class Earth-observing satellite set for launch in 2005.
Canada's recent Maple Flag 2000 capitalized on lessons distilled from the 1999 campaign in Kosovo by providing aircrews from eight nations more-realistic scenarios typical of complex large-force, coalition air operations. In contrast to previous years, the 33rd Maple Flag was flown in adverse weather conditions, incorporated more air-to-air refueling, emphasized flying strike missions at medium altitudes, used secure communications as much as possible and presented more industrial-type targets.
More statistics underscore the success of ``lean'' design and manufacturing practices in Boeing's Joint Strike Fighter candidate. The X-32A forebody was designed and built in 14 months, half the normal development time of a comparable assembly using traditional methods, Boeing said. A fiber placement process allowed the company to produce large composite structures 40% cheaper than with traditional approaches. Use of virtual reality testing and electronic assembly essentially eliminated parts interferences.
