Roy C. McGraw has been named vice president-procurement of the Sino Swear- ingen Aircraft Corp., San Antonio, Tex. He was director of procurement for the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga.
Cross-border and transatlantic cooperation were key themes of aerospace executives gathered here for ILA 2000, which saw the debut of the combined European Aeronautic Space and Defense Co. and the first fruit of an agreement to explore cooperative opportunities between one of its founding members and a major U.S. company.
Carol J. Carmody has become the 30th member in NTSB history. Also last week, John J. Goglia began his second five-year term on the board. Carmody recently was an independent consultant to the Air Transport Assn. and had been U.S. representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Turkey again has delayed its final decision on a $4-billion co-production project for 145 attack helicopters. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said the tenders from the three competing firms--a Russian-Israeli partnership with the Kamov Ka-50-2, Italy's Agusta with the A-129 International and Bell Helicopter Textron with the King Cobra AH-1Z--did not fully meet technical criteria. Ecevit said the decision will be taken after a new series of negotiations between Turkish defense industry officials and the competing companies.
The FAA is considering requiring airlines to pump inert gas such as nitrogen into fuel tanks to reduce the potential for catastrophic explosions similar to one that caused the loss of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996. According to the agency, using nitrogen as part of a ground-inerting process would render fuel vapors incombustible during climbout to cruise altitude, where temperatures inside fuel tanks are much cooler than on the ground.
Oscar Torres has become chief financial officer of Kellstrom Industries Inc., Sunrise, Fla. He was vice president-finance/ corporate controller. Torres succeeds Michael Wallace, who has resigned.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. and Rada Electronic Industries, of Herzliya, Israel, are considering jointly designing a system that combines Lockheed Martin's software for recording, storing and retrieving flight data with the fatigue-monitoring capabilities Rada developed for F-16 aircraft. The new PC-based system will allow more thorough analysis and prediction of the mechanical and fatigue state of F-16 fighters, improving safety and maintenance. Rada's fatigue-monitoring system, called FACE, is in use by the air forces of the Netherlands and Belgium.
THE ROYAL DANISH AIR FORCE WILL ADD Vision Systems International's Helmet-Mounted Cueing System as part of the midlife upgrade for its F-16 aircraft, the first air force outside the U.S. to do so. VSI is already under contract to provide the HMCS through Boeing for U.S. F-15, F-16, F/A-18 and F-22 aircraft. The company is owned by Kaiser Aerospace&Electronics Co. and EFW, a Dallas subsidiary of Israel's Elbit Systems.
Top Alaska Airlines officials are confident the airline can make the changes and upgrades necessary to avoid a threatened FAA suspension of its heavy maintenance authority next month in the aftermath of the fatal crash of Flight 261.
BDLI, the German Aerospace Industries Assn., which organizes the Berlin air show, said it will look to further increase U.S. industrial participation for ILA 2002. BDLI President Hans Birke, encourged by the growth of this year's show, said ``the Americans are here stronger than ever'' at ILA 2000 and their comments have been encouraging. But he said the exhibition needs another cycle to prove its durability and importance, as BDLI pushes for equal air show status in Europe with Paris and Farnborough.
British Airways and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines are exploring a merger that could reshape the European airline industry as well as global strategic alliances. BA and KLM officials last week stressed that ongoing discussions still are at a preliminary stage. ``There is no assurance that they will result in any transaction between the parties,'' the officials pointed out in a joint statement. They declined to comment further on the negotiations or the envisioned time frame.
Aviation safety was the big winner when the International Telecommunication Union wrapped up its World Radiocommunication Conference-2000 in Istanbul on June 2. A united effort by the global aviation industry succeeded in blunting Mobile Satellite Services' attempts to share spectrum reserved for aircraft navigation.
Raytheon has won a $26-million order from the U.S. Air Force Electronic Systems Center to produce the first 11 AN/ GPN-30 terminal area radar systems. Deliveries will begin October 2001.
Eurofighter industrial partners are on track to starting final assembly work on the first of five instrumented production aircraft at BAE Systems Warton, England, facility in early September. Eight front fuselage units and three stage-one rear fuselage units are in assembly at BAE Systems, with work on 10 center fuselage units underway at DaimlerChrysler Aerospace's Augsburg, Germany, plant.
Alan Bender, an associate professor of aeronautical science and a Western Region faculty adviser for the Extended Campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), has won the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum's A. Verville Fellowship for 2000-01. During his sabbatical, Bender plans to research and write a book on the development and growth of no-frills airlines.
Boeing's Joint Strike Fighter flying testbed participated in its first live bomb evaluation last week. The testbed--a Boeing 737 modified with the JSF's avionics--received target information, including a synthetic aperture radar map, from another aircraft via data link. The JSF surrogate then further refined the target's identification and location with its own onboard sensors. Finally, the testbed passed the target location to a bomb-carrying F-15 that actually dropped the Joint Direct Attack Munition weapon. Eyewit nesses said the bomb struck the target vehicle.
Embraer has built a Visualization Center that uses a large stereoscopic display and other virtual reality equipment for marketing presentations and design reviews for the new ERJ-170/190 family of regional jets (see photo). The 7.5 X 20-ft. ``WorkWall'' display is made by Fakespace Systems Inc. and has three rear projectors, giving a total resolution of 3,456 X 1,024 pixels to allow complex assemblies to be viewed in detail.
Chewing gum is back on sale at Portland International Airport after a 20-year hiatus. The airport banned gum sales at retail stores in the airport in the late 1970s after the airport became fully carpeted. Gum in the carpets posed a major maintenance headache. The rule was recently reversed because many air travelers chew gum to relieve air pressure changes during flights, the airport said, although it is still tough on the carpets.
After two years of testing, Pratt&Whitney is standardizing its stress and thermal finite element analysis tools on ANSYS software, and it will be used as a primary tool for engineering simulation. P&W found some of the benefits to be reduced thermal analysis computation times, reduced pre- and post-processing times and parallel/distributed processing capability. . . .
House Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.), is surprised to learn just how successful the Mars Polar Lander mission was, after all. Last December, the lander began its descent to the red planet but was never heard from again. That flop was NASA's second in a row at Mars and it cast a pall over its faster-better-cheaper approach (see p. 47).
Julia Pulzone has been appointed senior vice president/chief financial officer, Linda Billings director of communications, Karol (Bo) Bobko vice president-product development for the Houston-based Johnson Engineering Unit and John M. (Mike) Lounge manager of the Enterprise program, all for Washington-based Spacehab Inc. Pulzone was vice president/CFO of Paragren Technologies Inc., Reston, Va., and succeeds Mark A. Kissman, who has resigned.
Geoffrey Buie-Collard, principal engineer of Marathon Power Technologies, Waco, Tex., has received the U.S. Defense Dept. Value Engineering Achievement Award. Buie-Collard and his team developed the battery cell as part of the Vented Nickel Cadmium Battery Improvement Team. The design has led to a 90% reduction in battery maintenance on A-10s.
James C. Stoecker has been named president/CEO of Lufthansa Technik Component Services at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. He was general manager of sales, marketing and business development for North America.
