Andrew K. Ellis has become vice president-aircraft and missiles programs within the Boeing Government Relations Office in Washington. He was staff director of House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services.
DoctorDAQ provides an easy-to-use reliable method of automating data collection into spreadsheet programs, according to the company. It offers a link between UEI's PCI-based data-acq cards and Microsoft Excel and imports individual samples or even large waveforms directly into an Excel worksheet. It can also use worksheet data as a source for output functions. The add-in lets workers set up triggering and other control operations. These actions are performed through an intuitive graphical interface that requires no programming.
The Botswana Aviation Dept. has chosen Raytheon to supply a radar data processing and display system for Gaborone International Airport and a remote tower system for Maun International Airport.
Crossair posted a net profit of 50.7 million Swiss francs ($30.4 million) for 1999, compared with 63.53 million Swiss francs for the previous year. A subsidiary of the SAirGroup, Crossair blamed the decline on sharp rises in fuel costs and the value of the U.S. dollar, as well as declining yields. The airline, the second largest regional carrier in Europe, has agreed to establish a joint venture with GE Capital Aviation Training for a regional aircraft training center at its Basel hub.
The Israel Air Force has taken command of its initial Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile unit here along the Mediterranean coast about 30 mi. south of Tel Aviv. The single-battery, air defense brigade will guard the most heavily populated center of Israel using interceptor missiles armed with blast-fragmentation, proximity warheads that avoid the problem of having to directly intercept an enemy warhead. Hit-to-kill is a more complex problem that continues to bedevil U.S. systems like Thaad.
Despite political pressure from the U.S. over peace negotiations with Israel and ongoing financial difficulties, Syria has stepped up efforts to boost its military capability.
China's campaign to develop its remote western region will present ``enormous'' opportunities for its general aviation industry, according to Zhang Yanzhong, general manager of the No. 2 Group of Aviation Industry of China (AVIC). Aerial application is key to China's plans to re-seed and reforest more than 313 million hectares, returning the denuded land to farming or forestry. The country has used aircraft to plant 20 million hectares of trees in the past decade as well as to help fight crop-destroying diseases and insects, Zhang said.
The European Space Agency plans to turn over responsibility for International Space Station commercialization to private contractors. At an ESA Council meeting late last month, the agency also moved to reorient plans for new light launchers to permit a global launcher strategy, and to pursue a common space policy with the European Union. That policy would be closely linked to the proposed Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and could take the agency into the military arena.
Donald C. Wilhelm (see photos) has been appointed vice president-airspace management systems, George Perkins vice president-space systems, James L. Armitage vice president-engineering for Baltimore operations and John J. Chino vice president-Space-Based Infrared Systems, all for Northrop Grumman Electronic Sensors and Systems in Baltimore. Wilhelm was director of air defense systems. Perkins was director of air traffic management systems and succeeds Armitage.
Honeywell Technology Solutions has started testing its DataLynx system, which will offer antenna communications and flight operations services to satellite owners. DataLynx initially will be aimed at government owners seeking to privatize satellite operations, but also will be open to commercial spacecraft. The system is to be operational in mid-November, and its first customers will be NASA's Earth Observation System (EOS) and the Naval Earth Mapping Observatory (NEMO) satellite.
The German minisatellite Champ is set to be launched on Apr. 28 by a Russian Cosmos-3M (SL-8) rocket. A German microsatellite, Bird, and a small Italian spacecraft, MITA, also will be orbited by the Cosmos booster. The 500-kg. (1,100-lb.) spacecraft, built for German aerospace center DLR by the Potsdam center for the geosciences and Jena-Optronik, will be the first to use DaimlerChrysler's Flexbus standard minisatellite platform.
The first type of aircraft--a balloon--finally accomplished the feat of circumnavigating the globe in 1999, more than a decade after a heavier-than-air-vehicle flew around the world without refueling. Dr. Bertrand Piccard, the Breitling Orbiter 3's captain, and copilot Brian Jones, also set two marks--one for distance, 25,261 mi., and another for the longest-duration aircraft flight ever, of 477.47 hr. They took off on Mar. 1, 1999, from Chateau d'Oex in Piccard's native Switzerland and landed Mar. 21 in southwestern Egypt.
Signs of softness have emerged in U.S. aerospace trade, traced to Asia's 1997-98 recession, record imports and the State Dept.'s crackdown on satellite sales. The domestic industry's main lobby, the Aerospace Industries Assn. (AIA), says projections for 2000 are slipping, and that the sector's revised 1999 trade surplus, $37.6 billion, is 8% or several billion dollars below the record $41 billion posted in 1998.
Italy has signed a contract to buy two additional C-130J-30s and to convert six of the regular C-130Js it has ordered into stretched ``-30'' models. Italy now has ordered 12 C-130Js and 10 C-130J-30s from Lockheed Martin. The first aircraft are to be delivered at midyear. Nigeria also may get help from the U.S. government in upgrading its fleet of eight old C-130s. The U.S. is offering the assistance largely because the C-130s, which are in disrepair, are useful for ferrying peacekeepers in the region. The U.S.
U.S. and U.K. negotiators are set to resume wide-ranging talks this summer about a broad new aviation pact between the two countries following a deal to resolve short-term issues. Observers say substantial progress at the formal talks, set to be held here the week of June 12, is critical if an agreement is to be reached by year's end, given upcoming presidential elections in the U.S.
Joseph P. Ruffolo, Jr., (see photo) has been appointed program director for the AN/ALQ-211 suite of integrated countermeasures at ITT Industries' Avionics Div., Clifton, N.J.
With a three-year FAA reauthorization bill signed into law and the passenger-rights movement mollified by their new consumer-protection plans, airlines are chipper about their situation on Capitol Hill. Not so fast, though. Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) isn't buying airlines' vows of putting customers first or their argument that fierce competition will protect passengers from price gouging. Last week, he asked the Justice Dept. to look into airline ticketing practices. In particular, he wants to know how well airlines are adhering to a 1994 settlement of a Justice Dept.
Is there a longer-range 767-400 in Boeing's future? The company has confirmed that its recent 767 sale to Kenya Airways involves an ``enhanced'' and longer range version of the 767-400ER. Industry insiders believe this aircraft, referred to as the -400ERX, will be equipped with a fuel tank in the tail. The aircraft's size and performance might overlap that of Boeing's proposed 777-100X transport, however. Boeing also is studying a 757-200X which will incorporate upgrades found in the new 757-300.
British Royal Navy Sea Harrier air defense fighters have been combined with Royal Air Force GR7 attack aircraft into Joint Force Harrier, part of the U.K.'s shift in emphasis to expeditionary warfare. The joint unit, with a total of 138 aircraft, forms part of one of the three groups in the RAF's restructured Strike Command along with Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and search and rescue helicopters. The No. 1 group includes all other frontline fast jets, including Tornados and eventually, Eurofighters. The No.
Boeing has embarked upon a major cost-reduction effort aimed at increasing sales competitiveness of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet by lowering its acquisition price.
The newly operational Arrow missile, designed to intercept enemy ballistic warheads, is the first building block in a complex, multi-layered plan to defend Israel against foes operating from beyond the immediate ring of neighboring countries.
Even small spacecraft such as Image can be big power users. Its micro-channel plates require 3,000 volts to image photons and particles as the solar wind neutralizes them and they ``leak'' out of Earth's atmosphere. The double-junction gallium arsenide solar cells that cover all eight sides, top and bottom, of the spacecraft will produce an orbit-averaged power of 250 watts. Their builder, Spectrolab Inc. of Sylmar, Calif., is an industry leader in multi-junctioned devices (see photo).
