Honeywell plans to accumulate some 7,500 test hours and 50,000 simulated flight cycles on 17 engines before completing certification of the AS900 turbofan engine family in March 2001. The AS900 series is the company's latest propulsion offering for regional transports and business jets and its first all-new turbofan engine in 25 years.
It was 55 years ago that the International Civil Aviation Conference assembled in Chicago at the invitation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some say the 1944 conference failed. Others say it was a success. I believe it was a great success. However, there were numerous failures. I want to recount important things that failed as well as things that succeeded in the conference. Finally, I will look through the small window that has been allotted to me at some of the events that may occur in aviation's future.
Advanced Communication Systems' SEMCOR Div. will provide imaging systems for tactical reconnaissance/surveillance aircraft of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory under a $3.4-million, four-year contract.
CONCERNS ABOUT THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF GPS to interference has led the Office of Naval Research to solicit proposals for affordable approaches to both make GPS more reliable/robust and to offer reliable precision navigation/timing alternatives. Areas of particular interest are GPS user equipment, inertial navigation systems, celestial navigation systems, small stable clocks and the integration of multiple navigation/timing technologies into unified communications/navigation/identification (CNI) architectures.
Donald Dombrowski has been named airframe programs director of AirLiance Materials of Chicago. He was a senior technical sales and purchasing consultant at Solair Inc.
As part of a reorganization drive to prop up its fading auto manufacturing business, Nissan Motors Co. will sell its Aerospace Div. to Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries. The sale, expected to be completed by the end of March, will be the first major buyout in the history of Japan's aerospace and defense sector. The sale is expected to fetch 40 billion yen ($374 million) for Nissan, which has been overtaken as Japan's No. 2 automaker by Honda. Officials said IHI bested an offer from Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
Pratt&Whitney and General Electric are preparing to test the first core for their GP7000 engine family in early March. The tests will be conducted at General Electric facilities in Ohio and should run through May. GE and Pratt will evaluate the efficiency and operability of the core engine's nine-stage high-pressure compressor and the engine's variable stator system. The two U.S.-based companies are targeting the 75,000-lb.-thrust GP7000 at the Airbus A3XX and Boeing's growth 747.
AHF-Duocomm and Aerochem subsidiaries have signed extension contracts worth a total of $85 million to produce components and exterior surface materials for the space shuttle's Lockheed Martin external fuel tank.
General Electric engineers will rely on the materials and manufacturing methods already used to make fan blades for the company's 94,000-lb.-thrust GE90-94B powerplant when developing the increased thrust version of the engine designated the GE90-115B.
At the behest of Fidel Castro's Cuba, Japan Airlines is to open 747 sightseeing services via Vancouver this summer. The flight to Havana is scheduled to operate four times weekly from Osaka's Kansai International Airport. It will operate as a charter and be booked by a Cuban travel agent.
The Pentagon slashed at many of its aviation projects in a $291.1-billion budget submission that represents little real growth and provides additional money for only a few intelligence and missile defense programs.
South Korea's Multipurpose Satellite (Kompsat) has begun sending science data following its Dec. 20 launch from Vandenberg AFB in California. Developed by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute and TRW Inc., Kompsat (called Arrirang I in Korean) is instrumented for space physics studies, an ocean-scanning multispectral imager and an electro-optical camera with 6.6-meter (22-ft.) resolution. The latter will be used for topographical purposes such as flood monitoring, land use planning, archeological surveys and hydrological studies.
A second magnetic levitation track has been installed at Marshall Space Flight Center to study how maglev systems might be used to supplement conventional propulsion for space launches in the future. The 44-ft.-long track, installed in a high-bay facility, uses a 10-lb. carrier that is accelerated over a 22-ft. section. Designed and built by Foster-Miller Inc., the system propels the carrier to 57 mph.--traveling the 22-ft. distance in 0.25 sec.
It's difficult to get romantic about a rock. But it brings tingles and misty eyes to scientists at the Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory--so much so that they are eagerly awaiting Valentine's Day. That's when the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft they built and fly for NASA is due to arrive at its target--a silicate lump named, appropriately, Eros. NEAR stood up Eros on a previous date. A premature engine shutdown spoiled the first attempt to orbit the asteroid (AW&ST Jan. 4, 1999, p. 30). NEAR has had one recent glitch.
Trends in federal support of research and development in the 1990s present a mixed picture for aerospace and defense, according to a detailed analysis by the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. Largely as a result of the end of the Cold War and the government's successful effort to eliminate historically high federal deficits, defense R&D plummeted nearly $1.5 billion in Fiscal 1993-97--27.5%--to $3.8 billion.
The head of London Stansted Airport has called for a review of a more than 20-year-old policy designating the facility as the site for aircraft hijacked to the U.K., following the most recent incident which was resolved peacefully last week.
Rolls-Royce and SAirGroup's SR Technics subsidiary have created a maintenance and overhaul joint venture to Trent engines in Europe and Africa. SR Technics will repair and overhaul Trent 500 and 700 engines at its facilities in Zurich, while Trent 800 work will be conducted by Rolls-Royce in Derby, England. Rolls-Royce already has similar arrangements in Hong Kong, Singapore and Texas.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector has won a $39-million contract from the U.S. Air Force's Warner Robins Air Logistics Center to provide 39 AN/ALQ-131 electronic countermeasures system Block II conversion kits to the Egyptian Air Force.
In its survey of lessons learned from the Kosovo air campaign, Defense Dept. analysts have tallied the toll inflicted on Yugoslav forces by NATO and simultaneously warned that the U.S. revealed several areas of weakness. In the ``Report to Congress: Kosovo/Operation Allied Force After-Action Report,'' analysts warn of concerns with air defense suppression, electronic integration and communications between services and with allies that could be exploited by a technically sophisticated foe.
A recent report by e-business research/analysis firm Gomez Advisers says travel agencies are bearing the brunt of traveler-Internet ties. There are now 15% fewer travel agencies in the U.S. compared to 1997--most of them that folded were independent firms unable to compete with online travel sites. In 1999, $3.5 billion worth of airline tickets were bought online, and according to the Lincoln, Mass.-based firm, that amount is to reach $6.3 billion in 2000.
Cliff Topham has been appointed director of airline sales for Rolls-Royce North America Inc., Reston, Va. He was director of sales for International Aero Engines, East Hartford, Conn.
As costs and strains of fighting in Chechnya increase, Moscow will be inclined to fall back on the threat of first use of nuclear weapons. So says Ted Warner, assistant secretary of Defense for strategy and threat reduction. ``They have been changing their [nuclear weapons] doctrine since the early 1990s,'' Warner says. ``These changes are largely attributable to the fact that their conventional forces have atrophied so substantially. So they have found it useful to threaten [to use] flexible response and limited nuclear options . . .
Richard L. Fuller has been named director of communications for the Boeing Co.'s Government Relations Office in Washington. He was director of communications and community relations for Boeing Aircraft and Missile Systems Southern California in Long Beach. Fuller succeeds Douglas J. Kennett, who is now general manager of communications and community relations for Boeing Military Aircraft and Missile Systems in St. Louis.
