Robert W. Baker has been appointed vice chairman of American Airlines. He was executive vice president-operations and has been succeeded by Gerard J. Arpey, who was senior vice president-finance and planning/chief financial officer. Arpey has been succeeded by Thomas W. Horton, who was vice president-Europe. Horton has been followed by Jeffrey C. Campbell, who was vice president-corporate development/treasurer. Campbell, in turn, has been replaced by James A. Beer, who was vice president-financial analysis and fleet planning. Daniel P.
NASA is considering a strategy that could allow it to recover two of the three unmanned hypersonic X-43 vehicles it hopes to fly over the next two years. ``Our original plans called for all three Hyper-X flights to be conducted over the ocean, for the vehicles to impact the ocean and not be recovered. We've rethought that and might conduct the second and third flights over Alaska, recovering the vehicles from the polar ice cap,'' said Charles R. McClinton, technology manager for the Hyper-X Program Office. A decision may be made soon.
Northwest Airlines has awarded DEW Engineering and Development Ltd. two contracts totaling $10 million to manufacture and install 34 passenger boarding bridges at Wayne County airport in Detroit and Memphis (Tenn.) International Airport.
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency plans to use the nearly 10 terabytes of imaging data expected from the shuttle radar topography mission this week to create a global three-dimensional ``Foundation Data Set'' that would revolutionize military imagery applications. The highly accurate 3D elevation radar data will become the underlying foundation atop which multiple other data will be layered for both military and civil uses, said Thomas Henning, NIMA program manager for the flight.
L-3 Communications Holdings Corp. has been added to the Standard&Poor's MidCap 400 Communications Equipment industry group, effective Jan. 28. Not bad for a company that completed its initial public offering only a year ago.
Michel J. Guiral has been appointed president/chief operating officer of TAG Aviation of Geneva. He was executive vice president/general manager of Air France in southern Africa.
The Pentagon is planning a modest increase in funding for some of its airborne surveillance assets, with the main beneficiaries being the Air Force's fleet of E-3 AWACS and E-8 Joint-STARS. The Air Force's budget proposal, scheduled to be released Feb. 7, will include funding for a 15th Joint-STARS, a Pentagon official said. Congress last year provided money to either start buying parts for a 15th aircraft or to shut down Northrop Grumman's production line.
Boeing has sent a letter to airline operators formally offering ``blended'' winglets as a standard option on its next-generation 737-800 transports. Certification is scheduled for later this year. First deliveries of factory-built aircraft equipped with the winglets, which yield about a 5% fuel savings and are produced by an Aviation Partners-Boeing joint venture, are planned for spring 2001. Similar winglets for the 737-900 and-700C models are to follow quickly, the partnership said. All are based on those now available for the Boeing Business Jet, a 737 derivative.
Sherwood Brown has been appointed director of information systems for FlightSafety International of New York. He held the same position at the General Signal Corp., Stamford, Conn.
Boeing and Singapore Airlines are jointly marketing the first five of 17 A340-300s traded in by the airline on 10 new 777-200ERs. The team approach is seen as maximizing value of the aircraft for both parties. Remarketing responsibility for the remaining aircraft, some of which will be turned over new or nearly new, has not yet been decided. Angered by the deal, Airbus previously had threatened not to support any A340s remarketed by Boeing (AW&ST Aug. 2, 1999, p. 25).
Amid-level U.S. intelligence official was taken aback recently when he was shown a detailed satellite image of a secret missile launch complex in North Korea. ``That's classified,'' he protested. ``No it's not,'' came the reply. ``It's for sale.''
The U.S. satellite TV industry is facing a big problem these days, but it's one with a silver lining. Manufacturers can't churn out satellite receiver dishes and signal processing boxes fast enough to meet surging demand from new subscribers. Last year, Hughes' DirecTV and EchoStar's Dish Network both signed up record numbers of new subscribers. DirecTV says it added 1.6 million new customers, and EchoStar took on 1.4 million. Overall, the number of U.S. satellite TV households jumped to more than 13 million, a 21% increase over 1998.
A new Boeing 747-400F that will serve as the platform for the U.S. Air Force's first Airborne Laser has been delivered to Boeing modification facilities in Wichita, Kan.
Five Tower Air 747s are to transport more than 65,000 people to Mecca during this year's Hadj. Under wet-lease agreements, the carrier will provide Air India with three, and Air Asia with two 747s during the Feb. 7 through mid-April pilgrimage period. Projected revenue from this year's Hadj operations is more than $28 million, according to the airline.
France's military procurement spending is not adequately monitored, while major contracts are being awarded without sufficient long-term funding. In addition, recurring delays are driving up the cost of weapon systems, according to a French oversight agency.
Despite new reports predicting little or no market growth in the next 5-10 years, attendees at the HeliExpo 2000 convention remained generally optimistic about the commercial helicopter industry's prospects in the near-term while keeping a watchful eye on the global economy.
European and Russian scientists plan to flight test an inflatable reentry system concept that could revolutionize the transportation of goods between orbital stations and the Earth. The concept provides an inexpensive means to recover orbital payloads or booster upper stages for return to Earth without need for bulky, rigid reentry capsules and parachute systems. It will be test flown on a Starsem Soyuz booster to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 9.
Pacific Aerospace&Electronics Inc. has signed a five-year supplier contract with the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Group to manufacture machined and cast components and assemblies.
NASA has successfully completed the first test flight of a large parafoil with a span of 143 ft. which will be part of the recovery system for a lifting body vehicle being developed for space station crew emergencies. The parafoil is a full-scale, man-rated design for use on NASA's planned X-38 Crew Return Vehicle (CRV) program managed by NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Forty-seven years after India nationalized its domestic carrier, the government said last week that Indian Airlines will be privatized. The government is to sell 51% of its equity in the carrier by Mar. 31, 2001, with a block of 26% available to a single investor in a joint venture arrangement. However, foreign airlines will not be allowed to invest.
Linda F. Brill has been appointed principal director of the Corporate Communications Directorate of The Aerospace Corp. of Los Angeles. She was a vice president of Carl Byoir&Associates and succeeds David Cole, who has retired. William C. Krenz was promoted to principal director of the Research and Program Development Office in the Engineering and Technology Group from director of the Space Systems Engineering Dept., and Andrew J.
British Airways has deepened its relationship with its franchise partner in South Africa, Comair, by acquiring an 18.3% stake in the carrier. The 17-million-pound ($27.9-million) investment will facilitate greater cooperation in the region between BA and Comair, which has a fleet of eight Boeing 737-200s and six 727-230s.
Television gets its wings. The tube is to go on the flightline in February with two new U.S. carriers. The faces of passengers on board JetBlue Airways and Legend Airlines will be basking in the glow of screen images from TV programs broadcast direct via satellite. TV? Airliners? Why bother? The medium has been around since the 1950s. It's been deplored (``vast wasteland''), scorned as addictive (soap operas) and accused of provoking violent behavior (witness a sports fan watching his team lose). Yet, it's one of life's essentials.
Meanwhile, JSF players are increasingly concerned about Pratt&Whitney's apparent problems in getting F119 engines built for the program. The government program office, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Pratt&Whitney are slated to meet this week to discuss the situation. One of the concerns is that the engine program may have difficulty supporting this summer's flight demonstrations of Boeing's X-32 and Lockheed Martin's X-35 prototypes. Eventually, the JASF program office expects to have two engine suppliers.
Canada-based Cougar Helicopters has signed an agreement with Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to become launch customer for the medium-lift S-92 Helibus helicopter and introduce the aircraft into service during 2002.
