Alcatel Space and Thomson-CSF Detexis will evaluate technologies for new-generation solid-state transmit/receive modules under a 1-million-euro contract from the European Space Agency. The technologies are intended to decrease the weight, size, cost and power draw of active array radars that will follow the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) developed for ESA's Envisat Earth-observation satellite. Envisat is to be launched later this year.
After posting losses for eight consecutive years, Garuda Indonesia has reported a net profit in 1999 of 350 billion rupiah ($47 million), exceeding its target of 270 billion rupiah. The airline projected earnings of 850 billion rupiah in 2000 and says it is healthy enough to start new services and increase frequencies on international routes. But the story is just the opposite for Indonesia's overcrowded domestic market. When the Ministry of Transport issued three new permits for domestic carriers in December, the Indonesian National Air Carriers Assn.
Construction of the $500-million Terminal 3 at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport began last week, with completion due in 2002. The project involves a build-operate-transfer scheme by Piatco, a consortium led by Germany's Flughafen Frankfurt/Main AG. The terminal will be built on a 65-hectare (160-acre) site at the adjacent Villamor air base and is designed to handle 13 million passengers a year, tripling the capacity of the Aquino facility's main terminal.
A top American Airines executive last week told an NTSB hearing the carrier has adopted a new policy allowing pilots to decline scheduled flights without punishment if they feel fatigued. Robert Baker, vice chairman of American parent AMR Corp., testified in a hearing in Little Rock, Ark., on the June 1, 1999, crash of an American MD-80 there that killed 11 of the 139 on board, including the captain, who was flying the aircraft. The flight crew had been on duty for more than 13 hr.
Buoyed by increasing passenger and cargo traffic, Cathay Pacific Airways is dusting off a 1997 expansion plan that called for orders for the Airbus A340-500 and -600. ``We are back on the expansion trail,'' Cathay CEO David Turnbull told Hong Kong's Asian Aerospace Forum last week. Turnbull said the airline, one of Asia's three top international carriers, planned to add extra frequencies, routes and aircraft that would lead to a doubling of its annual passenger volume to 20 million.
The Pentagon's decision to fund both the Army's Theater High-Altitude Area Defense system and the Navy's Theater-Wide system is leaving the Navy missile defense system cash-starved. When the Pentagon abandoned its plan to fund just one upper-tier defense system after 2001, it failed to win sufficient funding to keep both efforts going, the Navy program's backers grumble. Thaad got enough money after the program was able to overcome its technical problems. But the remaining share for the Navy was too small, said officials.
Raytheon Co. has received its first award fee--$1.4 million--under the Rolling Airframe Missile Guided Weapon System helicopter, aircraft and surface mode development contract.
The Australian government is considering scrapping or deferring a number of major defense acquisition programs from the air force and army, in large measure because the high costs of leading the United Nations' relief effort in East Timor has knocked a hole in its defense budgets that is likely to last for three years.
RapidEye AG, a German remote sensing firm, will select a European or U.S. company to build and launch a four-satellite constellation designed for rapid delivery of multispectral imagery to the agricultural industry. Four companies are being considered, and a selection could come this month or next. The winner will build all spacecraft and deliver them to orbit, opening a segment of customer-tailored, space-derived services that could significantly alter agricultural business practices and processes.
Six Japanese manufacturers--Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Nissan Motors, Fujitsu Corp. and Toshiba Corp.--are to be named to the U.S.-Navy Theater Wide (NTW) ballistic missile defense program by March. Details of what the Japanese companies will work on are scarce, but it relates to the sea-launched upper tier defense system called NTW Block 2 (AW&ST Jan. 11, 1999, p. 425). The Japanese Defense Agency is spending about 900 million yen ($8.6 million) on BMD research in fiscal 1999, which ends Mar. 31.
A White House initiative to expand aviation employee reporting of safety concerns goes beyond accident prevention per se, to the pursuit of better aircraft design, maintenance and operation. Administration officials hope the Aviation Safety Action Partnership (ASAP) will result in advances like those realized in a five-year American Airlines demonstration program--everything from altered airport lighting to better equipment manuals.
Stephen H. Strom (see photo) has been appointed vice president-quality for the Cessna Aircraft Corp., Wichita, Kan. He held the same position at Tenneco Inc.
Boeing Co. turned around its finances and commercial jet production systems in 1999, posting solid operating earnings at its military and space divisions and reestablishing the profitability of its commercial transport group. In addition to restoring crucial investor and customer confidence, the company's strong free-cash flow and balance sheet provide a foundation for growth, acquisitions and introduction of new transport models.
Transport Canada is performing enhanced surveillance of Cubana Airlines' operations in Canadian airspace after the Havana-based carrier suffered three crashes in a year and a half in other parts of the world. State-owned Cubana regularly flies leased Airbus A320s into Montreal and Toronto and has had no recent problems in the country. Canadian authorities have restricted its operations in the past, however, over safety concerns.
Carnegie Mellon's Nomad robot is on the ice in Antarctica, preparing to autonomously search for meteorites in a NASA-funded program with direct applications for unmanned explorations of the surface of Mars and the Moon.
The helicopter industry is setting a new course in its decades-old struggle to develop the infrastructure and technology needed to promote the use of rotorcraft for civil and commercial transport.
Lack of competitive landing slots at Narita airport is forcing Continental Airlines to cancel its three-times weekly services connecting Honolulu with Tokyo as of Apr. 3.
BFGoodrich Co. has been chosen by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade more than 750 F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft with the company's advanced wheels and carbon brakes, under a contract award valued up to $30 million.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has made its first observations of the Andromeda Galaxy (see image). The spacecraft made its first X-ray image of the galaxy late last year with its Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer. The image showed more than 100 individual X-ray sources, one of which was at the previously determined position of the massive black hole. Program officials said that while a typical X-ray star has a temperature of several tens-of-million of degrees, temperature of the supermassive black hole source is only a few million degrees.
Boeing and its commercial jet customers have teamed in a new process aimed at better addressing aircraft in-service problems. According to the aerospace manufacturer, representatives from its various 747, MD-11/DC-10 and 757/767 fleet operators now meet to determine which service-related problems should be addressed first. This better focuses the company's limited engineering resources and provides the greatest benefit more quickly for the widest number of operators, according to Boeing.
The Joint Strike Fighter program has enlisted the support of the U.K.'s Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) for risk reduction work on STOVL flight control development.
Boeing's C-17 program may have a rocky future following a Pentagon Fiscal 2001 budget study that is looking at cutting near-term production by 20% and a diminished prospect for a follow-on purchase of 60 additional airlifters that would have raised the fleet total to 180 aircraft.
Several major Russian airlines recently revealed plans to tie their long-term fleet modernization strategy with Russian-built aircraft, reversing a trend to acquire Western-built transports.
Dale Krupla has been named general manager of flight support at Atlantic Aviation's Wilmington, Del., facility. Rick Kiewel has become corporate controller for flight support systems and Edward McKay corporate director of information services. Krupla was general manager of the Mercury Air Centers FBO at Nash- ville. Kiewel was controller of the Healy Group and McKay director of information services for Dopaco Inc.
Michael Miller is editor-in-chief of Aviation Daily, an Aviation Week newsletter based in Washington. This piece is adapted from a series published earlier this month, previewing the coming year in aviation. The U.S., the largest aviation market on Earth, has seen a dramatic and disheartening decline in its aviation leadership in recent years. While U.S. airline leaders continue to parlay their business acumen into profitability--despite customer service shortfalls--the government has lacked leadership when it counts most.
