Virgin Atlantic will be needing the infusion of cash that will come with its new equity partnership with Singapore Airlines to meet expansion plans set for this year (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 28). In late December, Virgin received U.K. Civil Aviation Authority approval for a second weekly flight between London and Capetown. Days earlier the carrier won the right to launch new services between London and Las Vegas.
Achim Rauber has become senior vice president-supply chain of the Fairchild Aerospace Corp., based in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was head of the supply chain organization for the Skoda factory near Prague. Bart Harrington has been appointed director of airline sales for Latin America, based in San Antonio, Tex. He was director of marketing in Latin America for Bell Helicopter Textron.
The merger of Israeli companies Elbit Systems and Electro-Optics Industries (Elop) took effect this month, although final details are not expected to be completed until May. Under the recently concluded agreement, Elop becomes a subsidiary of Elbit Systems.
Aviation safety interests and mobile satellite service providers are once again at loggerheads over spectrum allocations. MSS providers want to share some of the GPS spectrum. But the aviation community is worried that interference with GPS frequencies would result, endangering air navigation. Spectrum allocation issues come to the fore every two or three years at the International Telecommunications Union's World Radiocommunications Conference. The next one, WRC-2000, is slated for Istanbul in May/June.
A full-scale air traffic control simulator that allows designers to see their plans for airports in virtual reality is ready to begin operations here at NASA's Ames Research Center. Called Future Flight Central, the facility has been under development for two years to bring air traffic controllers, pilots and ramp controllers into the equation when designers plan new airports or upgrades to existing facilities. It was dedicated on Dec. 13 in memory of Stanton R. Harke, the initial project manager (AW&ST May 11, 1998, p. 82).
Airline passenger complaints reported in the U.S. in November more than doubled those logged for the same month in 1998, according to the latest Transportation Dept. Air Travel Consumer Report issued last week. The three main areas of complaint among the 1,700 registered in November were ``flight problems'' or delays, cancellations and any other deviations from schedule, 515; customer service, 445, and mishandled baggage, 241.
Raytheon Aircraft Co.'s Premier I business jet has completed high-speed envelope expansion as part of the company's FAA certification program for the twin-engine jet. The flights centered on examining handling and dynamic qualities in excess of Mach 0.83 (Vmo) up to Mach 0.86 (558 mph.).
Robert W. Zoller, Jr., has been named executive vice president-operations and services of Hawaiian Airlines. He was senior vice president-maintenance and engineering for AirTran.
Airbus Industrie's brisk sales, which greatly exceeded expectations in 1999, pushed the Europeans ahead of Boeing in terms of new aircraft orders and firm backlog in an increasingly acrimonious environment.
VERY ENCOURAGING PROGRESS IN INCREASING the output power of new microwave transistors was reported by J.C. Zolper of the U.S. Office of Naval Research. For example, within the last three years there has been more than a 900% increase in power at X-band from high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) fabricated from aluminum gallium nitrate. Zolper said future Pentagon systems will need frequency agile devices with extremely wide bandwidths.
Lower-tier suppliers that aren't pursuing ``Lean''--the execution of processes so that each successive step adds value to the product or service delivered to the customer--are likely to find themselves at a huge competitive disadvantage. Within a few short years, virtually every U.S.-based prime contractor and major subcontractor will choose their strategic suppliers based partly on whether they are employing lean practices, also known as the Toyota production system.
After coming under serious attack in the latest round of internal Pentagon budget battles, the Air Force's Airborne Laser program now faces a new threat. Pentagon officials decided in December to pull more than $600 million out of the program in the next couple of years. That pushes back any attempt for the 747-mounted laser to intercept a boosting ballistic missile from 2003 to 2005. The intercept was planned for 2002 when the program began. Now, some Pentagon officials want even more drastic steps to be taken. According to Defense Dept.
A hodgepodge of computers dating back to the 1970s is to blame for the New Year's Eve blackout of National Reconnaissance Office satellite imagery in the Pentagon's most significant Y2K-related failure.
A broad consensus appears to be developing in the aviation community that data link communications will be the key to easing traffic congestion in the near term.
Carol Burns has been appointed deputy director of the Chemical Science and Technology Div. at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory. She was deputy group leader for the Chemical and Environmental Research and Development Group.
M. Craig Beard, the FAA's former head of airworthiness, died Dec. 31 at the age of 66 in northern Virginia after a brief illness. In the early 1980s, Beard initiated the effort to harmonize regulations between the U.S. and Europe. He led the FAA's campaign against the spread of unapproved aircraft parts. He was recognized in 1992 by the Flight Safety Foundation and Aviation Week&Space Technology for distinguished service. Beard established and managed the FAA's Asia Pacific office in Singapore for four years before retiring in 1996.
Boeing had ``a terrific year'' selling used and white tail aircraft in its inventory and exceeded target prices, according to Toby Bright, vice president of aircraft trading for Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. The Seattle-based manufacturer remarketed 18 units during the year, Bright said. These included the department's first two Airbus trade-ins, both A310 models, as well as all seven white tails that came into the fleet during the year or were left over from 1998. Other placements included used MD-90s and MD-11s.
U.S. military satellite systems that provide communications, navigation, missile warning and weather services made the Y2K transition with no problems or disruptions. Air Force Space Command reported a minor glitch when an offline file-retrieval system failed to recognize 1999 files, but that was caught and corrected within minutes.
Harry Radcliffe has been appointed director of federal programs of Lear Siegler Services Inc., Annapolis, Md. He was president/managing director of a Lockheed Martin aviation maintenance division in Argentina.
Buzz, a low-cost subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, this year expects to carry 1.5 million passengers between the U.K. and continental Europe. Last week, the startup carrier inaugurated seven routes between London Stansted and European points and plans to open four more destinations on Mar. 27. Its network includes highly competitive city-pairs such as London-Paris and London-Frankfurt.
With the International Space Station's Russian-built service module, Zvezda, likely stuck on the ground until summer, NASA plans to decide this week whether to send space shuttle Atlantis on an extra servicing mission to the facility. The station's original module, the Russian-built Zarya, once known as the FGB space tug, has been in orbit for almost 14 months and may require maintenance.
The hijacking of an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 ended peacefully on Dec. 31, 1999, when the Indian government negotiated release by the hijackers of all 156 hostages--passengers and crew--in exchange for the release of three militants held in Indian prisons (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 46). The saga began on Dec. 24 after the hijackers boarded the New Delhi-bound aircraft in Katmandu, Nepal.
It was a problem anticipated, addressed and answered. Like the rest of the world, aerospace sailed past midnight to start 2000 with rarely a glitch in its computer systems.
Is there a big 717 transport sale in Boeing's future? Jointly owned subsidiary FlightSafetyBoeing Training International is building two additional 717 full-flight simulators to meet training demand for the new narrow-body twin, formerly called the MD-95. They will complement an initial 717 simulator in operation in Long Beach, Calif., and are scheduled to be ready for training in May and late 2001.
