Jean Colpin has been named vice president-engineering and Gordon M. Hogg vice president-product integrity of Pratt&Whitney Canada, Longueuil, Quebec. Colpin was vice president-engineering and Hogg vice president-engineering for product integrity.
General Electric's CF34-8C1 powerplant has received FAA certification. The engine, which has a maximum takeoff thrust of 13,790 lb., is scheduled to power the Bombardier CRJ700 Series aircraft. Other versions of the engine, the CF34-8D and CF34-8E, also have been selected to power the Fairchild Aerospace 728JET and the Embraer ERJ-170, respectively.
Alenia Aerospazio Aeronautics Div. has selected Engineering Animation's Open Enterprise Visualization for digital mockup and product visualization. It will be used on Eurofighter and other projects to allow different disciplines in the company to view data from the Catia and CADDS5 CAD systems, as well as from Dassault's ENOVIApm product data management system. . . . Alenia Marconi Systems is using Virtual Prototypes' Scenario Toolkit and Generation Environment (Stage) software to graphically develop tactical simulation and training scenarios. . . .
Iran is likely to have a handful of nuclear weapons in its arsenal in only a few years, says Marine Corps Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East. Furthermore, Zinni told Army and industry officials, he expects Iran to test a new long-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-4, in the next few months. There have been several unsuccessful tests of the shorter-range Shahab-3, but Iran is expected to overcome those development problems very soon.
A global aviation summit, which sought new directions for government management of commercial aviation, produced a strong proposal for an open transatlantic market--the world's largest--between the U.S. and the European Union. But delegates of the 90 nations represented there last week endorsed only a tame statement of principles to guide future discussions.
Gerhard Schulz (see photo) has become vice president-finance and administration of Arianespace. He was director of finance and control for the Aerospatiale/DASA joint venture Euromissile.
Four decades into what was once quaintly called ``the space age,'' spacecraft and launchers still cost too much and aren't reliable enough. The combination of high costs and huge risks remains a virtual law of nature in space, despite the world's 42 years of experience in building and launching literally thousands of satellites.
Although Airbus Industrie intends to launch the $11-12 billion A3XX Very Large Transport Airplane or VLTA by the end of 2000, its supervisory board last week failed to authorize commercial proposals to potential launch customers.
Delta Air Lines is using Fast Engines' Fast.Serv software to improve the performance of its server for retail online customers. Fast.Serv balances server load and keeps data readily available for a customer's multiple requests, eliminating server overhead, relieving the strain on databases and accelerating server requests, shortening user response time dramatically. ``During a recent discount promotion, volume tripled overnight.
Cathay Pacific Airways and DHL Worldwide Express have formed a partnership to boost air cargo at Hong Kong International Airport. Hong Kong has long been a major freight hub, but lost some of its luster because of bottlenecks at its freight facility when the airport opened 18 months ago. So DHL's shift of its Central Asia hub out of Manila is a vote of confidence for the airport. Cathay Pacific will provide 32 overnight freighter and passenger flights a week between Hong Kong and four major destinations in DHL's Asian Air Network.
The Air Transport Rack enclosure has been designed to comply with ARINC specification 404A and is available in 190.5 mm. X 498.3 mm. X 26.7 mm. form factor. Hold-down hooks at the front panel and rear dowel receptacle provide the means to mount the enclosure to a standard 404A tray. The hard-mounted top-loading card frame holds up to five convection-cooled 6U VME Eurocards and an integral rugged backplane interfaces directly with rear panel mounted I/O connectors. All PCBs are conformally coated. Primagraphics Ltd., New Cambridge House, Litlington, Nr. Royston, Herts.
Lockheed Martin and its Joint Strike Fighter teammates Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems say they have devised a virtual development environment for themselves and their suppliers, to be used if they win the engineering and manufacturing development contract. ``Having this type of capability up and running prior to an EMD contract is a first,'' said Henry J. Levine, JSF deputy for program operations. The Defense Dept. is to select the EMD contractor in early 2001.
Companies developing reusable launch vehicles (RLV) for commercial space operations are refining designs and preparing to build and test operational systems but are stymied by a lack of investment. Space Access LLC, Pioneer Rocketplane, Bristol Spaceplanes, Kelly Space&Technology, Rotary Rocket and other newcomers have seen venture capital tighten severely this year as a result of two factors: -- Iridium's bankruptcy after failing to attract large numbers of early subscribers.
The F-22 has won an important victory inside the Pentagon. In a study to find alternatives to the next-generation stealthy fighter, the F-22 has come out the winner. ``The analysis indicates very strongly we need the F-22,'' says George Schneiter, who monitors tactical aircraft for the secretary of Defense. The Pentagon undertook the study in case the F-22 proved too difficult to bring to fruition.
Space shuttle program managers late last week were assessing the replacement of a dented hydrogen line sleeve on the orbiter Discovery to determine whether its launch to the Hubble space telescope could proceed in mid-December or would be postponed until mid-January.
Daniel Fernandez has been appointed secretary general of the Miami-based International Air Cargo Assn. He succeeds the late Garth H. Davies, who was the founding secretary general. Fernandez was vice president-promotions for the Tigers of Asia Show and Expo in Miami.
J.K. (Ken) Thompson has been named to the board of directors of the Alaska Air Group Inc. and Alaska Airlines. He is executive vice president of ARCO and chairman of ARCO Alaska Inc. William F. Weaver has been promoted to vice president from staff vice president/maintenance and engineering.
Capt. Robert P. Kudwa has been appointed vice president-flight/chief pilot of American Airlines, succeeding Capt. C.D. Ewell, who is scheduled to retire this month. Kudwa was manager of flight training and standards at American's Flight Academy.
Inmarsat plans to considerably expand and reinforce its personal multimedia communications network with a 144-432-Kbps. service offering significantly higher data rates than the 64-kbps. capability now available.
This system utilizes an affordable high-precision eddy current balanced bridge technology. It offers extremely high-resolution, low nonlinearity, thermal stability and subnanometer resolution. The compact DIT-5200 is capable of subnanometer resolution allowing precise positioning. Available in single- and dual-channel configurations, it renders true differential for common mode rejection.
David Assemat has been appointed technical director of CNES French space agency. He succeeds Pierre Moskwa, who is now head of the agency's launch facilities at Kourou, French Guiana.
United Airlines bought Hewlett Packard HP 9000-series servers for its worldwide flight crew scheduling, cargo scheduling and pricing, and speech recognition systems, as well as for its Web site and intranet systems. The previous device took a day to process a day's schedule of more than 2,400 flights, but the new 32-processor V2500 server will do the job in 2 hr., allowing changes to be made as the day progresses. Voice recognition buffs should try United's automated flight information line--it actually works!
Philip A. Odeen (see photo), who has been executive vice president/general manager of TRW Systems and Information Technology, Reston, Va., has become executive vice president of TRW Washington Operations. He has been succeeded by Donald C. Winter (see photo), who was vice president/deputy general manager for group development of TRW Space and Electronics, Redondo Beach, Calif. H. Edward Cypert, Jr., has become vice president/deputy general manager for operations of TRW Systems.
While European Union officials are backing a bold plan for an open transatlantic aviation market, a survey of deregulation in Europe shows the effort has produced mixed results since its implementation nearly two years ago. High production costs, inefficient air traffic management, scarce runway capacity and the airlines' nonaggressive marketing are impeding the benefits of the European route system's deregulation, according to European Commission officials.
