U.K. National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is looking for a strategic partner with a ``global reach'' and an ``international reputation'' in order to gain new customers around the world for its services, according to Chief Executive Bill Semple. NATS will become partially privatized under the U.K. government's transport bill, which was published last week, with the government seeking bidders to take a stake in the ATC provider under a public-private partnership arrangement.
The first C-27J Spartan medium airlifter, built by Lockheed Martin Alenia Tactical Transport Systems, should be ready for Italian air force operations in the summer of 2001. Italy's decision last month to procure a 12-aircraft batch, with follow-on orders anticipated, has set the program in motion and boosted confidence in the innovative transatlantic partnership.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board's cockpit voice recorder working group is transcribing words spoken by pilots of EgyptAir Flight 990 before the airplane crashed Oct. 31 near Nantucket Island, killing all on board. A safety board official said the CVR group is focusing on the dialogue between reserve pilot Gameel el-Batouty and Captain Ahmed al-Habashy in the cockpit of the Boeing 767-336ER. The team, which includes an Egyptian psychologist and an acoustics expert, is transcribing the tape into Arabic and English for further study.
In a further indication of how important broadband satellite applications, the Internet and corporate data networking are to Loral Space&Communications, the company said last week that marketing for all of its data services businesses will now be done under the Loral CyberStar brand name. The change involves marketing previously done separately by Loral Orion, CyberStar and Global Access. Loral CEO and Chairman Bernard L. Schwartz expects satellite broadband, Internet and ``infomedia services'' to be a $20-billion business by 2004.
The U.S. Navy for the first time has operationally used the Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response. The missile was fired from an F/A-18 flying off the USS John F. Kennedy and targeted against an Iraqi facility in the southern No-Fly Zone.
A Stanford University study sheds some new light on the dynamics of the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth like a huge donut. The role that solar flares have in disturbing these belts has long been of interest to space scientists because these disturbances can interrupt or even disable satellite transmissions. The study by Stanford Electrical Engineering Prof. Umran Inan and graduate student Michael Johnson suggests that more attention is needed to the role that Earth's lightning plays in the energy distribution of the radiation belts.
Development of an electronic or e-business strategy is the most critical issue facing aerospace/defense executives today, according to a global study by Computer Sciences Corp. In a complementary set of findings, the majority of e-business initiatives is emanating from senior management for business applications, rather than from information technology managers merely to meet design and production demands, according to a survey focusing only on the U.S. industry, by the consulting firm of Deloitte&Touche.
Boeing completed tests last week of the fuel system for its X-32A Joint Strike Fighter concept demonstrator. The tests proved the ability of the system to refuel and defuel the aircraft and transfer fuel between tanks, as well as deliver fuel to the engine at all power settings and required pitch attitudes.
U.K. charter operator Air 2000 will take delivery of five additional A320s and three A321s powered by CFM International CFM56-5B turbofans. Four aircraft will be acquired from Airbus Industrie, and four will be operated under leases from ILFC and the CIT Group.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has begun an effort aimed at demonstrating in orbit that a satellite can be repaired and refueled by an autonomous, space-based robot. Earlier this year, Darpa officials were asking what they could do to make it possible to work on satellites in space (AW&ST July 19, p. 58). To help answer that question, the agency now has approached industry to help determine what investment will be needed to develop an infrastructure to work on satellites in space.
Delta Air Lines has certified AlliedSignal's Hybrid Ground Deicing System for use on its fleet. Delta evaluated the system at Milwaukee airport last winter and estimates it used one-sixth the glycol normally required to deice transports before takeoff. Related waste management fees also are expected to decrease, said John Stanko, deice program manager for AlliedSignal Aerospace in Torrance, Calif. HDS uses a coaxial nozzle to entrain a small amount of glycol mix with a high-velocity stream of air.
Airports can expect more unannounced tests of access control points by FAA personnel. The agency also will work with airports and airlines to improve monitoring of control points. It's all the result of a review done last spring by the Transportation Dept.'s inspector general. During the March-May review, investigators were able to sneak onto aircraft from 35 separate airlines 117 times. Some aircraft were boarded several times as investigators wandered on and off the plane. In 43 cases, no one was on board the aircraft to challenge the investigators.
Raytheon Co. has received a 10-year, $22-million contract from Harris Canada Inc. to support avionics systems on Canadian Forces CF-18s. Raytheon will provide repair, overhaul, supply chain, configuration and obsolescence management services.
The union that represents Japan Airlines pilots has won a round in court against extended work hours. Tokyo District Court Judge Saburo Takase sided with the pilots after the airline raised its maximum duty period per flight from 8 to 9 hr. on a single leg. JAL acted after Japan's Ministry of Transport set new
Air Austral, which is based on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, has ordered a 62-seat ATR 72-500 twin-turboprop transport that is scheduled to be delivered in July 2000.
NASA is moving to resurrect a once super-secret Cold War reconnaissance aircraft--the D-21 supersonic drone--for reusable launch vehicle (RLV) propulsion tests. The D-21 is a Mach 3.3 ramjet reconnaissance vehicle first launched piggyback in 1966 off the back of the M-12 version of the YF-12 fighter, a forerunner of the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. The D-21 was developed originally in the mid-1960s by Lockheed Skunk Works and the U.S. Air Force for CIA strategic reconnaissance operations. None has flown since 1971.
Members of the U.S. Congress, particularly the House, beat their chests and screamed in the spring of 1998 at revelations of improper technology transfers to China by Hughes and Loral. The House quickly voted 403-8 to transfer the authority for licensing of satellite exports from the Commerce Dept. back to the State Dept. There was no real consideration of the implications for the U.S. satellite industry's competitiveness.
The U.K.'s Atomic Weapons Establishment will be managed by an industrial consortium consisting of Lockheed Martin, Serco Ltd. and British Nuclear Fuels Plc starting next April. The AWE Management consortium was selected over incumbent Hunting BRAE for the 10-year, 2.2-billion-pound ($3.5-billion) contract by the Ministry of Defense, which will retain a special controlling share in the entity.
Bryan LaBrecque has become senior vice president-corporate services of Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which also recently named four vice presidents: Jeff Simmons, finance/chief financial officer; Larry Beck, information technology and systems support; Donna Gertz, customer service support; and Eva Holley, inflight services. LaBrecque, Simmons, Beck and Gertz all held management positions with Delta Air Lines, while Holley was a vice president of the Mercantile Bancorporation.
A U.S. District Court judge last week dismissed eight of 11 charges against former SabreTech employee Eugene Florence in the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in 1996. According to the judge, the prosecution failed to prove that Florence had acted recklessly when he signed documents indicating that safety caps had been placed on oxygen generators for eventual shipment on board Flight 592, but the caps were not installed. Florence, however, is still charged with one count of conspiracy and two counts of lying about repair records.
Los Angeles International Airport had 13 reported runway incursions in 1998--the highest number in the U.S., and three times the national rate. In the worst incursion at LAX in recent years, an Aeromexico MD-80 taxied across a runway being used by a departing United Airlines Boeing 757-200, forcing the United pilot to rotate early to avoid a collision. The incident occurred just after 10 p.m. on Nov. 22.
JOHN D. MORROCCOSenior European Editor Pierre Sparaco contributed to this report from Madrid.
BAE Systems is preparing for tough negotiations with its fledgling continental European counterpart on the future of Airbus Industrie and a host of joint ventures in which they are involved.
Before and after images from the European Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite have helped geophysicists at the California Institute of Technology in their study of the way ground is displaced in an earthquake. Caltech combined synthetic aperture radar interferometry images taken Sept. 15 and Oct. 20 by ERS-2 of a region near Twentynine Palms, Calif., that was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake Oct. 16. In a comparative image (see photo), each color is a contour of measurable ground displacement.
