Richard Aarons, editor-at-large for Business&Commercial Aviation magazine, which is an Aviation Week publication, has received the 1999 Flight Safety Foundation Cecil A. Brownlow Publication Award. It recognizes contributions to aviation safety or aviation safety awareness through journalism. Aarons was cited for his ``Cause&Circumstance'' column, which ``demonstrates excellence in communicating practical lessons from aircraft accident/incident investigations.''
Kuwait Airways awarded Messier Services an $8-million contract for repair and overhaul of landing gear for the carrier's fleet of Airbus A300-600, A310-300, A320 and A340 aircraft.
SilkAir, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, has agreed to pay $195,000 to each of 20 families of victims of flight MI 185 that crashed Dec. 19, 1997. General Manager Mak Swee Wah said the families had accepted or indicated they would accept the recent offer. The airline had earlier agreed to settle with 26 other families, who accepted Singapore's $144,000 per victim. All 104 people on board the Singapore-Jakarta flight died when the aircraft dived vertically under full power into the Musi River near Palembang, Indonesia.
Engineers for NASA's Hyper-X program are conducting a series of scramjet engine propulsion tests in the Langley Research Center's 8-ft. High-Temperature Tunnel in preparation for the first flight of the X-43 vehicle next May or June.
A U.K. parliamentary committee has labeled the Ministry of Defense's plan to privatize government research laboratories as ``fatally flawed.'' Noting Pentagon warnings, the panel said the move would jeopardize cooperative work with the U.S. as well as other European countries and ``should not proceed as planned.''
Moody's Investors Service has downgraded its long-term debt ratings of Raytheon to reflect the likelihood that the company's intermediate-term profits and cash flows will be low while its debt levels and financial leverage will remain high. The action also reflects uncertainty that management's reorganization program will significantly improve Raytheon's financial and operating performance. Moody's also noted the ``probability'' for additional operating difficulties as the company tries to fully assimilate major acquisitions of the last 2-3 years.
Michael Lesyna has become vice president-strategic marketing of Trimble Navigation Ltd., Sunnyvale, Calif. He was a principal in the operations management group of Booz Allen and Hamilton.
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace signed two agreements with the United Arab Emirates, including one on possible collaboration on the German company's Mako trainer/light attack aircraft, part of a German government effort to boost its presence in the region.
The U.K.'s Defense Aviation Repair Agency has received a contract from Boeing for inspection and repair work on CH-47 Chinook helicopter transmissions in Europe.
The Navy's clandestine airborne special operations units are likely to get a budget boost and more equipment, Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, the deputy chief of naval operations for resources, warfare, requirements and assessments, tells us. As part of a broad effort to improve intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, he says, the Navy is searching for enough money to add a third, highly modified intelligence-gathering P-3C to each of the service's two special projects squadrons--VPU-1 and VPU-2.
Philippe Berterottiere (see photo) has been appointed vice president-commercial affairs of Arianespace and its subsidiaries. He was vice president-sales.
Despite a major shakeup last year, grave problems still dog the Pentagon's national missile defense program, jeopardizing a deployment go-ahead decision in mid-2000. An independent group of 12 military experts chaired by Air Force Gen. (ret). Larry Welch says that, for practical purposes, the real go-ahead decision cannot be made until 2003, when crucial weapons tests will reveal whether NMD performance measures up.
An international investigation team led by French experts is seeking to determine why an ATR 42 crashed in Kosovo on Nov. 12, killing all 21 passengers and three crewmembers. The twin-turboprop transport crashed near the top of a 4,400-ft.-high mountain near Vociturn, 12 mi. northeast of Mitrovica. Visibility in the area was 4-5 km. (2.5-3 mi.) with a 3,000-ft. ceiling. The ATR 42 was being operated on behalf of the U.N.' World Food Program by Si Fly, an Italian startup airline.
The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University has shipped a spacecraft to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for final testing in preparation for a mission to study the Earth's atmosphere in a region 40-110 miles above the surface. The two-year mission is aimed at observing the influence of the Sun and human activity on the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere/Ionosphere (MLTI), considered the least-explored and understood atmospheric region.
ROCKWELL COLLINS EXPECTS its high-speed wireless on-board data link to be the first to comply with ARINC 763 guidelines for airborne network servers and systems. The Integrated Information Systems (I2S) has completed flight certification on board a Condor Flugdienst Airbus A320. It exchanges data such as maintenance diagnostics, navigation databases, flight plans and graphical weather information and at 1 Mbps. has far greater bandwidth than the current 9.6 Kbps. aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS).
Fairchild Aerospace has selected Honeywell to lead design of a fly-by-wire flight control system for the 728JET. Honeywell is already providing the EFIS for the aircraft. Fairchild also agreed to form a partnership with Garrett Aviation Services for completion and support of the Envoy executive jet line, which is based on the 728/328JET line.
Doug Kennett (see photo) has been named general manager of communications and community relations for Boeing Aircraft and Missile Systems in St. Louis. He has been director of communications for Boeing's Washington office. Kennett succeeds Tom Downey, who is now vice president-internal and executive communications for Boeing in Seattle.
The Air Line Pilots Assn. last week underlined its previous appeal for revised regulations to improve rescue and fire-fighting capability at all airports--not just those served by passenger aircraft with more than 30 seats, as is now required by the FAA. The remarks followed a meeting at which the NTSB requested representatives from government and industry to share data about airport rescue and fire-fighting initiatives. The pilots' union cited the 1996 accident at Quincy, Ill., when a United Express Beech 1900D and Beech King Air collided on an intersecting runway.
Yair Ramati has become general manager of the MLM Div. of the Israel Aircraft Industries Electronics Group. He succeeds Israel Livnat, who is now group assistant general manager. Ramati was head of the Arrow System Program Directorate. David Tobias has been named general manager of IAI's Maman Data Systems Center. He was software projects section manager at Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. Michael Shefer has become manager of corporate industrial services for IAI. He succeeds Menahem Tadmor, who is retiring. Shefer was deputy manager of operations in the Malat Div.
Russian hardware suppliers will use LIMA '99 to showcase their lower cost solutions, primarily for Southeast Asian nations in need of defense upgrades at a time when their national budgets are weak. Sixty Russian suppliers will come to Malaysia for the Dec. 1-5 Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA), compared with 30 from the U.S. and 39 from Europe.
Edward Stone, director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., received the 1999 Carl Sagan Award and delivered the third annual Carl Sagan Memorial Lecture at the American Astronautical Society's national meeting last week in Pasadena. The award was presented by the AAS and The Planetary Society and goes to an individual who has ``demonstrated leadership in research or policies advancing exploration of the Cosmos.'' Stone's lecture was entitled ``The Role of Robotic Outposts in Establishing a Permanent Presence in Space.''
Richard Hamilton has been appointed president of the specialty products business segment of ITT Industries, White Plains, N.Y. He was president of ITT's Commercial Products Group.
Emirates Airline is to open discussions with Airbus Industrie and Boeing about the purchase of narrow-body aircraft to serve short-haul routes in the region. The Dubai-based carrier of the United Arab Emirates will be considering aircraft with a minimum of 120 seats, such as Boeing's 737 and Airbus Industrie's A320 family of aircraft. The airline, which currently operates services to 47 destinations in 37 countries, could have the aircraft in service within two years' time.
DRS Technologies has received a $9.4-million contract from the U.S. Army to provide missile control and target acquisition subsystem spares for Bradley Infantry M2A3 Fighting Vehicles.
