The National Reconnaissance Office may be forced to reduce the number of satellites in the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA). Members of the congressional intelligence committees are worried the ground infrastructure to exploit FIA imagery is insufficient. ``We have told the Administration to find the money to make FIA productive or revise the program downward in scope and use the savings to fund the [ground infrastructure] bill,'' says Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House's intel panel.
The civil aviation authorities in Thailand will present a draft of an open skies plan to the five carriers affected next month. The airlines involved are: Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways, PB Air, Angel Airlines and Siam Flying Service. Generally the carriers have welcomed the government's decision, but smaller carriers say they face difficulty competing with Thai Airways. Angel has asked for protection if it launches services to domestic airports not currently served by Thai, but the government has not responded to that suggestion.
Generation Custom Battery Packs can feature nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride, lithium ion, sealed lead acid and all primary chemistries, with various packaging and connector alternatives. They are engineered to cost-effectively match the application relative to capacity, discharge rates and currents, environments and other factors. Designed to fit space constraints and meet specific criteria such as run time or operating temperature, packs range from coin to ``D'' cell size in series or in parallel. Generation Electronics Inc., 59 Technology Drive, Lowell, Mass.
Servometer has introduced a line of miniature gold-plated bellows contact springs for critical applications where contact with a delicate component or material is required. These contacts have low insertion forces, low insertion losses and low D.C. resistance. They come in diameters as small as 0.037 in. The contact springs are manufactured from electrodeposited nickel and gold-plated to Mil-G-45204 to enhance their conductivity and provide low D.C. resistance with a minimum of insertion loss. Servometer Corp., 501 Little Falls Road, Cedar Grove, N.J. 07009.
The Tactical Radar Electronic Combat System (T-RECS) for unmanned aerial vehicles is expected to undergo further flight evaluation early next year, sponsored by the UAV Battle Lab at Eglin AFB, Fla. T-RECS was developed by Northrop Grumman's Defensive Systems Div. at Rolling Meadows, Ill., using company funds. The objective was a compact, versatile EW system that could readily be tailored to a variety of platforms and missions.
With South Korea reviving plans to buy an air defense system, the Pentagon is extending a $4.2-billion offer that will include 14 Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) fire units, with radars, radios and logistics supplies. PAC-3 is expected to compete against the Eurosam Land system and Russia's S-300V. Seoul is scheduled to announce the winner next summer, with a first deployment anticipated for 2003. The Pentagon has been arguing that Seoul should not buy the Russian system because it could result in interoperability problems with U.S. forces stationed in South Korea.
Instead of popping a single burning flare to decoy infrared guided missiles, pilots will soon release three, each operating in a different part of the spectrum to defeat all infrared missile seekers.
Sir Richard Evans will be chairman and John Weston chief executive of the company created by the merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems, which is due to be completed by Nov. 30. Other appointments are: George Rose, group finance director; Sir Charles Masefield, group marketing director; Michael Lester, group legal director; and Mike Turner and Peter Gershon, chief operating officers.
Alexey Komarov has joined Aviation Week&Space Technology as a contributing editor. Based in Moscow, he will cover commercial, military and space issues in Russia and the surrounding region. Komarov is editor of Air Transport Observer, a bimonthly magazine covering the Russian airline industry. The magazine is a joint venture with Aviation Week. Komarov previously worked with the Sukhoi Design Bureau for 17 years.
A Pentagon study group will likely make a recommendation next year on the most effective replacement for the EA-6B. For cost and commonality reasons, Navy and industry experts expect the answer will be an F/A-18 variant.
Three large industry teams are preparing quick-response bids for the U.S. Air Force's 15-year, $1.5-billion Integrated Space Command and Control contract, which eventually will give military space and theater commanders the ability to view a common picture of global-scale battlefields.
Europe's TGV high-speed train operators expect to sign code-share agreements with global airline coalitions such as the Star Alliance, Oneworld, and the as-yet-unnamed Air France/Delta Air Lines group. ``We cannot ignore [airline] alliances, and our goal is to be part of their ambitious growth plans,'' said Guillaume Pepy, SNCF French railways senior vice president. Thalys, a joint venture formed by France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, operates cross-border TGV service that includes Paris/Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport. On Nov.
Lockheed Martin's infamous memo that detailed USAF acquisition official Darleen Druyun's plinking of its programs had a section missing when it was posted on the Internet last month. Much concerned the Joint Strike Fighter effort. ``Sometimes I just want to smack you on the head,'' the memo quoted Druyun as saying. ``I went to see both yours and Boeing's [demonstration aircraft]. Boeing's watered my eyes. The Skunk Works has lost its magic. The Navy [acquisition executive] declared that LM had lost, and let's get on with Boeing. Cooler heads prevailed.
America West and Continental Airlines have expanded electronic ticketing to interline travel. It is now possible to use an electronic ticket for itineraries that include both carriers. . . . After a testing period, the FAA is moving to full implementation of AD OPT's ShiftLogic personnel scheduling system. The software was tested at air traffic control centers in Memphis and Dallas, and is now being expanded to Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami. . . .
The U.S. Air Force plans to drastically improve its ability to attack a foe with offensive information operations by assigning more people to the job and fielding new cyber weapons. At the same time, military commanders and Pentagon lawyers continue to wrestle with the legalities that govern computer network attacks.
By the end of this week, a U.S. Air Force team will finish testing a suite of computers and communication links that make up a joint U.S./Russian center dedicated to ensuring Y2K bugs in both countries' missile warning systems are not mistaken as attacks.
Early this year, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) established a Center for Information Operations and Assurance as a vehicle to focus the lab's considerable technical capabilities on national computer defense needs.
Technology innovations continue to shrink electronic warfare systems and improve performance so that even small aircraft and helicopters can carry very capable passive systems, but the concept of a single RF system for a platform is still elusive.
The U.S. Army's plans to field a modern signals intelligence, electronic attack system have taken another turn, with the operational community wanting the service to drop the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter as the airborne platform and, instead, field a system on unmanned aerial vehicles.
Investigators are scouring aircraft-performance and systems data, radar tracks and operational records for clues to what on-board emergency spurred the 16,300-ft. plunge that preceded EgyptAir Flight 990's crash into the Atlantic Ocean.
Japan Airlines officials said the carrier will cancel 21 flights to and from European destinations that are scheduled to depart on Dec. 31, including Tokyo-London and Osaka-Paris, because of too few reservations. All Nippon Airways also plans to cancel service to/from 10 European cities. By contrast, scheduled flights to the Pacific, U.S. and Southeast Asia are booked, and no cancellations are anticipated. According to JAL and ANA officials, the chief reason for the cancellations is customer concerns about the Y2K situation.
