Air France plans to order eight 219-seat Airbus A330-200 long-range twinjets soon and option five additional aircraft, to replace 10 A310s and five Boeing 767-300ERs. The A330s will be powered by 72,000-lb.-thrust General Electric CF6-80E1A3 turbofans and help reduce the number of aircraft types the carrier operates on long-haul routes. Air France's 208-aircraft subsonic fleet is nearly equally divided between Airbus and Boeing.
Panoram Technologies (http://www.panoramtech.com) is introducing an ultrawide display for power desktop users. The PowerView 290 puts together three flat-panel screens for a 43.5 X 12.5-in., 3,840 X 1,024-pixel display with just a 5/8-in. band between the screens. It can operate as a single display, or has software to position data from up to nine sources, including video. The PowerView 290 has been used with a head tracker for immersive graphics (see photo), such as portraying air traffic data with Muse research software at the September Air Traffic Control Assn.
Support for the Joint Strike Fighter is beginning to soften as the Pentagon continues to face long-term budget and manpower problems. ``I don't see any real fire in the belly of the Air Force or the Navy for Joint Strike Fighter,'' says a former senior military commander now working for Lockheed Martin. ``It's a pretty squirrelly program right now.
Douglas M. Steenland, who has been executive vice president of Northwest Airlines, will also be chief corporate officer. He will succeed Richard B. Hirst, who will be retiring.
The first leg of a worldwide digital radio broadcasting service has gone online in Johannesburg, South Africa--the first time a major new telecommunications technology has debuted on the African continent, and long before a similar service is slated to become available in the U.S.
Gulfstream made its first Internet aircraft sale, a used G-IV with a retail price of $22.9 million. ``Gulfstream's Pre-Owned Website greatly simplified the purchase process, saving us time, money and aggravation,'' said Richard Hodkinson, president of Elite Aviation, the charter company that bought the aircraft. The used aircraft site (available via http://www.gulfstream.com) was started in June, and 13 aircraft have been featured in the first four months. Site visitors can check the complete maintenance history and visually inspect the interior with IPIX technology.
Tokyo prosecutors have arrested nine executives of seven oil companies on charges of bid-rigging in connection with aviation fuel contracts for Japan's Defense Agency. Contracts were suspended with Cosmo Oil, Nisseki/Mitsubishi Oil, Showa Shell Oil, Japan Energy, Idemitsu Industry, General Ail and Kignus Oil. The seven companies are among 11 under investigation (AW&ST Oct. 25, p. 25). The four remaining companies under scrutiny are Kyushu Oil, Taiyo Oil, Taiho Industry and Fuso Oil.
The slow and uncoordinated response of rescue forces on Guam may have cost at least one life in the crash of Korean Air Flight 801, according to federal investigators. But those forces are no more prepared today to deal with such an accident than they were when the 747 plowed into hills there two years ago.
As NASA's head of manned space flight, George E. Mueller was responsible for the Gemini, Apollo, Saturn, Skylab and shuttle development programs. Currently, he is CEO of the Kistler Aerospace Corp., which is developing a reusable launch vehicle (RLV). He recently testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Excerpts follow:
Software for the Space Industry is the topic of a Nov. 15 conference in Bethesda, Md., sponsored by the International Space Business Council. Speakers include officials from the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Register at http://www.spacebusiness.com/software/software.html. . . . Raytheon Systems Co. of Waco, Tex., Siemens/ Electrocom of Arlington, Tex., and Aircraft Braking Systems of Akron, Ohio, have all recently instituted SAP's R/3 for enterprise-wide planning.
Total Aircraft Services of Chatsworth, Calif., is expecting by year-end to receive FAA approval of its Geographic Synthetic Aperture radar (GeoSAR) installation on a Gulfstream II business jet. GeoSAR consists of a dual frequency airborne radar system that will be able to collect three-dimensional terrain data at a rate of about 90 sq. mi./min. during day or night and in any weather conditions. It also will be able to map above, through and, coupled with computer modeling, below vegetation canopies, according to Naras Alksninis, director of design engineering for TAS.
Virgin Atlantic Airways will appeal a ruling by a federal court in New York dismissing its remaining claims of anticompetitive behavior by rival British Airways. The court ruled Virgin had not produced satisfactory evidence to support its complaint that BA exploited its dominant position on transatlantic routes by providing incentives to travel agents and corporate customers. Virgin filed the antitrust claims six years ago, seeking $1 billion in damages.
Innotech-Execaire Aviation Group has purchased five new Cessna Citations, including a Citation Sovereign, two Citation Excels and a Citation Encore and CJ2, worth a total of $40 million.
A tentative launch date of Nov. 13 has been set for the GE Americom's GE-4 telesat from an Ariane booster at the European Space Agency's Kourou, French Guiana, facility. The Lockheed Martin A2100AX satellite is to begin service for Latin America in early 2000.
The FAA is proposing to overhaul the way transport aircraft fuel systems are designed and maintained to better preclude fuel-tank explosions like the one believed to have downed TWA Flight 800 three years ago. The agency issued a notice of proposed rulemaking for a Special Federal Aviation Regulation that would require manufacturers of new aircraft designed to carry more than 30 passengers or carry payloads of at least 7,500 lb. to demonstrate that any single system failure or combination of failures will not create a source of ignition for fuel vapors in the tank.
Much was riding on Lockheed Martin Corp.'s ability last Friday to hit its third-quarter earnings target of 45-50 cents a share. As the end of the week drew near, some analysts were anxious. The release of income, revenue and other vital data was delayed by several days, ostensibly to allow management to restate the information according to the company's new structure (AW&ST Oct. 4, p. 24) and file an 8-K report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But with Lockheed Martin's credibility at an all-time low, some market professionals clearly were skeptical.
Avions de Transport Regional's ATR 42MP maritime patrol twin turboprop, developed by Alenia Aerospazio, obtained certification from Italy's civil aviation agency on Oct. 28. The first aircraft will be delivered to Italian customs soon.
Bioxide Corp. of Midvale, Utah, has introduced a small, lightweight air purification system for use in corporate and transport aircraft. Called Sentinal, it operates independently of the aircraft's cabin environmental system and enhances normal air filtration by eliminating bacteria, viruses and allergens, and by reducing odors, according to Glenn E. Meixell, president and CEO. Sentinal uses a process that combines ozone and ultraviolet light to cleanse cabin air. It produces nontoxic water and carbon dioxide by-products. The 80-lb.
With its EmPower in-seat laptop computer power supply contracted for installation in more than 1,600 airline transports and about 95,000 airline seats worldwide, Primex is expanding the product line with a passenger in-seat e-mail connection. Called EmPort, the system is integrated with EmPower and related wiring and functions as an onboard server and local area network, according to Mark Peabody, vice president-electronic systems for the Redmond, Wash.-based manufacturer.
The FAA's Aviation Weather Research Program is devising new ways to display weather, and is unveiling some of its experimental products on the Aviation Digital Data Service Web page (http://adds.awc-kc.noaa.gov) to gather pilot feedback. The new flight path tool can zoom in on an area of the U.S., and then display various weather data at altitude slices controlled by a slider. The pilot uses the mouse to draw a route on the map, and can see a vertical profile of terrain elevation and different types of weather along the route.
A Tupolev Tu-204-120 freighter will be available for inspection at the Hudson General facility at Salt Lake City International Airport on Nov. 15-17. The visit will include technical briefings for qualified attendees by Oleg Alasheev, chief designer for Russia's Tupolev Bureau, as well as top officials from the Tu-204's manufacturer, Aviastar. Also represented will be Russian national export board Aviaexport and Russian avionics and aircraft certification authorities.
Airline and pilots' union representatives are to meet this week with FAA officials in a bid to settle, by Thanksgiving, differences that have stymied the expansion of data-sharing partnerships for years.
F/A-18s from U.S. Marine Corps Air Wing 4 provided cover during this year's Bright Star exercise in Egypt. The F/A-18s, and KC-130 that also participated, belong to reserve units VMFA-321 based at Andrews AFB, Md., and VMFA-112 and VMGR-234 based in Fort Worth. The 11-nation exercise was the largest in which U.S. forces will fly this year. Because of the air war against Yugoslavia last spring, Pentagon planners scaled back the number of exercises in which U.S. forces would participate.
