Lockheed Martin and International Launch Services hope to erect the Russian-powered Atlas III booster back on Launch Complex 36B at Cape Canaveral in January to enable its initial launch in the first quarter of 2000. Two payload options for the flight have emerged, the EchoStar VI spacecraft or a Eutelsat payload. The Atlas IIIA is a largely redesigned Atlas that uses an Energomash/Pratt&Whitney RD-180 engine and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.
Paul Muir has been named senior vice president-commercial and Owen Gleach vice president-commercial of the International Bureau of Aviation, Crawley, England. Nicolas Jennett has joined the firm's office in Washington.
European missile-makers have turned the tables on rival Raytheon by adding Boeing to their Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) team. By boosting its transatlantic credentials, the Meteor team is now threatening to challenge Raytheon in the U.S market, as well as in the U.K., where the two competitors are locked in a bitter battle to arm Eurofighter aircraft. Adding Boeing to its team also offers a counter to U.S. pressure on European governments to opt for an Amraam-based solution for their future BVRAAM requirements.
The House/Senate defense appropriations conference bill provides $3.6 billion for Fiscal 2000 research and development programs managed by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The major accounts are funded as follows: -- $837 million for National Missile Defense (NMD). -- $560 million for the Army's Theater High-Altitude Area Defense system. -- $380 million for the Navy's Theater Wide missile program.
Congress has given the Air Force the green light to lease aircraft to support the Defense Dept.'s regional ``warfighting'' commanders. The multiyear program would serve as a trial for other aircraft leasing initiatives. An earlier Air Force initiative to modify KC-135s so they could support regional commanders-in-chief was killed at the behest of Congress. The Air Force will be allowed to lease a maximum number of six aircraft, with the lease period not to exceed 10 years.
British Aerospace Defense Systems has received a contract worth more than 100 million pounds ($165 million) for its Sampson multifunction radar, part of the principal anti-air missile system for new Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers.
In acquiring Comair, Delta Air Lines is putting together a regional airline fleet and flight network that could be--in a very short period--the dominant local traffic feed over more than half of the U.S. The $1.8-billion transaction, agreed to last week, will create an expanded Delta Connection subsidiary, comprising Comair and Delta-owned Atlanta Southeast Airlines (ASA), with strong ties to new affiliate Atlantic Coast Airlines (ACA) and several other independent carriers.
In a sweeping move to replace its fleet of 19 Boeing 737s, Frontier Airlines has agreed to buy 11 new Airbus aircraft and take options on another nine. The Denver-based carrier said negotiations also are underway to lease additional Airbus transports as needed for growth over the next 10 years. The new fleet will consist of an as-yet-undefined mix of A318s and A319s. Frontier said the Airbus aircraft offered superior economic return as well as fleet flexibility and commonality.
A mission with two picosatellites, each weighing less than 0.5 lb., is scheduled to be launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., next month (see rendering). The tethered, battery-powered picosatellites, which will serve as a platform for testing micro-electromechanical systems for several days, will be released into low-Earth orbit by the Orbiting Picosat Automated Launcher (OPAL) built by Stanford University students.
Thai Airways International has obtained financing for a $577-million package of jumbo aircraft, including four Boeing 777-300s and one Boeing 747-400, with the assistance of two of the world's major export finance agencies: the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. and ECGD of Great Britain. The event has enormous significance not just for the airline and Thailand, but more importantly, for jumbo commercial passenger aircraft programs worldwide, according to Tom Gallagher, managing director for defense, aerospace and technical services for First Union Capital Markets Corp.
The U.S. Air Force is tripling its investment in spacecraft vibration isolation systems after two successful tests last year. The system, built for the Air Force by CSA Engineering, was able to reduce vibration on a satellite by as much as 75%, Air Force officials said. Encouraged by those results, the Air Force Research Laboratory plans to increase the program's $5-million budget to $15 million. The service's next goal is to develop a vibration reduction system that could be used on Boeing's and Lockheed Martin's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle programs.
Airlines clamoring for drastic changes in the air traffic system bolster their arguments with warnings that worsening flight delays will throttle the U.S.' robust economy. Former American Airlines Chairman Robert L. Crandall, for instance, argues that delays inevitably will discourage people from flying, which would ``have a substantial adverse impact'' on the economy. He said in a recent speech, ``The unmeasured rub-off effects of less travel--deals not made, products not manufactured, services and products not sold--will be substantial as well.''
Shifting routine transmissions from voice to data link would provide the biggest near-term boon to relieving air traffic congestion. Controller-to-pilot data link communications (CPDLC) could handle more efficiently nearly half of all ATC transmissions, which involve routine frequency changes--acknowledging and checking in--and altimeter settings. However, voice would still be used for messages with an immediate potential impact, such as ``traffic at 12 o'clock is closing.''
Airline pilots say the U.S. and European air traffic systems are under stress, and the pressure to handle ever increasing numbers of aircraft is reducing the margin for error even though flight operations are still considered safe. Capt. Ted Murphy, president of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Assns. (IFALPA) which represents groups with 100,000 pilot members, said congestion is as bad as it has been in many years in Europe and things are clearly busier in North America where the pressure is now coming on.
C.O. Miller has warned that safety recommendations from airline accident and incident investigations must be carried out if we are to lower accident rates (AW&ST Sept. 13, p. 94). Lowering those rates is possible only with a change in mindset that is just beginning to take place. The word safety must become synonymous with accident prevention.
The cockpit crew of a FedEx MD-11 suffered minor injuries Oct. 17 when the freighter overshot Runway 07 at Subic Bay Freeport in the Philippines while landing on a flight from Shanghai. The aircraft sank 30 ft. from the shoreline. It landed in light rain and hit a concrete post and wire fence before sinking nearly out of sight. Its cargo of garments and electronic goods was considered lost.
Rotary Rocket made the first translational flight of its Roton Atmospheric Test Vehicle on Oct. 12, reaching speeds of 53 mph. while traveling 4,300 ft. along a runway. It was the vehicle's third flight (AW&ST Oct. 11, p. 21). The test lasted 3 min. 47 sec., comprising 1:50 in forward flight and 1:57 in hover. The longitudinal stability and other data appears to have good correlation with the craft's integral simulator, a company official said.
Rohrabacher made it clear last week that he hasn't changed his harsh views on China. With China becoming ``enormously powerful,'' expansionists in Beijing are eyeing land in Russia, he claims. ``They're going to go up to Siberia, or they're going to try to take over Central Asia,'' he told an Aerospace States Assn. audience. But Rohrabacher sees a silver lining in such a scenario. A threatened Russia, he says, will seek closer ties with the West and become more democratic. ``I'm optimistic about Russia because I'm pessimistic about Communist China,'' he says.
Air traffic congestion, a narrowing safety margin, increasing ground and air delays. These are immediate and grave matters facing the U.S. and European air transport systems. They have led to widespread passenger frustrations, and perhaps even a few instances of what is now voguishly called ``air rage.''
Kenneth F. Wiegand, director of the Virginia Aviation Dept., has been elected chairman of the National Assn. of State Aviation Officials. Other officers elected to serve through next Sept. 30 are: vice chairman, Harold E. Miller, statewide manager of the Iowa Aviation Staff; secretary, John C. Eagerton, 4th, director of the Alabama Aeronautics Dept.; and treasurer, Jack Ferns, director of the New Hampshire Aviation Div.
As another wave of merger agreements broke in Europe last week, the stage is now virtually set for the next major challenge--whether further consolidation can be forged across the Atlantic, or Europe and the U.S. remain separate and competing fortresses.
Philip Hinz and Erin Sabatke, graduate students at the University of Arizona-Tucson, and Benjamin Lane, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, have been selected to receive Michelson fellowships offered by NASA's Origins Program and its Space Interferometry Mission. Hinz was selected for work on building a new type of nulling interferometer, which will block the glare from nearby stars so scientists can observe, in infrared wavelengths, the dust and giant planets that may orbit those stars.
