Russell Widmar has become director of the Kansas City Aviation Dept. He succeeds Raymond Anderson, who resigned. Widmar was executive director at the Salt Lake City Airport Authority.
Gen. James Jones, the new Marine Corps commandant, says that he and the new Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, are working on a proposal for a larger, four-engine tiltrotor aircraft. Imagine a V-22 the size of a C-130. Both services need such an aircraft to improve their fast reaction time and battlefield agility. Jones said the Navy is interested in the large cargo aircraft for ship-to-ship replenishment at sea. ``Frankly, we can produce the V-22 at a much more cost-effective rate,'' he said.
The space shuttle orbiter Atlantis sustained minor damage to push rods and other structures associated with its elevons in late October during power-on testing in a Kennedy Space Center orbiter processing facility. The vehicle's elevons had earlier been configured for a period of storage when no power-on testing would be done. When such testing was resumed, movement of the elevons damaged rods and scraped other parts. The damage can be repaired with no impact to the vehicle's next launch, a mission to the International Space Station about February or March.
Settling for what they can get, Japan's Ministry of Transport and the owners of Tokyo's Narita airport said they intend to open a new runway at the airport in May 2002.
The recent Aerospatiale Matra/DaimlerChrysler Aerospace merger agreement confers to Dassault Aviation an unexpected opportunity to restore its full independence. An independent Dassault could open the door to a deeper relationship with British Aerospace and, perhaps, the creation of a larger European military aircraft grouping. BAe is in a continuing dialogue with Finmeccanica/Alenia Aerospazio about the possibility of creating a military joint venture.
Armand Carlier has been named chairman of the management board/CEO of Astrium, the joint subsidiary of Aerospatiale Matra, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems. Also appointed were: Nick Franks, head of the Telecommunications Business Div.; Klaus Ensslin, head of the Earth Observation and Science Business Div.; and Josef Kind, head of the Space Infrastructure Div.
Boeing has begun an intensive, 6.5-month flight test program of its new 767-400ER derivative aimed at achieving joint FAA and European certification by May.
The second failure of a Russian heavy Proton booster in four months is raising new questions about quality control in the Khrunichev program that is critical to both joint U.S./Russian commercial launch operations and the International Space Station project.
Lawrence J. Gavrich has become vice president-communications of the United Technologies Corp., Hartford, Conn. He was director of internal communications and editorial services.
Despite the Defense Dept. lifting the mandate to use the Ada programming language in 1997, Boeing is sticking with Ada in Phase 3 development of the mission equipment package for the Army's RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. The company was pushing toward using a standard commercial language like C++, but the Comanche team believed that Ada's standardized architecture was better for a project in which several companies were doing the programming, said Gerry Furniss, the integrated product team lead responsible for both the target acquisition and pilotage systems.
The FAA has set up a new, centralized office with the goal of identifying ways to reduce runway incursions, then actually taking action to prevent such incidents. ``We haven't always followed through on our action plans,'' Peter Challan, the FAA's acting deputy associate administrator for air traffic services, told the agency's second annual Safer Skies update on Oct. 27.
Regional airline revenue passenger miles increased 23%, to 5.2 billion, in the April-June timeframe compared with the same period in 1998, according to AvStat Associates, a Washington-based consulting firm, and the Regional Airline Assn. The industry's overall average load factor increased to 59.5%, and the average passenger trip length rose to 263.9 mi. American Eagle, Comair (a Delta Connection carrier) and Continental Express were ranked as the three largest regionals during the April-June period, measured by passenger enplanements.
Two members of the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team were killed on Oct. 28 at Moody AFB, Ga., as they practiced for a show scheduled there for last weekend. The crash of the F/A-18 occurred at 12:30 p.m. 2 mi. from the base while the aircraft was on approach. Lt. Cdr. Kieron O'Connor and Lt. Kevin Colling were practicing ``circle and arrival maneuvers'' for the show while the team was en route. The team's last crash was in 1990, and the last fatality was in 1985 at Niagara Falls, N.Y., when Lt. Cdr. Michael Gershon died in an inflight collision.
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) imager has shown that surface features which have led some scientists to believe that oceans may once have covered much of the northern hemisphere of the planet, were not formed by the action of water in a coastal environment, according to project scientists. Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) images recorded last year do not show coastal landforms in areas where researchers--working with lower resolution Viking images--proposed there were shorelines. MGS images have resolution that is 5-10 times better than that of Viking.
The FAA lacks the tools and resources for significantly boosting ATC efficiency and should focus on preserving safety margins in its overloaded air traffic system, warn aviation safety officials. Officials within the FAA's air traffic organization as well as outside it argue that the agency is yielding to intense pressure from airlines and politicians to move aircraft faster through the skies before it can safely do so.
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.
