John C. Brizendine, former president of Douglas Aircraft Co. and director of development for the DC-10, is scheduled to receive the 1998 Aircraft Design Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Nikolaos Caravasos the AIAA Survivability Award, on Sept. 30. He is manager of military systems for Boeing Helicopters in Philadelphia.
John Glenn's presence on board the shuttle will unnecessarily introduce risk to next month's mission and crew. It's in the numbers--77 to be specific--Glenn's age. While I doubt there is anything about a shuttle flight that might induce a stroke or heart attack or other serious health problem, Glenn's age naturally endows him with an increased exposure to such problems. That's not ``geezer'' bashing. It's an incontrovertible fact of life. Imagine the outrage if Glenn has chest pains early in the flight and a $400-million mission has to be cut short.
Herbert L. Buchanan, 3rd, deputy director of the U.S. Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, is slated to be nominated by President Clinton as assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition.
The U.S. Air Force has decided to contract with civilian flight schools to screen prospective USAF pilots until the Slingsby T-3A Firefly is returned to service. Flight schools throughout the U.S. will provide about 40 hr. of private pilot-type instruction to 2,000 pilot candidates a year, according to Air Education and Training Command (AETC) officials. Delays in FAA supplemental type certification of T-3A fuel system modifications also prompted AETC to place the trainer in ``minimal maintenance status'' recently.
AWACS of the future could end up installed on one or all of the following vehicles--a low- or high-orbit satellite, a new generation of larger, multi-engine unmanned aerial vehicles, or on a dozen or fewer refurbished E-3 aircraft. In the long term, perhaps by 2025, the Pentagon wants to have most of its AWACS sensors on board satellites. That presents a quandary to those who are planning just how to move radar capabilities to space.
Shortly before his death in a July flying accident, Lt. Gen. Dave McCloud, perhaps the U.S. Air Force's fasting rising star, gave voice to the Pentagon planning for Alaska's military future.
Bill Kershner of Sewanee, Tenn., Marvin Easter of Columbus, Ohio, and the late Joe Vorbeck, who was also a professor of aviation, are scheduled to be inducted into the National Assn. of Flight Instructors' Hall of Fame at the Experimental Aircraft Assn. Aviation Center, Oshkosh, Wis., on Oct. 10. Harry W. Orlady of Los Gatos, Calif., will be inducted that day into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame, also at the EAA Aviation Center.
CSA Czech Airlines, which received its JAR-145 maintenance approval in June, has signed up its first Western European maintenance customer. CSA will perform C checks on five Boeing 737-400 aircraft operated by German charter carrier Hapag-Lloyd Flug by year-end.
Israeli legislators of all political stripes are pressing for faster deployment of antimissile defenses, warning that democracies everywhere face a ``new world order'' of dictatorships increasingly equipped with mass destruction warheads and the missiles to deliver them. In an impassioned plea last week to their counterparts on Capitol Hill, four members of the Israeli Knesset called for a rethinking of strategic preparedness in light of the accelerating spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Zenit booster technicians believe a malfunction of the vehicle's flight computers or software--or a combination of both--resulted in the failure of a Zenit carrying 12 Globalstar spacecraft following launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sept. 10. The booster's Russian Energomash second-stage engine was shut down prematurely, causing the commercial payload to impact in Siberia (AW&ST Sept. 14, p. 59).
Also, Ian Ewing, David Doucette and Salo Roth have been named directors of corporate aircraft sales. Ewing was a sales director for Learjet. Doucette was director of contracts and commitments for Boeing Business Jets, and Roth was Fairchild director of airline sales in Latin America.
A record first-half net of more than $2.5 billion--driven largely by disposals of assets--will put Alcatel in a position to aggressively expand its space and defense electronics activities. With operating income of $383 million on sales of $10.3 billion for the first six months, and prospects for even better performance for the second half, the company expects to have nearly $12 billion in cash on hand at year-end, with virtually no debt.
The Pentagon and State Dept. have concluded the North Koreans tried to launch a satellite with what U.S. officials now say was a three-stage Taepo Dong 1 booster. They won't say precisely how they reached that belated conclusion but clues abound. The U.S. Air Force is sticking by its analysis that nothing the North Koreans launched went into orbit. ``There was some really fuzzy data'' that might have indicated a launch attempt, but could have been interpreted either way, said one official.
Boeing has added three models to its Delta 4 launch vehicle lineup in an attempt to fill a commercial payload gap between the capabilities of the original Delta 4 medium-lift and heavy-lift boosters (AW&ST Sept. 14, p. 22). One of the three new Delta-4 Medium-plus launchers will have a 4-meter fairing, while the two others will have the larger 5-meter fairing of the planned Delta 4 heavy-lift vehicle.
Gerald L. Gitner, chairman and CEO of Trans World Airlines, attacked the current proclivity of the Transportation Dept. to give antitrust immunity to would-be airline competitors. He used an analogy he thought this country would understand: baseball. To maintain public interest in the game, he suggested, the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs could form an alliance allowing them to ``code-share'' the home runs of their two great sluggers, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, respectively.
Ralph Hudson has been named senior vice president-worldwide operations for the SanDisk Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif. He was vice president/general manager of worldwide manufacturing operations for Data General.
InVision Technologies has won a $3.8-million contract from the FAA to upgrade CTX 5000 explosives detection systems to CTX 5500 DS. The 5500 has a lower false alarm rate and is 30% faster.
Hughes Space and Communications has joined the Lockheed Martin Space-Based Infrared System Low (SBIRS Low) team, which is competing to build a system of missile-tracking satellites. Hughes will provide the communications payloads, develop communications architecture and conduct systems engineering. The team is competing for one of two awards for a two-year definition phase of the system, intended to acquire and track missiles during the midcourse of their flight.
Phillip M. Diamond and Walter C. Melton have been inducted into the Global Positioning System Hall of Fame at Los Angeles AFB. They were cited for pioneering work at The Aerospace Corp. for the 24-satellite constellation.
NASA officials have crafted a plan to pay Russia $660 million over the next four years to help the bankrupt Russian Space Agency complete crucial hardware for the International Space Station. The NASA rescue package, part of an estimated $1.2-billion set of proposals agency officials are pitching to reduce reliance on Russia, also would add five space shuttle flights to the assembly sequence over five years to relieve Moscow of some resupply and reboost duties. The changes would delay completion of the station by yet another year, to January 2005.
British Aerospace Military Aircraft and Aerostructures Div. and Finland's Finavitec signed a memorandum of understanding paving the way for closer business links. Finavitec is expected to produce military airframe subassemblies and participate in Hawk maintenance and repair programs.
An exercise earlier this year which tested ``embedded information warfare operations'' featuring offensive hacking by government experts into Alaskan Command's computer systems was a first for the U.S. military, say area commanders. Attacks made during the two-week information war were used to set a benchmark for assessing just how well the Air Force can protect its computers.
An enhanced, optical nondestructive inspection process called ``edge of light'' has strong potential for aging aircraft and corrosion detection, according to Canada's National Research Council. The technique uses a light source and a detector separated by a fixed distance and combined into a hand-held scanner. Light passing through a narrow slit is reflected from the surface being inspected at a shallow angle and captured by the detector.
The No. 2 Lockheed Martin/Boeing DarkStar reconnaissance drone made a second flight Sept. 13 from Edwards AFB, Calif., that reached 5,000 ft. and lasted 45 min., accomplishing all objectives. An oscillation was seen on the June 29 first flight, and the recent test verified it had been fixed by software changes, a Lockheed Martin official said.
Researchers at Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory have developed an identification system that can distinguish virtually any asset on the battlefield to anyone with the proper listening equipment. The technique, called synchronous identification of friendly targets, uses a form of frequency locking to identify a weak signal buried in the normal radiant energy emitted by an aircraft, tank, military vehicle or person.
