Barry Eccleston will become senior vice president of the Fairchild Aerospace Corp., San Antonio, Tex., on Nov. 1. He has been president/CEO of International Aero Engines, Glastonbury, Conn. Stephen Marinshaw has been appointed vice president-328/328JET program, Stan Deal vice president-428JET, Jack Pelton senior vice president-728JET and Roland Rischer vice president-design engineering. Marinshaw was director of engineering at DynCorp Aerospace Technology.
An Italian government decreerestricting operations at Milan-Linate airport to routes handling more than 2 million passengers a year has been declared discriminatory and illegal by the European Commission. Alitalia's Milan-Rome is the sole route to meet the proposed conditions required to operate at Linate (AW&ST Aug. 17, p. 36). EC Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock said: ``Italy had months of repeated warnings that the arrangement posed legal problems.'' But the EC has no power to impose alternative solutions to the Italian government, Kinnock acknowledged.
William Jackomis(see photos p. 8) has become senior vice president/general manager and Ronald C. Hudson director of sales for G&H Technology, Camarillo, Calif. Jackomis was Great Falls, Va.-basedvice president-government affairs and business development, and Hudson was worldwide marketing manager for Amphenol Aerospace, Sidney, N.Y.
Thomson Training&Simulation (U.K.), Indra (Spain), Meteor (Italy) and ARGE STN-Atlas/CAE GmbH. (Germany) are forming a joint venture to provide aircrew synthetic training aid systems for Eurofighter. The company--Eurofighter Simulation Systems--will be based in Munich and work closely with Daimler-Benz Aerospace, the prime contractor for Eurofighter synthetic training aids. More than 30 training devices are expected to be required by the four air forces acquiring Eurofighter.
Nabil Sultan has become general manager for the U.K. and Ireland of Emirates. He succeeds Mohamed Qasim Al Ali, who has returned to Dubai as general manager of passenger services for Dnata, Emirates' ground handling division at Dubai International Airport.
Colin Judge has been appointed national sales director for Flight Environments Inc., Woodland Hills, Calif. He was completions manager for The Jet Center, Van Nuys, Calif.
American Airlines has selected Rockwell Collins' Total Entertainment System (TES) for inflight entertainment on its Boeing 777 fleet. TES was initially installed in March on Air France's first 777s and has since been adopted by British Airways. American also will use Rockwell Collins to install personal video systems in the first-class section of four 767s and overhead videos on 75 737-800s and 12 757s on order.
With summer over, State and Transportation Dept. officials are gearing up for talks about new air services bilateral agreements. They will meet their counterparts in Italy and Hong Kong this week, Argentina and the United Kingdom in October. Also on the near-term agenda are initial queries about potential ``open skies'' agreements with Ghana, Kenya, Colombia and a group of Caribbean nations.
Delta Air Lines plans to eliminate first-class seating on transatlantic, transpacific and Brazilian flights in favor of an upgraded business-class product similar to Continental Airlines' BusinessFirst. In December, Delta will stop selling first-class and begin reconfiguring 42 Boeing 767 and 15 MD-11s with a newly designed business-class seat. In a transition period through the spring, the carrier will replace first-class service on affected flights with its current business-class product. Completion of modifications is scheduled for the summer of 1999.
Dato Paduka Haji Mohammad Alimin bin Haji Abdul Wahab has been named chairman of Royal Brunei Airlines. He succeeds Brunei's retiring deputy minister of finance, Pehin Dato Haji Ahmad Wally Skinner, who had been acting chairman. Dato Haji Alimin was at the Ministry of Defense.
The FAA selected Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector to develop the Airport Surveillance Radar-Weather System Processor Program. Five will be built initially, followed by production of up to 37 of the systems. The contract has a potential value of $49 million.
The $5.5-billion Iridium satellite venture, which was supposed to begin commercial service of its worldwide mobile telephone network this week, has delayed the startup until Nov. 1 to verify the system's software is working properly. ``We want some more mileage on the system before we start billing customers,'' said an Iridium spokeswoman. Seven Motorola-built Iridium satellites have failed in orbit, and controllers recently lost communications with an eighth spacecraft. But Motorola executives are brushing off the failures.
A study of measurements from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter finds that meteoroid impacts over millions of years have pounded the surface of the rocky Martian moon Phobos into a fine powder at least 3-ft. (1-meter) deep. Infrared measurements taken by the spacecraft's Thermal Emission Spectrometer also detected extremely rapid heat loss during the moon's 7-hr. rotation. Sunlit areas registered temperatures as high as 25F (-4C). But as the Sun set temperatures plunged to as low as -170F (-112C).
Wolfgang H. Demisch has been named a managing director and Joseph San Pietro vice president/senior research analyst of Wasserstein Perella Securities Inc. of New York. Demisch was an aerospace/defense industry analyst and managing director at BT Alex. Brown, while San Pietro was an equity research associate in the Aerospace/Defense Group at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Operations and exercises such as Alaska's multinational Cooperative Cope Thunder show the shortfalls of U.S. E-3B/C AWACS aircraft--primarily underpowered engines, limited operating altitudes, outdated computers and aging electronic equipment. They, however, also illustrate the continually growing value of airborne surveillance and, even more, airborne command and control.
Dan Garton has been appointed senior vice president-customer services of American Airlines, effective Oct. 1. He had been president of American Eagle, and will be succeeded by Peter Bowler, who has been vice president-passenger sales. Robert W. Baker, who has been executive vice president-operations, will assume responsibility for purchasing, real estate, air cargo, safety and security. Thomas J. Kiernan has been named senior vice president-human resources.
Jupiter's rings were formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smashed into the planet's four inner moons, according to scientists from Cornell University and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Ariz. The scientists studied three dozen images of the rings and moons taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during orbits of Jupiter in 1996-97.
Boeing is touting a new concept for controlling the unmanned fighters the Pentagon hopes to develop one day. These stealthy unmanned air combat vehicles (UCAVs), most planners had assumed, would have to be controlled by crews in stealthy fighters, like the F-22. But Boeing says it might be better to direct up to four UCAVs from non-stealthy, two-seat F-15s. Besides, there won't be enough F-22s for decades to handle the UCAV assignment. As enemy fighters move to attack an F-15, they would be ambushed by the UCAVs, which would fly 40-50 mi. ahead.
Vibration on an F-22 that prompted U.S. Air Force officials to replace the left Pratt&Whitney F119-PW-100 on the second of two flight test aircraft wasn't caused by an engine, program officials discovered after detailed analysis. Instead, improper engine installation was found to be the root cause of the problem, which occurred at high altitudes and high throttle settings. The finding means the engine won't need extensive fixes, leaving the test program with three spare engines available.
Airlines operating six early production Airbus A340-200 four-engine transports have been required to inspect the landing gear after a recent accident involving a Sabena Belgian World Airlines aircraft. Immediately after landing at Brussels airport, the A340's right main leg collapsed, followed by the central leg. The aircraft, which operated the New York-Brussels route, was heavily damaged, but all passengers and crew were evacuated safely.
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has opted for Virgin Atlantic rather than British Midland to be the second U.K. carrier to operate London-Moscow services. Virgin plans to begin a daily service from Gatwick airport in late October in conjunction with Russian carrier Transaero. Virgin is also vying with British Airways to win CAA approval for an additional weekly frequency now available on the London-Capetown route. Next week Virgin plans to inaugurate services to the Caribbean from Gatwick--once a week to St. Lucia, and twice-weekly to Antigua and Barbados.
Iraq is hiding its ballistic missile arsenal as components instead of complete missiles, Scott Ritter, the former chief of U.N. weapons inspections, says. ``There are no more ballistic missiles in Iraq,'' he said, but the country still has the necessary guidance and control (G&C) systems and stainless steel to build Al Semoud short-range ballistic missiles. The G&C components are among several items Iraq is hiding by moving them around in trucks and sedans at least every 30 days.
EVANS&SUTHERLAND PLANS TO DEMONSTRATE new desktop simulation products at the I/ITSEC '98 (Interservice/Industry Training Systems and Education) conference and exhibition in Orlando, Nov. 30-Dec. 4. The Ensemble 3000 line of PC-based products was developed specifically for simulation using the new Pentium 2 Xeon processor and Microsoft Windows NT operating system. E&S REALimage 3000 adds the 3D graphics, with real-time deterministic simulation with 10,000 polygons per channel, and resolutions up to 1,280 X 1,024, according to the company.
