Sunil Dutta, senior ceramic engineer and director of the small disadvantaged business program at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, has been elected a full member of the International Institute for the Science of Sintering.
Aerojet GenCorp has won a $16.4-million contract from NASA to develop and test the deorbit propulsion stage for the first space test of the X-38 prototype. With all options, the contract would be worth nearly $72 million (see p. 58).
After its first two years of operation, Taeco is doubling capacity at its commercial transport heavy maintenance center here. Despite the economic and currency troubles plaguing much of Asia, Taeco has experienced a slowdown only on non-mandatory maintenance, according to John Chi, Taeco director and general manager. Upcoming long-term contracts with Northwest as well as a 747 freighter conversion program conducted jointly with Boeing should cushion any future business shortfalls.
Peter Wilhelm, director of the Naval Center for Space Technology at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, has won the NRL's Lifetime Achievement Award. Wilhelm was cited for his work on Navy and national space programs, including Clementine, the Multiple Satellite Dispenser, Low-Power Atmospheric Compensation Experiment, Timation/Navstar GPS, Living Plume Shield satellites and solar radiation satellites.
Marconi North America's Tracor Systems Technologies unit will provide engineering services for the U.S. Navy's Physical, Electronic and Computer Sensor Systems program under a $90.4-million contract awarded by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center of Charleston, S.C.
Government and industry efforts to reduce injuries to airline passengers and flight attendants caused by turbulence gained some momentum at a NASA/FAA workshop on the problem at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., last week. Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and the keynote speaker, said the government/industry partnership that dealt with wind shear in the 1980s is a good model for turbulence efforts. Workshop leaders want to form a senior policy group to coordinate a partnership approach to turbulence.
The French Transport ministry plans to complete a review of operations at Paris airports in the next few weeks. It is expected to lead to a revised policy that will restrict Orly to domestic and European flights. In a competitive context, complicated by environmental issues, such an initiative is expected to have a critical impact on Paris airports' fate. Combined traffic at Orly and Roissy/Charles de Gaulle (CDG), continental Europe's biggest hub, last year increased by 2.1% to 60.4 million passengers and 1.31 million metric tons of cargo.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded AlliedSignal Aerospace a $7.4-million contract for work on the Joint Expendable Engine Concepts 3 research and development program. The program seeks to demonstrate advances in gas turbine engines that will facilitate reduced fuel consumption.
Rolls-Royce said sales were up 7%, to 2.1 billion pounds ($3.4 billion), and pre-tax profits increased 16% to 135 million pounds ($221.4 million) in the first half of 1998. The company said its order book, at 10 billion pounds ($16.4 billion), was at its highest level ever, with a further 2 billion pounds ($3.28 billion) announced but not yet contracted. Rolls-Royce said it did not expect engine production rates to change despite the crisis in Asia. Officials noted North America and Europe accounted for roughly 75% of the company's order book versus 17% for Asia.
Norway's Braathens ASA is turning up the pressure on Nordic rival Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) by acquiring Malmo Aviation, Sweden's second-largest domestic carrier, for SKr600 million ($73.2 million). The deal will also bolster the Scandinavian presence of Braathen's alliance partners KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Northwest Airlines and Alitalia. KLM, which has a 30% stake in Braathens, will contribute $19.5 million toward the purchase which is expected to be completed this autumn.
White Mountain DSP has incorporated more debugging systems in its development tools for digital signal processors. One is Allant Software's ASPEX development environment, which offers high-level language debugging. ASPEX has been integrated with White Mountain's digital signal processor emulators. Another system is Code Composer by GO DSP. Code Composer works across a network to remotely debug signal processors, and supports Texas Instruments DSPs.
CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES IS BUYING an Airbus A320 flight training device and updates to existing simulators from CAE Electronics of Montreal under a $1-million contract. The device is expected to be ready for training at the airline's Zuhai PRC training center in December 1999. This is the second A320 FTD the airline has ordered from CAE.
Michael A. Ramirez has been appointed director of marketing for the Caribbean and Latin America for Arinc, Annapolis, Md. He was regional manager for air traffic systems and strategic manager for FANS in Latin America for United Airlines.
Garrett Aviation Services has established a parts and overhaul support facility in Toluca, Mexico. Aimed chiefly at business air-craft operators there, the facility provides more than 2,000 inventory items for engines and airframe rotable components as well as a wide range of replacement hardware, company officials said. In addition, line maintenance and troubleshooting are available along with limited repairs. Major airframe and engine repair or overhaul will be accomplished at Garrett's Total Aircraft Service Center in Houston.
The explosion of the first new Boeing Delta 3 booster shortly after its night liftoff from Cape Canav-eral Aug. 26 has shattered Boeing's plans to rapidly draw even with its global competitors in the development of a heavy new commercial launch vehicle. A catastrophic control problem that began to develop about 55 sec. into the flight first disrupted the vehicle's roll axis, then sent the Delta out of control in both yaw and pitch as the booster was climbing eastbound through 60,000 ft. at Mach 2.5.
Rather than buying a lot of new air defense radar systems, some nations are building networks of pre-surveyed sites supplied with power and underground communications that can't be intercepted. In an electronic shell game, a small number of radars would simply be moved from site to site to escape detection. ``They only have to move a half-mile or a mile to confound electronic locators and start confusing targeting,'' a senior Navy official said.
ITT INDUSTRIES' AVIONICS DIV. HAS COMPLETED TESTING of a Gallium Arsenide Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) chip that can provide a single chip transmit/receive module. The company has designed and fabricated high-power amplifier chips with 8 watts of output power, and efficiencies of 20-35% in the 6-18 GHz. band. One module can drive four cross-polarized antennas.
Assembly of the first production horizontal stabilizer featuring a graphite composite outer torque box for USAF's C-17s is underway at Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems&Aerostructures Sector near Dallas. The composite design is projected to weigh 20% less than the C-17's conventional aluminum alloy structure; parts count is reduced 88%, the number of fasteners has decreased 82%, and the structure costs 50% less to manufacture, according to the company. Plans call for installing the new stabilizers beginning with the 51st airplane.
The Transportation Dept. has stepped into the hornet's nest of suits and countersuits over airline service at Dallas Love Field. Urged to mediate which carriers can operate what service at what airports, the department has agreed to rule on four principal legal questions, such as whether a contract between two airport owners to limit carrier service is preempted by federal law. ``A ruling by us on these issues should eliminate much of the pending litigation,'' the department said.
Piper Aircraft has begun flight tests from its Vero Beach, Fla., facility with its new Malibu Meridian, a single-engine turboprop with an advanced glass-cockpit avionics suite. It is one of four Meridian prototypes under development. Piper has 90 orders for the aircraft, and deliveries are to begin by early 2000. The Meridian is an upgraded version of Piper's older piston-powered Malibu Mirage. The aircraft has a Pratt&Whitney Canada PT6A-42A engine flat-rated to 400 shp. for takeoff power and 350 shp. for cruise flight.
Boeing Commercial Airplane Group last week announced plans to open a new customer services center in late 1999 near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The facility, to replace the Brussels-based center destroyed by fire last year, will serve European airlines and be stocked with $34 million in spare parts inventory to support the full Boeing jet transport family, including New-Generation 737s. The center will keep inventory for 32,000 part numbers.
Emirates, the international carrier of United Arab Emirates, will be sending new recruits for ab initio commercial airline pilot training to the School of Aviation Sciences at Western Michigan University (WMU) in Battle Creek. Until now, the carrier has trained its student pilots at British Aerospace Flying College at Prestwick, Scotland. Aside from the technical facilities and training, other factors in Emirates' decision to switch its basic training included the ``more challenging weather'' and the college's proximity to the large Arab community in Detroit.
Anthony Bommarito has become vice president-engineering of Airport Systems International Inc., Overland Park, Kan. He was director of engineering and product development for Airsys-ATM.
Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a novel cannon-launched reconnaissance aircraft that can provide real-time battlefield imagery for approximately 15 min. This Wide-Area Surveillance Projectile (WASP) could identify a target and relay its GPS coordinates to a ground station, enabling immediate firing of advanced precision weapons.
Joseph L. Galloway, owner of Trans-Continental Travel of Houston, has been elected president of the Alexandria, Va.-based American Society of Travel Agents. He had been vice president.
