Singapore Airlines and China Airlines have signed a memorandum of understanding to form a strategic alliance. The Singapore carrier would take up to a 10% stake in the Taiwanese airline within six months and could increase its investment later. China Airlines also has under study an overhaul of its fleet that could involve up to 40 aircraft. The realignment would focus on using Boeing 777s and 747-400s for wide-body regional and long-haul services and selling five 747-200/SPs, five Airbus A300B4s, eight A300-600Rs and four Boeing MD-11s.
THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE PLANS TO USE a new version of a Northrop Grumman radar to upgrade the HS-748 navigation trainer aircraft. The company will deliver seven APN-241 NT radars to British Aerospace Australia. The APN-241 was developed from technology originally developed by Northrop Grumman ESSD (formerly Westinghouse) for fighter aircraft. The APN-241, with high-resolution ground-mapping modes, was introduced to U.S.
Joseph S. Bravman has been appointed senior vice president-corporate strategy of the Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va. He was senior vice president/chief engineer.
Asian airline recession or not, Singapore Airlines (SIA) will launch new cabin services on Sept. 11, with the focus expected to be in first class. Load factors on the high-yield front-end of Asian carriers have not been hit as hard by the economic downturn as has coach class. But SIA is slowing deliveries of new aircraft, deferring one 747-400, eight 777-200s and two A340-300s to delivery in 2000-02. It may lease some of the aircraft to Ansett and Air New Zealand, its new alliance partners, according to analysts.
Russian airline Transaero has begun revenue service with a Boeing 767 and two leased Boeing next-generation 737-700s as part of a five-year fleet development plan designed to transition the carrier to an efficient, two-aircraft-type fleet.
Kistler Aerospace Corp. has broken ground on its Woomera launch site and expects to use the remote, south-central Australian facility to test its first K-1 reusable booster in the first quarter of 1999. The Woomera Restricted Area is a vast proving ground for numerous aeronautical activities, including sounding rockets. But the K-1 launches will be Australia's first for an international satellite program.
Industria de Turbo Propulsores S.A (ITP) of Spain has successfully completed the first ground-test run of its multi-axis thrust-vectoring nozzle fitted on an EJ200 engine. Five hours of running time have been logged on the prototype. ITP is a member of the Eurojet consortium that developed the EJ200 for Eurofighter, as is Daimler-Benz Aerospace's MTU Munchen subsidiary, which is partnered with ITP on the thrust-vectoring nozzle technology program. MTU developed the nozzle control system and modified the engine control system.
THE FAA HAS BEGUN TESTING the first new operational host processor at the New York en route center and expects it to be fully operational in February 1999. The IBM 9672-RA4, Generation 3, is being installed to solve the FAA's Year 2000 problems. Last October, Lockheed Martin (formerly IBM) Federal Systems told the agency that the 25-year-old IBM 3083 computers were vulnerable to Y2K and the company no longer had the tools to assess the problems.
The first Boeing 757-300 gains altitude after taking off from Renton Field near Seattle on its first flight earlier this month. The 2.25-hr. mission was flown by Boeing Capt. Leon Robert, with Capt. Jerry White in the right seat. Following takeoff, the aircraft flew north above Lake Washington, turned west toward Port Angeles and then south to Astoria, Ore. The remainder of the flight was conducted over Washington state's Olympic Peninsula. The primary flight goal was to evaluate aircraft handling characteristics.
AlliedSignal and Garrett Aviation Services recently delivered the 100th Falcon 20B business jet modified with TFE731-5BR engines. The powerplants provide 4,750 lb. of thrust, flat rated to 85F at sea level. Specific fuel consumption at 40,000 ft. and Mach 0.80 is 0.735 lb./hr.-lbf. of thrust. The engine is managed by a digital electronic engine control. AlliedSignal officials expect another 20 airplanes to be retrofitted with the improved engines.
Tiny inertial sensors fabricated out of silicon, which can withstand more than 15,000g, show promise of converting ``dumb'' artillery shells into ``smart'' guided munitions. Another potential application is for the autopilot of tiny surveillance craft called micro air vehicles (AW&ST June 8, p. 42). However, the current accuracy of the Micro-Electro-Mechanic Systems (Mems) angular rate sensors fabricated from silicon is inferior to similar type sensors which are now fabricated from quartz (see below).
Asia's economic crisis is expected to cause Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong to postpone an order for AsiaSat 4 and delay its launch by a year, to late 2000. AsiaSat executives had said last December that they were in final negotiations with Hughes to build the communications satellite. But as of last week, the company hadn't selected a builder or settled on a design. AsiaSat 4 is expected to cost $230 million with launch. Its footprint would cover China, Australasia and much of the former Soviet Union.
Steve Ogden has become Miami-based North American manager of LanChile Airlines. He succeeds Alberto Cortes, who is now general manager for Mexico. Ogden was manager of marketing communications for Canadian Airlines. Norma Kaehler has been named managing director of government affairs for Trans World Airlines. She was director of government affairs and succeeds R. Dan Devlin, who has retired.
Spacehab is a pioneer in what may be the aerospace industry's most exciting growth market in the 21st century: commercial space. The company develops and operates habitable modules that provide laboratory facilities and logistics resupply services on board space shuttles to support people living and working in Earth orbit.
In the early 1990s, United Technologies Corp. (UTC) began fundamentally changing the processes used to make and distribute products and respond to the customer. Management had little choice; sales were sagging, quality was poor and costs were excessive. In short, UTC was in trouble.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' strong earnings performance in fiscal year 1997-98 reflected gains from an internal drive to ``put our house in order,'' said Leo van Wijk, president and CEO. Results in the last fiscal year represent a comeback for the Dutch flag carrier and serve as a central reason for its outstanding performance in Aviation Week's 1998 Index of Competitiveness study.
Cargo Airlines, a new joint venture between China Eastern Airlines of Shanghai and China Ocean Shipping, is to become China's first air freight airline. With a 70% equity stake in the $63-million venture, China Eastern says that Cargo Airlines will use leased aircraft for both domestic and international air freight and mail delivery, courier service for cargo and mail, subcontracting of aircraft for transportation of goods, as well as agency services for air freight and mail delivery. Cargo Airlines is scheduled to start operations Aug.
In a new trend, airlines are buying head-up displays for the improved situational awareness--and future enhanced vision possibilities--they offer to cockpit crews fleet-wide. Previously, civil HUDs mostly were purchased to improve the low visibility landing and takeoff capability of regional and narrow-body jets. At the insistence of one major U.S. carrier, Boeing is investigating installation of Flight Dynamics' HUDs on new 767-400 and 777 widebodies the airline has on order.
Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. has been awarded a $41.3-million contract by the U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command for 13 Kiowa Warrior aircraft. The command also has awarded Boeing a $24-million contract for 16 mast-mounted sights for Kiowa Warriors.
The small bands of military operations planners who located and analyzed Iraq's air defense and command systems before the opening of the Persian Gulf war are still at work. The Navy's group, called Spear, has spent the years since Desert Storm dissecting data about most potential threat countries. Now the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan have Spear in a frenzy to do the same for the subcontinent. The scramble suggests that India and Pakistan have been far down on any Pentagon list despite the region being an international flash point for years.
NASA has submitted a plan to the Clinton Administration to build more than $500 million in new hardware to free the International Space Station program from reliance on Russia, but the White House is refusing to consider funding for most of the agency's proposals until the Fiscal 2000 budget cycle. THE CENTERPIECE OF NASA'S plan, sent to the White House on July 30, calls for development of a U.S. propulsion module to provide the station with reboost and attitude control. NASA estimates the module would cost $325 million to build and $95 million to launch.
Boeing is planning a busy early September, with first flights for its new 717 and Boeing Business Jet transports, according to Ron Woodard, president of Boeing's commercial airplane group. The 717, formerly known as the McDonnell Douglas MD-95, was scheduled to fly this summer, but the flight was postponed due to problems with the BMW Rolls-Royce BR715 engines (AW&ST June 8, p. 32). Boeing is working on several potential 717 sales, Woodard said, but has 12-15 months to close them before gaps appear in 717 delivery schedules.
Veridian has received two contracts from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Sensors Directorate totaling $23 million. The five-year contracts involve data collection, data management for various airborne sensors and computer systems engineering to support advanced sensor R&D.
During the next year, the U.S. Air Force will be operationally reorganized into 10 air expeditionary forces of about 175 aircraft each, with just under a half of the planes to be deployed overseas. The rest will remain at their home bases on call.
