Adm. William A. Owens (USN, Ret.) has been appointed vice chairman of the board of directors of Teledesic, Kirkland, Wash. He was president/chief operating officer/vice chairman of the Science Applications International Corp.
The U.S./U.K. Joint Strike Fighter will give the next generation of combat pilots another iteration of stealth improvement, the means to precisely deliver weapons on a target, good self-defense capability and an unprecedented amount of tactical information from myriad sources.
Royal Air Force officials believe Eurofighter, with its multirole capabilities, will form a crucial element of the U.K.'s new force projection strategy.
The U.S. Air Force views the Lockheed Martin-Boeing F-22 Raptor as a revolutionary fighter aircraft that combines ``maneuverable stealth,'' thrust vectoring, sustained supersonic cruise capability and integrated avionics--features that will give the service the world's dominant fighter for the early 21st century.
James F. Walsh has been appointed senior vice president/chief financial officer and Thomas J. Seery senior vice president-commercial of C-S Aviation Services Inc. of New York.
Nichols Research Corp. has been awarded a $17.9-million contract by the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The contract is for systems engineering and technical assistance for sensor technology, prototype elements, systems and subsystems, and experimentation for sensor technology developments.
Japan's National Space Development Agency and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have completed the detailed design of the first H-2A improved launch vehicle and begun assembly of the first vehicle.
The former top executive at Hughes Electronics Corp. came under fire in the U.S. Senate last week for exerting pressure on the Clinton Administration to lift technology sanctions on China that were affecting the company's satellite business. C. Michael Armstrong, now chairman and CEO of AT&T, was criticized by Senate Republicans for aggressively lobbying President Clinton in 1993 to lift sanctions imposed on China for selling M-11 missile technology to Pakistan and for attempting to broker an agreement between the U.S. and China to end the sanctions.
Internally developed Skypath technology is helping United Airlines hold the line on costs. The flight planning tool analyzes such factors as available air traffic control routing, weather patterns, temperatures and load factors in order to select the route that will produce the best fuel consumption. Currently being used on 55% of United's domestic routes, the cockpit software program is reducing fuel costs at a rate of $1.5 million a month. So far, the technology is for use only at United and is not being offered to other customers.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David McCloud, chief of Alaska Command, was killed when his new, single-engine Yak-54 aerobatic aircraft crashed on July 26. He was 53. McCloud was considered a rising star in the Air Force whom senior Pentagon officials considered a strong future contender for Air Force chief of staff and possibly chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
U.S. Defense Special Weapons Agency has awarded Bechtel National Inc. a $27-million contract to destroy 46 former Soviet SS-24 ICBM launch silos and five launch control centers in Ukraine.
The first independent Japanese airline to win a license to operate in the past 35 years is expected to begin flying in September, bringing a fare war--although a limited one--to a country where air ticket prices have traditionally been heavily regulated. The newcomer is Skymark Airlines, formed by a discount travel agency, the HIS Corp. It is to start three daily round trips from Tokyo to Fukuoka on Kyushu island on Sept. 13 using a 309-seat Boeing 767-300 leased from ILFC Corp. It is in discussion about leasing two more 767s for other trunk routes.
French defense officials and industry executives are worried that continued slippage of the entry-into-service timetable for the Rafale multirole fighter will cause it to lose the operational edge it was once expected to enjoy over other new-generation combat aircraft.
Jim Redlin has been named Eastern U.S. regional vice president of Lynden Air Freight of Seattle. Other new regional vice presidents are: Mike Nagle, Western U.S.; Rick Pollock, Alaska and Russian Far East; Ken Long, international projects; and H. Charles Weaver, international business development.
Securing Russia's mammoth, poorly sheltered stockpiles of chemical weapons (CW) should be near the top of the White House/Kremlin summit agenda in September, strategic analysts say. They hope that when President Clinton arrives in Moscow he can persuade Russian President Boris Yeltsin to accept previous American offers, made late last year, to help shore up chemical site protection at seven Russian locations.
Kevin L. Petersen, deputy director of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards AFB, Calif., is now acting director following the Aug. 1 retirement of Kenneth J. Szalai.
Doug Bowen has been appointed worldwide sales manager for maintenance training for FlightSafety International of New York. He was vice president-operations of JetCorp of St. Louis.
Frontier Airlines, Midway Airlines and Reno Air all reported they were profitable in the second quarter of the year. Midway's net income of $5.3 million was a record and represents its seventh consecutive quarterly profit. Four-year-old Frontier, with a $433,709 net profit compared with a $2.1-million net loss a year ago, expects 1998 to be its first full year of positive results. Reno's $1-million net income reflected a 1.4% increase in revenues, a 5.3% increase in yield and a 0.8% decline in operating expenses.
The Encore digital video camera system is designed for motion analysis of high-speed equipment. The digitally stored images, which can be recorded at up to 8,000 frames per sec., can be played back in variable-speed slow motion. Applications include production line changeovers, troubleshooting, preventive and predictive maintenance and quality control. Images can be recorded in color or black and white. Olympus America Inc., Industrial Products Group, 2 Corporate Center Drive, Melville, N.Y. 11747-3157.
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., are working on etching microscopic channels into silicon chips for cooling and use in materials sampling and analysis. As envisioned, micromachining processes, similar or identical to those used to make integrated circuits, would etch tiny channels between chip substrates. Sandwiched in the channels would be an electrically conductive strip, an insulating layer and a flexible membrane. Pulsing alternate sections of the strip with a low voltage would flex the membrane and create a pumping action.
PT-4, Raytheon Aircraft Co.'s initial production T-6A Texan 2 trainer, flew for the first time July 15 at the company's facilities in Wichita, Kan. During the 1-hr. 51-min. flight, test pilot Robert Newsom flew the airplane to an altitude of 13,000 ft. and conduct- ed systems checks, aerobatic maneuvers and stalls, and operated the speed brakes.
