A fledgling commuter carrier is planning new scheduled services to provide links with the dozens of unaffiliated international airlines operating at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Trans International Express (TIE) has taken delivery of the first of three 36-seat Short Bros. SD360-300s which will be used to fly to destinations within an hour of JFK, beginning in August. Use of larger aircraft, however, is viewed as likely in the not-too-distant future.
Stratos Global Corp. of Toronto has acquired Teleglobe Canada's mobile satellite communications business, which it had managed under contract since 1996, for C$82 million (U.S. $56 million). Stratos will replace Teleglobe as Canada's signatory to Inmarsat. Stratos officials say they believe the deal represents the first time an Inmarsat signatory status has been purchased on the open market. . . . Matra Marconi won a contract to build Europesat-1B, a Eutelsat telecommunications satellite. Launch is planned for mid-2000.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense is seeking to collaborate with the U.S. on short- and medium-range unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) as part of its effort to enhance army tactical reconnaissance capabilities. The program--dubbed ISTAR for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance--involves a series of studies into future sensors and land and air platforms. As part of the overall ISTAR effort, the U.K. said last week that it will participate in a joint project with the U.S. to develop a stealthy armored reconnaissance vehicle.
Look for large airlines in the U.S. to post outstanding financial performances for the three months ended June 3, due in no small measure to a sharp decline in fuel costs. Carriers are expected to begin reporting their quarterly financials on July 15, starting with AMR Corp., parent company of American Airlines, and ending with Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines on July 23. ``It was a great quarter and about as good as it gets,'' PaineWebber analyst Samuel Buttrick observed.
Still to be finalized in the coming weeks are the details of a cost-sharing arrangement Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon are working out in case of future Thaad failures. A program restructuring also is in the making. LockMart is committing to pay the Pentagon about $15 million for each future test failure. After the last failure, the Pentagon issued a ``cure notice'' forcing the company to come up with a plan to fix problems. Proposed changes include the establishment of five review panels to dissect the program.
Japan's Planet B surveyor is headed for Mars to study the solar wind on behalf of science teams from Japan, the U.S. and Germany, following a successful July 4 launch. The 1,177-lb. spacecraft was put into a 340 X 580,000-km. (210 X 359,600- mi.) staging orbit by a three-stage, solid-propellant M-5 launcher from the Uchinoura launch site at Kagoshima space center in southern Japan. After launch, the mission was renamed Nozomi (hope).
Prisoners of their own vows to investigate absolutely every theory about the TWA Flight 800 crash two years ago, the National Transportation Safety Board is looking further into electromagnetic interference (EMI) as a possible source of the ignition for a center fuel tank blast. The NTSB will pay $45,000 for a Defense Dept. Joint Spectrum Center review of emitters in the vicinity of the crash site off Long Island the evening of July 17, 1996. The EMI work is largely in response to a prolix, article in The New York Review of Books on Apr.
Greece has reacted favorably to a U.S. proposal to create a ``no-fly zone'' over the divided island of Cyprus. Banning military flights over the island is one option being explored to ease tensions between Greece and Turkey, which have escalated as the delivery date draws near for Russian-made SA-10 surface-to-air missiles ordered by the Greek-backed government of Cyprus. Turkey, which supports the Turkish regime in the northern half of the divided island, has threatened a preemptive strike if the missiles are deployed.
Dominique Paris has been promoted to chairman/CEO from president and Francois Roudier has been named communications director of Messier-Dowty International.
The satellite operations of Alcatel, Aerospatiale, Thomson-CSF and Cegelec have been combined into a new company, Alcatel Space. Owned 51% by Alcatel and 49% by Thomson, Alcatel Space will have two units. The Space Industries unit will be responsible for satellite design and construction, while the Spacecom unit will manage Alcatel's holdings in commercial satellite systems, most notably SkyBridge.
In a memorandum to Japan Airlines, the Ministry of Transport has stressed the need for pilots to give verbal cues when changing control of an aircraft. The directive followed loss of control of a JAL Boeing MD-11 at Manila International Airport June 14 in which the aircraft left the runway while landing during a heavy rainstorm. The ministry said the pilot and first officer of the aircraft did not execute a clear ``I have it,'' ``you have it'' handover, and they were vague about what each was doing. As a result, the crew failed to monitor the aircraft's thrust reversers.
The DGAC French civil aviation authority has scaled back the Boeing 777's ETOPS clearance to 120 min.--at least until the cause of a recent engine failure has been determined. Air France Flight 442, en route to Paris from Sao Paulo made an unscheduled landing at Tenerife, Canary Islands, about 6 hr. into the flight on July 1 after a shutdown of one of the General Electric GE90 engines. That engine has been removed from the aircraft and is being returned to GE's Evendale, Ohio, facility for an investigation of the failure.
Boeing is developing a Procedural Event Analysis Tool (PEAT) to enhance flight operations safety. Work is scheduled to be completed by year-end on the program, which is designed to investigate flight crew procedural errors and develop strategies to prevent similar, future errors. PEAT follows the manufacturer's successful Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA), a ``blame-free'' process that helps airlines identify maintenance errors and institute prevention strategies to reduce the likelihood of reoccurrence.
The European Commission's long-awaited tentative findings on two transatlantic partnerships has broken the procedural logjam but also set in motion another chain of events that leave the ultimate resolution on the proliferating mega-alliances uncertain.
A Texas district court issued a temporary injunction July 9 barring Continental Express flights from Dallas' Love Field to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. The City of Fort Worth, the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Board and American Airlines sought the injunction, claiming that a 1974 agreement mandates that all interstate flights originate from DFW airport.
T. Wakelee Smith has been appointed president of FlightSafety Boeing Training International of Seattle. He succeeds David Smukowski, who will return to Boeing. Smith had been executive vice president/chief financial officer.
Claude E. Messamore, Jr., has been appointed director of contracts of Lockheed Martin Sanders, Nashua, N.H. He was manager of the Global Combat Support System Program Office of Lockheed Martin Federal Systems, Owego, N.Y.
David Stroud, head of business development at London City Airport, will become director of marketing for Airport Strategy and Marketing Ltd., in Manchester, England, next month.
Honeywell has acquired Daimler-Benz Aerospace's Airport Systems unit, a supplier of airport lighting, docking and information management systems. The DASA unit will be combined with Honeywell Airport Systems, created two years ago within the Business and Commuter Aviation Systems Div.
Atlas Air has accelerated delivery of two of its 10 Boeing 747-400F freighters on order to next year. The speeded handovers likely will replace Boeing wide-body deliveries to Asian carriers, which have been deferred owing to the region's financial crisis. Atlas, based in Golden, Colo., now is scheduled to receive four 747-400Fs in 1999. The aircraft will be operational in time for an expected shortage of air cargo capacity at the end of 1999, when more stringent U.S. noise rules take effect and restrict the operation of many older cargo jets.
Gerard Brachet, director of France's CNES space agency, says the jury is still out on the merits of the new Vega light launcher initiative, to which the European Space Agency Council gave initial approval and funding last month. Concern in France is that Vega, which could launch 1 metric ton (2,200 lb.) into low-Earth orbit (LEO), is not optimally sized for the LEO market. French industry had wanted a booster with a capacity of 1.5-2 metric tons. ``Vega might not be the ideal design, and there won't be a green light until we are sure it is,'' said Brachet.
The Russian space program is in the midst of a crucial launch surge to orbit at least 30 spacecraft including major international commercial missions and satellites in an attempt to reinvigorate Russia's dwindling military space capability.
