AlliedSignal is forming a new satellite command, control and communications network to offer flight operations and telemetry data processing services to commercial and government customers. The DataLynx system plans to offer customers a wide range of services, from ``per-pass'' augmentation during launch to complete, ``cradle-to-grave'' operations, AlliedSignal Technical Services Corp. President Ivan Stern said. ``People are overbuying by getting dedicated ground systems that they don't need,'' Stern said.
INDIA HAS REACTED to criticism of its nuclear testing program by Australia by withdrawing its defense attache from Canberra and suspending proposals for military cooperation. India said Australia had ``trivialized India's legitimate security concerns,'' which prompted its nuclear tests on May 11.
Autumn and winter flying schedules were being firmed up last week by the world's international airlines while several key aeropolitical and economic issues remained unresolved. One is the now-two-year-old plan of American Airlines and British Airways to form a wide-ranging transatlantic alliance. Another is how deeply the continuing economic crisis in the Asia/Pacific region will affect international travel.
While the Dornier 328 was introduced late in a regional aircraft market already crowded with 30 passenger turboprops, the Fairchild Dornier 328JET may arrive just as some commuters expand operations and turn in their turboprops for jets. The Dornier 328 turboprop started service in 1995, well behind its closest competitors--the Saab 340, Embraer Brasilia and British Aerospace Jetstream 41. Even the larger de Havilland Dash 8 and Aerospatiale ATR42 had been in service for some time when the Dornier 328 arrived on the scene.
THOMSON-CSF shareholders last week approved the French government's decision to sell 15% of the company's shares to private investors and reduce its stake to a minority 42.9%. In addition, Thomson-CSF finalized a public offering to acquire Dassault Electronique. Aerospatiale, Alcatel and Thomson-CSF also confirmed a plan to jointly form Alcatel Space, a satellite company. The restructured Thomson-CSF will now seek to conclude strategic alliances with European partners, Chairman/CEO Denis Ranque said.
THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES has approved a $250.5-billion defense appropriations bill for next year that provides $715.3 million for two F-22 fighters and long-lead funding of that program. The Fiscal 1999 spending blueprint, passed last week by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 358 to 61, allots $2.6 billion for 13 C-17 transports, $2.57 billion for 27 F/A-18E/F fighters and nearly $700 million for eight V-22 tiltrotor aircraft. Other aviation-related funds in the appropriations bill, subject to action by the Senate and full Congress, include:
Cox&Co. of New York is seeking additional applications for its new hybrid icing protection system for high-performance general aviation, business jet and regional aircraft. Already selected for use on the horizontal stabilizer on the Raytheon Premier 1 business jet, the system features a metal leading edge that can be heated just enough to melt snow and ice. Water runoff refreezing downstream is ejected by an electro-mechanical system that periodically deflects a metal airfoil surface, according to Thomas Ferguson, Cox vice-president of engineering.
Infrared optics makers have developed ``motheye'' or corneal-pattern coatings for use on the lens of military infrared night-vision devices. Current coatings act as a heat absorber and are easy to pick out by the opposition's night-vision devices.
GEOGRAPHIA AB, A SMALL COMPANY IN STOCKHOLM, is using helicopters equipped with differential-GPS, video cameras and laser rangefinders to survey routes being considered for utilities and roads, and to pinpoint the location of existing power line towers. The Fix Air system allows a helicopter to locate a support tower with an accuracy of 10 cm. (4 in.) in three dimensions, within 54 naut. mi. of a D-GPS ground station, according to company officials. Operating at 40-50 kt. at 160 ft.
Tom Wible has been named product development manager and Chris Mathew manager for North American airport weather products of the Artais Div. of Vaisala Inc., Plain City, Ohio.
Wolfgang Piller has been elected president of the BDLI German aerospace industries assn. for 1998-2000. He succeeds Daimler-Benz Aerospace Chairman/CEO Manfred Bischoff. Piller is a member of DASA's board of management.
The European Space Agency has approved a full agenda of new programs, policy changes and streamlining measures at its council meeting here last week, despite predictions that it would deadlock over agency reform.
John Rose, chief executive of Rolls-Royce, is president of the Society of British Aerospace Cos. for 1998-99, succeeding Gordon Page, chief executive of Cobham, who has become deputy president.
The U.S. Air Force has begun an effort to upgrade the electro-optical seeker for the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile to avoid being stuck with an inventory of only infrared weapons.
Jed Holzapfel (see photos) has been appointed vice president-international business development and Brian V. See director of technology for the Defense Systems Group of AlliantTechsystems of Minneapolis. Holzapfel was the group's director of marketing and sales, and See was proposal manager for the ICBM Prime Integration Program.
Karl Friedrich Rausch has been appointed executive vice president-product development and service of Lufthansa German Airlines. He succeeds Frederick W. Reid, who is now executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Delta Air Lines. Rausch was managing director of Lufthansa CityLine.
TWO-YEAR-OLD AIR PHILIPPINES is in negotiations to sell 35% of its stock to Taiwan's Far Eastern Air Transport Co. and U-Land Airlines, as well as an unnamed Singaporean company, to raise capital for an expansion effort aimed at troubled Philippine Airlines. Unlike PAL, Air Philippines turned a slight profit last year. It took delivery last week of two MD-88s to add to a fleet of Boeing 737-200s and five Nippon YS-11 turboprops.
Three CIS engine groups are now competing to power Russia's MiG-AT new-generation advanced trainer. The three engines include two new powerplants and one upgrade. Additionally, two prototype ATs have flown 500 hr. with the Snecma/Turbomeca Larzac 04, and the French engine is expected to complete CIS certification in October this year.
Members of RTCA, an avionics advisory group to the FAA, are decidedly unhappy about what they regard as the agency's inertia on training users of the Global Positioning System. The group's annual spring forum last week heard calls for FAA boss Jane Garvey to move smartly on GPS training for pilots and air traffic controllers.
Roy R. Willis (see photo) has been named vice president-strategic planning for logistics for the federal sector of the Computer Sciences Corp., Falls Church, Va. He was acting deputy under secretary of Defense for logistics.
Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler is to recommend by month's end whether the Pentagon needs more E-8C Joint-STARS aircraft, whose radar can spot enemy ground movements at 200-250 mi. Pentagon officials say Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamry is under intense pressure from Capitol Hill to support the purchase of at least two more E-8s. But Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a Joint-STARS supporter, said Gansler is going to recommend holding the buy at the 13 aircraft already funded, instead of 19.
A KAMOV KA-50 BLACK SHARK attack helicopter crashed during a daytime test flight near Torzhok, 140 mi. northwest of Moscow. The pilot, Maj. Gen. Boris Vorobiyov, chief of the Army aviation's combat training center, was killed. A special commission is investigating the cause. A Defense Ministry official said eyewitnesses reported seeing a rotor blade section fly off the Ka-50 during an aerobatic maneuver involving a high-speed turn 50-100 meters (164-328 ft.) above ground.
NATO air commanders were busy drawing up contingency plans last week in the event they will be called upon to provide more muscle to diplomatic efforts to convince the Yugoslavian government to halt its military attacks on civilians in the separatist province of Kosovo.
Morris D. Busby has been appointed to the board of directors of Invision Technologies, Newark, Calif. He is president of BGI Inc., and a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia.
On the eve of President Clinton's trip to Beijing, the Administration has quietly shelved its plans to rescind quotas for the launching of Western satellites by China, Russia and Ukraine. The pullback comes amid an expanding political controversy here over U.S satellite launches on Long March rockets--one that last week had four congressional committees holding public hearings and several others pursuing investigations.
