The U.S. Army plans to start tests in mid-summer of a hybrid electric retrofit of its High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (Hummer) for selected applications. Special operations forces and scout and reconnaissance teams could use the vehicle's battery-only ``silent mode'' which limits its infrared signature and shuts down all other unnecessary, noise-producing systems.
Antarctica--on average the coldest, driest, highest and most inaccessible continent--is a pristine frozen laboratory for scientists who are making discoveries not possible anywhere else on Earth. As a practical matter, the only access to most of the continent is by air.
Brian S. Kenyon has become vice president-finance and Jim Bogan chief safety officer of International Total Services Inc. of Cleveland. Kenyon was director of financial analysis for Signature Brands USA. He succeeds Robert A. Swartz, who has resigned. Bogan was director of customer service and station operations for GP Express Airlines.
Martin Sweeting, managing director of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., has been awarded the Chairman's Medal by the U.K.'s Engineering Council for his work in the field of microsatellites.
Continental Airlines plans to acquire a minority stake in the parent holding company of Panamanian airline Compania Panamena de Aviacion S.A. (Copa), and the two carriers plan to cooperate in operating and marketing alliances including code- sharing. A Continental official, however, said the agreement is predicated upon the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s elimination of a provision in the alliance between American Airlines and the Taca Group of carriers, which includes Copa.
Senior defense officials from France and Germany signed a memorandum of understanding here clearing the way for production of the Tiger attack helicopter by Eurocopter to begin later this year.
The Marine Corps is rethinking its mix of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft on the assumption urban areas may be the likeliest battlegrounds in the next 20 years. Corps Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak expects force planning studies due early next year to alter the complexion of aviation investment. Aircraft would play a vital role in isolating a city, but not in urban warfare itself, Krulak said.
Northrop Grumman will upgrade and enhance a military imagery processing system to help image analysts more efficiently locate and identify targets of interest. Known as SAIP (semi-automated imagery intelligence processing), the system processes the flood of information being delivered by today's sensors, then presents analysts with prioritized data, enabling selection of the most exploitable targets. Under a $17-million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Div.
Scandinavian Airlines System's Flight Academy is adapting American Airlines' advanced maneuvers program for its flight-crew training efforts. The academy staff also is debating what other steps should be taken to reduce the potential of ``loss-of-control'' accidents. Various safety analyses have identified such accidents as the second-most common cause of air-crash fatalities in the last 10 years, topped only by controlled-flight-into-terrain accidents (AW&ST Apr. 27, p. 62).
S. Alan Stern (see photo) has become director of the Southwest Research Institute's Space Studies Dept., Boulder, Colo. He was an assistant director of the Space Sciences Dept.
Flying south from McMurdo to South Pole Station, it's very disconcerting to see the aircraft directional gyro showing a northerly heading. But in Antarctica, it is perfectly normal--a quirk apparent when using the grid navigation technique at polar latitudes. Navigators use older, yet still dependable, techniques. They rely heavily on dead reckoning and take hourly Sun-line shots with a sextant--even though the LC-130 aircraft flown by the Navy's VXE-6 and the 109th Air National Guard Wing are equipped with inertial navigation and GPS.
GUY S. GARDNER, who succeeded Anthony Broderick as FAA associate administrator for regulation and certification in 1996, plans to leave the agency in September to become a motivational speaker at high schools. Prior to succeeding Broderick, Gardner headed the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center at Pomona, N.J. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, and flew 177 combat missions in Southeast Asia. Gardner also was an astronaut for 11 years and flew two space shuttle missions. He left NASA in 1991 and joined the FAA in 1995.
BOEING AND THE U.S. DEFENSE DEPT. signed a $76-million contract to begin upgrading the U.S. Army's CH-47D Chinook fleet. The contract is the first part of the multibillion-dollar Improved Cargo Helicopter (ICH) program and covers engineering and manufacturing development. The ICH program is aimed at modernizing at least 300 heavy-lift CH-47Ds to operate until replacement Joint Transport Rotorcraft are fielded around 2020.
Michael Hartley has become vice president-flight operations and system control of Polar Air Cargo Inc., Long Beach, Calif. He was vice president-operations of American International Airways.
SOLAR PANELS HAVE NOT FULLY deployed for EchoStar 4, a Lockheed Martin A2100 satellite launched by a Proton on May 8. Insurance officials are preparing for a full writeoff of the spacecraft, although a series of maneuvers is underway to coax the panels free. The spacecraft was insured for about $220 million. The anomaly apparently concerns two of five panels on one solar array that have not unfolded. The spacecraft could function in its present condition, but its 12-year design life would be shortened.
BOB HAGERMAN has been named director of program management at Boeing's troubled 737/757 transport lines in Renton, Wash., succeeding Todd Nelp. Dennis Vezzetti, formerly director of the Wing Responsibility Center (WRC) in Everett, Wash., also will join the 737/757 management team, with oversight for 737 operations and manufacturing support. John Cornish has been named to lead 757 operations and field support. A new assignment for Nelp will be announced soon, Boeing said.
Surface Treatment Technologies of Tullahoma, Tenn., is commercializing a laser-induced surface improvement technology that could have extensive aerospace and defense applications. The process, invented by the University of Tennessee Space Institute and licensed by ST2, uses a laser to melt an applied precursor material and part of the underlying substrate into a homogeneous substance up to 1-mm. deep. The process leaves the bulk of the material unchanged with a minimal heat-affected zone.
William Stewart (Bud) Orr, Jr., has been named Washington-based vice president-U.S. government relations for LucasVarity Plc. He was director of marketing for military programs for Rolls-Royce Inc., Rosslyn, Va.
World Airways has added Monarch Airlines, a U.K.-based charter airline, and Viacao Aerea Sao Paulo (VASP), Brazil's second-largest carrier, to its growing list of wet-lease contracts with world airlines. Under its agreement with Monarch, World will provide a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, cockpit crews, maintenance and insurance for six weekly roundtrip flights until Nov. 1. The flights will operate five times a week between Manchester-Orlando and once a week between Manchester-Las Vegas.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SPACECRAFT in daily lives was made dramatically clear May 19 when millions of pagers went incommunicado after Panamsat's Galaxy 4 Hughes 601 satellite lost its primary and backup on-board spacecraft control processors. As a result, it could not maintain its communications links. Despite rescue efforts last week, the 5-year-old satellite, worth about $165 million, was expected to be declared a loss.
Pilot and instructor training programs will be revised and several modifications completed and tested before the U.S. Air Force's T-3A Slingsby pilot screening trainer can be returned to service. Until then, Air Force Academy pilots will be limited to flying gliders, according to a recently completed USAF Broad Area Review. Three of the two-place trainers have crashed at the academy, killing three instructors and three cadets.
The MiG-29 fighter is set to become the latest Russian-designed combat aircraft to be proposed for export--and perhaps the first to be operated by the Russian air force--with Western nav/attack systems.
The National Reconnaissance Office plans to delay fielding a new generation of smaller imagery intelligence satellites after concluding the system could cost significantly more than contractors have estimated. The Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) is supposed to replace today's large and complex NRO spacecraft with a more numerous constellation of smaller satellites that can provide U.S. military forces and intelligence services with improved revisit times.
