Also, Mike Rioux has been named vice president-engineering. He succeeds Phil Boughton, who has resigned. Scott Donald Godfrey has become director of the Eastern Regional Office in Valley Stream, N.Y., and Kristine Leathers director of state government affairs in the Western Regional Office in Los Angeles. Godfrey was the ATA's airline operations coordinator at the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Va. Leathers was director of intergovernmental affairs for the City of Long Beach, Calif.
ROCKWELL COLLINS IS DEMONSTRATING its new HF Data Link Radio (HFS-900D) and coupler, which is intended to give global data coverage by providing access to ARINC Service. The radio, now qualified by ARINC, exchanges ACARS messages over the ARINC operational network, using the company's San Francisco ground station.
After several months of wind tunnel and flight testing, the Navy and Boeing have settled on a ``variable porous wing fairing'' as the solution to eliminate the F/A-18E/F strike fighter's ``wing drop'' problem.
BMW ROLLS-ROYCE'S new 18,500-21,000-lb.-thrust BR715 turbofan engine experienced cracked blades during high-altitude tests. A repair has been designed and is being tested. However, revised versions of the powerplant may not be available for first flight of Boeing's new 717 transport, scheduled for June. A similar version, the BR710, develops 21,000-lb. thrust and has been flying on Gulfstream 5 and Bombardier Global Express business jets. c
Dennis R. Boxx has become vice president-corporate communications of the Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md. He was director of corporate communications for the National Reconnaissance Office, Chantilly, Va. Boxx succeeds Susan M. Pearce, who has retired.
Also, Kenneth A. May to senior vice president-AGT&T from vice president-global operations and control center; David B. Shoenfeld to senior vice president-marketing, customer service and corporate communications from vice president-marketing for the U.S. and Canada; Jon W. Slangerup to senior vice president-Canada from vice president-Canadian operations; and Dianne M. Stokely to senior vice president-Latin America and Caribbean from vice president-planning and administration there.
General Electric's new CF34-8C1 turbofan engine has exceeded thrust and design point performance in tests conducted at the company's facilities in Lynn, Mass. After 10 hr. of tests, the engine has run to 14,500-lb. thrust, about 5% above its planned 13,790-lb. thrust certification rating. A pair of CF34-8s will power each of Bombardier's new 70-seat Regional Jet Series 700 transports. GE is scheduling a test and certification program involving 15 engines and a total of 4,200 hr. of testing through the end of 1999.
Startup company Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc. is in the preliminary stages of designing the BA-1 expendable liquid-fuel rocket capable of lifting a 17,000-lb. payload into a 180-mi. circular, low-Earth orbit. First launch is tentatively scheduled for January 2000.
THE FAA HAS PROPOSED fining Tri-Med Home Health Care of Inglewood, Calif., $500,000 for shipping hazardous materials by air without declaring them or providing proper labels. The company has 30 days to reply. The alleged offense involves shipment of one box that contained powdered calcium hypochlorite (an oxidizer) packaged with combustible materials. The box also held a container of liquid bleach. An American Airlines flight carried the box from California to Montego Bay, Jamaica, on May 17, 1996.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is talking with Boeing about participating in the development of the Delta 4 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. MHI's bid to join the Delta 4 team represents a departure from its usual practice because the company is willing to risk its own money. In the past, Mitsubishi has relied on developmental funding from Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA) for space programs.
DS GmbH. of Stuttgart, Germany, has assembled a prototype, PC-based machine vision system with a two-light level inspection process to check parts made by automated machining centers. A strong, instant-on fluorescent light mounted on each side of a digital camera first flashes on to create a ``bright field'' effect that reflects light directly into the lens. This allows system software to confirm, for instance, if bolt holes have been bored into an automobile oilpan, as the holes do not reflect light.
GERMANY HAS AWARDED Daimler-Benz Aerospace affiliate LFK an award to develop the MAW Taurus modular standoff weapon, a point target weapon for deployment against hardened targets. The contract includes production of 28 missiles for test purposes. Development of the weapon, intended for the Tornado fighter, and possibly Eurofighter, will be handled by a new joint venture between LFK and Bofors Missiles, a unit of Sweden's Celsius Group. Sweden, Spain and Italy are also said to be interested in the weapon. LFK is 30% owned by Matra BAe Dynamics.
The U.S. Marine Corps' accident in northern Italy is reverberating in Japan, where low-altitude training flights by U.S. forces in Japan have become a political issue in the parliament. But the criticism is directed at the Japanese government's secrecy as much as it is at the possibility of training accidents killing civilians. Much of the debate in the Diet centers on making public the extent and scope of U.S. military training flights.
Congress and the Pentagon are locked in a feud over the adequacy of U.S. military readiness, a dispute awash in politics and confused by conflicting government reports about whether U.S forces are in fighting trim. Determined to render its own judgment, Congress has ordered the Pentagon to cough up more information on combat readiness, which both sides agree is difficult to define and measure. Some measurements of readiness are easy, like tracking spare parts. Other factors are intangible, like morale and unit cohesion.
As passenger traffic growth slows, air cargo may fuel China's next aviation boom (see p. 64). Overall, air cargo on Chinese airlines is projected to increase about 10% a year through 2016, to a total of 18.1 billion revenue ton kilometers (RTKs) annually, according to a forecast by the China Institute of Aeronautic System Engineering. About 10 billion RTKs of that would originate on domestic routes. The total compares with 2.5 billion RTKs achieved in 1996, about 70% of which were international.
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE George J. Tenet disclosed the total U.S. intelligence budget for Fiscal 1998: $26.7 billion. The release marked the first-ever voluntary disclosure of U.S. intelligence spending. Last fall, in response to a lawsuit from the Federation of American Scientists, Tenet revealed the intelligence budget for Fiscal 1997 was $26.6 billion.
ALCATEL WILL PROVIDE the payload for two new digital radio broadcasting satellites to be launched in April and August, 2000, by American Mobile Radio Corp. (AMRC). A third satellite was optioned. Alcatel also agreed to take a 15% stake in the system. The prime contractor for the AMRC network, which will provide digital services to mobile subscribers across the contiguous U.S., is Hughes Space and Communications. AMRC is partly owned by Worldspace, which is planning a network of three digital audio satellites over the Americas, Africa and Asia.
Macau's new single-runway airport soldiers on, despite impending competition from neighboring Hong Kong's new Chep Lap Kok airport, scheduled to open this summer. January traffic at Macau International increased 36.8%, to more than 161,000 passengers, compared to the same month last year. The boom was aided by the early Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which attracted extra sections by regularly scheduled carriers and charters. Overall, total passenger numbers at Macau International climbed from 1.30 million in 1996 to 1.95 million last year.
William J. Lucas has been named vice president-business development of the Fairchild Defense Div. of the Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va. He held a similar position with the Communications and Information Systems Div. of the Boeing Space and Defense Co., Anaheim, Calif.
Is there a shortage of information technology workers? The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigatory arm, isn't convinced. Last September, the Commerce Dept. said there is, in a study cited by advocates for raising immigration caps for skilled temporary workers another 25,000 a year to 90,000. Congress asked the GAO to investigate. Its analysis concluded that the Commerce study has ``serious analytical and methodological weaknesses'' that undermine its credibility. GAO also criticized a similar finding by the Information Technology Assn. of America.
As part of its ongoing rationalization program, Thai Airways International has sold its three DC-10-30ERs to Alliance AirInvest, the investment arm of Fortis Aviation Group, and its five BAe 146-300s to FBM Jet Engine Support. A Thai official said the aircraft are to be released from the fleet by the end of March. Fortis will resell the DC-10s, possibly to Northwest Airlines, which has been in the market for that aircraft type, and is interested in buying A300B4s from Thai (it has seven), according to Chief Executive Jack Cunningham.
A Philippine Airlines A320 that ran off the end of the runway after landing at Bacolod in the central Philippines struck squatter homes Mar. 22, killing three people, injuring 144 and destroying the aircraft.
THE SPOT 4 EARTH OBSERVATION satellite was successfully launched into a Sun-synchronous orbit from Kourou, French Guiana, on Mar. 23 on board an Ariane 4 with no strap-on boosters. The imaging spacecraft, built by Matra Marconi Space for France's CNES space agency, is 50% larger than its three predecessors (AW&ST Mar. 16, p. 41).
Rance P. Walleston and John A. Windyka have been appointed directors of business development for the Sanders Surveillance Systems Div. and Microwave Electronics Div., respectively. Eugene L. Dempsey has become director of sourcing for the Nashua, N.H.-based Lockheed Martin company. Walleston was capture team leader for the Joint Signals Intelligence Avionics Family Low-Band Subsystem Proposal. Windyka was business development manager for Sanders Government Systems and Dempsey director of sales for MC Assembly, Melbourne, Fla.
