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.
A CHINESE LONG MARCH 2C/SD booster successfully launched two Iridium satellites into low-Earth orbit from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China on Mar. 25. The venture now has 51 operational satellites in orbit.
Now that Washington has eased its policy on arms transfers to Latin America, defense industrialists here have their eyes first on Chile. Santiago is considering four fighters for a buy likely to be a trend-setter in the region (see p. 34). Chilean air force chief of staff, Gen. Fernando Rojas Vender, had a couple of surprises last week for the fighter competition. He told us he is delaying the final selection by a month until May. And the general has decided to keep all four fighters in the competition until the end to keep a sharp edge on the best and final offers.
USAF Gen. Walter Kross, commander of the Air Mobility Command, says the AMC needs 260 wide-body T-tails to do its job. The command has 126 C-5s, but they need to be modernized, and C-17s will amount to 120 when currently contracted production is complete. Kross says an additional squadron of 15 C-17s will be needed to cover special operations forces airlift requirements. While the C-17 is the No. 1 procurement priority, Kross believes there is also a pressing need to modernize all the C-5s with new engines, avionics and hydraulics.
ANALOG ALSO CLAIMS THE WORLD'S SMALLEST digital signal processor (DSP)--the ADSP-218X family. The 36 16-bit DSPs in the family have up to 1.5 megabits of Static Random Access Memory, with prices starting at $9 in volume buys. The 144-ball chip package has a 1-sq.-cm. footprint and is 1.25 mm. high--about half the size of other DSPs, Analog said.
A proposed multifunction laser system for military aircraft would use several dedicated laser heads coupled by fiber optics and pumped by a single laser diode. The system, called the common aircraft laser, is the subject of a Small Business Innovative Research contract being performed for the U.S. Air Force by Light Solutions Corp. of Mountain View, Calif. The plan is to deliver a prototype, including two miniature laser heads, by the end of 1998.
Bernard Loth has become managing director of Rockwell Collins subsidiaries in France, the U.K., Germany and Australia. He will remain chairman/CEO of Rockwell-Collins France.
The U.S. government's efforts to block Lockheed Martin's proposed acquisition of Northrop Grumman appear to signal the end of an era of defense industry mega-mergers that have until now received strong support from the Pentagon.
NASA AUTHORIZED THE START OF design and development work on the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, the fourth and last of the agency's orbiting ``great observatories.'' The highly sensitive infrared telescope, slated for launch from Cape Canaveral in December 2001 on a Delta 7920-H booster, will be designed to peer through clouds of dust particles to study fetal stars, detect other solar systems and study galaxies at the edge of the universe.
Walt Downing will become executive vice president of the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Tex., on Apr. 3, upon the retirement of Richard Curtin. Downing has been vice president of the Aerospace Electronics and Training Systems Div. Richard D. Somers (see photo) will succeed Downing and has been Avionics and Support Systems Dept. head.
SITA has established a partnership with IBM to provide its customers with a ``roadmap'' to transition from legacy systems to the TCP/IP communications protocol used by the Internet (and intranets). More than a million terminals could make the migration from high-cost legacy systems to desktop systems that reap the benefits of low-cost network computing.
TUNISIA HAS DECLARED Northrop Grumman's airspace management system at the Tunis-Carthage Airport fully operational. The company integrated all communications systems and related support for the ASR-9 surveillance radar and the stand-alone monopulse secondary surveillance radar (MSSR) under a turnkey contract. Sensor information from the ASR-9 and the MSSR at Sidi-bou-Zid were integrated with flight data processing and ATC display subsystems. The system has been operating under provisional acceptance for a year, under warranty from Northrop Grumman.
Steve Darr has become director/general manager of the Elmwood Sensors Precision and Flex Div., Pawtucket, R.I. He was a senior product manager for AlliedSignal in Redmond, Wash.
Boeing has received at least two ``proposal acceptances'' for its new 717 transport, formerly known as the MD-95. Although not yet announced by the customers, the news bodes well for the program. It had been relying on just one customer, AirTran, for its launch order of 50 transports. Air Tran, formerly ValuJet, recently reported strong traffic growth.
Airbus Industrie has made strong inroads into one of the fastest growing regions of the world with a joint purchase of 90 Airbus A319 and A320 single-aisle aircraft by three Latin American airlines. The contract, with a book value in excess of $4 billion, more than doubled Airbus Industrie's order book from the region. The three carriers also acquired 89 options for additional aircraft. Under the unusual joint negotiation:
Chile's first batch of new fighters will replace the air force's venerable Cessna A-37s and thereby largely eliminate its primary close-air-support capability.
Crash recovery teams are still searching for the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from a Formosa Airlines Saab 340 that crashed about 6 mi. off the northwest coast of Taiwan, killing eight passengers and five crewmembers. The 36-seat aircraft crashed in good weather at about 7:30 p.m., only 4 min. after takeoff Mar. 18 from Hsinchu airport. The Hsinchu-Kaoshiung route it was flying had been inaugurated three days earlier. The crash was Formosa Airlines' sixth fatal accident in 10 years and resulted in the carrier's immediate grounding.
EASYJET, THE LOW-COST U.K. carrier, has acquired a 40% stake in TEA Switzerland, a charter airline based in Basel which operates three Boeing 737-300s and two -700 aircraft and has options for another 12. EasyJet, which has six -300s and will start receiving the first of 12 more on order in August, has the option to increase its stake in TEA to 90% if Switzerland joins the open skies regime of the European Union. The move is seen as a counter to the planned launch of British Airways' low-cost subsidiary Go in May. c
OFFICIALS FROM EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY indicate the third and final Ariane 5 qualification flight, scheduled for mid-July, might slip until September because of delays in negotiating for a paying customer for the mission. ``The launcher will be ready,'' said Andre Van Gaver, head of ESA's Ariane program office, referring to steps being taken to correct roll torque phenomena that marred Flight 502.
American Eagle plans to inaugurate regional service with Embraer RJ145 jets on May 15 from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Milwaukee. The 50-seat airplanes will replace ATR 42/72 turboprop transports. American Eagle took delivery of the first RJ145 on Feb. 28 (AW&ST Mar. 9, p. 19). Two of the twinjets are being used for pilot training and FAA approval of initial routes. An Eagle official said the carrier is scheduled to receive 20 RJ145s this year and will base them at O'Hare.
HONEYWELL WILL HAVE UPGRADE KITS AVAILABLE in May to give its Primus 2 digital radio systems the new 8.33 kHz. communication bandwidth that will be required in Europe. Because of congestion at VHF frequencies, ICAO/Eurocontrol mandated all aircraft flying above 19,500 ft. to use radios with 8.33 kHz. spacing after Jan. 1, 1999. To modify an existing Primus 2 radio with 25 kHz. spacing, the owner will have to send six boxes (for a typical dual radio installation) to a service center for hardware and software modification. The cost per aircraft will be about $36,000.
