Increasingly squeezed by rising costs and decreasing reimbursements, health care providers are struggling to retain and employ their aviation medical assets and services in an uncertain era of hospital consolidations and mergers.
CFM International has completed cyclic endurance tests of an improved dual-annular combustor designed to counter durability problems found with existing versions of the unit used in the CFM-56-5B. The new combustor, designated DAC2 PIP (performance improvement package) features modified cooling, a strengthened inner support and extended splash plates to reduce low power emissions. The unit should be certified in the second quarter of this year and could enter service the following quarter.
Graham Whitmarsh has been named vice president-sales and marketing of Mercury Scheduling Systems of Vancouver. He was vice president-sales and marketing for the asset management turboprops division of British Aerospace in Washington. Leo Sawatzki (see photo) has been appointed vice president-technical services of Atlantic Aero, Greensboro, N.C.
Michael T. Smith, chairman/CEO of the Hughes Electronics Corp., has been elected chairman of the board of governors of the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Assn. James R. Wilson, chairman/president/CEO of the Thiokol Corp., has been elected vice chairman. And, Don Fuqua was reelected president and George F. Copsey secretary/treasurer of AIA.
AEROSPATIALE HAS RECEIVED an award from Societe Europeenne des Satellites (SES) to build the 11th Astra satellite. The 4.5-5-metric ton 13-kW. spacecraft, Astra 1K, will be the biggest unit in the Astra network, with 52 Ku-band transponders and 2 Ka-band transponders. It will be deployed at the orbital position 19.2 deg. E. in late 2000 to provide additional backup capacity and to expand coverage toward Central and Eastern Europe.
Japan's fiscal 1998 budget allows for the country's continued backing of supersonic research ($25.8 million) and subsidies for aircraft development. The funding comes through the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and includes $15.1 million in support for the Boeing 777-300 program led by Mitsubishi and $6.2 million for the GE CF34-8C engine to power the stretch Canadair CRJ regional jet. Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries are partners in the program.
Naval Air Systems Command has contracted with CPU Tech of Pleasanton, Calif., to design a single chip to replace the AYK-14 and other obsolete processors, yet still operate with the AYK-14's proven machine code. The MS1 chip will be able to run two machine instruction sets at once--the chip's own Pentium-style set, and a guest set such as the AYK-14. The guest set should allow the old functions to be preserved without rewriting or revalidation, while the Pentium set allows growth on a commercial standard compatible with off-the-shelf products.
Profs. M. Elizabeth Cannon, Frank van Graas and Gunther W. Hein, as well as Philip Ward, president of Navward GPS Consulting, have been appointed to the Technology Advisory Committee of NovAtel, Calgary, Alberta.
The principal planner of the 1991 Persian Gulf air war says the U.S. military was misled by intelligence officials into believing they knew where most of the weapons of mass destruction were located. Moreover, while knowledge of these sites has improved in the last seven years, the whereabouts of perhaps as many as one-third of the storage facilities are still a mystery to the U.S.
Airlines and international manufacturers are urging U.S. government officials and the flying public to back their plan for focusing federal spending and industry efforts to improve air safety on four broad areas that promise the greatest benefits.
NASA is doing too little to develop technologies critical to future space activities--such as studying planets beyond the solar system--according to the National Research Council. An NRC report says the agency could make great strides by redirecting relatively little money.
Anthony W. (Tony) LeVier, (see photos) veteran Lockheed test pilot who helped bring in the jet age, has died in Glendale, Calif. He was 84. LeVier made the first flight of the Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in 1955 at the Groom Lake, Nev., secret test base, which he helped initiate. He also made the first flight of the Mach 2 XF-104 Starfighter in 1954, and the F-94 Starfire in 1949, and was a test pilot on the XP-80A.
Michael Lewis, Tom Williams and Jack L. Vinyard have been named regional marketing managers for FlightSafety International's Maintenance Training Services for, respectively, the Central U.S. and Central Canada, Northeast U.S. and Southeastern Canada, and Western U.S. and Western Canada.
Fed up with his stalled nomination as the FAA's deputy administrator, George L. Donohue told Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater last week to forget it, he will leave the FAA by the summer. Delays in Donohue's confirmation for the agency's No. 2 job, ``with no end in sight, is not serving the best interests of the FAA.'' He joined the agency in 1994 as the associate administrator for research and acquisition. He was brought in to revamp a dysfunctional acquisition management system and get air traffic control modernization back on track.
Spurred by rising sales and the introduction of new helicopters, airframe manufacturers are striving to expand market share in an increasingly competitive environment amidst growing concerns about future fallout from international financial crises.
The Defense Dept. and some of the U.S.' biggest aerospace companies are exploring the concept of establishing two or three international consortiums that would compete against each other for major procurements. Initially, the coalitions would consist of just U.S. and European contractors. If the concept proved workable, the scale of the competitive alliances likely would be expanded to include key U.S. allies outside of Europe, such as Japan.
Members of Congress are uneasy about being caught in what they view as an increasingly protracted post-Cold War squeeze between too many military commitments and too few defense dollars. The squeeze, they charge, is the result of President Clinton's overreaching foreign policy.
Want to debug signal processors across a network? ``Vista-X'' software by White Mountain DSP, Nashua, N.H., will debug Texas Instruments signal processors and runs on Windows 95 or Windows NT.
Don H. Davis has been appointed chairman of the Rockwell International Corp., Seal Beach, Calif. He succeeds Donald R. Beall, who is now chairman of the executive committee. Davis had been president/CEO. Also, James P. O'Shaughnessy, vice president/chief intellectual property counsel, has been named a corporate officer.
BOEING WILL EXIT the commercial helicopter business as part of a strategy to concentrate on its military helicopter lines. The company has sold its interest in the Model 609 Civil Tiltrotor to program partner Bell Helicopter Textron. Boeing will remain a major supplier for the Model 609. Boeing also will sell the MD Explorer, MD600- and MD500-series light commercial helicopter lines it acquired as part of its merger with McDonnell Douglas last summer. A buyer for the commercial lines has not been named.
Chris Cox and Leslie Grant have been promoted to senior vice president from vice president in the Aircraft Finance Div. of Heller Financial of Chicago. Earle Boyter has been appointed vice president-U.S. marketing of Socata Aircraft, based in Pembroke Pines, Fla.
The Henry Luce Foundation has awarded a $1-million grant to Brown University, Providence, R.I., for a faculty position in international studies, named for Charles C. Tillinghast. He was president/CEO of Trans World Airlines from 1961-76.
