Russian scientists are having varied degrees of success with that nation's new generation of single-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles. The land-based, single-warhead SS-X-27 (the Topol-M) is having marked success and the Russians are expected to accelerate its shift to operational status, a U.S. defense official said. However, the SS-NX-28, designed for firing from a new class of submarines, has yet to have a single successful flight, he said.
Operating conditions within Boeing's Commercial Airplane Group are ripe for potentially serious quality problems, according to people intimately familiar with the company's high-stress production environment. This vulnerability stems from three conditions that currently exist--and almost certainly will persist for many months to come. They include the following: -- One of the most inexperienced work-forces Boeing has ever had during a rapid production buildup.
Detecting hidden corrosion on installed aircraft wiring appears to be getting easier, using a portable instrument that can test cables and connectors for corrosion without having to disconnect them. Semtas Corp., a small research and development company, produced the device called Decorcon System, an acronym for detecting corroded connectors. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is evaluating Decorcon at its Rome, N.Y., facility.
Gregory Catrambone has been named president/CEO of Sargent Fletcher Inc., El Monte, Calif. He succeeds William Skibbe. Catrambone was chief operating officer/chief financial officer.
Federal Express will spend $100 million to equip its jet aircraft voluntarily with three advanced safety systems within the next four years. The company said it will equip its entire fleet of 334 jets with an advanced version of the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System 2 (TCAS-2), with an upgrade feature capable of using the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system when it is available, as well as the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS).
A congressional watchdog report renews warnings that too few tests are planned for the National Missile Defense (NMD) system. Of three flight intercepts slated before a Fiscal 2000 deployment decision, only one will be an integrated system exercise, a General Accounting Office report cautioned. And even that one will not test some elements of the system.
Recent or pending awards from the French and German governments will considerably strengthen Europe's cruise missile capability. Late last week, the German parliament was expected to approve a DM450 million ($250 million) award for Daimler-Benz Aerospace missile subsidiary LFK to develop the Taurus KEPD 350, an airborne standoff missile for point and area targets intended for the German air force's Modular Abstandswaffe (MAW) program.
Honeywell Space Systems is nearing completion of its initial $240-million subcontract from Boeing to supply flight computer hardware for the International Space Station. The company is preparing to deliver the final two of 51 multiplexer/demultiplexer (MDM) units built at its Phoenix facility. The MDMs will be used to control core systems, such as power, environmental control, guidance and navigation. They will also manage payload operations and critical commands from ground control. But Honeywell's work on the station project is far from over.
DELAYS IN OPERATION of a dedicated railway to Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok airport mean the $9-billion facility will open July 6--more than two months later than planned, the government said last week.
As one of the most active consolidators in the aviation parts and inventory-management sector, AAR Corp. continues to acquire niche businesses that broaden the company's reach.
Looking ahead to the collective stock-price performance of the U.S. aerospac e/defense industry's market leaders in 1998, it would be nice to think the group has nowhere to go but up. But, of course, that remains to be seen.
The SVR 2 Electronic Ballistic Range Camera uses a 1,280 X 1,024-pixel charged coupled device sensor and enhanced 12-bit dynamic range to provide improved accuracy and instant high-resolution images on screen. A laptop personal computer running Windows 95 can control the camera. The camera can image objects in exposure times as short as 200 nanosec. Multiple exposures of a high-velocity object can be captured just prior to impact. When used with Hadland PC ballistics software, the camera can determine velocity, yaw and spin rate in 30 sec.
Vietnam Airlines has changed its livery from all-white with blue trim to this blue-and-yellow theme. The 767-300 shown was the first aircraft to receive the new colors, which were applied at the Capital Airport facility of Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Corp. (Ameco) in Beijing. Vietnam Airlines is introducing the new livery as part of a repositioning and branding effort tied to improved infrastructure in Vietnam. The airline operates a fleet of 22 aircraft (including Airbus Industrie A320s) mainly on regional routes in East Asia.
Japanese defense officials have talked to the Russians about either buying two Su-27 ``Flanker'' fighters or getting check rides and flight time in Russia for Japanese pilots, say U.S. officials. Tokyo wants threat training and thorough knowledge of the high-performance fighter because of the growing Su-27 fleet being kit-assembled by China. The Chinese air force is forming three regiments of Su-27s. The inventory is expected to grow with local assembly and, eventually, indigenous production of the supersonic fighter.
The Top Prop two-bladed aluminum hub propeller has been approved for use on Piper Apache PA23s 150 and 160-hp. under an FAA Supplemental Type Certificate. The new prop eliminates the inspection requirements of Airworthiness Directive AD97-18-02, while offering a time between overhaul of 2,000 hr. and increasing useful load by about 5 lb. Hartzell Propeller Inc., 1 Propeller Place, Piqua, Ohio 45356-2634. Circle 254 on Reader Service Card
When American Airlines dropped San Jose International Airport as a hub in 1993, airport planners worried that they'd seen the last of their passengers. They need not have worried.
In an unusual initiative, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines this month plans to inaugurate a Milan-Amsterdam cargo service using surface transportation. The rail/truck route will be jointly operated by KLM Cargo, Trailstar and Jan de Rijk in an effort to feed the Dutch airline's Schiphol international hub. Major European highways are increasingly suffering from traffic congestion and the use of trucks is sharply criticized by environmentalists. But high direct operating costs are constraining short-haul air services.
The PPC1A VME is a single board computer that is based on the PowerPC Reference Platform. It is available with either the PowerPC 603e or 604e. Standard features include 64 megabytes of dynamic random access memory, 1 megabyte of Level 2 cache, a megabyte of socketed system flash memory and 4 megabytes of user flash memory. A ruggedized version, the PPC2A, is also available. Radstone Technology Corp., 50 Craig Road, Montvale, N.J. 07645-1709.
Jet engine manufacturers can truly say they've been to hell and back. The past decade has seen a drastic simultaneous civil and military aviation downturn, coupled with vicious market share wars and unprecedented demands on development funding.
The ESI056 is a ruggedized, sunlight readable, 5.6-in. active matrix liquid crystal display. The display has a resolution of 960 X 234 pixels with an analog RGB interface using RGB discrete, NTSC or PAL video. It allows off-angle viewing of 55 deg. horizontally and is readable over a temperature range of -35C-85C. LCD heaters can extend the low-temperature limit to -55C. Electronic Designs Inc., 1 Research Drive, Westborough, Mass. 01581.
GEOFFREY THOMAS(Contributing to this report was James T. McKenna in Washington.)
Investigators are hunting for more debris from the tail section of a SilkAir Boeing 737-300 that might help them explain why the aircraft plunged from 35,000 ft. into an Indonesian river last month.
BOEING REACHED A FIRM DESIGN configuration on its 767-400ER and is releasing design information to its factories and suppliers. The derivative has an upgraded, six-display flight deck similar to the 777.
The FlightMonitor cockpit computer relies on an AMD-K5 133-MHz. processor to provide Pentium-class performance. The unit also includes a 1.6-gigabyte hard drive, 16 megabytes of RAM, a 10.4-in. color liquid crystal display and a touch pad interface. The FlightMonitor also has serial, parallel, keyboard, mouse, external VGA and PCMCIA ports. The unit comes standard with Microsoft Windows 95. It can be interfaced with a GPS receiver to provide moving map technology in the general aviation cockpit. AvroTec, 115 N.W. First Ave., Suite 401, Portland, Ore. 97209.
