Star Alliance member Scandinavian Airlines System, looking to bolster its regional position, is expanding its cooperative agreement with Wideroe Flyveselskap, including taking an equity stake in the Norwegian carrier. SAS has acquired a 29% stake in Wideroe and an option to purchase another 34.2% by Dec. 28 for a total of $42.1 million. The regional carrier operates 21 de Havilland Dash-8 turboprops to 37 destinations in Norway, plus flights to other Nordic countries, Berlin and Murmansk, Russia.
Life support on the International Space Station will have more closed-cycle features than previously used on orbit, leading to long-duration technologies needed on a lunar outpost or manned Mars mission.
WILLIAM COMPTON, an MD-80 captain, has been named president and chief operating officer of TWA. He has been a member of the board since 1993 and is also chairman of the Air Line Pilots Assn.'s TWA Master Executive Council.
The Advanced Capillary Extrusion Rheometer or ACER 2000 is a high-force instrument for testing the flow properties of materials over a wide range of shear rates and viscosities. Propellants, explosives and polymer melts are among the materials that can be tested at pressures up to 30,000 psi. and shear rates of up to 1.8 million reciprocal sec. Swell, slit flow, extrudate temperature monitors or other equipment can be placed under the die. Rheometric Scientific Inc., 1 Possumtown Road, Piscataway, N.J. 08854.
British and Virgin Atlantic Airways put their cases to the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority last week to open new services to the U.S. next year. BA argued its proposal to begin a daily nonstop service from London Gatwick to Denver, while Virgin Atlantic presented its plan to start a twice-weekly service between London and Las Vegas. Under the current U.K.-U.S. bilateral air services agreement, only one additional U.S. gateway city can be allocated by the CAA, which is expected to decide between the two rival bids shortly.
The Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (Canso) has been created to support private air navigation service providers around the world. Canso aims to represent the views of its members with relevant international and regional entities, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and Eurocontrol, as well as develop common industry positions on future technologies and measures of performance. Initial membership consists of air navigation service providers in 16 countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine and the U.K.
INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH SERVICES (ILS), joint U.S./Russian commercial launch consortium, achieved another major success on Dec. 4 with the launch of an ILS Proton booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the Hughes Astra 1G spacecraft for the European SES television broadcast group. The flight was the fourth ILS commercial success for the Proton which placed Astra 1G into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The spacecraft, a high-powered version of the HS 601, will use its own propulsion system to reach a parking location at 19.2 deg. E. Long.
Durabond is a new line of 14 application-specific epoxies. Ten are two-part, room-temperature curing epoxies, while two are urethanes, one is a one-part heat cure epoxy and the last is a two-part potting compound. The materials are formulated to have good adhesion and flow, low odor, improved clarity, higher strength and better durability than traditional epoxies and urethanes. Loctite Corp., 1001 Trout Brook Crossing, Rocky Hill, Conn. 06067.
Fizzy is a fuel system ice inhibitor for jet fuels. The diethylene glycol monomethyl ether additive, which has limited solubility in fuel but is completely soluble in water, works by depressing the freezing point of water that can contaminate fuel lines and freeze into ice crystals. As dissolved water separates from the jet fuel, the Fizzy leaves the fuel and dissolves in the water. Hammonds Fuel Additives Inc., 15760 W. Hardy Road, Suite 400, Houston, Tex. 77060-3147.
Northwest Airlines has been running full-page ads in newspapers around the U.S. urging policy-makers to accept nothing short of full ``open skies'' in aviation negotiations with Japan. What's all the fuss? And why is Northwest Airlines being so disingenuous?
Conceived as ``the next logical step'' after the Apollo lunar program, the International Space Station has been a NASA objective for nearly three decades and a formal project since 1984. After 15 years of controversy, it is finally on the verge of flight. A six-member Aviation Week&Space Technology editorial team, headed by Senior Editor Craig Covault, examines the station effort in this special report covering the assembly, technology, utilization and international participation involved with the largest aerospace program in the world.
Grade LP is a water-based, microfine graphite dispersion forging lubricant. The material can be used to wet dies with temperatures as high as 700F. The high-purity graphite is combined with three binders that are able to wet dies with high temperatures, as well as a special ingredient to prevent flash rusting. The new lubricant can be used when forging both ferrous and nonferrous metals. Dylon Industries Inc., 7700 Clinton Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44144-1045.
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest international aerospace industry project ever undertaken. Contractors and suppliers from 15 countries are involved. Of the $17.4 billion U.S. development, about $11 billion remains still to be spent. This 5-page list cites some of the major ISS contractors and suppliers from the U.S., Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada. Except for Boeing's $7 billion, which represents its total contract value, this list is meant to characterize an approximate level of effort.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has embarked on a strategic alliance with computer game maker Nova Logic Inc. that has resulted in a highly realistic game in which players fly simulated F-22s in combat. The game, called F-22 Raptor, also could lead to development of low-cost, widely dispersed simulation for the military.
NASA's dependence on the military's Space Surveillance Network could be risky, the General Accounting Office warns. The congressional auditors find that the network's sensors and processing capabilities, designed with Defense Dept. needs in mind, are inadequate to protect vital NASA hardware like the International Space Station. While station shielding can withstand hits from objects as large as 1 cm., the network can't routinely track 93% of objects 1-10 cm.
Donovan B. Hicks, chairman of EarthWatch, Longmont, Colo., also has become CEO/president and Douglas B. Gerull executive vice president-product operations. Former CEO Richard N. Herring will remain as a consultant. Hicks was president/CEO of the Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., Broomfield, Colo.
Edward A. Long has become president of Accudyne Operations of the Alliant Techsystems Defense Systems Group of Minneapolis. He was plant manager in Rockford, Ill., for the Sundstrand Corp.
Boeing has developed a cellular wing design to limit vulnerability of new fighters, possibly including its new Joint Strike Fighter design, to enemy ground fire and missiles. The concept uses a wing structure that resembles several adjoining square tubes, according to James Childress, an engineer at Boeing Phantom Works. Representative wings have been tested using live rounds of Soviet bloc-type 30-mm. high explosive at Boeing's Tulalip test facility, near Seattle.
A subsidiary of the San Diego-based Cubic Corp. is up for sale, company officials said--not the entire company, as recently reported (AW&ST Dec. 1, p. 43).
The sequence covering the first three years of International Space Station assembly is shown in this chart by aerospace artist Daniel James Gauthier and Senior Editor Craig Covault. The chart takes the buildup through the launch of the Japanese module, set for August 2001, midway through Phase 3. Each new element is shown in red. Progress and Soyuz flights are also shown through mid-1999. All drawings are to scale. 1A/R Functional Cargo Block (FGB) June 1998 - Russian Proton Booster
THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION Safety Board cited faulty coordination between civil and military ATC in its recommendations on a Feb. 5 incident involving an Air National Guard F-16 and a Nations Air 727. The F-16 intercepted the 727 in a warning area over the Atlantic Ocean and activated the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System on the 727, prompting the Nations Air pilot to take evasive action. The NTSB called for the Defense Dept. to educate all military pilots on TCAS.
All Nippon Airways has begun testing Japan's first airborne wind shear detection radar, in an Airbus A320. Wind shear detection is a new concept in Japan. Doppler radar systems have been installed at Tokyo's Narita and Haneda airports and Osaka's Kansai--the country's three busiest. The ANA system senses movements of vapor particles and is activated when an aircraft is flying at below 1,500 ft. Japan Airlines also is considering its use.
Terry Lewis has been named head of production for the Gulf Aircraft Maintenance Co., Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He was engineering manager for British Aerospace Aviation Services.
