THE U.S. BANKRUPTCY COURT in Denver kept Western Pacific Airlines in the air by approving a plan for ``debtor in possession'' (DIP) and reorganization financing provided by Smith Management Co. The ruling cleared Smith to provide a $10-million loan, enabling payment of WestPac's aircraft lease obligations on Dec. 4. The carrier is to receive another $20 million in DIP funds around Dec. 20. The WestPac/Smith plan was backed by the Official Unsecured Creditors' Committee.
THE FBI CHARGED Dennis Dale Gerber, 55, a computer programmer from Aurora, Ill., with interference with a flight crew after he allegedly punched a male flight attendant on Dec. 2, during a Manchester, England-Chicago flight on American Airlines. Gerber was taken into custody after the aircraft landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The report said Gerber had been drinking alcoholic beverages. Officials in the U.S. Magistrate's Court said the maximum penalty for interfering with a crewmember, upon conviction, is 20 years' imprisonment.
Assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) at nearly 250-mi. altitude will involve the most complex operations ever undertaken in orbit, including more hours of extravehicular activity over the next six years than NASA totaled during the previous 35 years of U.S. manned space flight. Although construction of the 470-ton structure is planned to end in late 2003, the pace of the buildup is likely to change. Assembly timing could be affected by ground test delays and unplanned events in orbit.
Todd A. Curtis has become director of sales and marketing, Steven Runo director of engineering and Joseph LoCascio customer service/product support manager, for Teledyne Controls' Business and Commercial Avionics, Redmond, Wash. Curtis was manager of regional airline programs for AlliedSignal. Runo was both an independent FAA designated engineering representative and a systems consultant on the Boeing 777 and 757-300 for the Scitor Corp. LoCascio was MagnaStar product manager for Hughes Defense Communications.
Look for a shortage in FEP plastic to interfere with the production spool-up of aerospace composite parts. Demand for FEP (fluorinated ethylene propylene) resin, used as a release film barrier between the tooling and epoxy in the fabrication of composite parts, has jumped owing to tough new requirements in the electronics wire and cable industry, according to Paul Ortiz, product manager for high-performance films at Norton Performance Plastics Corp. in Wayne, N.J. Wire and cable uses traditionally consume 80% of all FEP plastic made.
Former NTSB Chairman Carl Vogt has been elected chairman of the American Bar Assn. Forum on Air and Space Law. He will succeed Kenneth Quinn in August. Vogt is senior partner in the Washington law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski.
The LFS-24 is a lightweight magnetic sweeper that can pick up dangerous ferrous metal scrap that could cause foreign object damage in aircraft engines or personal injury in a shop environment. The 24-in.-wide sweeper relies on a permanent magnet. O.S. Walker, Rockdale Street, Worcester, Mass. 01606.
Boeing has a lot more work underway on spacecraft than its $7 billion in contracts for the International Space Station. The company is building large, top-secret intelligence spacecraft for the National Reconnaissance Office. For example, a 6-ton signal intelligence (sigint) spacecraft launched on Nov. 7 from Cape Canaveral by a Titan 4 booster was built by Boeing, not Hughes, as earlier reported (AW&ST Sept. 1, p. 22). That single spacecraft is valued at more than $750 million, or about the same as seven new Boeing 777 transports.
Boeing has found that its 737 business jet is a good marketing tool for widening the marketing pitch of its next-generation 737-600/700/800/900 twin-engine transport.
David Trowern has been appointed director of implementation support and Pat Belaustegui director of development of Interactive Entertainment Ltd., Memphis, Tenn.
ARIANESPACE AWARDED Aerospatiale a contract for 20 additional Ariane 4 boosters, extending production to at least 2002. The boosters, worth FF12 million ($2 billion), are meant to plug the gap left by the delayed qualification of Ariane 5, and to meet new demand. On Dec. 2, Arianespace launched the JCSAT-5 telecoms satellite and the Equator-S scientific spacecraft--its 10th Ariane 4 launch this year.
Police aviation units are beginning to adopt video microwave transmission technology similar to that used by television news helicopters. In September, overhead video of the funeral procession for Princess Diana was downlinked to security officials at England's Scotland Yard from locations up to 65 mi. distant. The effort involved three separate police helicopter units and a 6-mi. rolling air exclusion zone.
Saab Aircraft has a new customer, Aerolitoral, in a new country--Mexico--for its Saab 340Bs. The regional carrier has taken delivery of two of six preowned 340s it has ordered to expand its network. Aerolitoral, wholly owned by Cintra, the holding company for Aeromexico and Mexicana, currently operates 27 Fairchild Metros to 31 points in Mexico and four in the U.S. Aerolitoral's strategic plan calls for continued use of both the 19-seat Metro and 33-seat 340 turboprops and the later addition of a 50-seat aircraft.
A new, manned long-range combat aircraft costing less than half the price of the B-2 is one of the concepts envisioned by National Defense Panel participants when they suggested looking for alternatives to the currently planned joint force of 3,000-4,000 tactical fighters.
The National Defense Panel has called for a major reduction in the number of tactical fighter aircraft the U.S. buys and revitalization of planning for new, long-range combat aircraft. The panel, which advocated broad reforms and critical changes in ship and aircraft designs, was established by Congress to make an independent review of the Pentagon's internally generated Quadrennial Defense Review released last spring.
Logistics planners want to put more spare equipment on orbit with the space station--and earlier--to avoid breakdowns that could hinder assembly and early operations. One result may be a new structure--an external storage pallet grafted onto the airlock to hold the extra spares. Engineering design has just started and if approved, the pallet would likely be installed before February 2000, when major construction of the space station truss begins.
Five years ago, a NASA/National Science Foundation panel warned of dire consequences for the U.S. satellite communications industry because Japan and Europe were investing more in critical technologies. But a new update by the panel paints a rosier picture. Japan, it turns out, has had a tough time converting satcom R&D into commercial hardware, and the European Space Agency's unified research program has splintered, as nations like France go it alone with R&D projects such as Stentor (AW&ST Mar. 31, p. 53).
They're still howling about President Clinton's Oct. 14 line-item veto of SR-71 operations. Some Pentagon and Hill types say events in Iraq ought to be proof enough that the Mach 3 recce aircraft is still needed. The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office explained the aircraft's state-of-the-art capabilities and invulnerability Nov. 26 to new Pentagon acquisition honcho Jacques Gansler. Allowing for crew requalification, the Black Bird could fly operationally within 10 days. Retaining the small trained team is the most critical aspect of SR-71 viability.
DesignWave is a computer-aided design program developed from the outset for desktop computers running Microsoft Windows 95 or NT. It relies on a context-sensitive architecture, so users access the ``true context'' of a design, not just a geometrical representation. DesignWave can generate Microsoft Visual Basic code, while users can embed design information in documents and presentations. Computervision Corp., 100 Crosby Drive, Bedford, Mass. 01730-1480.
The PerCap hearing protector is a multi-position, canal cap device with a noise reduction rating of 21. Its foldable headband allows the device to be stored in a pocket. The headband can be adjusted to fit a wide variety of people, and the molded polyurethane foam pods can be replaced easily. It can be worn under the chin or over or behind the head. Dalloz Safety, Second and Washington Streets, P.O. Box 622, Reading, Pa. 19603-0622.
The scientific potential of the International Space Station is a point of great debate, but it is clear the project will provide the largest and most advanced space laboratory ever available to mankind. The amount of research on the station will be just a tiny fraction of that performed on Earth, but NASA says the microgravity environment on the facility could provide the key to unlock mysteries in areas such as biotechnology, combustion science and biomedical research.
The 10th edition of The UN Orange Book-Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods provides model regulations that are likely to be incorporated in future rules covering air cargo and other means of transport. Additions to the new edition include changes in training, classification, the list of dangerous goods and packing provisions. A table shows both the new locations of material in the book and previous locations. Labelmaster, 5724 N. Pulaski Road, Chicago, Ill. 60646-6797.
Japan has been the most consistently supportive member of the International Space Station team since the effort got underway in the early 1980s, and its $3.1-billion Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) program is passing its milestones for an initial launch in May 2001. In the long and tortuous road to get the space station funded and built, Japan's JEM stands out as a bright spot. The National Space Development Agency (NASDA) has been able to count on a long-term funding commitment that it received in 1989, when Japan joined the ISS effort.
