How many jobs does an in-service airplane create for local economies? Once-daily international 747 service, operating year round, provides 300 person years of employment annually, according to the Canadian Airports Council.
C. Dennis Wright has become vice president/corporate secretary of RTCA Inc. of Washington. He was director-general of the International Business Aviation Council Ltd.
Siemens Semiconductor Group is combining a microcontroller and a fixed-point digital signal processor on a single chip for fewer components in embedded control applications. An evaluation chip will be available in the spring; some software tools are ready now from Siemens Components of Cupertino, Calif. The ``TriCore'' 32-bit architecture has a single processor--able to vary the load between controller and DSP tasks, switching functions in 40 nanosec., the company says. The performance is at least equal to separate controller and DSP chips running at the same 100-MHz.
James F. Martin has been appointed senior vice president-human resources of Trans World Airlines Inc. He was vice president-human resources/operations of the Coors Brewing Co.
A mockup of the FF-1080 freighter, designed by American Utilicraft Corp., is under construction at the company's Reston, Va., headquarters. The twin turboprop-powered freighter is designed to work in hub-and-spoke networks as a utility transport. The -200 version would carry up to 15,000 lb. of cargo over 400 naut. mi. at a maximum cruise speed of 270 kt. Company President John J. Dupont says operating costs of 8.5 cents/lb. are close to that of trucking costs.
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE HAS SIGNED UP risk-sharing partners for nearly 40% of the value of the $8-billion A3XX program, according to John Leahy, senior vice president-commercial. Leahy declined to name the latest participants, but said the geographical mix was good, although he would like another Asian partner.
From the outside, the Lockheed-Martin C-130J looks similar to any of the more than 2,100 other Hercules flying today, but a new Head-Up Display, engine/propeller combination and cockpit displays now define the tactical transport for the pilot.
After finalizing agreements with additional launch customers, Airbus Industrie's supervisory board authorized go-ahead for the A340's new ultra-long-range/increased-capacity derivatives. The A340-500/600 program's development cost is estimated at $2.9 billion. First delivery is planned for the first quarter of 2002.
A speech by a European Commission official in early December indicated the EC would allow the French government to subsidize Airbus with approximately $23.6 million to underwrite development of new flight control systems. The funds supposedly would help France's Sextant Avionique and the U.K.'s Smiths Industries counter what is perceived as Honeywell's dominance of the flight management market. John Leshinski, a Honeywell attorney, said any claim that the U.S.
While the leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. have upped the rhetoric for the urgent need for defense and aerospace industry consolidation, a number of European officials argue that governments must first agree on common defense requirements in order to create a sufficiently large enough market to support such a restructured industry.
Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater has promised to submit legislation to Congress early next year to restructure the FAA's financial and management structure, using the report of the National Civil Aviation Review Commission as a starting point. The 21-member commission sent its unanimously-approved, two-pronged report on aviation safety and FAA funding to Slater and FAA Administrator Jane F. Garvey last week. The portion on funding closely followed a preliminary report (AW&ST Sept. 22, p. 39).
MALAYSIA'S PROCUREMENT ambitions are going to have to wait. ``We are talking about staying lean for two or three years,'' says Defense Minister Syed Hamid Albar. ``We look at what we have and we can live with it.'' Live with it is what Malaysia will have to do, given a 40% depreciation in the value of its currency in the past two months. The ministry is still paying bills on many of its latest purchases, including MiG-29 and F/A-18 fighters, that eat up more than half of its procurement budget, which has averaged about 2 billion ringgit ($555 million) a year.
China's imports of Persian Gulf oil are rising faster than those of any other nation, increasing its dependence on that tense region, cautions Kurt M. Campbell, the Pentagon's senior official for Asian and Pacific affairs. This dependence may have a silver lining, Campbell noted at a National Press Club colloquium. Huge energy needs might encourage Chinese leaders to promote stability in the Middle East, possibly by backing off missile sales to Iran (AW&ST June 23, p. 65). Campbell and other participants agreed one of the biggest problems for U.S.
DESPITE A SPATE OF RUMORS, Pentagon officials don't expect any big breakthroughs in regard to combined U.S./China military exercises from last week's meetings between Army Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Xiong Guangkai, and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe. During the recent visit by President Jiang Zemin, the offer of combined military and humanitarian exercises was rejected. Now the two countries are looking at less ambitious defense consultative talks and a regular schedule of military-to-military contacts.
NTSB officials last week laid out the results of months-long research into jet fuel flammability and electrical component failures that could lead airlines and aircraft manufacturers to revamp how they address the problems posed by aging aircraft systems.
U.S. government regulators have yanked a commercial launch permit for Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Pegasus booster, delaying a key launch for the Orbital-led Orbcomm satellite venture.
Conventional arms proliferation is the overlooked issue of international security in the 1990s, argues Andrew J. Pierre of Johns Hopkins University. He is editor of a new book, ``Cascade of Arms: Managing Conventional Weapons Proliferation,'' copublished by the Brookings Institution and World Peace Foundation. Excerpts follow. The proliferation of conventional weapons will be a critical dimension of national order, regional stability and international security in the decades ahead.
Contractor delays on NASA's Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) have sent agency officials scrambling to reschedule a space shuttle launch, and the planned startup of space station assembly next summer is greatly limiting their options.
FAA rulemaking will be speeded up, effective next year, Garvey promised. Addressing a safety/security conference sponsored by Aviation Week, Garvey said the FAA intends to cut the time it takes to develop rules by involving major stakeholders and key senior government managers earlier in the process. Review times will be streamlined as well. ``Building in quality early in the process'' is more important than shortening it, she added.
Gen. Hiraoka Yuji has been promoted to Japanese chief of air staff from deputy chief, succeeding Gen. Muraki Koji, who has retired. Gen. Ogusi Yasuo, who was commander of the air development and experiment wing, will be deputy chief.
THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE has selected a team led by Raytheon E-Systems as one of three contenders to perform initial design work for the ``Wedgetail'' airborne surveillance program. Under terms of the $6-million contract, E-Systems will perform initial design activity (IDA) on the system, which would use an Airbus Industrie A310-300 as its airborne platform. Wedgetail's early warning and control mission would provide air and maritime surveillance and be capable of coordinating and controlling operations of the Australian Defense Force.
THE U.S. DEFENSE DEPT. logged one of its safest flying years in Fiscal 1997 despite a batch of late-year accidents. Fatalities declined to 76 from 116, the second-best record since the Pentagon began keeping statistics in 1958. The major aircraft accident rate was 1.5 per 100,000 flying hours, unchanged from the previous two years. The number of accidents was down from 71 in Fiscal 1996 to 68, the lowest ever. Aircraft destroyed in both the air and on the ground totaled 54, another all-time low. That figure was 66 the year prior.
The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB has added 184 additional workers to accommodate an increased aircraft maintenance and modification workload. Many are experienced employees transferring from the USAF's Sacramento, Calif., depot, which is being phased-out and privatized. Other workers came from the USAF's San Antonio, Tex., depot, which also is scheduled to close, as well as Homestead AFB in Florida and neighboring Altus AFB in Oklahoma.
