Nineteen House members have written to President Clinton and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen asking them to consider revitalizing Clementine 2 and the military spaceplane in Fiscal 1999. Clinton used his new line-item veto to kill the projects in Fiscal 1998. The letters say commercial benefits are likely from the technology Clementine 2 would test in examining an asteroid. They say the spaceplane project would lead to a rapid reconnaissance capability that won't come as a spinoff from the NASA/industry X-33 reusable launch vehicle technology program.
The U.S. government will consider applications for air service from African nations, even if the U.S. does not have bilateral aviation agreements with those nations. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater made that offer during a visit with African directors general of civil aviation at the recent International Civil Aviation Organization meeting in Montreal. Slater plans to visit Africa in January in an effort to improve air service ties. He offered technical assistance on a reimbursable basis, to bring navigation and security standards to international norms.
THE FAA HAS SELECTED Lockheed Martin to support the agency in planning the modernization of the National Airspace System (NAS) with a contract that could run for 10 years and earn the company close to $1 billion. The company is to provide the agency a wide range of services including engineering planning, automation and analysis under a four-year, $350-million base contract, with three two-year options.
Organizers of the Dubai international air show, which attracted 500 companies from 31 countries this year, said the event will be moving to a permanent facility north of the present site in 1999. Roughly 60% of the exhibits at Dubai '97 focused on civil aviation, and business jet sales were brisk. European, U.S. and Russian companies battled for the UAE's future fighter contract and other regional military requirements against the backdrop of renewed tensions in the gulf as Iraq and the United Nations continued their standoff over weapons inspections.
U.S. Air Force airborne intelligence gathering will get a boost beginning next year when the first RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft are reengined with quieter, more fuel-efficient CFM-56 engines at Boeing's Wichita, Kan., facility. So far, the USAF has bought kits for six of the 23 aircraft in the 55th Wing, which also flies the Combat Sent and Cobra Ball variants of the long-range reconnaissance aircraft. It appears the first two conversions will be RC-135Ws.
A new Space Operations Center activated at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., this month will improve command and control of U.S. Air Force space resources, according to service officials.
A Chinese Long March 2C/SD is set to launch two Iridium satellites Dec. 5, marking the 11th mission of the year for vehicles produced by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. After a disastrous 1996, the Long March program has recorded 10 successes in 1997, according to Director Li Jianzhong. He said the academy is now thinking of a public stock offering. Li provided no details of this year's 10 missions, but the two most watched involved satcoms launched on the academy's heaviest booster, the LM-3B.
Pentagon officials have notified Congress of several possible international military aviation sales. These include seven Boeing CH-47D helicopters for Greece, along with machine guns, self-defense suites, spare engines and training worth $376 million. Greece also wants 30 Army tactical missiles and launchers, priced at $31 million. Portugal wants 20 Mid-Life Update kits for its Lockheed/Fort Worth F-16A/B fleet with spares and logistics worth $185 million.
James H. Aldrich, Jr., has been promoted to vice president from director of engineering at the Little Rock (Ark.) Completion Center and James Hurley to regional sales manager from manager of government programs, for the Dassault Falcon Jet Corp., Teterboro, N.J.
A spy in the German Foreign Ministry who passed secrets to Iraq before the Persian Gulf war probably didn't make much difference in the conflict, says retired USAF Lt. Gen. Buster Glosson, the architect of the air war. Jurgen Mohamed Gietler was arrested in August 1990 for passing to Iraq coalition assessments of Baghdad's Scud missile strength and locations. As a result, a German court said, the Iraqis were able to disguise some missiles that were later fired into Israel from fixed sites that the U.S. believed it had destroyed.
Michael A. Mayer has been appointed director of international sales, John Knapp manager of international sales and Brian C. Postel sales director of North America, all for the Avatar Alliance of Atlanta. Mayer was director of sales and marketing of Allied Aviation. Knapp was a sales executive with Airmotive, and Postel was East Coast sales director of Avatar.
Lower-tier U.S. defense industry suppliers will sustain draconian cuts at the hands of military primes at an accelerated rate in the next few years, while commercial aerospace vendors will get a respite from the deep cuts in their ranks. But this doesn't mean commercial suppliers can relax.
Despite recent press reports to the contrary, Iraq is not cutting a deal to buy Czech-made anti-stealth radar. What the Iraqis are trying to buy from Bulgarian arms brokers is a passive, electronic monitoring and reconnaissance system called the MCS-93 Tamara. It can pick up and identify electronic signals given off by most aircraft--primarily radar emissions. Says a grumpy senior Pentagon official: ``It's not a radar.'' The Czech-made sensors--somewhat similar to those used on U.S.
FAR EASTERN AIR TRANSPORT of Taipei (FAT) has ordered five Boeing 757-200s and two Boeing MD-83s. The airline also placed options for an additional five 757s. Deliveries are set to begin in 1998 with the ability to convert the 757-200 orders to the longer -300 model. FAT flies 14 domestic routes as well as international service to the Philippines and Palau. It plans expansion into mainland China and Southeast Asia markets. The carrier now operates a fleet of 14 Boeing 737s and MD-80-series transports and is partly owned by China Airlines.
There is a growing desire among military leaders around the world for the airborne surveillance of the battlefield that the U.S. demonstrated in outmaneuvering the huge Iraqi military machine in 1991. However, it may prove that virtually no one other than the U.S. can afford such a complicated and expensive system as the E-8 Joint-STARS, the major, real-time system that allowed allied war planners to track Iraqi movements with precision.
The space shuttle Mission 87 astronauts on board Columbia are continuing more than two weeks of advanced materials science research in orbit, following a planned extravehicular activity related to the International Space Station and the retrieval of a 1.5-ton solar-imaging spacecraft.
Beginning next month, Lockheed Martin will install electrically-operated flight control actuators and a modular electrical power system in the Advanced Fighter Technology Integration AFTI/F-16 as part of an Integrated Subsystem Technology demonstration for the multiservice Joint Strike Fighter program.
After extending an invitation last month to Italy to increase its cooperation with the U.S., NASA is proposing to expand collaborative ventures with France and other European nations. Two weeks ago, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin met. with France's space minister Claude Allegre, European Space Agency (ESA) Director Antonio Rodota, French Space Agency (CNES) President Alain Bensoussan and other top space officials to discuss future cooperation. Last week, he met with German space officials. The areas proposed for cooperation include:
Lockheed Martin is absorbing the cost of replacing web spar sections on 14 C-130J and H model aircraft because the alloy parts were incorrectly heat-treated, leaving the alloys either soft or brittle.
Western Pacific Airlines, which has been operating under protection of Chapter 11 of U.S. bankruptcy law for several weeks, has found an investor willing to commit as much as $50 million to bail out the airline. If approved by a bankruptcy court, Smith Management Co. (SMC) of New York will invest $10 million before Dec. 4 to meet a critical aircraft lease payment. Another $20 million of ``debtor in possession'' financing would be available Dec. 20 as general working capital.
DAIMLER-BENZ AEROSPACE and SEP of France have agreed to team for development of a new storable upper stage for the Ariane 5 launcher in partnership with Arianespace and the national space agencies in Europe. The new stage would be an upgraded version of the existing upper stage designed by DASA and SEP featuring multiple ignition capability, a new turbopump and increased stage propellant mass. It is scheduled to be available for operation in 2003.
Pan American World Airways has grounded most of its Airbus A300s and suspended its transcontinental flights in a major shift in strategy. The company, which began flight operations 14 months ago, has decided to concentrate primarily on flights between the Northeast and South Florida and the Caribbean, building on the market penetration Pan Am felt it had made and the narrow-body fleet of recently acquired Carnival Air Lines.
The first three RC-7B Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL) aircraft built have a top-priority assignment to bring into play their multispectral sensor payloads to observe North Korea. Their primary task is to watch military and civilian movements near possible invasion routes--two in the east and one in the west--and in the demilitarized zone.
