Aircraft manufacturers and maintenance companies in the U.S. and Europe are fighting a labor-backed effort to cut the amount of aircraft repair work U.S. airlines can send to shops outside the country.
The Italian space agency (ASI) has revealed a draft five-year spending plan that would sharply expand outlays for space activities and focus spending on a small number of clearly defined programs.
DEFENSE DEPT. SPENDING ON ELECTRONICS WILL GROW by 14% over the next 10 years, even though the Defense top line is expected to slip a total of 4%, according to a new Electronic Industries Assn. forecast. The total bill for electronics will grow from $51.5 billion in Fiscal 1998 to $58.9 billion in Fiscal 2007, with the largest growth in procurement--up from $18.5-23.8 billion in that period. Operations and maintenance requirements will continue to grow from $14.8-19.1 billion, but the Defense investment in RDT&E for electronics is about to slide 7%.
AlliedSignal Aerospace is studying development of a new airborne system to better warn flightcrews of inflight turbulence. Although rare, turbulence hurts passengers and flight attendants, costing airlines lost work time and medical payments. The system would combine computer models that predict terrain-induced turbulence as well as aircraft wake vortices, according to Frank Daly, vice president and general manager for AlliedSignal's Redmond, Wash.-based Air Transport and Regional group.
Daniel P. Burnham and Frederic M. Poses, presidents of AlliedSignal's Aerospace and Engineered Materials sectors, respectively, have been appointed vice chairmen of the board of directors of AlliedSignal Inc., Morris Township, N.J.
Transaero chief Alexander P. Pleshakov minces no words about the problems confronting Russian aviation and his airline. The industry's first necessity is improving safety, he says. The second is making domestic traffic grow instead of shrink. The third is finding the money to modernize the nation's aircraft. Against that backdrop, Transaero is juggling competing priorities: new aircraft purchases versus financial stabilization, route expansion versus operating economies.
Atraxis, the airport infotech system from Swissair that has been used in Geneva and Zurich for the last two years, is going on the road. But, alas, the rest of the world doesn't work with the precision of the Swiss. Atraxis' MAX4 Airport suite is a Unix-based group of airport management tools for such tasks as departure control, stand- and gate-allocation, baggage verification and tracing, computerized reservation system revenue accounting, cargo logistics and catering management.
BOEING'S FIRST stretched 777-300 transport made an uneventful first flight last week. The 4-hr. 6-min. flight took off from Boeing's Everett, Wash., wide-body factory at 10:27 a.m. local time and landed at downtown Boeing Field. Pilots Frank Santoni and John Cashman were at the controls.
A National Academy of Sciences panel is readying a series of international meetings on achieving smaller nuclear arsenals. Maj. Gen. William F. Burns (U.S. Army, Ret.), who heads the academy's standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control, will confer in coming months with British, French, European Parliament, Chinese and Indian officials on the panel's proposals for a set of progressive constraints. They include higher standards of operational safety, more cuts in alert levels and steering nuclear doctrine away from rapid, massive response.
Following the breakdown of their planned merger, both Frontier and Western Pacific airlines are shuffling their flight schedules and will compete head-to-head on some flight segments. Western Pacific, after obtaining Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, is eliminating all jet service at its former Colorado Springs, Colo., hub, and is consolidating its Boeing 737 fleet in Denver (AW&ST Oct. 13, p. 28). In addition, the airline is deleting Indianapolis and Houston from its new autumn schedule.
Italy's Officine Aeronavali has concluded an agreement with the U.S. Ten Forty Corp. to convert 20 DC-10-40 trijets into an all-cargo configuration in the next 5-6 years. The contract is valued at about $140 million. The DC-10s are currently operated by Japan Airlines.
CONGRESSIONAL CONFERENCE COMMITTEES are withholding $38.83 million from the FAA's 1998 budget for the Wide Area Augmentation System, pending further reports on progress. The language prohibits implementing the Flight 2000 Alaska/Hawaii demonstration of Free Flight in 1998--a demonstration that FAA insiders say could not happen, even with funding, until 2001 at the earliest.
An Austral Airlines DC-9-32 apparently plunged 24,000 ft. into a swamp on the Argentina-Uruguay border, while avoiding thunderstorms, killing all 74 persons on board in a crash that could increase concern about air safety in Argentina.
Sikorsky is employing Boston-based Prescient Technologies' DesignQA software to provide design product assurance for the CAD/CAM models it is using in the S-92 Helibus development program. S-92 is a multinational medium-lift civil/military helicopter designed simultaneously on four continents. It is due to roll out early next year. . . . IBM and Dassault Systemes have introduced a Java-based web browser called CATWeb Navigator designed to offer more dynamic remote-viewing capabilities over the Internet for computer-aided design and manufacturing systems. . . .
NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency have led a large international contractor team for the Cassini/ Huygens mission. Aerospace industry and research facilities from 17 different countries and 33 different U.S. states are involved in the overall $3.3-billion project. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin are the primary U.S. Cassini contractors, although dozens of other U.S. companies also participated. ESA is contributing about $500 million while the Italian Space Agency is devoting $160 million (see p. 82).
Both praise and scorn greeted President Clinton's use of the new line item veto last week to cut 13 programs, worth a total of $144 million, that Congress added to his Fiscal 1998 military spending request. Majority Republican lawmakers were split between those who hailed and those who denounced Clinton for cutting so little from the nearly $248-billion military appropriations budget, which Congress cleared late last month (AW&ST Oct. 6, p. 25).
Lockheed Martin and U.S. Air Force teams at Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg AFB and Denver are coordinating an unprecedented surge in Titan 4 launch operations. Teams at the three sites are working to launch three of the $400-million heavy boosters within the span of three weeks. And last week came close to launching two of the Titan 4s within only 30 hr. before weather scrubbed two countdowns.
Beginning next year, the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems plan to modify 39 Block 40 F-16C fighters with an improved data modem capable of providing pilots digitized video imagery of intended targets.
Officials of regional carrier American Eagle have applied for FAA approval to conduct non-precision instrument approaches into Santiago, Dominican Republic, beginning in December. All of the ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft operated to that city by AMR Corp.'s Executive Airlines at San Juan, Puerto Rico, have been equipped with UNS-1M navigation units featuring GPS. Eagle pilots flying the route from San Juan and Santiago have begun their training.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have patented a new software technique that can hide secret information in the electronic ``noise'' associated with the transmission of data and electronic images. Called ``data embedding,'' the method allows classified data to be stored and transferred in open transmissions and can serve as an ``electronic watermark'' to prevent the unauthorized manipulation of digital images and other information, according to Ted Handel, project leader.
A small ocean imaging satellite that was built under a unique public-private partnership has yielded its first images, and scientists are predicting that its continuous monitoring of the global biosphere will enable a better understanding of changes in the environment.
Galaxy Aerospace Corp. broke ground on Sept. 23 for a new headquarters complex located at the Fort Worth Alliance Airport. The 140,000-sq.-ft., $12-million facility is scheduled to be completed in September 1998, according to Brian E. Barents, president and chief executive officer of the company.
