Capt. Don Rice (USN, Ret.) has been appointed director of maintenance, repair and overhaul programs for Aircraft Consulting Inc., Mukwanago, Wis. He was commander of the Naval Aviation Depot, Jacksonville, Fla.
National Guard chief Lt. Gen. Edward Baca says his troops need an extra $500 million a year for training and operations, and their equipment needs to be modernized. But the Pentagon would come out ahead, he says, because active duty forces could be cut and hand over more foreign deployments to the Guard. ``The Guard unit can do it a lot cheaper,'' he says, calling large standing armies in the U.S.
This line of right-angle plug and receptacles joins the 5078 Series of connectors. The 1.0-mm. pitch, two-piece connectors allow stacking heights as low as 5 mm. but are rugged enough for commercial avionics applications. They are rated to 100 volts and 0.5 amps, and have a dielectric withstanding voltage of 500 volts. The contact material is bronze with gold plating in the mating area and solder plating on the PC tails. Elco Corp., P.O. Box 867, Myrtle Beach, S.C. 29578.
The Douglas Products Div. of the Boeing Company--awaiting a decision expected next month on which former Douglas Aircraft Co. programs will be retained--is continuing to make refinements in the designs of possible MD-95 derivatives. The baseline MD-95-30 model is in development and viewed by many officials inside and outside of the company as a strong candidate for retention by Boeing following the company's merger with McDonnell Douglas. The 100-seat aircraft is scheduled for first flight in June 1998.
Passenger traffic has been increasing steadily at Montreal's Dorval Airport since the Aeroports de Montreal decision, effective Sept. 15, directing international scheduled airline flights to Dorval from Montreal's Mirabel Airport. Swissair reported a 10% increase in Dorval passenger traffic in the first two weeks. The shift of international flights from Mirabel allows passengers coming from domestic and U.S. cities to Dorval to connect directly with Dorval's new international services.
The Series 3001-01-XXX multi-axial accelerometers are designed for use in military and commercial aircraft equipped with digital flight data acquisition and recording systems. The devices can measure acceleration in up to three axes. They can measure vertical acceleration over a range of -3-+6g and longitudinal and lateral acceleration over a range of -1-+1g. They meet Arinc and RTCA specifications. Patriot Sensors and Controls Corp., 650 Easy St., Simi Valley, Calif. 93065.
The Composite Engineering Module provides the FiberSIM suite of software with the tools necessary to provide a seamless link between design and manufacturing. A design engineer can record critical nongeometric information during the geometry definition process using the new module without leaving the CAD system. The three-dimensional design data can then be linked directly to the entire suite of FiberSIM tools, which has the potential to save design and manufacturing time and cost. Composite Design Technologies, 235 Wyman St., Suite 110, Waltham, Mass. 02154.
Despite having to contend with the effects of jet streams, violent bad weather or exotic coatings on enemy missiles, the main weapon being developed for the YAL-1A aircraft--a long-range laser--is operating within specifications in tests, Air Force officials contend. Also, its beam is predicted to be focused enough to kill theater ballistic missiles at more than 250 mi.
Habco's Precision Airflow Laboratory is available for annual verification of customer-owned aircraft engine support equipment. The facility provides accurate flow and pressure parameters, traceable to NIST standards, for annual recertification of transducers in vacuum flow carts and oil seal assembly flow checkers. The lab's airflow accuracies are 0.25% of reading for mass flow of 1-1,000 particles/hr. and 0.1% of reading for pressures of 0-3,000 psig. Habco Inc., 40 Sequin Drive, Glastonbury, Conn. 06033.
Tad Hutcheson has been named director of sales and marketing of ValuJet Airlines. He was vice president-marketing and business development of Kiwi International Air Lines.
The Spotcheck Jr. is a pocket-sized penetrant crack detection kit for use on metal and ceramic parts. Four small, replaceable aerosol cans containing a cleaner, two types of penetrant and a developer fit into the unit. The device can be used with red SKL-SP penetrant in visible light or with fluorescent green ZL-37 penetrant for checking for fine cracks under a black light. Magnaflux, 3624 W. Lake Ave., Glenview, Ill. 60025.
New England Aviators 1914-1918 Parts 1 and 2, Their Portraits and Their Records profiles 542 New England pilots who flew with the U.S. Army Air Corps, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as the British and French air forces. The set originally appeared in 1919 as companion volumes to an exhibit in Boston. The reprinted set includes biographies of these early aviators and photographs. Schiffer Military History, 4880 Lower Valley Road, Atglen, Pa. 19310-9717.
National Transportation Safety Board officials have dropped plans for a ``pre-hearing'' at the Calverton, N.Y., hangar in which TWA Flight 800 wreckage has been reconstructed. Also, only NTSB Chairman Jim Hall will preside over the Dec. 8-13 public hearing in Baltimore about that crash. NTSB officials had toyed with having the board's four other members preside along with Hall. The four are expected to attend--a sign of their interest in the investigation.
SermeTel Process 2000 is a chrome-free, environmentally friendly protective family of coatings for gas turbine components. The coating systems protect ferrous, nickel and titanium alloys against corrosion, erosion and fouling. They can be used on blades, vanes, spacers, casings, shafts, disks and hubs. Process 2000 consists of an aluminum-filled ceramic basecoat that sacrifices itself to protect the component and a chemically inert, glassy ceramic topcoat. Sermatch Technical Services, 155 S. Limerick Road, Limerick, Pa. 19468.
Saab Aircraft is considering pulling the plug on production of its two regional turboprops--the Saab 340 and Saab 2000--citing continuing ``considerable losses'' as a result of overcapacity in a tight market.
Two new pulse code modulation interface modules allow TEAC's portable family of Hi-8mm instrumentation data recorders to fulfill the role of expensive, stationary recorders in field applications. The RX-800 series recorders can be configured with five or eight asynchronous NRZL PCM data channels to store up to 2 hr. of high-frequency recording time on a cassette. As many as four RX-800s can be used together for synchronous recording. TEAC America Inc., 7733 Telegraph Road, Montebello, Calif. 90640.
A flyby of three near-Earth comets and a flight to collect samples of solar wind emitted by the Sun have been selected as the fifth and sixth missions in NASA's Discovery program.
Analysis of Radome-Enclosed Antennas by Dennis J. Kozakoff is designed to help engineers and scientists develop software for radome analysis. The book has sections on the fundamentals of antennas, an overview of radome modeling techniques and the approaches for software programming to model a radome on a personal computer. The book also comes with a diskette containing radome software code. Artech House Publishers, 685 Canton St., Norwood, Mass. 02062.
Airbus Industrie this week celebrates the 25th anniversary of its first commercial transport. The European consortium's first aircraft, the A300B1 prototype, powered by two 49,000-lb.-thrust General Electric CF6-50A turbofan engines, made its first flight on Oct. 28, 1972, from Toulouse-Blagnac airport in southern France. The A300B1, launched in May 1969, was followed by the A300B2/B4 production versions subsequently ordered by Air France and Lufthansa German Airlines.
FaroArm, a portable measurement arm designed with seven degrees of freedom, and AnthroCAM three-dimensional measurement software have been combined in an integrated manufacturing and inspection system. This allows UCAR Composites Inc. to conduct inspections and check surface profiles of aerospace tooling at vendor sites in 30 min., one sixth of the minimum time needed previously. The analysis can be conducted after a workpiece has been removed from a tool, minimizing downtime. UCAR Composites Inc., 5 Burroughs, Irvine, Calif. 92718.
The joint U.S./Russian crew on board the Mir space station are scheduled next week to begin a series of extravehicular activities (EVAs) to further bolster the vehicle's electrical and environmental systems and to begin work toward sealing the leak in the station's damaged Spektr module.
The U.K Ministry of Defense is turning to private industry to provide aircraft training for the Royal Air Force's fleet of Chinook, Merlin and Puma medium support helicopters. A consortium consisting of CAE Electronics of Canada and the Vega Group and Serco Ltd. of the U.K. will build, finance and operate a new aircrew training facility under a 40-year contract. It is valued at $446 million for the first 20 years. The RAF plans to make extensive use of simulators in ground-based aircraft training at the new facility at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, England.
Multiple orbital sanders can be connected to the GB 833 vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter to reduce paint dust levels during aircraft repair, repainting and refurbishment. A Gore-Tex main filter captures dust and debris, which is held in an 18-gal. vacuum tank. When using the optional HEPA filter, the GB 833 retains 99.97% of all particles down to 3 microns, keeping the level of hazardous particles below that at which employees must wear respirators and protective clothing under OSHA standards. Nilfisk of North America Inc., 300 Technology Drive, Malvern, Pa. 19355.
