The White House is waiting to hear from Defense Secretary William Cohen on a controversial proposal to let the Army test-fire a powerful laser at an imaging satellite. Waiting for various brass to decide, the Air Force has already delayed by three months (to Sept. 30) its plans to turn off MSTI-3, a Miniature Sensor Technology Integration spacecraft that tested new ways of tracking missile launches. The anti-satellite experiment would have major political implications. Opponents fret that it could trigger an arms race in space.
Sales of smoke-detection and fire-suppression systems on narrow-body aircraft are poised to rise sharply in coming months, as virtually all major U.S. airlines begin shopping in earnest for what will be FAA-mandated equipment. A handful of competing vendors are conducting demonstrations from Alaska to Texas, and several sales agreements are likely to be reached within the next 60 days. The frenetic activity is being driven by several factors.
Boeing will team with Tupolev for ongoing company-funded Mach 2 flight tests of a Russian Tu-144 supersonic transport to build a new database for development of a 300-passenger U.S. transpacific SST early in the 21st century. The Boeing-funded Tu-144 tests will follow the conclusion of NASA-funded Tu-144 research flights already underway with Tupolev and a U.S. team that includes Boeing, General Electric and Pratt&Whitney.
After several years of false starts and unkept promises, Russia's beleaguered commercial aircraft industry is at last showing signs of recovery from a disastrous collapse that saw both its domestic and foreign customer base virtually dry up overnight.
With a Sept. 30 deadline looming, Airbus Industrie's $14-billion sale of 120 narrow-body aircraft to US Airways, with options for 280 more twinjets, is looking increasingly doubtful as a labor pact with pilots continues to elude the carrier. The purchase and delivery of the A319s, A320s and A321s is dependent upon the airline achieving a competitive cost structure--including a new agreement with the carrier's 5,000 pilots--by the end of this month.
Delta Air Lines officials say a draft proposal by the European Union to require American Airlines and British Airways to relinquish 350 weekly landing and takeoff slots at London Heathrow Airport as a condition of approving their alliance is ``insufficient.'' Delta said the two carriers should be required to give up 700-800 slots to ensure effective competition on major transatlantic routes.
Mike Roberts, managing director of London Heathrow Airport for BAA Plc., will become group technical director and a board member on Nov. 1. He will succeed Michael Maine, who will retire. Roger Cato will be promoted from deputy managing director of Heathrow to succeed Roberts.
Robert B. Stephens has been named vice president-flight operations of Polar Air Cargo, Long Beach, Calif. He was a Boeing 747 captain for Atlas Air Inc.
Urs Diebold, managing partner of Lysys AG of Switzerland, has been appointed to the board of directors of Pacific Aerospace and Electronics Inc., Wenatchee, Wash.
David J.C. Crook (see photo) has become Aerospace Div. business unit manager for the Valcor Engineering Corp., Springfield, N.J. He was vice president-business development for GEC-Marconi Aero- space Inc., Whippany, N.J.
Some market professionals are suggesting US Airways Group may dampen its third-quarter profits through accounting provisions to make the company's financial performance less of an issue in future labor negotiations.
International Lease Finance Corp. plans to take delivery of 126 additional Airbus Industrie and Boeing aircraft in the early 2000s to strengthen and renew its commercial transport portfolio.
Boeing's new McDonnell Aircraft and Missile Systems business unit has structured its organization and senior management along military program lines. According to Michael Sears, president of McDonnell Aircraft and Missile Systems, the alignment mirrors the way the unit's main customer, the U.S. Defense Dept., is organized. Formed following the Aug. 4 operational merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, Sears and his group report to Alan Mulally, president of Boeing's new Information, Space and Defense Systems Group.
Alaska and Northwest Airlines will expand their code-sharing agreement to include Alaska's flights to the Russian Far East. The agreement will provide additional passenger feeds to Alaska's Russian route network, which serves Magadan, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Yuzhno-Sakalinsk. Northwest already code-shares on Alaska's U.S. West Coast domestic route network and on flights between the Pacific Northwest and Alaska and Mexico.
Tao Systems, Hampton, Va., is looking for industrial partners to commercialize a true airspeed indicator for helicopters that accurately measures forward speeds from hover through at least 100 kt. Current pitot-based air pressure systems are inaccurate at low forward speed and in the critical landing, takeoff and hovering flight regimes, according to Siva Mangalam, chief executive officer. The economical, solid-state technology uses a wedge-shaped ``hot film'' probe and constant voltage anemometer housed in a small, exterior venturi.
Launch of the NASA Cassini mission to Saturn originally scheduled for Oct. 6 will likely be delayed several days because of apparent minor damage to the spacecraft's European Space Agency Huygens Titan descent probe. Titan is a planet-sized moon of Saturn, and Huygens is to photograph its surface at up to 3-ft. resolution during a parachute descent after Cassini arrives at Saturn in 2004.
Prosperity has returned U.S. airline labor-management relations to a normal state of give and take, but the airline worker is demonstrating a new-found independence to disrupt the status quo. Airlines are producing big profits and union labor is seeking its share, as it historically has in good times. The airline employees are breaking down old patterns, asserting themselves at the union ballot box as never before.
Conair Aviation, Abbotsford, British Columbia, has partnered with Orenda Recip Inc. to explore the retrofit of Orenda's new V-8 aircraft engines to older Cessna and Piper models. Airframes under consideration include Piper PA-31 Navajo and Cessna 400-series twins. The agreement could expand to include prototype applications, obtaining Supplemental Type Certificates and the sale and manufacture of installation kits. Toronto-based Orenda already is backing similar conversions of the Beech King Air 90, Rockwell Twin Commander and de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver.
A U.S. Senate showdown is supposed to be in store over setting a deadline of 2003 to deploy a limited nationwide defense against ballistic missiles. But the timetable and impact of the debate remain uncertain, despite a staunch declaration last January by the new Senate Republican leadership that national missile defense (NMD) was one of its top 10 legislative priorities.
Was rolled out on Sept. 4 at the Israel Aircraft Industries facility in Tel Aviv. First flight of the prototype is scheduled for December, with a second aircraft joining the test program in the first quarter of 1998. FAA and Isreal certification is planned for late 1998. The $14.5-million mid-size corporate jet is powered by two Pratt&Whitney Canada PW-306A engines. The aircraft will be built in Israel and completions will be done at Galaxy Aerospace's new center at the Fort Worth Alliance Airport.
Airbus Industrie has agreed to supply technical assistance to help Russian firms obtain Joint Aviation Authorities type certification for the Tu-204 family of medium-range transports. The first aircraft to be covered is likely to be the Rolls-Royce-powered Tu-204-120, which received Russian certification on July 15.
China Xinjiang Airlines, based in Urumqi in western China, has taken delivery of the first of the five ATR 72-210As it has on order (AW&ST Sept. 1, p. 40). Deliveries of the other four aircraft, orders for which were confirmed during French President Jacques Chirac's visit to Beijing last May, will continue during the next year. The aircraft will be used to provide service from Urumqi to tourist areas, and on domestic routes within the remote Xingjiang province.
Two Boeing 737-700s to begin replacing its fleet of 29 McDonnell Douglas C-9 transports. The Naval Reserve operates 27 C-9s and the U.S. Marine Corps are assigned two. The militarized version of the 737-700 transport will have an increased payload, to 38,500-lb., and quick-change interior. The contract is valued at $111-million. The aircraft will continue the C-9's role of short-notice transportation of Navy personnel and supplies.
