Mary Lou Githens has become vice president-strategic planning of DirecTV, El Segundo, Calif. She was director of market research and competitive intelligence.
George Mueller, chief executive officer of the Kistler Aerospace Corp., Kirtland, Wash., has received the 1997 Space Humanitarian Award from United Societies in Space. Mueller, who guided the Gemini, Apollo and Saturn missions while at NASA in the 1960s, was honored for contibutions to the world space exploration community and advancing humanity's involvement in space.
George Hazy has been appointed president of American Eagle carrier Executive Airlines, San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was managing director for the Caribbean for American Airlines. He succeeds Tom Del Valle, who has become managing director for American at Los Angeles International Airport.
Aviation subcommittee began a European fact-finding trip in London last week to exchange views with government and industry officials on a range of issues, including airport security and aircraft maintenance. The U.S. lawmakers were also scheduled to visit Paris, Madrid and Brussels during the 10-day trip. In Brussels, they were to meet with European Commission competition chief Karel Van Miert to discuss the proposed alliance between British Airways and American Airlines.
David Newman and Richard Brook have become joint managing directors and Campbell Dixon managing director of the measurement and inspection business of the Sira Group, Chislehurst, England.
Photograph: Lockheed Martin will offer Australian officials price discounts based on other C-130J transports and tankers they may buy. Imbedded in Australia's new airborne early warning and control aircraft will be the potential for several classified, add-on sensors that could allow crewmen to see great distances, to better find small, stealthy targets and to eavesdrop on the conversations of potential foes.
Plans to purchase Lucent Technologies' Advanced Technology Systems (ATS) unit. The transaction, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is expected to close by early October. ATS supplies undersea surveillance, signal processing and vibration control systems, along with related technologies for a wide range of military applications.
Nov. 1 [Oct. 31 in the U.S.] for the launch of NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite on an H-2 booster from the Tanegashima Space Center. The mission will mark Japan's first launch of a foreign payload.
Prototype conducted a series of test flights from British Aerospace's Wharton facility last week. DA1, assembled at Daimler-Benz Aerospace's facility in Manching, Germany, was flown to the U.K., where it was operated by a mixed crew of British Aerospace and DASA test pilots. Tests included supersonic flights at relatively low altitude over the Irish Sea to investigate structural stresses at high dynamic pressures.
Lockheed Martin is predicting its new F-22 Raptor fighter will make its first flight around the end of this month following planned software revisions late last week. The updated software should eliminate the numerous spurious cockpit caution lights that slowed earlier engine ground tests by falsely indicating powerplant problems. The revised software also should solve a problem that cropped up on Aug. 16 when the F-22's left main landing gear locked up, bringing taxi tests to a halt after just one run.
Glenn Richardson has become director of environmental compliance, Robert Craig-Murphie controller and Roger Beaulieu director of labor relations, all of Nav Canada.
Illustration: Diagram: Australia's over-the-horizon radar bounces radio waves off the ionosphere. The Jindalee system of three such radars will be able to triangulate targets for improved accuracy. Australia has been experimenting with over-the-horizon radar since the 1970s, but the system is expected to finally become a full-fledged, long-range operational surveillance tool in the next few years.
Larry Speight (see photo) has been appointed vice president/general manager of Honeywell Space Systems, Clearwater, Fla. He was vice president of Honeywell Space and Strategic Systems. Speight succeeds W.R. Poe, who has retired.
Newly appointed French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot is expected to decide within the next few weeks whether to authorize the building of two more runways at Paris-CDG airport or propose ways to generate needed additional capacity. CDG's expansion is surrounded by controversy involving local authorities and environmentalists. Gayssot recently halted the construction of the additional runways in an effort to restore peace between the ADP Paris airports authority and local residents.
Illustration: Diagram: ACE Trajectory A new NASA spacecraft designed to analyze the composition of matter that makes up the galaxy is scheduled this week to be en route to a location nearly 1 million mi. from Earth, where it will sample material ejected from the Sun and blown into the solar system from distant super nova explosions. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) was slated to be launched from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 24, on board a Boeing commercial Delta 2 7920 booster.
Nancy Bethel (see photo) has been named executive vice president of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group of Seattle. She succeeds Richard Albrecht, who has retired.
301st Fighter Wing from NAS Forth Worth Joint Reserve Base has completed a four-week NATO deployment to Karup Air Station in Denmark. Eight F-16s participated in two battle exercises involving strikes into Germany and the Netherlands against defending MiG-29 Fulcrum and other combat aircraft flown by German pilots. Each F-16 pilot flew up to six missions, with 268 total sorties flown, according to a Lockheed Martin official. The NATO missions were part of a 10-nation exercise.
John Hornsby has been appointed director of worldwide sales, Pierre Engel director of international network stations, Don Furseth operations manager, Gordon Staples manager of applications solutions and Kevin O'Neill manager of marketing and product development, all for Radarsat International, Richmond, British Columbia. Hornsby was operations director, Engel director of worldwide sales, Furseth manager of operation projects and planning and Staples an applications specialist. O'Neill was marketing manager at Macdonald Detwiler.
One condition of Air New Zealand's purchase of 50% of Ansett Australia's stock late last year was that Ansett spin off its New Zealand domestic subsidiary, Ansett New Zealand, with a separate board of directors and management. Ansett Australia is managed by News Corp. The New Zealand market is worth $450 million a year, so the industry assumed that Ansett's big rival, Qantas Airways, would move quickly to capture part of it. The easy option for Qantas was to buy Ansett New Zealand, but talks have stalled over price.
Photograph: Pilots will face air defenses and air-to-air combat over the upgraded Delamere Air Warfare Range in northern Australia. A range control facility will operate at RAAF Tindal. As part of Australia's vigorous pursuit of knowledge about the world of combat in the far reaches of the electromagnetic spectrum, the Royal Australian Air Force is planning extensive upgrades to its 500,000-acre electronic warfare range.
The new chairman and CEO of Arianespace said the European consortium will have to adapt its business strategy to impending shifts in the commercial launch market if it is to retain its leading position in the industry. While Arianespace's new Ariane 5 booster was conceived to capture a large share of the geosynchronous satellite launches, within five years 30% of satellite telecommunications will come from low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit spacecraft, Jean-Marie Luton said.
The Dept. of Transportation has proposed banning the carriage of oxidizers, including compressed oxygen, on board all passenger-carrying aircraft and allowing them to be carried only in locations on cargo aircraft that are accessible to crew members. The rule would affect foreign and domestic aircraft entering, leaving and operating within the U.S.
Edmonton International Airport experienced a 26% passenger traffic increase in 1996, thanks to high-frequency flights by startup carrier WestJet, which bases its five-jet Boeing 737 fleet there. Service by another new Canadian low-cost carrier, Greyhound Air, also is contributing to traffic, which should grow to 3.7-million passenger movements this year, according to an Edmonton Airport official.
