Pro Air, a new airline, is challenging Northwest Airlines' virtual monopoly at Detroit with low-fare service from Detroit City Airport. Using two new Boeing 737-400s, Pro Air started nonstop flights from Detroit to Baltimore/Washington and Indianapolis on July 4, and to Newark 10 days later. It will add Milwaukee on Aug. 1.
CD Radio Inc., which plans to offer CD-quality radio programming across the U.S., signed a contract to launch its two Space Systems/Loral-built satellites on Ariane 5s in 1999.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $480,000 contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. to demonstrate its Munition-Deployed Bomb Damage Assessment system. The system includes an airborne video sensor and an RF datalink designed to provide battlefield commanders with critical, real-time information about the effectiveness of air strikes. The sensor separates from the munition after release and trails 1,000 ft. behind it on a tether, generating high-speed, high-resolution images until after munition impact.
THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES last week passed the Fiscal 1998 Transportation Dept. Appropriations bill, providing the FAA with $9.08 billion--about $800 million more than last year's appropriation. Lawmakers, however, rejected FAA efforts to impose $300 million in user fees, and the bill prohibits the agency from developing plans for new fees not already approved by Congress.
Southwest Airlines is drawing closer to introducing new Boeing 737-700s into service in October, following completion of a five-day, 50-cycle test during which the aircraft achieved 100% dispatch reliability and encountered no mechanical problems.
Aviation taxes are about to be raised because industry advocates ``are a lousy bunch of lobbyists,'' United Airlines boss Gerald Greenwald complained last week. Instead of arguing tax subtleties, he deplored raising them at all on a traveling public already paying high levies. He questioned why Washington's latest tax cut scheme singles out two industries for hikes: tobacco and aviation. ``The last I knew we're not a disease,'' Greenwald said. ``[Tax] gambling or pornography maybe . . . but why target the airline industry?''
GDE Systems Inc., a San Diego-based business unit of Tracor Inc., and Leica AG of St. Gallen, Switzerland, have formed a joint venture to combine their commercial photogrammetry and aerial camera systems business activities. Officials of the two companies expect to operate under the name LH Systems LLC, which will be based in San Diego. The joint venture replaces the business arrangement under an agreement Leica had with Helava Associates.
James P. Smith has been promoted to manager of the Simuflite Training International's Hercules Flight Training Center from lead flight instructor. Clifford L. Reavis has been promoted to manager of the Learjet program from Learjet instructor. Marjorie K. DeLong has been named manager of market development. She was manager of sales and marketing information services. And, William R. Dolny has been promoted to Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Western regional sales manager from supervisor of account services.
In the wake of four incidents involving failure of the outboard wing flaps on Raytheon/Beechcraft Model 1900D aircraft, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that the FAA issue an airworthiness directive to inspect the outboard flaps to prevent a loss of control.
Having made strong headway on implementing integrated product development teams, McDonnell Douglas is focusing corporate lean activities on production issues including assembly, fabrication and suppliers.
The U.S. subsidiary of Paris-based Sextant Avionique S.A. plans to acquire the Air Lab Div. of Triumph Group Inc., located in Seattle. Air Lab repairs and overhauls aviation instrumentation and controls.
THE LAUNCH OF A NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE office (NRO) satellite has been delayed indefinitely after nitrogen tetroxide leaked from the Titan 4A booster that was to orbit it. The U.S. Air Force said about 230 gal. of the fuel oxidizer leaked from the Titan 4 into holding tanks on July 16, forcing the evacuation of more than 40 people working near Space Launch Complex 4 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The launch of the reconnaissance payload, believed to be an imaging-type satellite, had already been delayed a day due to a Titan inertial measurement unit (IMU) problem.
The FAA has certified the Williams-Rolls FJ44-2A turbofan engine, and company officials said approval by the European Joint Aviation Authorities is scheduled for the end of this year. The 2,300-lb.-thrust engine has been selected to power the Raytheon/Beechcraft Premier 1 and the Sino-Swearingen SJ30-2 lightweight business jets. Flight tests of the engine are scheduled to begin in the third quarter, with initial deliveries commencing in 1998.
EUROCOPTER HAS BEGUN flight-testing of the Dauphin N4, a wide-body version of the Dauphin offering 40% more cabin volume than the N2/N3, along with more powerful Ariel 2C engines and a new avionics suite similar to that installed on the EC 120 and EC 135.
NATO's new members likely will start buying replacement Western aircraft in 3-5 years, in small numbers, predicts Brig. Gen. Robert Osterhaler, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for European and NATO affairs. Aircraft modernization by Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic is important because of their air forces' dependence on old Soviet equipment that is increasingly expensive to maintain and operate.
Thomas A. Grissen has been named president of the state and local systems business unit and Pat Salmonese senior vice president-information technology services of BDM International, McLean, Va. Grissen was a principal/managing director of the Unisys Corp. Salmonese was executive vice president of Computer Intelligence Inc.
Doris E. Lockness, 87, who has been flying since the 1930s, has received the 1997 Katherine Wright Memorial Award from the Arlington, Va.-based National Aeronautic Assn. and the Ninety-Nines Inc. The award is presented to a woman who has contributed to the advancement of the art, sport and science of aviation and space flight during an extended period or who was instrumental in her husband's aviation success.
Marily M. Mora has been appointed business development manager for San Jose (Calif.) International Airport. She was director of marketing and customer service for the Santa Clara (Calif.) Valley Transportation Authority.
THE U.S. SENATE, by a vote of 99-1, approved $13.5 billion for NASA in Fiscal 1998 after voting 69-31 to kill an amendment by Sen. Dale Bumpers (D.-Ark.) that would have terminated the international space station. The House had earlier approved $13.6 billion for NASA. House-Senate conferees will have to decide later this year whether to include $100 million to pay for any future Russian delays in delivering space station hardware, a controversial provision that was in the House's bill but not the Senate's.
A large battle is brewing over American Airlines' agreement to forge new alliances with Spain's Iberia Airlines and Argentina's two airlines--Aerolineas Argentinas and its domestic affiliate, Austral Lineas Aereas.
The U.S. commercial infrastructure is more vulnerable than ever to a nuclear-triggered electronic meltdown, but experts agree the threat of such an attack remains remote. A nuclear detonation in space 250 mi. over the central U.S. could generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could instantaneously short out the unprotected electronics networks across the contiguous 48 states, military analysts say.
Since its release early this year, about 350 copies of the Lean Enterprise Model have been distributed by Lean Aircraft Initiative consortium members. In fulfilling its primary role, the LEM is both a reference tool and a framework that integrates and disseminates lean principles, practices and metrics, as well as the data and results from case studies and industry benchmarking activities conducted during the LAI's three-year Phase 1, which concluded last August.
Noted planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., was killed July 18, in a car accident near Alice Springs, Australia. He was 69. His wife Carolyn, also a noted planetary geologist, was injured. Shoemaker was best known for the discovery--along with his wife and another colleague, David Levy--of the fragmented comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided spectacularly with Jupiter in July, 1994.
