Syria is ``preparing for war'' and constitutes the greatest near-term military threat to Israel, says Eliahu Ben-Elissar, Jerusalem's ambassador here. Military improvements ``in every direction'' include the purchase and, now, local production of improved Scud-C missiles with 720-780-mi. range. Syria now has about 150 Scud-Cs and 30 launchers and a total inventory of 600-700 ballistic missiles, he says. Russia is helping Syria improve the readiness of its 40-plus fleet of MiG-29 Fulcrum As, despite the latter's outstanding debt of $10-12 billion.
THE SUKHOI DESIGN BUREAU'S experimental, forward swept-wing, stealthy aircraft with thrust-vectoring control, has completed high-speed taxi tests and is ready for flight testing. The twin-engine aircraft, referred to as the S-32 or S-52 in the West, and the Mikoyan 1.42 fighter will not be on public display at the Moscow Aviation and Space Show in Zhukovski this week. But informed sources indicate the two aircraft will be on view in hangars for high-ranking official visitors.
The House Appropriations Committee thwarted an FAA plan to shift the burden of financing navigation and landing aids--and approach lighting systems--from the federal pocketbook to local airports. The committee's report on transportation appropriations threw a damper on the FAA plan. The shift ``could result in the diminution of aviation safety, since airports are neither staffed nor funded'' to buy, operate and maintain the equipment, it said. The House report does not have the force of law, but it is regarded as policy direction from the holders of the purse.
Col. Walter J. Boyne (USAF, Ret.) is to receive the Air Force Assn.'s Gill Robb Wilson Award in arts and letters for his latest book, ``Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force, 1947-1997.''
Photograph: Japanese robotic arm is viewed against Earth's horizon during Mission 85 tests to verify performance for space station. Arm performed well, but software slowed tests. Space shuttle Mission 85, which was scheduled to land here Aug. 18, should return a wealth of astronomy and Earth atmospheric information, including new data that could bolster a theory that Earth is bombarded by small comets daily.
The National Transportation Safety Board's meeting this week--to hear its staff's report on causes of the May, 1996, ValuJet DC-9-32 crash and recommendations for their correction--promises to be a lively one. Board officials last week were scrambling to revise that report to cover more of the issues raised by the crash and delete questionable sections. The draft report at one time criticized the two pilots of ValuJet Flight 592 for not diverting their burning aircraft to Opa Locka, Fla., airport instead of attempting to return to Miami International.
John R. Gibson has become president/chief executive officer of the American Pacific Corp. of Las Vegas. He was corporate vice president-engineering and president of subsidiary American Azide Corp.
THE FAA HAS ISSUED A FINAL RULE allowing the use of single-engine aircraft for FAR Part 135 operations under instrument flight rules. The change, which is being adopted this month, is scheduled to become effective May 3, 1998, according to the agency. The new regulation will require that commercial aircraft carrying passengers for hire be equipped with an autopilot or a second-in-command pilot, and additional vacuum and electrical sources to power gyroscopic flight instruments, navigation and communications radios.
Bob Dickey has been promoted to vice president/general manager of manufacturing solutions and Randy Martin to vice president-product development for manufacturing solutions for Cimlinc, Itasca, Ill. Dickey was vice president-marketing and Martin director of development.
Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., plans to test a prototype walk-through airport detector portal, shown here in an artist's concept, by the end of this summer at Albuquerque's international airport. The noninvasive device will use a preconcentrator that is 1,000-times more sensitive, 200 times smaller and 13 times less expensive than previous preconcentrator designs, according to Kevin Linker, Sandia project leader. With a planned 12-sec. monitoring time, the portal also is four times faster than previous Sandia preconcentrator models.
THE INDEPENDENT PILOTS ASSN., the union which represents 2,000 pilots at United Parcel Service, warned that the company faced a second strike--by pilots--after settlement of the current strike by the Teamsters' union. The IPA has supported the Teamsters' strike since it began Aug. 4, idling most of the UPS fleet used for its ``Next Day Air'' and ``Second Day Air'' services. IPA President Bob Miller said ``the day may soon come'' when the Teamsters honor IPA's picket lines.
David Harvey, director of mergers and acquisitions at Rolls-Royce, and Rosemary Day, a director with London Regional Transport, have been appointed non-executive board members of National Air Traffic Services, a subsidiary of the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority.
SPACE IMAGING is playing a key role in a wide-ranging effort to prevent and monitor summertime forest fires in southern France. Late last month, Spot Image's Spot 1 and Spot 2 satellites transmitted high-resolution pictures of wildfires that destroyed nearly 9,000 acres of land near Marseilles (see areas marked on photo).
AlliedSignal Aerospace's Precision Runway Monitor system has been selected for simultaneous flight operations on the parallel runways at Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok airport. PRM Program Manager Kenneth Sproul said the Hong Kong system will be able to update aircraft positions once per second with no interference from other aircraft signals, a processing rate that is about five times faster than normal. AlliedSignal won a $13-million contract from Hong Kong last week for the enhanced PRM system.
Photograph: Indonesia plans to buy 12 Su-30MK multirole combat aircraft, another version of which (shown below) has been sold to India. SERGEI PASHKOVSKY Indonesia's intent to purchase 12 Su-30MK combat aircraft and eight Mi-171V military transport helicopters could pave the way for further sales of Russian equipment to Jakarta, as well as bolster its position in the broader Asian market.
FAA Inspector Hiring (Includes hiring for attrition and adds to staff) Note: AC = air carrier and GA = general aviation Operations Maintenance Avionics Other Total AC GA AC GA AC GA 1995 11 27 98 107 18 43 0 304 1996 67 157 34 63 14 31 4 370
Photograph: View from inside Spektr looking out shows EVA work area. The cosmonaut will enter the hatch to reach wires around left side and top of hatch (see yellow arc). Spektr's internal hatch (bottom) will remain open. Critical Mir station work to open the damaged Spektr module and reconnect its solar arrays with the station's power-starved electrical system is set for late this week, as Mir's joint Russian/U.S. crew face another potential problem--a dwindling supply of water. The planned Aug.
Robert J. Hermann, senior vice president-science and technology for the United Technologies Corp., has been named head of the U.S. delegation to the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Program of the U.S. Commerce Dept.'s National Institute of Standards and Technology. He succeeds Robert Cattoi, retired senior vice president-research and engineering for Rockwell International.
Robert Mehrabian, retired president of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, has been named to the board of directors of BEI Electronics Inc. of San Francisco. He will remain on the Carnegie-Mellon faculty and be distinguished visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
In the wake of the Korean Air crash in Guam, the FAA is examining all its minimum safe altitude warning (MSAW) functions in the U.S.--nearly 200 in number--to ensure there are no common problems. Typically, those checks use test tapes of aircraft tracks with known altitude deviations to ensure MSAW gives proper alerts. Official results of the FAA tests were not available late last week, but unofficially one government source said no general problems were found.
THE FAA HAS ORDERED dual energy X-ray explosive detection systems from Vivid Technologies Inc. and EG&G Astrophysics. The Vivid Tech contract covers eight systems and options for 12 more for a potential value of $10.7 million. The EG&G contract for dual energy, dual view machines covers 10 systems and options for 10 more for a potential value of $3.3 million.
SAVI TECHNOLOGY INC. of Mountain View, Calif., a Raytheon TI Systems subsidiary, has received a $111-million contract to provide radio-frequency identification equipment that is intended to allow the U.S. Defense Dept. to locate and track shipments worldwide. The system uses interrogators the size of cellular phones to ``read'' the contents of active and passive tags.
Photograph: Samsung/Lockheed Martin has identified a potential market of 600-800 sales for the KTX-2. Lockheed Martin's selection as Samsung Aerospace's partner in the development and production of the KTX-2 advanced trainer/fighter moves the U.S. manufacturer from strength to strength in its industrial relationship with South Korea. The Korean government's July 3 decision to proceed with the $2-billion program is accompanied by an initial order of 94 aircraft and a commitment to fund 70% of the development costs (AW&ST July 21, p. 19).
Hector Adler, vice president-inflight services for Northwest Airlines, has been elected chairman of the International Air Transport Assn. Inflight Services Management Board. Other officers elected were: first vice chairman, G. Nuno A. de Spinola, sales and marketing director for Duni Inflight; and second vice chairwoman, Angie K.J. Choi, deputy general manager for cabin crew training of Asiana Airlines.
Illustration: Graph: Annual Large Air Carrier Accident Rates Considerable discontent exists among air transportation system users over the way policy is formulated and executed at the FAA. This viewpoint emerged over the last month from discussions with aviation leaders, some of whom expressed serious doubts about the FAA's state of readiness to meet the expected heavy demands of future aviation growth. policy formulation under the Clinton Administration baton was a major concern.
