THE FIRST FLIGHT OF INDIA'S Light Combat Aircraft will take place ``only by the start of 1998,'' according to Project Director Kota Harinarayana of the Aeronautical Development Agency in Bangalore. Last year, he said first flights of the TD-1 and TD-2 technology demonstrator aircraft would take place in mid-1997--itself a slip of a year from the previous schedule.
Passengers at Norfolk (Va.) International Airport are the first to have public Internet use through CyberFlyer's access station. Laptop users without an airport executive lounge card may find it easier to sit and dial at the station using a credit card than hunt for power and phone connections--and will save time with the high-speed T1 phone line. Host Mariott plans acceptance tests using a smaller, table-top Intel-based PC with flat panel display at up to 30 airport restaurants.
ROCKWELL COLLINS WILL EQUIP Atlas Air's 10 Boeing 747-400 freighters with a Collins suite, including Series 900 nav/comm radios, ACARS, Satcom-906, WXR-700X weather/wind shear radar and Collins TCAS with Mode S transponders. Initial deliveries are slated for next May. Air China is also buying the Series 900 nav/comm and the Series 900 multimode receivers for up to 10 Boeing 777s.
Nobuhiko Tatebe has become senior managing director of the Japan Aircraft Development Corp. of Tokyo. He succeeds Shinya Kobayakawa. Hiroshi Mizuno has been named managing director, succeeding Tatsurou Sakaki.
Photograph: Mapboard and 1/15-scale rover model are used to plan Sojourner routes and have found conflicts other methods missed. While some Sojourner route planning is done using 3-D glasses and computer screens, quick-turnaround physical models of the Martian terrain are also used by rover team members. ``It's easier to work with a physical model,'' said Howard J. Eisen, Jet Propulsion Laboratory's chief mechanical engineer for Sojourner.
Photograph: GE90-85B high-bypass turbofan engine is prepared for testing using a turbulence control structure at the General Electric Aircraft Engines test complex near Peebles, Ohio. Commercial transport engine manufacturers are working with regulatory agencies and trade associations on a number of initiatives aimed at keeping the relatively small number of propulsion-related accidents from increasing as the volume of airline departures continues to grow.
A Fine Air Services DC-8-61 may have left the ramp with its center of gravity too far aft, and that condition may have been aggravated when cargo shifted on takeoff, leading to the freighter's crash near Miami International Airport.
By late November, San Diego-based SAIC expects to complete a study aimed at determining why 260-hp. Textron Lycoming piston engines powering the U.S. Air Force's T-3A trainer have repeatedly shut down in flight. Under a contract awarded last year by the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, SAIC is conducting a complete engine system analysis as well as ground and flight testing. Corrective design improvements and prototype hardware are to be developed and tested as well.
LOWRANCE AVIONICS' hand-held AirMap GPS shows ground obstructions on the same cartridge containing Jeppesen aviation database. The company believes AirMap is the only hand-held to give general aviation pilots obstruction data on the GPS map display. Both above-ground-level and mean-sea-level elevations are shown. The obstruction database costs $75 including a Jeppesen update. The cartridge covers all of the continental U.S., Alaska and parts of Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas.
Paul G. Kaminski, former U.S. undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and technology, has been awarded the Stefan T. Possony Medal for outstanding contributions to strategic progress through science and technology by the International Strategic Studies Assn.
Canada West Airlines is hoping to start service as Canada's first heavy-lift, all-cargo carrier in May. It has placed deposits on two 747-300 transports owned by Singapore Airlines. Canada West is lobbying the Canadian federal government to amend regulations that require a single cargo entity to lease each flight, although it says it will be able to conduct limited operations under that constraint.
MATRA MARCONI SPACE HAS SELECTED Raytheon TI Systems to design and develop L- and S-band phased array antennas for Constellation Communications Inc.'s (CCI's) Equatorial Communications Constellation (ECCO) low-Earth-orbit personal communications system. The production contract will include 12 sets for equatorial satellites, one on-orbit spare and eight ground spares. Matra Marconi Space, prime contractor for the space segment of ECHO, is the joint venture company formed by Lagardere of France and the U.K.'s GE. CCI is a U.S.
Photograph: Strong demand for new aircraft is being sustained partly by the higher operating efficiencies carriers can obtain with new equipment such as the Boeing 757. JOSEPH PRIES Demand for new commercial jet transports continues to be solid--despite what may seem like a drop-off in orders in recent months--and the market is apt to remain strong for the foreseeable future. Through June 30, airframe builders booked 300 net orders compared with 281 in the first six months of last year, according to U.S. industry officials.
AIR FRANCE INDUSTRIES will maintain and overhaul Virgin Atlantic Airways' Airbus A340 long-range transports. The agreement is valued at about $80 million per year. Virgin operates eight A340-300s and recently decided to order 16 stretched-fuselage -600s (AW&ST Aug. 11, p. 85).
Long-standing concerns about the safety of nonprecision instrument approaches are generating new initiatives aimed at upgrading these procedures, but it will be at least another 10-15 years before fully autonomous, airborne navigation systems with 3-D capabilities are available to replace them, according to airline and FAA officials.
Yahoo! has incorporated Sabre's Travelocity as a content module on the travel page of its Netscape Guide. Travelocity will allow Internet users to buy airline tickets.
Photograph: Airlines and aircraft makers must comply with regulations and certification standards set by multiple international bodies. Officials of airlines subject to FAA regulations--both domestic and foreign--are in agreement with the goal of improving safety but complain that enforcement is sometimes uneven, subject to interpretation, and fixated on small details that have a negligible effect on passenger safety.
William S. Allen has been appointed vice president-human resources of Atlas Air Inc., Golden, Colo. He was senior director of field human resources for Pizza Hut Inc.
For the new international space station has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center. The first of two cone-shaped McDonnell Douglas pressurized mating adapters arrived from Huntington Beach, Calif., to begin its launch checkout. The two adapters (PMA 1 and PMA 2) will be mounted on opposite ends of the larger Node-1 unit, which arrived at the launch site earlier this summer. One adapter will act as a bridge between the Node and the Russian FGB spacecraft, while the other will link the Node with other station modules.
Romualdo Monteiro de Barros has been named commercial vice president for the military market for Embraer, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. He was director of business development for telecommunications for OTL-Odebrecht.
Photograph: Morane Renault exhibited its new, 180-hp. MR 180 turbocharged diesel engine designed to operate on Jet-A fuel. It would be electronically controlled through a single power lever system. Near-record attendance and new aircraft introductions underscored a growing optimism for the future of general aviation throughout the Experimental Aircraft Assn.'s 45th annual convention and sport aircraft exhibition that concluded here last week.
Photograph: Eight U.S. carriers are operating transatlantic routes to Paris-CDG and Orly. FREDERIC LERT The U.S. and France are engaged in a painful process to resolve long-standing disagreements over transatlantic traffic rights. Because of France's opposition to an ``open skies'' regime, however, negotiators have repeatedly failed to make progress toward a new accord. Lengthy and complex negotiations over the last five years have produced no noticeable results. U.S.
Will fly until at least 2012 and could be operational as late as 2025, said Stephen Oswald, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space shuttle. A successor ``could be a combination of expendable launch vehicles and viable reusable launch vehicles,'' he told a ``Cheap Access to Space'' symposium. ``There's enough payload in the market for good competition.''
Air traffic in Brazil is expected to increase 8.9% this year, according to the airports organization Infraero. The growth will be boosted by low airport fees in Brazil, said officials of Infraero, which operates 67 airports in the nation. Infraero claims that its average fee of $18 per departing passenger is lower than those charged by major U.S. and European airports. Passenger traffic at Infraero's airports last year rose 7% in comparison to 1995 levels, they said, and cargo traffic climbed 18% over the same period.
