Photograph: Hollow diamond wing configurations provide more locations for control surfaces and more flexibility in their arrangements. Lockheed Martin is seeking international partners to develop a family of transport/tanker aircraft for the 21st century. ``The next-generation aircraft has to be built in a world partnership,'' said Richard G. Kirkland, vice president for market development at Lockheed Martin's Aeronautical Systems Div.
PGA Portugalia Airlines took delivery last month of the second of four Embraer EMB-145 aircraft on order as it moves to establish itself as a major regional carrier on the Iberian Peninsula. The independent Portuguese airline, established in 1990, has converted options on another two EMB-145s into firm orders. Two more Embraer twinjets will be delivered in the fall and the remaining two next spring when the airline will have a total fleet of six EMB-145s and six Fokker 100s.
A single chip with impressive capabilities to detect the relative motion of objects and uses colors to interpret direction and velocity. BEV Stockplus invented the chip that it calls a generic visual perception processor. The design is modeled on the processing carried out in the eye and the visual cortex of the brain. Rather than relying on a large amount of digital signal processing, simpler algorithms are used in the chip to detect motion in any direction designated by the operator. Inputs to the chip can be images from a video camera, Flir or radar.
Photograph: The Cessna CBI private pilot program's Management Module fulfills FAR Part 141 reporting requirements and allows the instructor to monitor a student's progress. Computer-based instruction aimed at the fledgling private pilot is scheduled to become available in the spring of 1998. Cessna Aircraft Co., at the EAA's 45th annual convention, outlined its plan to bring CBI to the entry-level pilot via its 350 Cessna Pilot Training Centers in the U.S. The offering, according to Russell W.
A British Regional Airlines senior pilot made a safe emergency landing at Manchester airport after a landing gear malfunction on a British Aerospace ATP. The eight-year-old twin-turboprop, one of 15 ATPs operated by British Regional under a franchise agreement with British Airways, departed from Manchester for Knock, Ireland, with 66 passengers and a crew of four at 5 p.m. on Aug. 3. Shortly after takeoff, cockpit warning lights indicated a fault in the left landing gear as the wheels had not locked into the retract position.
Photograph: The rise of fractional ownership programs for business jets such as the Bombardier Global Express is helping to fuel new sales. A two-year ``golden age'' of business jet sales is continuing with deliveries up more than 40% in the first six months of 1997. Better yet, sales are expected to remain strong for several more years. Manufacturers delivered 184 business jets in the first half of 1997, compared to 130 for the corresponding period last year, according to John Lawson, president of sales for Bombardier Business Aircraft.
And ground-based telescopes have discovered the most distant galaxy ever seen. The young galaxy is as far as 13 billion light-years from Earth, placing it less than a billion years after the Big Bang that formed the universe. The galaxy was uncovered when the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the much closer galaxy cluster CL1358+62, located 5 billion light-years from Earth, thanks to a bit of good luck.
LAN Chile is improving its performance. The Santiago-based carrier reported profits of $24 million for the first six months of 1997, a 54.8% jump over its $15.5-million profit for the same period last year. LAN's Ladeco subsidiary helped in the turnaround, posting a $2.5-million profit for the January-May period. That compared to a $8-million loss for the same period in 1996. Ladeco expects to post a $6-million profit this year on sales of $90 million, in part by increasing services to Chilean destinations of Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt, La
Safety investigators are scrutinizing pilots' reactions and retrieving data from a Federal Express MD-11F to better understand why the aircraft crashed after a hard landing at Newark International Airport. Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board pressed their efforts to map and recover wreckage from the McDonnell Douglas freighter in the days after the July 31 accident, in large part to clear Newark for full operations.
Photograph: Pixel by pixel comparisons of left and right stereo images are necessary to build 3D images such as this rock field at the Pathfinder landing site. Software developed by Ames Research Center allowed processing of such images in about 10 min. Three-dimensional computerized terrain models developed by the NASA Ames Research Center's Intelligent Mechanisms Group have played a major supporting role for Pathfinder scientists in their study of the Ares Vallis flood plain on Mars.
Photograph: Three USAF T-3A Firefly trainers at the Air Force Academy have crashed in the last 2 1/2 years, killing six instructors and cadets. The U.S. Air Force's suspension of T-3A Firefly pilot-screening flights remained in force last week as investigators continued to look for the cause of an engine failure at the Air Force Academy (AFA) on July 23. The latest incident followed a fatal T-3A crash on June 25 which prompted a special investigation into the aircraft's flight characteristics and the service's pilot screening program (AW&ST Aug. 4, p.
Photograph: The cockpit would feature three electronic displays developed for the Model 609 by Rockwell Collins. Although most companies would use two pilots in IFR flight operations, Bell Boeing officials plan to obtain FAA certification for single pilot operation of the aircraft. A full-scale mockup of the Model 609 (shown below) will be displayed at the National Business Aviation Assn. convention in Dallas next month.
In a recent CIA publication, National Reconnaissance Office historian Gerald K. Haines claims that during the Cold War the Air Force knowingly attributed many UFO reports triggered by high-flying U-2s and SR-71s to ``natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature inversions.'' Not so, says one leading UFO debunker, Aviation Week's own Phillip J. Klass.
Avianca is to unveil cut-rate vacation packages in league with major hotels in Colombia later this month as part of the carrier's campaign of more than $8.5 million to improve its infrastructure and boost tourism. The Colombian carrier is committing $6 million by the end of the year to improving its facilities and equipment, other than aircraft. The remainder is to be spent on improving security for its customers and its operations and selling tourists on traveling to the South American nation. For a further boost, Avianca is awaiting U.S.
The U.S. and Turkey should set a new agenda for strengthening their bilateral security relationship, to deal with the new balances of power in the eastern Mediterranean, say U.S. strategic analysts. In particular, they stress the urgent need of the two NATO allies to work closely on countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Turkey shares borders with Syria, Iran and Iraq, which are widely considered among the world's most dangerous proliferators.
The U.S. Air Force awarded $149 million in contracts to six companies to develop sensors for the National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, which is slated to combine U.S. military and civilian satellite weather monitoring. The contractors were Hughes, ITT Aerospace, Ball Aerospace, Orbital Sciences and Saab Ericsson.
NATO ally Turkey plans to expedite bids to equip its helicopter fleet with active and passive antimissile systems in the wake of two recent aircraft losses to suspected terrorist attacks. Turkish defense sources estimate a cost of $100,000 per helicopter to equip the military's diverse fleet, which includes 30 AH-1P Cobras, nine AH-1W Super Cobras, 19 Cougars and 17 Mi-17s. In addition, Turkey is to produce 30 more Cougars under a joint project, and recently solicited bids for 50 attack helicopters (AW&ST July 7, p. 47).
Photograph: Russian Soyuz SL-4 lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome on about 1 million-lb. thrust carrying the Soyuz TM-26 replacement crew to Mir. The crew docked with Mir Aug. 7. Astronauts on shuttle Mission 85 and the joint U.S./Russian crew on Mir are moving into an intense week of flight operations in different orbits, following the launch of Discovery on a varied science mission and the docking of the new Soyuz TM-26 crew with Mir.
Charles H. Noski has been appointed executive vice president/chief financial officer of the United Technologies Corp., Hartford, Conn. He was vice chairman/CFO of the Hughes Electronics Corp. Noski succeeds Stephen F. Page, who is now president/chief executive officer of UTC's Otis Elevator Co.
Ovadia Harari (see photo) has been named as executive vice president of Israel Aircraft Industries. Menahem Shmul succeeds Harari as corporate vice president/general manager of the Military Aircraft Group. David Harari, formerly corporate director for business development, has become corporate deputy vice president/director of research and development. Menahem Tadmor is now director of corporate industrial services.
Two Eurocopter AS-350 AStars and an A-365 Dauphin are shown operating from the Dallas Central Business District Heliport, located at the southern end of the Dallas Convention Center. The nearly 4-acre, public-use heliport, which opened in January, 1994, now is logging about 4,000 operations a year. Flights associated with the National Business Aviation Assn. convention being held in Dallas this year should increase that total to 5,000 for 1997, according to Lana Furra, manager.
With major airlines expected to hire 4,200 pilots this year, up from 3,080 in 1996, the retention rate for the Air Force's most experienced pilots continues to drop like a rock. The fraction of experienced pilots taking a bonus and staying on board at the nine-year mark has plummeted to 32% from 81% in 1994, says personnel guru Brig. Gen. John Regni. Already this year, 626 pilots have said goodbye to active duty--more than the 498 that left in all of 1996.
