Cost-cutting plans are dramatically improving the French aerospace industry's overall productivity and enhancing major companies' competitiveness. Despite tight labor regulations and complex political constraints, France's far-reaching efforts to boost competitiveness are bearing fruit. For example, major companies are achieving a sales per employee ratio in excess of FF1 million ($175,000) per year. A few years ago, companies considered that an ambitious goal.
RAYTHEON E-SYSTEMS WILL BUILD a Voice Communications Subsystem for the Portuguese Air Command and Control System under a $7.2-million contract from the systems integrator, which is the Hughes Information Systems Co. Thomson-CSF is prime contractor for the program. A key element of the voice communication subsystem will be four MDS-1 multiconferencing digital switches that Raytheon E-Systems provides in secure and nonsecure configurations.
Peter L. Drahn, airport director of the Dane County (Wis.) Regional Airport, has been elected chairman of the American Assn. of Airport Executives for 1997-98. Other officers elected were: vice chairman, Loretta A. Scott, manager of the Grand Prairie (Tex.) Municipal Airport; second vice chairman, James L. Morasch, airport director for Tri-Cities Airport, Pasco, Wash.; and secretary/treasurer, Larry D. Cox, president of the Memphis-Shelby County (Tenn.) Airport Authority.
AN ARIANE 44L BOOSTER has placed a twin telecommunications satellite payload into orbit--the fourth launch of the year for Arianespace. The payload comprised Inmarsat-3F4, built by Lockheed Martin, and Insat-2D, built by ISRO for the Indian government. The launch, Flight 97, had been moved up when the previous mission had to be delayed because of problems encountered with its PanAmSat payload. Flight 96, initially scheduled on May 13, is now set for June 25.
A new ``open skies'' agreement between the U.S. and the U.K. must include the ability of six U.S. carriers to mount a total of at least 23 daily round trips from their key U.S. gateways to London Heathrow Airport, says the General Accounting Office. Otherwise, a proposed alliance between American Airlines and British Airways would further reduce competition on several key U.S.-U.K. routes the two carriers already dominate, the agency said. How new carriers get take-off and landing slots for these new services at the slot-constrained airport remain a key issue.
For the second consecutive year, Southwest Airlines was ranked No. 1 by passengers for overall service and on-time performance, but researchers warn that all major U.S. carriers must reinvest profits in customer service to improve consumer relations or risk losing business.
The U.K. aerospace industry is making progress with a series of initiatives to improve its competitiveness but is looking to the new Labour government to provide more concrete support, including matching funding for technology demonstration projects.
The Air Force plans to test-drop two inert B61-11 earth-penetrating bombs from a B-2 this week as part of a series aimed at defining the repackaged nuclear weapon's aeroballistic dispersion patterns. Another two drops from a B-52 are scheduled for July.
Rono Dutta, senior vice president for planning at United Airlines, attributes the decline in the rate of growth of the carrier's international traffic in the first quarter to a drop in capacity. United lost approximately 75 available seats per flight when it replaced high-capacity Boeing 747-100s with Boeing 777s. Due to market restrictions in Japan, United could not make up the difference in seats with additional flights. The international traffic growth rate in the quarter slipped to 5.6%, which compares with 10% in the first quarter last year.
Scientists at Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratories are interested in licensing out a newly developed microspectrometer with a sugar cube-sized sensor head. The rugged, lightweight and low-cost technology can be tuned for sensing applications in the visible and infrared spectrum, according to Slo Rajic, development associate at the Lockheed Martin-operated labs.
The need for pilots to hone their hands-on flying skills in cockpits dominated by automation is a crucial but often overlooked factor in reducing accidents, according to airline industry officials attending American Airlines' Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program (AAMP) conference.
NASA'S FIRST X-38 TEST VEHICLE was shipped on June 4 to Dryden Flight Research Center in California, where the vehicle is scheduled to begin unpiloted flight tests in July. NASA is developing the X-38 primarily as an emergency crew return vehicle for the international space station. Atmospheric flight tests will begin with No. 131, the first of three subscale vehicles built largely by Johnson Space Center. Captive carry flights, in which the vehicle remains attached to a NASA B-52, will be conducted in July and early August.
German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe told his British counterpart that he expects a solution to Germany's budget problems on the Eurofighter 2000 by early July, as German industry officials warned they would have to stop work if a commitment to production did not come before the summer parliamentary recess.
American Eagle officials said the regional carrier will make a decision within the next month to initially acquire up to 67 regional jets, either the Embraer EMB-145 or Canadair RJ, both 50-seaters. Eagle pilots will fly regional jets, which AMR needs to remain competitive against Continental Express and Delta Connection carriers that already fly the small jets.
Hayes&Associates of San Diego has won a U.S. Navy follow-on contract to further develop its endothermic firefighter's suit. The design, which adds endothermic characteristics to standard and approved suit materials, ``substantially'' increases exposure time to intense heat and outlasts the limits of associated firefighting equipment, according to company President Claude Hayes. The goal of the new contract is to decrease suit weight and increase wearer comfort.
TRW and Hughes Space and Communications have received U.S. Air Force contracts to begin early development work on an advanced digital processor for the military's planned next-generation communications satellite system. The contracts are aimed at reducing some of the schedule and technology risk involved in development of the digital processing system for the planned Advanced EHF Milsatcom System, follow-on to the current Milstar system.
If there is one overarching message that comes through loud and clear in the ensuing special report on global competitiveness, it is this: U.S. companies are on the verge of dominating the aerospace/defense industry.
THE FIRST OF TWO X-RAY MULTI-MIRROR satellite telescope tubes, developed by Finland's Finavicomp for the European Space Agency's X-ray Spectroscopy Mission (XMM), were delivered to Daimler-Benz Aerospace's Dornier Satellitensysteme. The 23-ft. (7-meter), 348-lb. (158-kg.) tube, the main structural component of the observatory, is one of the largest single-composite structures manufactured for ESA. The XMM, a cornerstone in ESA's long-term space science program, is set for launch in 1999.
Samuel H. Evans (see photos) has been named vice president-Washington operations of the Telephonics Corp., Farmingdale, N.Y. He was vice president-business development of the Command Systems Div. Evans has been succeeded by Michael Canders, who was the division's director of business development.
Russia has sketched a follow-on START 3 Treaty that would mandate a 50% reduction in long-range nuclear arms, a cut well below the level set at the U.S./Russian summit in Helsinki in March.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' Predator unmanned aerial vehicle is scheduled late this week to drop 2 X 6-in., 0.5-lb. tactical meteorological weather dropsondes. The low-altitude exercise is to demonstrate the 2,230-lb. maximum weight UAV's ability to deploy sensors for weather reconnaissance for both military and civil customers, according to Keith Spreuer, program manager.
