Atlas 2A booster successfully launched the Space Systems/Loral Tempo direct broadcast satellite Mar. 8 from Cape Canaveral. The launch was delayed twice by technical problems and a third time by excessive winds at the launch site. Tempo is the most powerful direct broadcast satellite ever launched (AW&ST Mar. 10, p. 25).
American Eurocopter of Grand Prairie, Tex., has begun advising all U.S. customers whenever one of its aircraft is considered destroyed. The move addresses safety concerns about the safety and reliability of parts salvaged from badly damaged aircraft and returned to service as well as airframes rebuilt from almost scratch. Once the helicopter's serial number is listed on American Eurocopter's data base, its parts should only be re-used with specific written permission of American Eurocopter, according to Don Lambert, vice president for customer services.
Three months away from Hong Kong's handover to China, Cathay Pacific Airways, the colony's de facto flag carrier, has reported a HK$3.8-billion ($488-million) net profit for 1996, a 27.9% gain on its 1995 performance.
Beginning this week, the FAA will require Boeing 737 operators to inspect for a cracked bearing in the main rudder power control unit that could seize and cause uncommanded rudder movement. The action was prompted by a field report submitted through United Airlines of an ``incorrect'' bolt installed in the bearing of the main rudder power control unit's (PCU) internal summing lever assembly, according to the FAA. The lever transfers rudder pedal input from the pilot to the PCU, which in turn ports hydraulic fluid to the rudder actuator.
The ARH series of d.c.-d.c. converters is designed for use in space and other radiation-hostile environments. The new converters are designed to withstand a total dose of greater than 100,000 Rads(Si) and dose rates of 111 Rads(Si)/sec. They comply with Mil-Prf-38534 Class H with full Class K processing and meet the derating requirements of Mil-Std-975 and Mil-Std-1547. The units provide up to 30 w. of output and operate over an input range of 18-50 v. d.c. Their forward topology single transistor runs at 250 KHz.
The future of business and general aviation largely will depend on the outcome of dogfights now being waged in the back halls of Capitol Hill. ``The next year or two look very good,'' according to Edward M. Bolen, president of the Washington-based General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. (GAMA). But after that, things are going to depend ``on how the government views aviation and if they try to raise the cost of business aviation,'' he said.
This Holiday Detector can find faults in nonconducting coatings, linings and membranes within a thickness of 10-600 microns using an output of 500-6,000 v. An intact surface will not conduct an electrical charge from the detector. The unit weighs 3.8 lb. and measures 6 in. X 6.3 in. X 3.7 in. The kit comes with a shoulder bag and test probe handle. A 6-in. silicone rubber electrode, swivel, pointed probe, two extension rods and carrying case are optional. Buckleys Ltd., Beta Works, Range Road, Kent, England CT21 6HG.
An old concept that would use a network of essentially off-the-shelf receiver/transmitters and current aircraft transponders is being demonstrated to the FAA here as a possible low-cost alternative for airport surface surveillance.
Martha T. Rainsville has become the first woman to be named a state adjutant general in the U.S. National Guard. She was sworn in and promoted to major general on Mar. 1 in Vermont. Rainsville was elected Feb. 20 by the state legislature to head the Vermont Air National Guard.
A Parliamentary committee has warned against further cuts in U.K. military spending, noting the defense budget is already stretched thin and funding peaks for several major new equipment programs will converge soon after the turn of the century.
BMW Rolls-Royce of Germany plans to offer the 10,000-shp. BR700-TP turboshaft engine to power the proposed European Future Large Aircraft (FLA) military transport. The BMW Rolls-Royce-led industrial team is comprised of France's Hispano-Suiza, ZF Luftfahrttechnik of Germany and Rolls-Royce Military Aero Engines of the U.K. As envisioned, the BR700-TP would drive a Dowty Aerospace or Ratier-Figeac propeller. A competing engine, the M138, is being offered by France's Snecma, Motoren- und Turbinen-Union in Germany and FiatAvio in Italy. The M138 is based on the M88's core.
A traffic surveillance drone being developed at Georgia Tech Research Institute could identify the source of traffic congestion problems and help highway authorities better respond to accidents by providing them with live video and sound from the scene.
THE FIRST OF SIX NEXT-GENERATION Intelsat 8 satellites was headed to its orbital slot over the Indian Ocean late last week. Controllers at the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization in Washington were commanding the spacecraft's apogee motors to maneuver it to 64 deg. E. Long. Deployment of the solar arrays and Ku-band reflectors was due to be complete by Mar. 10. The high-powered, 46-transponder satellite is expected to begin service in May. The Lockheed Martin Series 7000 spacecraft, dubbed Intelsat 801, was launched Feb. 28 at 1:07 a.m.
A unique funding proposal from the Kobe municipal government has won approval of Japan's Ministry of Transport for construction of a third major airport in the Osaka-Kobe region of central Japan.
ALCATEL ESPACE FILED an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to operate a $3.5-billion global constellation of 64 low-Earth orbit satellites. Known as SkyBridge (formerly Sativod), the system would provide a variety of high-speed, broadband communications services, including Internet access, high-speed data communications and bandwidth on demand. SkyBridge is expected to be operational in 2001. European companies interested in building the system's buses include Aerospatiale and Matra Marconi.
A military ``space control'' architecture compatible with recently updated U.S. policies may be evolving to a more refined ``space superiority'' strategy that acknowledges space cannot ``belong'' to a single country.
By a vote of more than 2-1, Trans World Airlines' 5,200 flight attendants recently ousted the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants as their collective bargaining representative and replaced it with the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). The vote brings virtually all unionized TWA employees who work outside the cockpit into the IAM, which now represents about 21,000 or 80% of TWA's unionized workforce. The final vote tally was 2,886 for the IAM, 1,078 for the incumbent union and 653 for the Assn. of Flight Attendants. William L.
LOCKHEED MARTIN IS KICKING OFF a long-term partnership with Dassault Systemes and IBM to develop the next generation of Dassault/IBM's CATIA computer-based development tools for aerospace applications. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Sector's goal is a system that creates a virtual CAD/CAM environment in which engineers can simulate every aspect of an aircraft's design, support and manufacture, before any metal is cut. The company also wants the system to support real-time links among its design and production facilities.
Aerospace sales at Rolls-Royce rose by 569 million pounds ($921.8 million) in 1996, a 24% increase over the previous year, reflecting the turnaround in the civil aviation market and more stability in the military sector.
Flight tests of Russia's Be-103 multipurpose amphibian are slated to begin at the end of this month, with domestic and international certification to be completed by the end of 1997 if the tests go according to plan.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Telecommunications has been named by Telesat of Canada to provide its first direct broadcast satellite. But Telesat, a government-owned communications satellite company, still must win government approval for the purchase. The 32-transponder A2100 is to be launched into Canada's orbital position at 91-deg. W. Long. and is to have a 15-year lifespan. Lockheed Martin also has a follow-on contract to build two more A2100s for GE Americom. GE-3 is to be launched by an Atlas 2AS late this year, while GE-4 is to follow on a Proton.
United Airlines settled last week with union leadership of its pilots and mechanics groups, offering generous mid-term contract improvements. The carrier still faces its warring flight attendants' union. The pending contracts set out two wage increases of 5% each, effective this July and in July, 1998. The agreement also calls for restoration in the year 2000 of wage rates that were in effect in July, 1994, when the majority of United employees committed to cuts related to the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
Some travel agents who suffered financially when airlines capped commissions at the lesser of $50 or 5% of ticket price are finding greater profits and saving their clients money by turning to charters. Tony Helbling, the marketing director of FBO Flightcraft of Portland, Ore., said chartering can be less expensive than airline travel if 4-6 people fly together. ``We pay agents a 5% brokerage fee,'' he said. Helbling plans to use the National Business Aircraft Assn.'s Travel$ense software as a tool for pitching the value of charters to travel agents (AW&ST Feb. 24, p.
SVOBODNY COSMODROME, RUSSIA'S NEW launch complex, is up and running with its first launch, that of a small Zeya military communications satellite. The 87-kg. (191-lb.) payload was launched into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit Mar. 4 at 5 a.m. local time (2 a.m. GMT) on a Start-1, a modified SS-25 mobile ICBM. The cosmodrome is a former strategic nuclear missile base in the Amur Oblast region of far eastern Russia less than 60 mi. from the border with China's province of Manchuria.
