The European airline industry is steadily growing. For the first six months of 1996, international passenger traffic increased 7.7%, and the summer's peak demand is even more promising, according to Assn. of European Airlines (AEA) officials. According to a recent AEA forecast, traffic growth is expected to average 6.4% per year. The strongest growth rates are anticipated in Turkish and Irish flows; Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus and Malta are expected to remain below average.
PRATT&WHITNEY has completed tests of the F100-PW-229A, an improved version of the F100-229 engine that can either provide more thrust than the existing F100-229 or extend the engine's life at existing thrust levels. Pratt engineers believe the new powerplant, which is fitted with an increased-efficiency fan, could lengthen the inspection interval of the F100 to 6,000 cycles, up from 4,300 in the current F100-229. The engine could be in production as early as 1998.
SEA LAUNCH CO. has broken ground for its Long Beach, Calif., home port facility. The 15.66-acre site, formerly occupied by the U.S. Navy, will serve as operations base for the two vessels used to conduct commercial satellite launches from remote sites in the Pacific Ocean (AW&ST July 29, p. 56). With the ground-breaking, the Sea Launch Co.'s goal of first launch in mid-1998 remains on schedule, the company said. Boeing, Kvaerner of Norway, RSC-Energia of Moscow and Ukraine's Yuzhnoye space organization are partners in the project.
The U.S. Senate is slated to take up in September a House-passed bill containing an array of measures to beef up aviation security and augment the nation's counter-terrorism programs. Provisions include security checks in the hiring of passenger-screening personnel, higher performance standards for airport and airline security staffs and the assignment of FBI agents to high-risk airports. The House bill also would allow airports to tap into the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) to pay for better security, both in personnel and equipment.
The dark side of tech transfer may be showing in San Diego. At least $10 million in federal, regional and state defense conversion and technology transfer funding has shown little result and produced few new products, according to local researchers and scientists familiar with the programs. Challenges include a labyrinthine bureaucracy led by ex-city and former military and aerospace officials with little background in technology transfer.
Partial deregulation of Philippine airline services has prompted the entry of four new airlines--Grand International Airways, Air Philippines, Cebu Pacific Air and Asian Spirit Airlines--into the country's aviation sector. Grand Air is the largest of the newcomers. It already is offering services to Hong Kong and Taipei, traditionally two of Philippine Airlines' strongest routes, and has applied for services to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seoul.
A new instrument developed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md., measures residual stress more quickly and with higher resolution than previous equipment. The technique, which uses neutron diffraction to measure the changes in interatomic spacing in polycrystalline materials, can more accurately predict the failure or fracture of critical aerospace metal and ceramic parts, according to Henry Prask, physicist.
World Airways, citing unprofitability, will cease operation of regularly scheduled flights. President and CEO Charles W. Pollard said that ``by returning to our roots the market will begin to reflect the value of our core business''--that is, operation of military charters and international aircraft leasing. World's New York-Tel Aviv service, which was inaugurated in July, 1995, will operate through Sept. 3, and its New York-Johannesburg service, launched on June 23, through Aug. 23.
A small team of researchers at the U.S. Air Force's Rome Laboratory is investigating software and technologies that can better protect critical military and civil information systems and data from the growing threat of attacks. The Information Warfare Team at the laboratory is charged with developing capabilities to protect the nation's weapon and communications systems and computers and networks. It also is tasked with setting up a plan for integrating information-warfare research at the Rome, N.Y.-based laboratory.
The Pentagon's still-classified budget planning documents for Fiscal 1998 sacrifice or delay upgrades to existing aircraft in order to hold the funding baseline for next-generation programs like the F-22, Joint Strike Fighter, unmanned aerial vehicles and the Joint Airborne Sigint Architecture.
McDonnell Douglas and United Airlines are evaluating a NASA-developed cockpit system that provides pilots with the latest weather data in easy-to-understand graphic form. The Cockpit Weather Information system (Cwin) summarizes weather information sources, from surface observations to lightning strike reports, and constructs a four-color graphic display backed by text and other data. The integrated data is satellite downlinked at a high-rate to the host aircraft and displayed on a 10-in.
Astounding findings that point to the presence of life on Mars could mark a huge breakthrough in the search for life beyond Earth and hold major implications for the U.S. planetary program. A team led by scientists at NASA and Stanford University unveiled startling results last week from a painstaking analysis of an ancient meteorite from Mars. They concluded that organic compounds and mineral features found in the potato-size rock show that tiny, primitive, single-cell life forms existed on Mars more than 3.6 billion years ago.
Yves Michot's appointment as the new chief of Aerospatiale signals the French government's resolve to complete the consolidation of the domestic aerospace sector, French industry experts say.
Mark Dennen has been named director finance and administration for Wayfarer Aviation, White Plains, N.Y. He was corporate controller of Nippon Zeon of America Inc.
LOCKHEED MARTIN has agreed to pay settlements to neighbors of its former Burbank, Calif., factory for claims of health problems and declines in property values. Chemicals found in the soil include carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and methylene chloride. The settlements reportedly total $60 million to 1,300 people.
The cost of shifting U.S. troops from Okinawan bases could eat up most of the minor increase in defense spending that the Japanese government has approved for fiscal 1997. The government has set a cap on 1997 defense spending of 2.88% above the current level, or about $1.3 billion added to the $44.87 billion now being spent. The cap is a compromise between the 4.5% boost sought by conservatives and a 2.6% increase sought by socialists and the finance ministry.
Despite more investment in new airports than any other region of the world, the Asia/Pacific region is struggling to keep up with the demands for air transport services. The 8-10% annual growth is double the rate for the rest of the world. The region, dominated by use of wide-body jets, had 35% of the world's international scheduled passengers in 1993. By 2010, the share is expected to soar to 51% of the world's total, according to Anthony Laven, director, Infrastructure (Asia/Pacific), for the International Air Transport Assn. (IATA).
A TEAM OF ENGINEERS FROM BOEING Commercial Airplane Group and Concentra Corp. will spend the rest of this year completing development of a strategic electrical-configuration application to reduce the cycle time for routing aircraft wire harnesses. Boeing selected Burlington, Mass.-based Concentra's Worldwide Client Services Group to use the ICAD System knowledge-based engineering software to devise the system to automate the assembly-to-order process used to configure electrical routing for the harnesses.
A long fight over the cost of the yen has ended with Japanese and U.S. negotiators agreeing on the original 60:40 split in production workshares for the Mitsubishi F-2A/B close-air-support fighter. The production schedule includes provisions for Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries of Japan to assemble about 60% of the F-2's General Electric F110-129 engine. Mitsubishi and Lockheed Martin are now completing an agreement for licensed production of the airframe.
