LOCKHEED MARTIN has agreed to purchase Hughes Aircraft Co.'s share of their Earth Observation Satellite Co. (Eosat) joint venture. Financial terms have not been disclosed, but Lockheed Martin said the price would be ``modest.'' Eosat was formed in 1984 to commercialize the U.S. Landsat remote sensing satellite program. Eosat operates the Landsat 4 and 5 spacecraft and has exclusive rights to market their data. The venture also receives and distributes data from the European ERS-1 and ERS-2 and Japanese JRS remote sensing satellites.
Louise Roy has become senior vice president-marketing of Air France. She was vice president-North America. Roy has been succeeded by John W. Power, who was vice president-marketing.
The Pentagon's primary military goal at the end of the 20th century is to create a battlefield environment in which U.S. forces know a foe's intentions with precision, early enough to foil completion of his plans. If the goal is achieved, U.S. forces could dominate combat. In fact, sufficient prior knowledge of intent might even keep a conflict from breaking out.
CZECH REPUBLIC AIR FORCE officials have approved the final configuration of the Aero Vodochody L-159 light multirole combat aircraft. Rockwell International is integrating NATO-compatible avionics into the 500-kt., 8-g aircraft. Critical design review is scheduled for June 30 with a production decision to follow in late summer or early fall. First flight is set for spring, 1997. The Czech Republic and Poland are negotiating a swap of the L-159 for an antitank version of the PSL-Swidnik W-3W Huzar helicopter.
Prompted by two fatal accidents involving Sukhoi Su-29 and Su-31 aircraft, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is urging scrutiny of aircraft flight control systems and immediate adoption of more stringent inspection procedures used by FAA safety officials.
South Korea has withdrawn from an Asian partnership to develop a 100-seat regional jet after China insisted it become a minority partner. In talks last week in Beijing, the Chinese insisted that the Korean Aircraft Development Corp. led by the Samsung Group take only a 12.5% stake in the program. ``The Chinese offered that the Koreans take a participant position and not a partnership, which the Korean parties could not accept,'' Korean Air Executive Vice President Yi Taek Shim said.
Chek Lap Kok, the $9-billion airport under construction on an island here, could well provide an early test of how to plan for the new 500-600-seat aircraft envisioned by Airbus and Boeing. That proposition has been triggered by an agreement between British and Chinese officials to authorize a second runway. The airport's master plan called for the second runway to open in 2000, but the new agreement should push that date forward to late 1998, according to Airport Authority Executive Director Henry Townsend.
U.S. military, government and industrial procurement could be dramatically streamlined by ``intelligent agent'' software now being refined by Enterprise Integration Technologies/VeriFone, Menlo Park, Calif. Now in the working prototype stage, the Smart Procurement System would speed the acquisition of certain items and commodities by electronically distributing Request For Quotes to qualified vendors via the Internet.
Not only is the FAA losing its top safety administrator, agency chief David R. Hinson is likely to leave before the end of the year. The FAA is looking both inside and outside the agency to replace Anthony Broderick, the associate administrator for regulation and certification. Broderick, a well-respected administrator and safety official who held his job for eight years, was prompted to retire this week in the wake of the agency's bungled oversight of ValuJet.
Japan Air System, the country's third biggest carrier, expects to form a charter carrier by next April to fly tourists from local cities to southeast Asia, China, Hawaii and Pacific island destinations. JAS, which had revenues of 297.5 billion yen ($2.8 billion) and profits of 100 million yen ($940,000) in 1995, reports steadily increasing charter work. It flew 25 charter flights last year. The charter subsidiary will start with two leased JAS aircraft and use foreign flight crews to save personnel costs.
Jean-Louis Marce has been appointed chairman/chief executive officer of France-based Intespace. He succeeds Georges Estibal, who has resigned. Marce was president.
Soon, the U.S. Congress will start putting pressure on the Pentagon to reduce expenditures for electronic intelligence-gathering aircraft. Why, lawmakers will ask, does the U.S. need the Air Force's RC-135 Rivet Joint, Navy's EP-3 Aries and Army's RC-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL)? A preview of this exercise was seen in the decision to retire the Air Force's EF-111 electronic jamming aircraft and train Air Force and Navy crews to fly the Navy's EA-6B.
McDonnell Douglas' selection as one of the two competing developers of the U.S. Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) has boosted its standing in the bidding war to build a similar missile for the U.K. But if the decision leaves the U.K. without a clearcut path to a cooperative program with the U.S., since the other finalist--Lockheed Martin--has not bid on the U.K. program.
Information warfare is normally a murky concept. But on board an RC-135 Rivet Joint intelligence gathering aircraft flying in a large-scale exercise, the U.S. Air Force's efforts to break down the wall between intelligence and operations takes on an unusual clarity. The U.S. Air Force and intelligence community broke precedence by allowing an Aviation Week&Space Technology editor to participate in Green Flag and to observe a Rivet Joint crew in operation.
Rolls-Royce has completed design work on a derated derivative of the Trent 800 turbofan which it will offer to power the proposed 600-seat Airbus A3XX transport and possible growth versions of the Boeing 747. Tentatively dubbed the Trent 900, the engine will have a new core but retain substantial commonality.
During the Cold War, Desert Storm and the current era of proliferating threats, the U.S. has relied on a small fleet of electronic data-gathering aircraft dubbed Rivet Joint to closely monitor foreign military activity. But until now, military and intelligence officials have carefully shielded Rivet Joint from public knowledge. With the support of the Air Intelligence Agency and the Air Force headquarters air staff, Aviation Week&Space Technology Senior Military Editor David A. Fulghum became the first journalist to fly on a Rivet Joint aircraft.
Accident investigators believe the cockpit crew of Garuda Indonesia Airways' Flight 865 undertook a by-the-book effort to stop the spread of an engine fire in their DC-10-30CF transport as they began a takeoff from Fukuoka International Airport on June 13. What is less clear is why they elected to abort the takeoff after achieving V1 and Vr rather than continue their climbout and make an emergency landing. Both pilots were severely injured in the crash.
TWO U.S. ARMY UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters crashed at Ft. Campbell, Ky. during a rescue demonstration last week. Range 54 had been littered with aircraft parts and soldiers to simulate a crash site. After a low-level approach, the helicopter pilots were preparing to flare prior to dropping fast ropes for descent of the soldiers onboard when their main rotors struck each other. The blades shattered and the aircraft tumbled into the demonstration area from an altitude of 100-150 ft. Aircrews were from the 9th battalion/101st aviation brigade.
Astronauts from the U.S., France and Canada, launched on board the space shuttle Columbia June 20, are beginning 17 days of materials processing research and life sciences investigations important to future space station operations. The flight is designated the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission.
U.S. transportation officials, acknowledging they mishandled their oversight of ValuJet Airlines, have issued new rules on contract maintenance, forced a key safety official into retirement and proposed a new mission mandate for the FAA. The FAA's latest actions will impose more regulatory responsibility upon airlines that outsource maintenance and training. In addition, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena wants the agency to focus solely on safety and abandon its secondary role of promoting aviation.
JAPAN'S DEFENSE AGENCY has grounded all 57 Sikorsky/Mitsubishi SH-60Js following an engine fire and loss of the main rotor and its tail boom last week during training exercises in Hawaii. The helicopter was one of three from the Japanese destroyer Hiei taking part in multinational Rim of the Pacific (Rimpac) naval exercises at Barbers Point Naval Air Station on Oahu. Six of eight persons on board, including four crew members, were injured. The SH-60 was not flying when the fire broke out. It lost all of its rotorblades and its tailboom was sheared off.
Rep. Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.), who chairs the House aviation subcommittee, has scheduled hearings this week not only on the FAA's oversight of ValuJet Airlines, but whether its grounding was politically motivated. In an unusual display of bipartisanship, Rep. James Oberstar (D.-Minn.), the ranking minority member of the subcommittee, agrees those hearings are necessary. A long-time critic of the FAA, he also complained that the agency keeps too much safety information too close to its vest.
Any new customers for the MD-95 will have to accept the airframe design decisions made by ValuJet in the event the Atlanta-based carrier cancels its current order for 50 of the small twin-jet aircraft. As launch customer, ValuJet had the opportunity to request a fuselage stretch of 19 in. beyond that already planned by Douglas. ValuJet plans to fly the MD-95 with 129 seats in a single-class arrangement (AW&ST, Oct. 30, 1995, p. 35).
THE U.S. AIR FORCE Space Command has taken control of a satellite equipped with experimental threat-warning sensors, autonomous space navigation systems and advanced flight computers. The Technology for Autonomous Operational Survivability (Taos) satellite was launched in March, 1994, under the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center's Space Test Program.
Capt. Dennis K. Kruse (USN, Ret.) has been named executive director of the American Society of Naval Engineers, Alexandria, Va. He was executive director of the Policy, Operations and Acquisition Support Directorate of the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.
