Finnair's operating profit rose by 19.5% during the past year, but the airline warned that prospects for growth in the current year are substantially weaker. Pre-tax profits for the year that ended Mar. 31, 1996, were FM533 million ($113.4 million) up from FM419 ($89.1 million) the previous year. The number of passengers carried rose by 10% to 5.96 million. But the slowdown of economic growth in Finland and the carrier's key European markets means Finnair won't add any new destinations and will concentrate on curbing costs.
Orel R. Kiphart has been appointed vice president of Zoltek Companies Inc. of St. Louis and president of subsidiary Zoltek Corp. He was director of carbon products for BFGoodrich Aerospace.
THE NINTH INTELSAT 7 satellite is undergoing checkout following the deployment of all its antennas. Intelsat 709 was successfully launched June 15 at 2:55 a.m. EDT on an Ariane 44P from Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite will be stationed over the Atlantic Ocean at 18 deg. West long., though it is being checked out at 57 deg. West. Testing of the bus of the Space Systems/Loral spacecraft is due to be completed early this week. Payload tests are to run to July 12. Intelsat expects to bring the satellite into commercial service early in August.
Ed Hennessy has been named vice president-sales and marketing of DY4 Systems Inc. of Ottawa. He was vice president-North American sales for the Government Electronics Group of Mercury Computer Systems. Other recent appointments were: Chuck Parks, U.S. sales manager, who was Western sales manager for Radstone Technology; and Douglas Patterson, technical marketing manager, who was product marketing manager for Radstone. $end 7 WHO'S WHERE Frank T. Curtin
A specially equipped Schweizer 300C helicopter is being used to produce specialized digital terrain models for highway, pipeline and similar ``right-of-way'' construction projects. The trailerable 300C is configured with a kinematic Global Positioning System navigation unit geo-referenced with an airborne laser rangefinder that collects over 8,000 datapoints per sec., according to Morgan D. Reed, senior systems engineer. The helicopter, operated by John E. Chance&Assoc., Lafayette, La., precisely flies and maps a 110-yard swath from an altitude of about 328 ft.
ASIASAT HAS GONE PUBLIC. Trading in shares of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Ltd. began on Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges on June 19 and June 18, respectively. Some 121 million shares had been sold in the initial offering, raising the equivalent of $313 million. Some 16 million shares traded in Hong Kong the first day, closing almost 25% higher than the issue price. AsiaSat owns and operates two satellites and expects to launch a third late next year. It plans to launch a fourth in 1999, near the end of its first satellite's operational life.
IMPRECISE MEASUREMENTS by differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) methods for Japan's Alflex automatic landing vehicle has prompted NASDA to postpone the start of its phase one flight tests to June 28. The cause was traced to a signal from ground equipment that was reflecting off of a building at the test site at Woomera Airfield in South Australia. The spurious reflection was being picked up by the DGPS equipment and throwing its measurements off. Three tests are scheduled in the first phase for the 1,600-lb. vehicle and about 15 in all this summer. The 20-ft.
U.S. Southern Command and the Air Force Space Warfare Center are jointly developing new ways to support Special Operations Forces (SOF) by linking national space resources with novel tracking and locating devices.
Jonathan Ornstein, chief executive of Virgin Express, has been named 1995 Regional Airline Executive of the Year for his work as president/chief executive of Continental Express until resigning in late 1995.
GE Aircraft Engines has formally launched the full-scale development program for the CF34-8C, selected by Bombardier to power the planned CRJ-X, the 70-passenger stretch of the 50-seat Canadair Regional Jet. The engine, a 13,000-lb.-thrust growth model of the CF34-3B turbofan that powers the smaller CRJ, was launched even though Bombardier has not formally began the aircraft program. A Bombardier official said the company hoped to launch the 70-seater by the end of the year. ``We've launched our own program and committed to the testbed,'' according to Lloyd B.
Western aerospace suppliers involved in IPTN's N250 project see the program as a stepping- stone to further business in a region with great growth potential. A number of subcontractors on the N250 program are already discussing further participation in IPTN's project to build the N2130 100-seat regional jet. ``It is exciting to be part of a new adventure in that part of the world where you are surrounded by growth as opposed to the lurching around in Europe or North America,'' according to Tony Edwards, chief executive of Dowty Aerospace.
The site for an all-new international airport to serve the Paris area in the next century has been chosen--Beauvilliers, 50 mi. southwest of the French capital. No construction time frame has been determined by the French government, and the planned airport's first phase is not expected to be completed until 2010-15. French Transport Ministry officials say selecting a site for Paris' third hub was considered as a long-lead precautionary measure to ensure additional runway capacity well into the 2000s (AW&ST Apr. 8, p. 38).
Kurt Herwald, president/chief executive officer of Stevens Aviation, Greenville, S.C., has been appointed chairman of the National Air Transportation Assn. board of directors. He succeeds Gwen Mayo, president of Mayo Aviation of Denver. Michael Pittard, chairman of Aviation Charter Services, was named NATA vice chairman. Thomas Ransom, vice president of Avitat/Qualitron, has become treasurer, succeeding Jeff Baum of Wisconsin Aviation.
The LeCroy 9384M is a 1 GHz. digital oscilloscope that is optimized for avionics and telecommunications applications. It features an analog bandwidth of 1 GHz. and a single shot sampling rate of up to 4 gigasamples/sec. Each channel can perform 1 GS/sec. analog/digital conversion. The four-channel device has 500 kilobytes of memory per channel and is available with advanced math, a floppy disk and an internal graphics printer. Memory can be reconfigured among the channels. LeCroy, 700 Chestnut Ridge Road, Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. 10977-6499.
Susan Collins has been appointed vice president-consumer marketing for the Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV, based in Los Angeles. She was director of marketing for Viewers Choice.
Lisa Fries Gardner will be secretary of the Foster Wheeler Corp., Clinton, N.J., in addition to being vice president/chief compliance officer. She was assistant secretary, and succeeds Jack E. Deones.
PIERRE SPARACOMICHAEL A. DORNHEIM ( PARIS LOS ANGELES)
European Space officials are hoping they can put Ariane 5 back on track without an extra test flight or much delay of the second flight, to keep within shrinking budgets. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the French space agency (CNES) formed a nine member accident investigation board last week. It is focusing on how qualification and acceptance tests were performed and whether they were appropriate, given the disastrous June 4 flight of the 1.6-million-pound launcher.
D.E. (Denny) Thompson has been appointed executive vice president of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif. He had been vice president-business management.
The city of Mobile and American Regional Aircraft Industry Inc. (AMRAI) are working together to locate an assembly plant for a 70-plus-passenger, stretched version of the Indonesian N250 in this south Alabama community. Mobile's city fathers, backed by the chamber of commerce, regard the AMRAI project as a means to strengthen a Deep South niche in the U.S. aerospace marketplace.
Europe's top missile makers are offering a ramjet-powered, radar-guided weapon to meet the U.K.'s requirement for a future medium-range air-to-air missile (FMRAAM) for the Eurofighter 2000. The Meteor is also designed to equip the Swedish air force JAS 39 Gripen and is based largely on the S225XR design, which emerged from concept studies done by British Aerospace, Saab, Alenia and GEC-Marconi over the past three years.
Jeffrey A. Owens has been named general manager of the industrial repair unit of Advanced Technology Services Inc., Peoria, Ill. He succeeds John Semmelroth, who has resigned.
