Kristin M. Martin has been named general counsel of International Aviation Services Ltd. of Ft. Worth. Other recent appointments were: Jeffrey Conrad, director business development; Charles J. Germany, director of human resources; Louis C. Werner, director of sales; Wayne Fiorenza, manager of paint and safety; J.K. Sheets, manager of maintenance; and Patrick Browne, manager of technical sales.
Remember that Clinton Administration policy that promised the new, higher-resolution U.S. remote sensing systems in the works would be shuttered only in the most extreme of circumstances, such as wartime? Think again. New restrictions are in the works that would limit the imaging of Israel. The proposed rules have been drawn up with the backing of the State and Defense Departments. They would prohibit U.S. companies from distributing satellite imagery of Israel with better resolution than what is commercially available from foreign distributors.
Bell Helicopter is going flat-out at its Mirabel, Canada, commercial helicopter production facility. A 21,000-sq.-ft. addition has been completed and sales of 200 new Model 407s have necessitated two and even three shifts in some departments. Overall, the factory expects to produce about 250 helicopters this year, according to Dennis Lacroix, marketing director. Currently Bell builds the 206B JetRanger, 206L4 LongRanger, 407 and Model 212 and 412 helicopters at Mirabel, near Montreal.
Air France, buoyed by its recent progress in restructuring, envisions cutting its life-sustaining umbilical cord to the French government in less than two years. Christian Blanc, chairman of Groupe Air France SA holding company, expects the loss-plagued carrier at least to be breaking even by June, 1997.
A GARUDA INDONESIA McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashed on takeoff from the Fukuoka airport on June 13, killing three and leaving 16 seriously injured, including the pilot and copilot. Garuda Flight 865 was departing the airport on the Japanese island of Kyushu en route to Bali with vacationers. There were 261 passengers on board and 15 crewmembers. Expert witnesses said the DC-10 had just lifted off when flames were seen coming from the No. 3 General Electric CF-6 engine.
Wade Wallace has been promoted to Central U.S. airline division account manager for the Aviation Service Corp. of Miami. He was branch manager in the Dallas customer service center.
Since the end of the Cold War, has the likelihood that a nuclear weapon will explode on U.S. soil gone up or gone down? The answer of a new Harvard study is unequivocal--it has gone up. Harvard's strategic analysts contend that either a state or a terrorist group could be ready in a matter of months to detonate a nuclear explosion with a budget of just a few hundred thousand dollars. The deed could be done with as little as a softball-sized 30 lb.
Heat pipes in a liquid metal thermal experiment recently flown on the space shuttle Endeavour achieved 932F, the highest temperatures ever achieved in space with this type of heat-transport device, USAF Phillips Laboratory researchers claim. The 23 X 30 in. thermal experiment package weighs 176 lb. (see photo), and includes three heat pipes, a flight computer, control electronics and a power distribution system. Heat pipes were developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
This high-resolution 6-mm.-dia. borescope reaches, magnifies, illuminates and inspects inaccessible locations on aircraft. The flexible, fiber-optic scope provides a resolution of 0.001 in. and can be threaded through narrow, curved sections inside jet engines and fuselages. It is available in lengths of 40, 60, 80 and 120 in. It provides direct and right-angle viewing through an articulated tip that can be moved to the left or right and locked in place. Lenox Instrument Co. Inc., 265 Andrews Road, Scottsville Industrial Park, Trevose, Pa. 19053-3427.
Hot on the political trail of the ValuJet tragedy, Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D.-Ill.) last week introduced the Airline Passenger Safety Act to prohibit carriage of chemical oxygen generators on aircraft carrying passengers or cargo. The bill also would require smoke and fire detecting systems as well as a fire extinguishing capability controlled from the cockpit for Class D cargo holds, such as the one containing hazardous materials on Flight 592.
Steve Zuercher has been appointed international finance manager of the Cessna Finance Corp., Wichita, Kan. He was Miami-based business development manager for Mexico and South America for the United Parcel Service.
Jules McNeff has become director of space systems business development for the Arlington, Va.-based Space and Defense Group of the Science Applications International Corp.
Malaysia Airline System reported a 68% jump in its pretax profits for the fiscal year that ended Mar. 31. The profits rose to 251.2 million ringgit ($101.3 million). Revenues rose 19% to 5.71 billion ringgit ($2.3 billion). Net profits were 232.9 million ringgit ($93.9 million), up 67%, and international flights accounted for 70% of MAS' revenue. However, load factors dropped nearly two points to 62%.
Boeing is offering its high-altitude test capability to the booming satellite industry. The Tulalip, Wash., facility consists of three altitude-simulation chambers from 400 cu. ft. to 10,000 cu. ft. in volume. The largest chamber measures 19 ft. in diameter and 31 ft. in length. A steam ejector system supports a simulated maximum altitude of 225,000 ft. and typically sustains a vacuum equivalent to 130,000 to 200,000 ft.
Dana Badgerow has become vice president-operations in Minneapolis of Honeywell Military Avionics. He was vice president/general manager of Honeywell's Skinner Valve Div.
Indonesia will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the introduction of its aircraft industry with its second international air show June 22-30. This year's exhibit will be held at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Indonesia Air Show '96 will highlight the country's advances in aircraft production in the past decade. The first air show in 1986 corresponded with the production of licensed-built aircraft by Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN), the government-owned aircraft maker from Bandung in West Java. IPTN will dominate this year's show as well.
As economic recovery begins in Armenia, Armenian Airlines (AAL) is seeking a Western partner to help reestablish and modernize the state-owned carrier. The acquisition of additional aircraft--perhaps Boeing 757-200s--is a top priority of AAL's new management. Armenian operates 55 flights weekly to points in Western Europe, the Newly Independent States and the Middle East with two Ilyushin Il-86s, 10 Tupelov Tu-154s and seven Tu-134s. AAL this year plans additional services including flights to Frankfurt, Warsaw, New Delhi, Cairo, Larnaca, Tel Aviv and Tashkent.
A specialized form of warfare has become America's number one national security challenge, and it knows no boundaries, according to high-ranking U.S. authorities from many fields. The deepening threat, they claim, is the terrorist use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to inflict mass urban casualties and social paralysis almost anywhere in the world. Such weapons might also be used to gain a decisive edge in a regional war.
Pratt & Whitney is on schedule to complete assembly of the first F119 flight test engine for the USAF F-22 fighter in early July. Here a machine operator at Pratt's Middletown, Conn., facility trims material from an integrally bladed rotor destined for use in the first flight test engine's fan. Assembly of this engine began in April. The powerplant is scheduled for September shipment to Lockheed Martin, who, with partner Boeing, are the prime contractors for the F-22.
Stricter environmental regulations and the need for improved training of airport rescue and firefighting crews are driving the development of new-technology training equipment. Symtron Systems Inc. of Fair Lawn, N.J., which makes computer controls for large, fixed-base live fire training systems, is nearing completion of a portable, propane-fueled system that will allow firefighters at smaller, Index A and B airports to practice extinguishing blazes in cabins, cargo areas, engines and landing gear, as well as fuel spill fires.
Irvin R. Lucas, 3rd, has been appointed vice president-inventory programs of the AAR Aircraft Turbine Center, Elk Grove Village, Ill. He was director of engine management for Northwest Airlines.
McDonnell Douglas officials are studying what it would take to as much as double the production rate of the C-17 transport beyond the maximum yearly rate called for in the recently-signed multiyear contract with the U.S. Air Force. The seven-year, $14.2-billion contract to McDonnell Douglas for the production of 80 more C-17s begins next year with eight aircraft and ramps up to the highest delivery level of 15 annually for three years beginning in 2000. The deal, signed May 31, is intended to bring the USAF's C-17 fleet to 120 by 2004.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. anticipates reassigning up to 5,500 engineers and other white-collar employees to help build military aircraft while 6,700 St. Louis area machinists remain on strike. The company expects to be able to field such a makeshift workforce within two months, if necessary, to keep production lines open. About 2,000 of these provisional workers were on the factory floor as of June 7, although company officials conceded that overall manufacturing efficiency may have been off by two-thirds.
