Although the FAA has conducted more than 1,000 detailed safety inspections of ValuJet Airlines aircraft since the May 11 loss of a DC-9 in Florida, none have prompted senior agency officials to revoke the low-fare airline's operating certificate--at least not yet, according to Tony Broderick, FAA associate administrator for regulation and certification (see p. 25). But it is an option, he said.
David G. Assard has been appointed president of Textron Lycoming, Williamsport, Pa.. He was president of Textron's Cessna Aircraft Co., Wichita, Kan. Assard succeeds Philip R. Boob, who will become a consultant to Textron Inc.
Boeing's Commercial Airplane Group is working to offer customers on-line access to engineering and maintenance data for components built by it and more than 300 of its suppliers by early next year. The manufacturer plans to begin alpha testing of the next ``block-point'' release of its Boeing On-Line Data (BOLD) on-line service by December. If testing is successful, the expanded version of BOLD, providing access to the suppliers' component repair manuals, would be available to subscribers in the first months of 1997.
James W. Arpey has been appointed vice president-operations/chief operations officer of Miami-based Pan Am Airlines. Other recent appointments were: Karen T. Averill, vice president-personnel, training and inflight; Richard F. Blake, vice president-marketing; William Elio, vice president-passenger services and cargo; Donald McSullivan, vice president-corporate affairs/corporate secretary; and John J. Ogilby, Jr., general counsel/chief financial officer.
China is to invest 6 billion yuan ($722 million) over the next five years on navigation aids, according to a Civil Aviation Administration of China official. The intent is to reduce separation times between aircraft in order to increase traffic volume, according to Vice President Bao Peide. About $660 million would be channeled into communications, navigation and radar projects, with the rest going for an air traffic control management system, he said. Some 1,000 infrastructure projects are expected.
Japan Airlines, a launch customer for the Boeing 777-300, has confirmed that it will use the Pratt&Whitney PW4090 to power its five aircraft. The $140-160-million order is for 12 engines (including two spares). JAL previously ordered PW4077s for its 10 777-200s. The first -200s began service in April; the -300s are due in 1998.
Ed Swearingen (see photo), chairman of the Sino Swearingen Aircraft Co., San Antonio, Tex., has received the Career Contribution to Aviation Award from the Texas Transportation Dept.'s Aviation Div.
Political shifts have opened public discussion here of a once taboo subject--the country's need for its own military reconnaissance satellites. Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto first backed requests in April by Japan's Defense Agency (JDA) that it be allowed to begin studying how to build and operate a constellation of low-Earth-orbit imaging satellites. Since then, his party's Diplomacy and Security committees have been briefed by the JDA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NEC Corp.
After some last-minute wrangling over the fine print, NATO has endorsed the reorganization of the alliance to allow European members greater flexibility in acting on their own.
Four ``Cluster'' satellites that were part of an ambitious international science effort were lost in the Ariane 5 explosion, obliterating a European-led project that had been in planning and development for more than a decade. The satellites had been built for the $500-million Cluster magnetospheric science mission, which planned to use the four 2,640-lb. (1,200-kg.) spacecraft in a complex set of maneuvers to obtain a three-dimensional picture of the various plasma field boundaries in the Earth's magnetosphere.
TWO CONSORTIA ARE COMPETING to develop the next size increase in semiconductor fabrication--300-mm. (11.8-in.) dia. wafers. Sematech is sponsoring a privately funded international consortium with participation from U.S., European, Korean and Taiwanese companies. Declining to participate in that coalition, the Japanese government established the Advanced Semiconductor Technologies consortium, consisting of the 10 largest Japanese chip makers, and funded by the Japanese government at three-to-four times the money the Sematech consortium is spending.
International Civil Aviation Organization officials expect airline traffic in the Asian and Pacific regions will grow about 6-7% annually through 2010, with transpacific flights increasing 4% during that period. The implementation of global satellite communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS) and air traffic management (ATM) systems will play a key part in that growth.
British Aerospace Dynamics successfully conducted the first guided firing of its Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM), although the test came later than scheduled, which could have a bearing on the missile's chances of success in the U.S. While the unarmed missile did not hit the target, BAe said all the development test objectives were met. The May 29 test firing was conducted from a U.S. Air Force F-16 at Eglin AFB, Fla.
In the wake of the in-flight fire and crash of ValuJet Airlines Flight 592 last month, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is urging the FAA to mandate a review of airline identification and handling of hazardous materials as well as employee training practices. The safety board is recommending that the FAA:
The use of Portable Maintenance Access Terminals is expanding from the 777 to other civil transports. PMAT manufacturer Demo Systems, Moorpark, Calif., has signed a software licensing agreement with Boeing that will allow the briefcase-size, plug-in terminal to access maintenance information from over 130 line replaceable units on the 747-400 via the aircraft's central maintenance computer. The interface uses an Arinc 429 port on the 747-400's CMC. Common PMAT hardware can be used with both transport types.
Steve Wilson (see photo) has been appointed president/general manager of the BFGoodrich Aerospace JcAIR Test Systems Div., Kansas City, Mo. He was vice president-sales and marketing of BFGoodrich Aerospace Avionics Systems, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory are working on a radical concept that would use a gas plasma sheet instead of an antenna to steer beams of radar or electronic warfare energy. So far, the gas plasma ``Agile Mirror'' is only a laboratory demonstration in the basic research phase, but it could offer a smaller, lighter and cheaper antenna than current electronically steered arrays, according to Robert Meger, NRL's principal investigator and head of the charged particle physics branch of the plasma physics division.
ENGINEERS AT INFORMIX SOFTWARE are to develop a software module capable of storing, retrieving and correlating longitude, latitude, height and time data as part of its contract to support NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. Hughes Information Technology Systems is the prime contractor to develop the information systems to handle the millions of gigabytes of data that the ambitious mission is expected to produce from its collection of space-based sensors.
Boeing is beginning deliveries of first F-22 hardware while trying to compensate for strike-slowed components scheduled for the second and third-airframes. A risk-sharing junior partner with Lockheed Martin on the USAF's new air superiority fighter, Boeing is responsible for about 33% of project cost and hardware. Current contracts call for the production of nine flight-rated engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD) aircraft, plus two ground test airframes. The first F-22 is scheduled to become airborne in mid-1997.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines plans to spend $300 million to expand its European fleet over the next two years, but has shelved plans to merge its international cargo operations with that of its U.S. partner Northwest Airlines.
The Northrop Grumman Corp. is beginning to work its way out from under a mountain of debt--not to mention considerable financial pressure--created by the company's $3-billion purchase of the Westinghouse Electronics Systems Group. All of the net proceeds, or $509 million from a public offering last week of 7 million shares of common stock, were used to pay down more than $4.2 billion in debt. Now, Northrop Grumman's debt-to-capital ratio stands at about 65%, down from 75%. By year-end, it's expected to drop another 5%.
FAA, Boeing and National Transportation Safety Board inspectors here are poring over a Martinair 767-300ER in an attempt to identify problems that temporarily blacked out the transport's electronic cockpit displays and some other instruments late in a transatlantic flight. The electrical interruptions also caused a key system to revert to its fail-safe mode.
PENTAGON AND JAPAN'S DEFENSE AGENCY have agreed on a quick notification procedure of any ballistic or other missile launches that could threaten Japan. Deputy Defense Minister Naoaki Murata said the JDA is now studying how to integrate the data into its new Patriot anti-missile defense system. Patriots are being deployed at six sites in Japan. Without the U.S. data, Japan would be reduced to a last-minute warning system because of its constitutional restraints that prevent it from operating its own military satellite system.
The crash of a Birgenair Boeing 757 in February underscores the FAA's need to mandate system modifications designed to warn pilots about airspeed discrepancies, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The 757 had departed the Puerto Plata International Airport in the Dominican Republic on Feb. 6 en route to Frankfurt, Germany, with 189 people on board (including cockpit and cabin crews). The safety board is assisting the director general of civil aviation in the Dominican Republic's investigation.
NICE SYSTEMS LTD. OF TEL AVIV IS APPLYING military technology and commercial off-the-shelf hardware to supply digital voice logging systems for Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok airport and a number of others including the U.S.' FAA. The Hong Kong system has 1,280 channels to record 640 channels with full redundancy.
