Harold J.M. (Mac) Williams has been named president of Fairchild Aircraft Inc., San Antonio, Tex. He was president of the Aerospace Technology unit of DynCorp.
The FAA is continuing systematic research into the technical and physiological challenges of preventing and controlling in-flight fires and debilitating smoke despite the rare occurrence of such events. Worldwide, only a handful of fatal inflight fires have been logged over the past decade, according to Gus Sarkos, manager, Fire Safety Section, at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J. Incidence has been reduced further by strict new FAA fire standards, which became applicable to Part 121 carriers in 1991, he said.
Edward C. (Pete) Aldridge, Jr., (see photo), president of the Aerospace Corp. of Los Angeles, has been elected president-elect of the Washington-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He will become president next May.
THE FAA HAS COMMISSIONED THE FIRST of 44 air route surveillance radars (ARSR-4) at Tamiami, Fla., to track aircraft out to 250 naut. mi. and up to 100,000 ft. The 3-D radar made by Northrop Grumman's (formerly Westinghouse's) Electronic Sensors and Systems Div. is designed to meet both the needs of the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center and military air defense. The Florida installation is the first of 44 ordered by the FAA for use around the coastal U.S., Hawaii, Guam and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Jim Hardy, director of air traffic control systems for the Hughes Aircraft Co., has been elected chairman of the Electronic Industries Assn. Government Div.'s Air Traffic Control Committee.
The Tracker4000 is a laser-based coordinate measuring machine designed for making precise three-dimensional measurements. It can measure objects ranging from 1 meter to hundreds of meters with an accuracy of 25 microns at 5 meters. Applications include surface contouring, alignments, tool building and inspection and reverse engineering. The device measures X, Y and Z positions, taking 1,000 measurements per sec. The tracker head weighs 57 lb. and can be incorporated into a portable or embedded system. SMX, 222 Gale Lane, Kennett Square, Pa. 19348.
Concerned about the rapid rate at which the Aviation Trust Fund is being depleted, Rep. Frank Wolf (R.-Va.) is calling for Congress to quickly reinstate excise taxes that feed the fund. Wolf is chairman of the House transportation subcommittee. About $500 million per month is being spent. At that rate, it will be depleted by the end of the year. Unless action is taken soon, Wolf predicts, there will be no money in Fiscal 1997 to pay for either the Airport Improvement Program or Essential Air Service to remote communities.
Laurie A. Tucker has been named senior vice president of the Federal Express Logistics, Electronic Commerce and Catalog Div. She was vice president-customer automation and invoicing.
Douglas P. Foster has been named director of sales and customer service for the Watkins-Johnson Co.'s Telecommunications Group, Gaithersburg, Md. He was director of national programs for GTE Government Systems.
AVIATION WEEK&SPACE TECHNOLOGY is celebrating its 80th year of publication with a new look, beginning with this issue. When the magazine was started in 1916, under the title AVIATION AND AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING, aviation was a fledgling technology, driven by the spirit of invention and the joy of flying. Military aviation was in its infancy, commercial air transport was a dream, and space travel was the subject of science fiction.
European regional carriers are growing steadily in an increasingly competitive environment. According to the European Regional Airlines Assn. (ERA), in 1995, passenger traffic increased a healthy 12.9%. However, this is much lower than the 20-24% growth regional carriers experienced in the late 1980s. Last year, ERA member airlines' 720 aircraft carried 47.4 million passengers and logged 1.7 million flight hours.
In a surprise initiative, the Swiss government announced its plan to end Swissair's monopoly at home. When the plan is approved and implemented, foreign carriers will obtain unlimited access to Switzerland, including fifth-freedom rights at Zurich and Geneva, the nation's international gateways. Swissair's decisions to eliminate long-haul routes operated from Geneva and center overseas operations in Zurich contributed to the government's initiative.
The Pentagon's purchase of six Block 50 F-16s in Fiscal 1996 seems to be showing benefits of defense streamlining, at least when compared with the previous six, bought in 1994. The contract, announced last week, was completed in 45 days, instead of being strung out over two years. The proposal was four pages long, instead of 1,400 pages. There were only 15 data requirements lists, not 53. The statement of work shrunk to 12 pages from 26, and the program had to meet only two military standards instead of 29.
Russia's Lavochkin Association is continuing work on the Mars 96 spacecraft as its awaits word on whether it will receive the necessary government funding to pay for a scheduled launch on Nov. 16 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
John J. Sciuto has been appointed president/chief executive officer of Comptek Research Inc., Buffalo, N.Y. He succeeds John R. Cummings, who is retiring as CEO but will continue as chairman. Sciuto will continue as president/CEO of subsidiary Comptek Federal Systems Inc.
Transportation Dept. Inspector-General Mary Fackler Schiavo's pointed remarks about her reluctance to fly on U.S. airlines and her pledge to investigate allegations that FAA inspectors have been ``soft'' on ValuJet Airlines drew swift rebuttal from the agency. The controversy that flared last week was ignited by Schiavo's announcement on May 14 that she will investigate whether FAA safety inspectors have been lax in their oversight of ValuJet. As of late last week no formal allegations had been made, according to Schiavo's staff.
While the commercial satellite communications market is expected to grow by 10% per year through the end of the decade, major segments within the overall market have shifted dramatically in recent years and contributed to the growh, according to Hughes officials. Donald L. Cromer, president of Hughes Space and Communications Co., said about 90% of the organization's commercial business only three years ago was made up of the more traditional segment of communications, cable television programming and business data services.
The U.S Air Force expected to return its B-2 bombers to operational status late last week following a standdown prompted by a cracked engine exhaust clamp. The standdown order came into effect on May 10, after maintenance staff discovered a cracked titanium swing arm clamp in a single B-2 during a routine post-flight inspection. The precautionary action affected all 10 operational B-2s, which are stationed at Whiteman AFB, Mo. Unofficially, it also covered the three flight test B-2s at Edwards AFB, Calif.
The RF-5285MD(E) is a high-speed, multi-waveform embedded modem for RF-5000-series high frequency radios. It supports Mil-Std-188-11A serial tone, Appendix B, 39-tone and other waveforms. A data directed equalizer, forward-error-correction technology and adaptive excision filtering make the serial tone waveform resistant to multipath and fading. The modem can be used for synchronous and asynchronous data, facsimile and digitized voice applications. It supports up to 4,800 bps uncoded and 2,400 bps coded.
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES/California, Livermore, has fabricated a working microelectronic device using extreme ultraviolet light (EUVL) lithography, which Sandia believes is a first. The product was a field effect transistor, a basic building block for integrated circuits, with a gate width of 0.1 micron. Scientists see EUVL, at 13.4 nanometers wavelength, as an extension of optical lithography, using photons and reflective mirrors instead of lenses. The task now is to scale up for production.
