Photograph: Photograph: A new lidar system will help B-2 crews detect contrails. The U.S. Air Force is underwriting development of a lidar system that will alert B-2 crews when their bomber is creating visible contrails during high altitude flight. The on-aircraft detection system would enable immediate action to eliminate the contrails. Called the ``Pilot Alert System'' (PAS), the lidar-based unit is designed to ``detect the onset of contrail formation,'' according to a government official.
The Belgian justice department late last week issued an international arrest warrant for Serge Dassault, chairman and chief executive officer of the Dassault Industries group and president of GIFAS, the French aerospace industries association.
A U.S. Army simulation system has proved useful in helping civilian rescuers improve their coordinated response to disasters, but its refinement and distribution is being held up by a lack of funding.
LOOK FOR INCREASED FOCUS on integrated fuel flow measurement systems for aircraft. Many current military and older commercial aircraft are fitted with support-intensive, 1960s-vintage motor-driven flowmeters and electromechanical fuel gauges. International Flight Research Corp., Bellevue, Wash., has combined motorless Eldec flowmeters with Aerospace Display Corp. vertical scale LCD indicators for a lighter, cheaper and more accurate solid-state system.
BOEING, WHICH HAS YET to decide on production of the 777-100X, has begun thinking about a 777-200X. At 8,500 naut. mi, the -100X was to have the longest range of the 777 family, but the -200X would top it at 9,000 naut. mi. Gross weight would be 690,000 lb.--about 57,000 lb. more than the 777-200 and 30,000 lb. more than the -100X. The 777-200X would require engines producing 98,000-lb. thrust and could not be in the market until 2001.
OTHER CONTRACTORS might get a shot at Lockheed Martin/Boeing's lock on the stealthy DarkStar UAV project. Rep. Randy Cunningham (R.-Calif.) has offered an amendment that would require the program to be recompeted if any modifications push DarkStar over the current $10-million-a-copy limit. The LockMart/Boeing team has proposed a twin-engine, $20-million version of their UAV. Cunningham's constituents include General Atomics, maker of the Predator, and Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical, builder of the Global Hawk. Meanwhile, there's still no consensus on the proper UAV mix.
TRANSAERO, RUSSIA'S INDEPENDENT CARRIER, is making its first major westward expansion across the Atlantic with the startup of scheduled service to the U.S. Using leased DC-10-30s, Transaero will begin weekly nonstop Moscow-Los Angeles flights next month, followed by Moscow-Orlando, Fla., service in October. The aircraft will be configured in a two-class cabin layout, with 36 business and 254 economy seats.
When U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry ordered the services to install GPS and flight data recorders in passenger-carrying aircraft, he overlooked the importance of ground proximity warning systems.
The House National Security Committee's research and development panel markup startled the Pentagon by recommending that none of the $589 million appropriated for the Joint Strike Fighter in Fiscal 1997 be spent on the advanced short takeoff and vertical landing version of the aircraft.
SUN-AIR AIRCRAFT WILL SPORT BRITISH AIRWAYS EXPRESS livery beginning in August under a new franchise agreement between BA and the Danish regional carrier. The seventh such agreement for BA since 1993, it marks the first time the airline has extended its franchise outside of the U.K. The carriers will cooperate on marketing, sales and yield control. BA is not taking on an equity share in Sun-Air, which is to remain an independent company. Copenhagen-based Sun-Air has a fleet of 12 Jetstream aircraft and carried 120,000 passengers last year.
Airline deregulation has fostered the growth of low-cost airlines but created a significant, regional disparity in ticket prices and adversely affected service to small and remote communities, according to the General Accounting Office. In general, a GAO study found that since deregulation began in 1978: -- Consumers have benefitted from a gradual decline in the cost of airline travel, although the dominance of established, major airlines in certain regions of the U.S. continues to escalate prices above the levels paid in other areas.
LOCKHEED MARTIN ASTRONAUTICS is extending its relationship with Structural Dynamics Research Corp., placing a three-year, $3.8-million order for Milford, Ohio-based SDRC's I-DEAS Master Series mechanical design automation software and supporting services. The Astronautics unit of the $23-billion Lockheed Martin conglomerate designs, develops, tests and manufactures advanced technology space, launch and ground systems.
Siemens is developing a software system that fuses multiple sources of information to help identify unknown air targets. The company plans to propose the software for the mid-term modernization of the NATO AWACS aircraft. The advantage of the concept is that it uses information that is already available, combining data over a period of time from various sensors to deduce the nature of unidentified air contacts.
Rockwell International officials hope product data management efforts and improved design and manufacturing software will help cut the cost of developing NASA's X-33. ``Overall, the cost of doing X-33 is probably one-third of what it was to develop the first [shuttle] orbiter,'' Thad Sandford, Rockwell's X-33 program director, said. The effort to integrate data bases and the framework that Release 1.6 of Dassault Systemes/IBM's CATIA Version 4 creates for it ``plays a very big role in that.''
German scientists are developing an electronic ``cockpit assistant'' to give pilots advice in tight situations and assist when workload is high. To gauge the pilot's workload and provide the appropriate assistance, a new development compares a pilot's standard performance with what it observes. The research was driven by German scientists' concern about pilots' wandering attention in modern cockpits when the automated system is flying the aircraft.
CONTROVERSY GROWS OVER THE FRENCH government's plan to choose, within the next few weeks, a site for a third Paris-area international airport--which is expected to be completed in 2-3 decades. A government group recommends a site in an agricultural district southwest of Paris; others have proposed use of dormant military air bases and existing secondary airports. Meanwhile, environmentalists are strongly disputing the need to construct a third airport.
The Yakovlev design bureau is focusing development efforts on the domestic version of its new Yak-130 advanced jet trainer, convinced that acceptance by the Russian air force is essential to the aircraft's success overseas.
The FGB tug being built in Russia for the international space station was misidentified as the station service module in a caption that appeared on p. 22 in the Apr. 22 issue.
SAS IS SEEKING to expand its presence in the Baltic with a bid to gain a 28% stake in state-owned Estonian Air. SAS and its partners in the bid, the Danish Investment Fund for Eastern Europe, Swedfund International and an Estonian entity partly owned by Swedfund, are seeking 66% ownership of the Estonian carrier. The package would provide the airline with $20 million in fresh capital and opens up the possibility for cooperation with the Latvian carrier Air Baltic. SAS has a 28.5% stake in Air Baltic, while the Danish Investment Fund and Swedfund are also shareholders.
Allan McDonald has been named managing director of marketing and sales for ASEAN and southern Africa; Jerry Wooding for the Middle East, South America, North Africa and Pakistan; Robin Southwell for Australia and New Zealand, and Alan Garwood for Europe and North America, all for British Aerospace. McDonald was director of regional marketing, Wooding executive vice president-defense marketing, Southwell chief executive of BAe Australia and Garwood director of sales and customer support for BAe Dynamics.
Planned cuts in French military procurement spending are imperiling European military helicopter programs already in flight test, feeding a fierce French political controversy and causing consternation in Germany. Germany is France's major partner in two major European undertakings--the attack-escort Tiger and antisubmarine warfare-transport NH-90.
Despite political and trade tension between the U.S. and China, the choice of a Western partner for China's new regional jet is still expected to be made on technical and business grounds. Europe's apparent willingness to pledge a bigger stake in the $2-billion program and integrate the jet into the Airbus product line has given Aero International Asia, the Beijing subsidiary of Aero International Regional (AIR), an advantage over Boeing.
The first three Iridium spacecraft have moved into critical final integration, checkout and environmental testing phases, and are still on track for launch late this summer. The precise launch date will depend on how well integration tasks progress. If no significant technical problems are encountered, two months of launch and satellite deployment rehearsals will begin by the end of June.
