Northwest Airlines is positioning itself for expanded services in China with the start of nonstop flights from Detroit and a new service into Guangzhou, China's southern business center. The thrice-weekly Detroit-Beijing services started last week and are the result of a new U.S.-Chinese bilateral concluded last December. They are the only nonstop flights offered to China by a U.S. carrier. Northwest also serves Beijing three times a week from Tokyo Narita airport and weekly from there to Shanghai.
Michael R. Ayers (see photo) has been appointed corporate vice president/controller of the Thiokol Corp., Ogden, Utah. He succeeds Royce W. Searle, who has retired. Ayers was vice president-strategic development.
JAPAN'S MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT is looking at four candidates as replacements for the six Nihon YS-11 twin turboprops it uses to check navigation aids at the country's airports. The present schedule calls for a selection by this fall and procurement of five aircraft by 2001. Candidates are the Saab 2000, Dornier 328, ATR42-500 and de Havilland Dash 8-400.
The U.S. Air Force has begun a two-year-long flight test program to evaluate an electrical aileron actuation system using a C-141 transport aircraft. The program will explore the reliability and maintainability benefits associated with the technology.
HAMILTON STANDARD SPACE systems international, Windsor Locks, Conn., has won the 1995 George M. Low award, NASA's highest honor for quality and excellence. The company is the prime contractor for NASA's space suit and provides seven space shuttle life support and thermal control systems.
The U.S. has agreed to a plan for shoring up Israel's theater defenses by improving early warning of missile launches in the region and accelerating the development of weapons to shoot down ballistic and cruise missiles and short range artillery rockets.
Space Systems/Loral has signaled its confidence in the Ariane 5 booster with a new contract to purchase up to five geosynchronous satellite launches over the next five years. Loral last week purchased one launch on the yet-to-fly booster in 1998, with options to purchase four more launches through 2000 on the Ariane 4 or 5.
Norman R. Augustine and Bernard L. Schwartz have been appointed vice chairmen of the Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md. Augustine is the company's president/chief executive officer, while Sch- wartz is chairman/CEO of Loral Space and Communications. Frank C. Lanza has been named executive vice president/chief operating officer. He held the same posts at Loral. And, Thomas Dwyer, vice president-business development of Lockheed Martin International, has been appointed head of its Beijing office.
Richard Branson's Virgin Group launched its no-frills European carrier last week when it acquired a 90% stake in Brussels-based Euro Belgian Airlines, which is to be renamed Virgin Express. Branson said he will build the airline into a ``low-cost, no-frills'' short-haul scheduled carrier that will ``take on the major state-owned carriers.'' Plans call for the airline's fleet of 12 Boeing 737s to be expanded to 20 aircraft within a year. Scheduled services also are to be expanded to other cities throughout the continent.
THE DEFENSE DEPT., WHICH HASN'T FLOWN A MAJOR payload on the space shuttle since 1992, is talking with NASA about using the vehicle again (AW&ST Apr. 8, p. 52). But NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin says his agency will have to ``earn the right'' to fly military payloads. ``It's about time for the shuttle team to stop whining and crying--to stop hiding behind bureaucracy and telling us that gives us safety--and give us upgrades that protect the lives of these astronauts,'' he told a Washington audience last week.
Alan R. Mulally, senior vice president-airplane development and definition for the Boeing Co., has been named Design News magazine's 1996 Engineer of the Year.
Georgina McAllister has been named director of communications for the Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn. She was senior manager of communications for the Carrier Corp., Farmington, Conn.
Don Ward has beeen named president/general manager of AAR Oklahoma of Oklahoma City. He was general manager of the General Electric facility at Strother Field, Kan.
WHACKING $1 BILLION OUT OF THE F-22 PROGRAM next year was proposed last week by Rep. James V. Hansen (R.-Utah) in a draft amendment to the Fiscal 1997 Defense authorizations bill. It wasn't adopted, but watch out. Hansen is less a foe of the F-22 than a partisan of his district's Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB. He points out that government depots are operating below 50% of capacity.
In the first major use of its freedom from the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the FAA plans a rapid sole-source contract award to Hughes Aircraft Co. to get the Wide Area Augmentation System program back on track.
A U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin Titan 4/Centaur lifts off of Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral on Apr. 24 with a classified U.S. Defense Dept. payload. Designated K-16 and dubbed ``Sweet Sixteen'' by its contractor and Air Force 5th Space Launch Sqdn. mission team, the Titan 4 was the 11th launched from the Cape and the first of three planned for launch there this year. The next is slated for June or July, also with a classified payload.
TRW has completed full flight qualification testing of what its engineers say is the first dual-mode rocket engine developed for spacecraft. The Secondary Combustor Augmented Thruster (SCAT) can operate on hydrazine in a monopropellant mode or a bipropellant mode with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as the oxidizer. The dual-capability allows satellite operators to use the lower performance with more reliable hydrazine for attitude control but switch to more efficient earth-storable bipropellants for maneuvering.
LOS ANGELES MAYOR Richard Riordan's attempt to divert $30 million from Los Angeles International Airport to the city's general fund prompted the U.S. Senate aviation subcommittee to hold hearings last week to investigate the transfer. Congress has forbidden the diversion of airport funds for use by city governments. Subcommittee Chairman John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and member Wendell Ford (D.-Ky.) warned Riordan they will seek to enforce the law if he ``continues to undermine Congress' intent.'' Airlines also object to the diversions.
U.S. AND JAPANESE aviation officials will meet June 3-4 in Tokyo to discuss unresolved questions about additional passenger service between the two nations, possibly leading to formal negotiations and a new bilateral agreement. In the interim, both countries agreed last week to permit United Airlines to operate Osaka-Seoul service during the summer, as well as increase its capacity on Los Angeles-Tokyo flights for five weeks, which began May 2.
SENIOR AIR FORCE OFFICIALS ARE AGONIZING over the Program Objectives Memorandum that sets budget goals for Fiscal 1998. A number of strong programs are going to be hurt when the POM is finished, they say. These damaged programs will then likely become the next victims of congressional cuts. Congressional staffers said they rely on the General Accounting Office to finger weak, slipping programs for cuts. ``But this year there were none,'' one staffer says. Some lawmakers are already eyeing new targets.
IN 1995, DASSAULT AVIATION'S sales slightly decreased to $2.31 billion; net profit increased 22% to $80.2 million. Last year, Dassault booked orders valued at $2.32 billion. At the French government's request, the company is slated to conclude a merger agreement with state-owned Aerospatiale by early 1998.
PRATT&WHITNEY'S 90,000-lb.-thrust PW4090 engine has completed official FAA model testing, a critical step toward gaining FAA certification in 1997. The engine is scheduled to enter service on board Boeing 777-300 transports in mid-1998.
Michael T. Kennedy has become director/general manager of McDonnell Douglas' Delta 3 Launch Vehicle Div., Huntington Beach, Calif. He was director of the company's international space station pressurized elements integrated product development team.
THE POPULARITY OF INDEPENDENT AIRLINE PARTS pools is increasing. World airlines currently spend $7 billion annually to hold and manage about $35 billion in spare parts inventories, according to The Ages Group of Boca Raton, Fla. Airline pool participants would avoid substantial investment in out-of-production parts and have immediate access to a wider selection of volume-purchased components, Senior Vice President Ian McDonald said. A typical three-airline components/rotables pool worth $2 million would require a monthly participation fee of $9,400.
India's Ministry of Defense has come under fire for mishandling its MiG-29 procurement contracts with the ex-Soviet Union, resulting in serious engine maintenance problems and high costs to the Indian government.
