Cold-weather ground and flight tests completed in early March demonstrated the B-2 bomber operates well in arctic conditions, validating an earlier five months laboratory evaluation.
Russia's Yak-130 advanced jet trainer, designed in conjunction with Italy's Aermacchi, has completed its first flights. The aircraft made a 1-min., low-altitude flight late last month at the Zhukovsky flight test center near Moscow, equipped with protective meshes installed on the air intakes. Following their removal, the Yakovlev Design Bureau's chief pilot, Andrey Sinitsyn, conducted a 35-min. flight. He characterized the aircraft's handling as ``very comfortable.'' Four prototypes are planned for the flight test program, which is to comprise some 200 flights.
THE SECOND ECHOSTAR DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITE (DBS) is scheduled for launch on an Ariane 42P booster late this summer under a contract announced last week. The U.S. DBS venture had been left in the lurch after China's Long March booster, which was scheduled to orbit the satellite this summer, was grounded after a Feb. 14 launch accident (AW&ST Feb. 26, p. 68). The first EchoStar satellite was successfully launched by a Long March 2E last Dec. 28.
Singapore Airlines has taken delivery of the first two of its 17 A340-300s, an occasion marking the introduction of the extended range version of the long-haul jet. With the exercise of all 20 of its options, SIA will be Airbus' biggest A340 airline customer. It will introduce the aircraft this month on routes to Bangkok, Jakarta and Melbourne, followed later by Sydney.
The contenders for the U.K.'s Defense Helicopter Flying School contract, which has been delayed by more than a month, have narrowed the choices to Bell and Eurocopter airframes.
A NEW EUROPEAN $500-million-class microwave astrophysics spacecraft to be designated COBRAS/SAMBA was being endorsed late last week by the European Space Agency's Science Program Committee meeting in London. The mission to be launched about 2004, will become ESA's next planned Medium Class science mission. The spacecraft is to return detailed data on the remnants of the Big Bang.
A 6,000-lb., full-scale mock-up of Boeing's Joint Strike Fighter candidate undergoes radar cross section testing at Boeing's Seattle-based Compact Indoor Radar Range. Boeing last month completed two weeks of various RCS tests on the model using frequencies from 150 MHz. to 16.8 GHz., according to Leland A. Wight, Boeing JSF signature engineer. Predicted RCS performance was verified within the first 24 hr., Wight said.
Over three years, beginning in 1982, the U.S. Air Force made 135 flights with a stealthy, low-speed, long-endurance surveillance aircraft, the product of a classified program named Tacit Blue. The aircraft, which resembles a streamlined loaf of bread with wings, was the first to demonstrate low radar cross section (RCS) using curved surfaces. It was specifically designed to slip undetected through radar coverage to look at an enemy's second echelon troops with a sophisticated, hard-to-detect radar.
Richard E. Tierney (see photo) has been named president of Whittaker Electronic Systems, Simi Valley, Calif. He was president of Smiths Industries' North American Defense Div., Grand Rapids, Mich.
FAA oversight of the U.S. aviation industry suffers from too few safety inspectors, inadequate training and a lack of funding, key U.S. officials maintain. Their testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Governmental Affairs last week also centered on the need for the FAA to target its inspections to more closely address areas of ``greatest risk'' to airline and flying safety. Key points discussed during the hearings include:
Christina Ann Tvrdik, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, has won the first Donald K. (Deke) Slayton Memorial Scholarship from the American Astronautical Society, which she intends to use in pursuing a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering.
AN INFLUENTIAL FIGURE IN RUSSIA'S COLD WAR space race with the U.S. is still at work promoting his country's achievements. Oleg G. Ivanovski was chief designer at the Lavochkin Assn., which leads Russia's deep space exploration efforts. Instead of retiring, Ivanovski (pictured at right in the early 1960s with Yuri Gagarin) has become director of Lavochkin's museum just outside Moscow, which houses an impressive collection of space hardware designed for missions to Venus, Mars, the Moon and elsewhere.
AFTER SEEING THE LATEST GROWTH PROJECTIONS by Hong Kong's Airport Authority, China has approved the early completion of a second runway for the new Chek Lap Kok airport. The data show the airport can expect 34 million passengers a year when it opens in the spring of 1998, just a million under its first-phase design capacity. Its passenger terminal can be increased in modules, so that's not a big worry. But runway capacity is.
A company that was a key player in the former Soviet Union's space programs is intensifying its pursuit of commercial communications and materials processing projects as funding from the cash-strapped Russian government dries up.
As Britain prepares to withdraw from Hong Kong next year, two Chinese state-owned companies have expanded their stake in Cathay Pacific Airways, at the expense of one of the colony's oldest trading houses. Swire Pacific, the most profitable subsidiary of a London-based conglomerate, will continue to manage the colony's de facto flag carrier. But its comfortable 53% holding of Cathay's stock will drop to about 44%.
PRIME CONTRACTORS SOON WILL HAVE a new way of auditing the performance of manufacturers of hydraulic and other fluid-handling systems. The National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program is conducting a pilot project that should be completed by the end of July. The full program, administered by the Performance Review Institute, should be launched in September, said Hans van der Velden, a Boeing engineer who chairs the Society of Automotive Engineers' committee with oversight responsibility.
A WATCH-SIZED LOCKING BRACELET that communicates via radio frequency with a nearby Global Positioning System-based tracker unit is in the working prototype stage at Pro Tech Monitoring of Tampa, Fla. The portable system, which will weigh an estimated 2 lb. in the production version, could be used to monitor a probationer or other person's location continuously. The tracker communicates its GPS-derived location data to authorities at variable intervals over a cell phone link.
JAPAN'S ARMY ALSO IS LOOKING for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) aircraft. The army is studying a replacement for its LR-1 twin turboprop reconnaissance and liaison aircraft, formerly sold commercially by Mitsubishi as the MU-2. The type selection is scheduled for this year with procurement of less than 10 by 2000. The Beech Super King Air 350 is apparently leading a field of candidates that include the Piper Cheyenne 400 and Piaggio Avanti.
Boeing, the FAA and Europe's Joint Aviation Authorities are working to resolve differences over the maximum seating capacity of ``next generation'' 737-600, -700 and -800 transports. Boeing now is providing follow-up data to the JAA following a joint meeting the three held here last month. Boeing is proposing a 149-seat all-tourist configuration for the new 737-700 and 189 seats for the stretched 737-800. The JAA believes current regulations limit them to 145- and 180-seats, respectively.
Could the Boeing Co. turn out to be the winner in the long run from ``losing'' to a European consortium to help China develop a new 100-seat commercial aircraft? Paradoxically, it's entirely possible. Some Wall Street analysts believe Boeing stockholders definitely will come out ahead.
INDIA'S HINDUSTAN AERONAUTICS LTD. could roil worldwide commercial helicopter markets if the civil version of its light to medium-weight Advanced Light Helicopter is fielded as planned. The twin LHTEC T800-4-powered, 14-passenger helicopter, now due to fly by early 1997, is projected to have a 12,128-lb. maximum gross weight, 4,400-lb. payload with full fuel and 180-mph. top cruise speed. HAL's low labor costs and ambition to expand into world aerospace markets could result in a low introductory price, although developing a field support network remains a challenge.
Susan Kurland, Chicago's deputy corporation counsel, has been appointed associate FAA administrator for airports and J.C. Johns head of the FAA's Global Positioning System team.
