AVIONS DE TRANSPORT Regional officials plan to complete flight tests this week of an ATR72 fitted with a larger wing deicer designed to dislodge ice from the wing surface aft of the leading edge. The series will be conducted in concert with a U.S. Air Force KC-135 at Edwards AFB, Calif. Plans call for flying the ATR aircraft in severe icing conditions--including freezing drizzle--that greatly exceed FAA certification requirements. ATR flew similar flights at Edwards in December, 1994, in response to the crash of an ATR72-210 in October.
LOOK FOR MEDICAL CREWS to become more involved in critical takeoff, in-flight and landing decisions in single-pilot civil helicopter medevac operations. Voluntary, flight-related ``assertiveness training'' for relevant medical staff is being conducted on-site by Bell Helicopter and American Eurocopter flight instructors. The short, no-cost courses are part of an industry-wide effort to increase safety. The practice preserves the pilot's command authority while providing independent backing of critical decisions.
ALLISON ENGINE CO. has received its first FAA certification for a turbofan engine. The AE3007, now powering the Cessna Citation 10 in flight test, was certified at 6,400 lb. of thrust. The AE3007A for the Embraer EMB-145 is scheduled for certification later this year at 7,500 lb.
The budget for the Canadian Space Agency is being cut by 15% over 10 years, but the head of the agency says only 5% will come out of the international space station effort so that Canada will be able to keep its commitments to NASA. Mac Evans, Canadian Space Agency president, said the budget cuts just announced by the government are not a cause for any concern about Canada's commitment to the international space station. Canada will still be able to meet the terms of its agreement with NASA in 1994. A NASA official agreed with this view.
The European Commission initiative to block individual Open Skies accords with the U.S. and impose a unified external air transport policy is expected to generate controversy throughout the continent. According to a strong commission warning, European Union (EU) member countries are not authorized to negotiate individual bilateral agreements with the U.S. An EC official, speaking on behalf of commission President Jacques Santer, said governments that revise their bilaterals with the U.S. will face challenges in the European Court of Justice.
C.L. Hensel has been appointed senior vice president of Titan Corp., San Diego, Calif., and president and general manager of the Titan Systems (East) group. He was senior vice president/general manager of the C3I Systems Div. of Atlantic Research Corp.
NASA's new tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) design, awarded in February to Hughes Space and Communications Co., is to add K subscript A-band service to the existing S/K subscript U-band service provided by the current TRW TDRS constellation, and increase S-band capacity.
France's Snecma is aggressively promoting an international initiative to launch an all-new 40,000-43,000 lb.-thrust turbofan engine in the fourth quarter of 1995.
T.A. (Tony) Ryan (see photo), former chairman of GPA Group, has become chairman-designate of the board of Irish airline Ryanair. He will take over the nonexecutive chairman's position Jan. 1, at the end of Ray MacSharry's three-year term.
EXPECT NEW INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL management standards to be published beginning in mid-1996. The voluntary, uniform certification is expected to become a de facto requirement for doing business in Europe and within the North American Free Trade Alliance, similar to the ISO 9000 quality management standard. Assigned the ISO 14000 series designation, initial documents will address environmental management systems, auditing, labeling and performance, according to the American National Standards Institute.
The Pentagon's fourth and perhaps final round of base closure recommendations under the current law calls for across-the-board reductions at U.S. Air Force aircraft maintenance depots rather than consolidating operations at a few sites. Defense Secretary William Perry said the Air Force presented ``a powerful argument'' that more money could be saved by reducing the size of all five aircraft maintenance depots than by closing one or two of them. ``I found the arithmetic compelling,'' Perry said.
The first EMB-145 prototype, No. 801, is being assembled at Embraer's facility in Sao Jose dos Campos., Brazil. Sonaca manufactured the regional jet's rear fuselage and part of the central fuselage in Belgium, while Chile's Enaer made the vertical fin. Embraer built the forward fuselage and cockpit. The rollout is scheduled for mid-year, and the planned 1,100-hr. flight test program is to be completed by the one prototype and three pre-series aircraft.
Dick Delagrange has been named Central U.S. aviation sales manager for Goodyear, Akron, Ohio. He was a sales and marketing manager with Goodyear's aviation wheel and brake business.
BFGOODRICH'S TRAMCO overhaul center in Everett, Wash., is spooling up the world's first dedicated Head-up Guidance System installation line for transports. The facility has won a contract from Southwest to install 160 HGS units the carrier ordered from Flight Dynamics of Portland, Ore. Tramco earlier installed HGS equipment in Alaska Airlines' 727s and 737s.
The U.S. Army's plan to retire 3,000 helicopters from 1994-2000--about 10 times faster than the previous retirement rate--is causing fault lines between those who feel their civil markets threatened and those who benefit from the low cost. ``Aircraft haven't been dumped like this since the 1950s,'' one maintenance director said.
In NASA's latest bid to slash the costs and speed the results of science missions, the agency has decided to place a simple, economical satellite in orbit about the Moon in June, 1997. Although the spacecraft, called Lunar Prospector, will be small, it will conduct four experiments. The data should fill in many of the gaps in knowledge of Earth's nearest neighbor. The entire cost, including the launch vehicle, should run less than $73 million in today's dollars.
APT Satellite Co. has ordered a Hughes HS-376 satellite for launch as soon as possible, to meet Asian demand that was exacerbated by the loss of the larger HS-601 that was on board the Long March-2E that exploded in January.
WHEN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN John Shalikashvili fancies what he would do with more money, C-17 transports come to mind before B-2 bombers. ``I'm a great proponent of getting strategic airlift,'' he says, ``particularly since I've looked at the health of the C-141 fleet.'' If the budget were increased, ``my first impulse would not be [to buy] more B-2s.
ICELANDAIR ON MAR. 26 BECOMES EUROPE'S FIRST CARRIER to go smoke-free, system-wide when it begins operating smoke-free transatlantic flights. The carrier's domestic services have been smoke-less since 1984 and its European flights since 1993. Company surveys indicate more than 90% of smoking and non-smoking passengers support the pending policy and that two-thirds of the smoking passengers said they would remain loyal customers.
A reduction in large new European aircraft projects has created surplus wind tunnel capacity across the continent. Most European countries have their own wind tunnel capabilities, and some tunnels in the higher speed regimes remain operational with little research underway. A new group formed to unify European aeronautics efforts for greater efficiency will issue a report by mid-year sharply critical of the excess capacity.
DRAWING THE CONTOURS OF A HIGHLY AMBITIOUS DEFENSE STRATEGY, House Speaker Newt Gingrich says the U.S. should be strong enough militarily ``to defeat any plausible combination of opponents.'' Addressing the first national policy conference of the year-old Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, Gingrich declared here last week, ``Our position has to be simple. We intend to dominate air, space and sea against anybody and have a mobilizable ground force capable of winning within a reasonable length of time.
More than a dozen internal review teams have identified 5,900 jobs that could be cut from NASA's space shuttle program over the next several years to make shuttle operations more efficient without jeopardizing their safety, according the agency's head of spaceflight.
Olin Aerospace Co. is developing a line of new, environmentally safe solid and hybrid fire-suppression devices to protect aircraft dry bays and engine nacelles. Initial engineering, manufacturing and development contracts for OAC's solid suppressor units have been received from two major airframe manufacturers to protect aircraft dry bays, according to Lyle Galbreath, OAC vice president of special projects. Under one of these contracts, OAC will supply a complete fire-suppression system including fire sensors and an intelligent sequencing controller.
