The Dow-United Technologies Composite Products, Inc., joint venture recently shipped its 3,000th carbon fiber/epoxy composite fan spacer to Pratt&Whitney for its PW4000 series engines, and delivery rates are poised to pick up. P&W has been accepting Dow-UT fan spacers for four years, and the parts delivered to date have accumulated some 56 million flight hours. Another 4,500 spacers are due for delivery over the next three years, completing an initial order of 7,500 for more than $11 million.
Canada's Standard Aero bought the assets of Marysville, Tenn.-based Alliance Engines, giving the turbine engine and accessory overhaul specialist a home for its Allison AE3007 repair work and a chance to expand into other engine and auxiliary power unit markets. Neither company disclosed terms of the deal, completed July 31 after an initial agreement earlier in the month.
NASA is using its new Boeing 757 research aircraft to test prototype systems designed to improve the efficiency of airport surface operations in low-visibility conditions.
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORP., El Segundo, Calif., will lead a team of information technology firms, including IBM, Northrop Grumman, SAIC and Unisys, in an effort to win the IRS Modernization Prime Integration Services contract to streamline the tax administration system. EDS, Plano, Tex., will also lead a team.
Canada-based Orenda Recip Inc., trying to launch its OE Series of aluminum aviation V-8s, and Conair Aviation of Abbotsford, British Columbia, agreed to study using the Orenda engine on a variety of Cessna and Piper twins. Orenda hopes the deal will lead to a formal agreement to develop Supplemental Type Certificates (STCs), prototype applications and installation kits, broadening the range of retrofit applications for the line of 600-800 hp engines.
Westport, Conn.'s National Airmotive Corp. will repair and overhaul all of the Royal Saudi Air Force's light turbine engines, accessories and components under a new three-year, $21 million contract. Work on Allison Model 250-C20B turboshafts powering Bell 206 helicopters and Pratt&Whitney Canada PT6Ts powering Bell 212s make up the bulk of the work, which NAC will do at its own facilities.
Based SatCon Technology Corp. won a $1 million contract from a "major aircraft engine manufacturer" it would not identify to continue refining its magnetic bearings for aircraft gas turbines - work which began with Textron Lycoming in the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) initiative.
Bell Helicopter, Fort Worth, Tex., will sign an industrial cooperation agreement with the Industrial Development Bureau of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, a Bell spokesman confirmed yesterday. The $143.7 million agreement is part of Taiwan's recent buy of 21 AH- 1W SuperCobra attack helicopters (DAILY, July 25).
Boeing Co. demonstrated a new stitching machine yesterday that may help dramatically cut the weight and production costs of aircraft wings by substituting composite for metal structures. Developed under NASA's Advanced Composites Technology program, the stitching machine can fasten together pre-cut wing fabric layers at a rate of 3,200 stitches per minute, and then attach braided stiffener materials to boost wing strength. The fabric wings are then stiffened using a resin film infusion process.
Alliant Techsystems posted its best first-quarter results ever, earning $14.7 million on sales of $251.6 million in the first three months of its fiscal 1998. In the first quarter of its fiscal 1997, Alliant, Minneapolis, earned $9.9 million on revenues of $230.2 million. Earnings in that period included $2.3 million from the sale of the Marine Systems Group to Hughes Electronics Corp.
The U.S. Army yesterday fielded the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar in a first-unit-equipped ceremony at Fort Hood, Tex. The radar, built by Hughes Aircraft Co.'s Sensor and Communication Systems segment, detects, tracks, classifies, identifies and reports threat targets such as helicopters, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and fixed wing aircraft.
Larry Scott, the well known GE Aircraft Engines veteran who was named last year as the first president of the newly formed Engine Alliance between GE and rival Pratt&Whitney (AP, Sept. 3, 1996), died last week after a brief battle with cancer. The longtime head of the CF6 turbofan program, Scott had a 35-year career with GE.
The Pentagon may abbreviate planned user demonstrations of the DarkStar and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles to deal with a delay of about a year in each program. Each UAV was expected to undergo a 24-month user demonstration but that may be cut to 15 months, according to Maj. Gen. Kenneth Israel, director of the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO). "It's a very serious proposal," he said during an interview in his office.
Former Pratt&Whitney Large Commercial Engines chief Robert A. Wolfe has turned up at rocket engine specialist Aerojet, where he will serve as President effective September 1, replacing Roger Ramseier, retiring after a 38-year career with Aerojet.
The U.S. Army is considering building a full-up engine in a future stage of the Joint Turbine Advanced Gas Generator (JTAGG) program rather than trying to meet performance goals through component improvements. The Pentagon is still defining a fourth phase of the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology program (IHPTET), but Sandy Hoff, who is responsible for Phase Two and Three of JTAGG, says "we're considering maybe doing a 3,000 hp engine." She notes, however, that the idea has not been formally accepted for Phase Four.
Dragonair is replacing seven single-aisle IAE V2500-A1-powered Airbus A320 twins on a one-for-one basis with upgraded -A5-powered A320s leased from International Lease Finance Corp., which will be delivered between next February and April, 1999. The aircraft are in addition to the two A320s the Hong Kong regional airline bought outright from Airbus for delivery in May 1998 and June 1999. Dragonair yesterday bought five V2500- A5 engines from International Aero Engines for those two aircraft, with one of the engines to serve as a spare.
Russia's new combat helicopter, the Ka-52 "Alligator", made its first public appearance in a flight at the Zhukovsky airfield near Moscow on Wednesday, Itar-Tass reported yesterday. Russia's International Air and Space Show opens there today, and the helicopter will be demonstrated, according to the news agency. The flight from the Gromov Flight Research Institute at Zhukovsky lasted seven minutes, Itar-Tass said. The Kamov helicopter was flown by test pilot Alexander Smirnov.
ABE SILVERSTEIN, former director of NASA's Lewis Research Center, was awarded the Guggenheim Medal yesterday for his work in aeronautics research and the Mercury and Gemini human spaceflight programs.
PROTON LAUNCH OF PANAMSAT-5, originally targeted for Aug. 22, has been pushed back to no earlier than Aug. 26, and possibly a couple of days later than that, because processing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome is taking longer than expected. The communications satellite will be the first Hughes HS- 601HP platform to be orbited by the Russian launcher. It will provide direct-to-home broadcast service in Mexico and communications links across the Americas and Europe (DAILY, Aug. 5).
PATS Inc., Columbia, Md., won a contract to install long-range fuel tanks in the new Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), a derivative of 737 airliner. PATS said yesterday that the 10-year contract is in addition to a previous award to develop, certify and make the tanks. It said the total value of the program will exceed $200 million, the largest in its history.
GRC International, Vienna, Va., won a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) from U.S. Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, In-Service Engineering, East Coast Division (NISE East). The BPA covers services for systems engineering and other support for all NISE East's mission areas, GRC said.
In talks with Eastern European countries looking to upgrade their air forces, Saab and British Aerospace have begun to market the Gripen fighter more heavily. No firm offers have been made, according to a Saab spokesman, but the companies are "listening to what the countries want."
California Microwave yesterday rolled out the third Airborne Reconnaissance Low-Multifunction plane here yesterday, and U.S. Army officials said it will ease the burden on the two ARL-Ms already flying in Korea. Since last summer the Army has flown the two ARL-Ms - modified DeHavilland Dash-7s - in a basic configuration. They were fielded in a quick reaction program to fill a reconnaissance gap created when the service retired the OV-1 Mohawk.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will buy 45 MD 600N helicopters. Boeing Co., which made the announcement, said it was the first acquisition of such an aircraft, which has no tail rotor, by the U.S. government. Boeing said the total value of the contract, including aircraft, spares and support, is about $70.7 million, making it the largest commercial helicopter order in more than 20 years for its Mesa, Ariz., subsidiary
