Pratt&Whitney won registration to the ISO 9001 quality standard on its first try last week, becoming the largest aerospace organization ever to win that designation and astonishing audit certifiers who approved the enginemaker for the title. "For an organization of 20,000 people to achieve ISO certification on the first attempt is a remarkable accomplishment," says Det Norske Veritas lead assessor Brooke Lerch. "Most large companies go for ISO registration business unit by business unit.
Lt. General Dick Scofield (USAF-ret.) joined Aerojet, a segment of GenCorp, as vice president, Strategic and Space Propulsion, the company announced. Scofield recently retired from the Air Force, where his last assignment was commander, Aeronautical Systems Center, Air Force Material Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. In this position, GenCorp said, he led the Air Force's center of excellence for research, development and acquisition of aircraft and aeronautical equipment.
TAP AIR PORTUGAL signed up for 18 A319s with the option of converting five of the orders to A320s, Airbus said yesterday. The CFM-powered aircraft will hold 132 passengers. Deliveries start in 1997. TAP will operate an all-Airbus fleet when the last of the 18 are delivered in 2000. TAP now operates six A320s, five A310s and four A340s.
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE yesterday for the first time announced the planned launch of one of its spy satellites. The secretive agency, widely known for many of its 30-plus years but not officially acknowledged until several years ago, said a Titan IV booster will launch a satellite from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Friday. It said the launch window opens at 8:30 a.m. PST and closes at 11 a.m. PST. The unprecedented announcement is one of several disclosures made this year by the NRO to increase public awareness of its mission.
Innovative, simple design philosophies and new manufacturing technologies will be crucial to the success of NASA's initiative (AP, Feb. 29, Oct. 10) to spur commercialization of low-cost general aviation engines, Leo Burkardt, program chief at NASA's Lewis Research Center, tells AP.
Russia's RSC Energia has shipped its first piece of flight hardware for the International Space Station, a passive mechanism that will form part of the port U.S. Space Shuttles will use to dock to the orbiting laboratory. An Energia official in Washington said the part was shipped from Moscow Dec. 5 to the Boeing North American facility in Downey, Calif., where it will be tested with the androgynous peripheral docking mechanism (APAS) Energia built for the STS-71 Shuttle mission to the Mir orbital station.
Any cuts in the U.S. Army's modernization plan could force the service to "kill a program that is badly needed," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis J. Reimer said yesterday. Reimer told reporters in Washington that if more budget cuts are passed on to the Army, the only flexibility it has is to adjust modernization spending. But, he added, "there's not a lot of flexibility there either."
Taiwan's EVA Airways is buying 82 General Electric CF6-80 series turbofans worth $750 million, but without a defined aircraft acquisition program under way. EVA flies six McDonnell Douglas MD-11 trijets, eight Boeing 767 twins and a dozen four-engine 747s, all powered by CF6s, and plans to finalize a buy of new aircraft soon. But even without a final decision on specific aircraft, EVA decided to lock in a solid price and spares support early on. Deliveries would begin next year.
The European Union is taking a close look at the Boeing- McDonnell Douglas merger with an eye to launching an inquiry into the proposed deal. "It is more than likely that we will have to investigate," EU Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert said yesterday in Brussels. He said he expects the U.S. companies to formally notify the European Commission of their planned move in January. "This will be a complex and problematic issue," he said.
A LOCKHEED MARTIN Atlas IIA rocket lifted a new Inmarsat communications platform, also built by Lockheed Martin, into geosynchronous transfer orbit late Tuesday in the final U.S. commercial launch of 1996. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., came on time at 8:57 p.m. EST Tuesday. The satellite, Inmarsat-3 F3, is the third in a series of five mobile communications platforms designed to deliver telephone services almost anywhere on Earth .
Rolls-Royce Canada signed a six-year exclusive agreement with BMW Rolls- Royce covering maintenance and flight-line support of North American operators' BR710 engines powering the Gulfstream V and Bombardier Global Express aircraft. The Canadian company expects to open a new 6,000-square- foot shop dedicated to the BR710 at its Montreal, Quebec, facility early next year.
France's Labinal is in talks to sell off its share of the seven-year- old Auxiliary Power International Corp. (APIC) joint venture to partner Sundstrand, which hopes to speed APIC's reactions to the marketplace by concentrating operations with a single owner. APIC is aimed at providing auxiliary power units exclusively to the commercial aircraft market, and so far its APS3200 APU has won the lion's share of new APU orders for Airbus Industrie narrowbodies.
The U.S. Air Force has issued a request for proposals for an Air Sovereignty Operations Center (ASOC) to support the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania. The ASOC concept grew out of the Regional Airspace Initiative, part of the NATO Partnership for Peace program. Frank Colson, DOD's executive director for federal aviation policy, told The DAILY that the ASOC is a data fusion node that plots data from digital or older analog radars and enables countries to share airspace radar data.
THE FIRST SLAM-ER was delivered to the U.S. Navy yesterday by McDonnell Douglas in a ceremony in St. Louis, MDC reported. The Navy plans to buy about 700 examples of the Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response weapon.
Japanese airframe companies will send about 300 engineers to Seattle soon to assist Boeing Co. in designing the 747-500X and -600X airliners. Previously, in the co-design and development of the Boeing 767 and 777, Japanese companies worked with Boeing via fax. Now, however, they think on-site cooperation is more effective. The engineers will contribute during a 38-month period, according to one industry official here. The number of engineers to be sent from each company has not yet been determined.
BOEING CO. is introducing a computer network in China to allow Chinese airlines to have better access to its parts supply systems. Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, quoting Darce Lamb, vice president of spare parts for Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, said yesterday that the new system will connect the airlines with Boeing's Beijing supply centers, as well as other airlines around the world.
The U.S. Air Force is restructuring its Air Staff to strengthen links between operations and intelligence. The new structure will "lead to creation of an information-operations culture," the service said in a statement yesterday. The operations branch will also control surveillance, reconnaissance, and command and control.
ALLFAST Fastening System Inc., Los Angeles, won the President's Award for Excellence from Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, Allfast announced. It said it was chosen for the award from a pool of 4,000 Boeing suppliers. The company was cited for "outstanding product support and 100% zero rejections since January 1995."
Lockheed Martin and TRW have formed a team to compete in bidding for the Defense Dept.'s next-generation Advanced EHF Milsatcom, the companies announced. Under the arrangement, Lockheed Martin Missiles&Space would be prime contractor, provide the satellite bus, and handle overall integration. TRW Space&Electronics Group will supply the extremely high frequency (EHF) payload and processing systems.
Space Systems/Loral has entered a contract worth as much as $350 million with Indonesia's P.T. Pasifik Satelit Nusantara to build as many as seven high-powered telecommunications satellites. Under the deal, the U.S. satellite-maker will provide one 11-kilowatt satellite and long-lead items for a second, optional satellite, and will be under option for five more of the platforms. Plans call for the first satellite, designated M2A, to carry 54 transponders and provide direct broadcast service in C-band for the first time, SS/L said yesterday.
NASA has picked the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) of Columbia, Md., to develop and operate the U.S. space agency's planned Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a 20-year effort worth an estimated $484.2 million.
NASA and two top enginemakers for the general aviation market entered cooperative agreements to develop low-cost powerplants Monday that Administrator Daniel S. Goldin says will point the way toward production of as many as 20,000 small airplanes a year early in the coming century.
Senior Pentagon officials told reporters Monday they intend to request about $110 million in the fiscal year 1998 budget submission for continued U.S. participation in the joint international program to develop a Medium Extended Area Defense System (MEADS).
