Astra Jet Corp. named Richard Beine VP-marketing and sales. Coltec Industries appointed Louis Melograna plant manager at the Walbar Metals facility in Greenwood, S.C. Gulfstream Aerospace named Gene Rainville executive VP-international sales. IVI Business Travel International added Ben Parodi as sales director- West Coast Region.
U.S. and foreign airlines met "with very good success" the first deadline of the noise rule that requires carriers to phase out Stage 2 aircraft by 2000, Louise Maillett, FAA deputy assistant administrator for policy and international aviation, said Friday at the FAA news conference. Carriers were required to reduce their Stage 2 aircraft by 25% or operate a fleet with at least 55% Stage 3 compliance by Dec. 31. FAA denied seven petitions for exemption and has not granted any.
Continuing political unrest in The Gambia may force NASA to shift its trans-oceanic abort landing (TAL) site for STS-67 to Senegal. NASA ground crews in place for an emergency landing during the STS-65 launch were menaced by soldiers at Yundum Airport in Banjul (DAILY, Aug. 15, 1994, page 246), and Shuttle managers are prepared to shift to Dakar Yoff International Airport if the Gambian situation doesn't stabilize before the scheduled March 2 Endeavour launch.
HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS national security subcommittee Friday approved a fiscal 1995 defense supplemental bill which would provide $3.25 billion to replace operations and maintenance funds used to pay the cost of peacekeeping operations. The Administration planned to send a $2.55 billion supplemental to Congress along with the fiscal 1996 defense budget on Feb. 6. The subcommittee, concerned about cutting into the services' readiness activities, decided not to wait. It also increased the amount by $700 million, while doubling rescissions in the bill to $1.4 billion.
A special panel convened by the European Commission is urging the creation of a European Intervention Force that would be used to carry out a collective European Union defense policy. And if that weren't radical enough for the EU-up to now content to let the wholly separate Western European Union handle defense matters-the panel also thinks that policy questions should be settled by a qualified majority.
Draft Clinton administration bill to set up an American Air Traffic Service Corporation eliminates DOT authority over borrowing and imposition of fees that was part of the original proposal announced in May last year. In a recent but still unfinished draft obtained by The DAILY, the borrowing limit of $15 billion to have been imposed on the U.S. Air Traffic Services Corporation is gone, as is authority for the DOT secretary to disapprove borrowing under certain conditions.
Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) has offered a plan for balancing the budget by 2002 that calls for $180 billion in spending cuts, including elimination of airport grants-in-aid. Hollings would freeze discretionary outlays after 1998 and impose a 5% value-added tax, beginning in 1996.
Romie Brownlee of the Senate Armed Services Committee's majority staff says there's "no good understanding" in Congress of unmanned aerial vehicles, and calls on industry to better educate legislators. At a conference in Arlington, Va., Brownlee and John Douglas, SASC minority staff, expressed support of UAVs and recognized importance of the vehicles in providing reconnaissance.
Moody's Investors Service has lowered its ratings on AMR-backed industrial revenue bonds issued by the Raleigh/Durham Airport Authority and the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority because of American's actions to reduce operations at the two airports. The ratings on the bonds were lowered to Baa3 from Baa2. "In Moody's view, the continuing changes in the airline environment are likely to render such reductions permanent with few prospects for these airports to return to hub status approaching their previous stature," the rating agency said.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) last week renewed his call for a $270 billion fiscal 1996 defense budget and said "a top priority" will be "to energize the ballistic missile defense effort." Thurmond made the appeal Thursday in a Senate floor speech which played on President Clinton's State of the Union message and amounted to what he called a "State of the Forces."
Yuri Koptiev, head of the Russian Space Agency, tells members of the Russian parliament that some 260,000 Russian space workers owe their jobs to the fact that the satellites they support have exceeded their planned service lives. According to news accounts from Moscow, Koptiev listed 177 Russian satellites in orbit, and said that 104 are overdue for shutdown.
House aviation subcommittee hearing on unfunded mandates, scheduled Wednesday, is causing concern at FAA, which fears that a law barring or limiting such mandates could affect the agency's safety mission, Deputy Administrator Linda Daschle said Friday. "We would not want to lose our ability to pass safety regulations," Daschle told a news conference in Washington. She said FAA's ability to impose the same requirements on Part 135 regional carriers as it does on Part 121 major airlines might be limited by an unfunded mandates law.
United has promoted Edmond Soliday from director of corporate safety and security to VP-corporate safety and security. Chairman Gerald Greenwald said the promotion demonstrates United's commitment to the goal of zero fatal accidents. Soliday worked as a United pilot for more than 28 years.
Will the International Space Station survive the new era of balanced budget amendments, tax cut proposals and turmoil in Russia? "Probably, but not certainly," says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R- Calif.) of the House Science Committee. "I don't know, because I don't know [how] the new freshman feel about the Space Station," he says. "We've had some pretty close votes-two years ago it was a real close [one margin] vote-and the situation in Russia is fluid."
In Federal Register dated Jan. 20...Issued an airworthiness directive on Douglas DC-9 and MD-80 aircraft requiring inspection of the tailcone release locking cable fitting assembly...Proposed special conditions for Hamilton Standard 568F propellers with electronic pitch control...Proposed an AD on Socata TBM 700 aircraft to require pneumatic de-icers on the elevator horn leading edges...Proposed revising an AD on Piper PA-25 aircraft concerning inspection of the wing forward spar fuselage attachment assembly.
Some of the changes in pilot medical standards being considered by FAA would increase costs more than benefits and contribute to an already shrinking pilot base, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association testified at the first of three FAA public hearings on the proposals. AOPA President Phil Boyer told the hearing that only 1.9% of general aviation accidents between 1982 and 1991 involved a medical problem as a contributing factor, and only 0.4% of the accidents involved a problem that may have been prevented through medical certification.
Virgin Atlantic has completed plans to move its U.S. headquarters from New York City to Norwalk, Conn. The airline has purchased a 41,000-square-foot office building and plans to move into the space by midsummer.
U.S. and Canada, during four days of talks in Washington, have resolved issues relating to the phase-in of service to Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto as outlined in the framework agreement. When the talks move to Ottawa next week, officials will be looking for compromise language on issues, such as user fees and code sharing. Also, the U.S. side is expecting to get Canadian language on dispute resolution.
NATO intelligence experts say they didn't expect "great" performance by Russian troops in Chechnya, and so were "somewhat surprised" when the initial mobilization "didn't look half bad." But once Russian troops came under fire, they "exposed their shortfalls," one intel officer says.
LOCKHEED AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS CO., Marietta, Ga., on Friday received an additional $104.9 million from the U.S. Air Force for development of the F- 22 fighter's capability to carry the 1,000 pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). Work on the contract is expected to be completed in March 2002, the Defense Dept. said.
U.S. Major Carriers Operating and Net Proft Third Quarter 1994 Operating Net Profit/Loss Profit/Loss (000) (000) Third Quarter 1994 America West $ 33,946 $ 20,300 American 470,986 219,477 Continental 39,218 30,631
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he expects "some increased funding" for national missile defense in fiscal 1996, which is a key part of the national security portion of the House Republican Contract With America. McCain, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, says he expects the NMD issue to touch off a congressional debate over priorities. He says it's "too early to say" whether legislation for an NMD could command a majority in Congress.
FAA officials, responding to concerns expressed by the military, will meet this week with Defense Department counterparts on potential changes in the wide area augmentation system (WAAS) related to signal accuracy, according to Richard Arnold, FAA's integrated product team leader for GPS/Nav (DAILY, Jan. 27). DOD wants provisions for encryption of WAAS signals and FAA is trying to avoid this, a source told The DAILY, and the dispute went to the White House.
Freeze the Pentagon budget at $250 billion, plan for only one big regional war, and boost readiness and modernization. That's the prescription of retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak. McPeak, who recently left the service as AF chief of staff, said Friday in Washington that current budget levels and the strategy to win two near-simultaneous major regional conflicts (MRCs) represent an "in-between approach."
