The nation's weapons laboratories are backing a congressional drive to equip the proposed Homeland Security Dept. with a focused science and technology office. As a bevy of congressional panels rushed to meet their July 12 deadline for submitting language to create the new department, officials from Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories endorsed provisions in pending House and Senate bills that would place the science and technology (S&T) office under a separate director.
Sport aviation in the U.S. is experiencing increasing demand for personal flying as a potential alternative to the major airlines, but industry officials fear that overzealous security measures will escalate the cost of flying and suffocate future growth. In the wake of the attack on America last September, an increasing number of non-pilots are considering learning to fly and either buying or building their own airplanes, according to the Experimental Aircraft Assn. (EAA).
The U.S. Marine Corps is evaluating what to do with its CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters to keep them going well into the future. The service-life-extension program (SLEP) could cover an engine enhancement, improved main rotor blade and cargo system, elastomeric rotor head, common cockpit, structural life-extension and self-protection upgrades. Which of those seven efforts will be carried out is still under review, a USMC official said. One hot candidate appears to be the engine upgrade, though.
NASA/Langley Research Center plans to crash test a Fokker F28 jet transport to determine the effects of impact dynamics on large airframe structures. According to a NASA official, the airframe is tentatively scheduled to be tested in the second quarter of 2004 at Langley's Impact Dynamics Research Facility (IDRF). The agency has received proposals to determine exactly what crash concepts should be studied, including a systems approach to crashworthy aircraft designs and crash-resistant fuel systems, and contracts are scheduled to be awarded by August.
Ever since a schizophrenic passenger overpowered the cockpit crew of an All Nippon Airways 747-400 in 1999 and killed its veteran pilot, Japan's commercial air transport industry has debated the terms under which such passengers should be denied boarding. The industry's initial answer was to severely restrict or ban the access of known mental patients to commercial flights, much to the dismay of social activists and human rights organizations.
USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Donald L. Peterson is scheduled to become executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based Air Force Assn. on Aug. 1. He will succeed John A. Shaud. Peterson was deputy Air Force chief of staff for personnel.
Dion Flannery has been named vice president-route planning and scheduling for America West Airlines. He was senior director of long-range schedule planning and charters for Continental Airlines.
Swiss, the ``new'' carrier from Switzerland, is having a good start that largely meets its business plan's primary goals, according to company executives. Built on Swissair's ashes with a new shareholding structure and reshuffled management, Swiss serves routes to 126 destinations with 128 aircraft. It anticipates carrying nearly 10 million passengers April-December and about 14 million in 2003, its first full year. ``Nevertheless, we are a startup carrier,'' Chief Executive Andre Dose said. He added that the post-Sept.
Jim Keenan has been named senior vice president-commercial engines for Pratt & Whitney, East Hartford, Conn. He was vice president-engineering and technical support for United Airlines.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. recently completed full-scale F-22 static loads tests aimed at verifying the structural design capability of the fighter at limit and ultimate loads. In three years of static loads testing, engineers have examined 15 strain survey conditions, 18 limit load conditions, 19 ultimate load conditions and 66 local test conditions, including the most recent trials, those directed at characterizing the ultimate loads encountered between the aircraft's wings and its weapons pylons.
The Gulfstream G-IIB with Garrett Honeywell avionics is now certified for reduced vertical separation minimum avionics (RVSM) operations, adding to the number of business jets that will be able to fly more optimum altitudes. The G-IIB is essentially a G-II with a G-III wing. Included in the package are dual digital air data computers, higher accuracy altimeters, high-reliability solid-state sensors, fully coupled autopilot and upgrades to the display system. Cost of an installation is about $250,000.
Jim Dornbusch, Jr., has become manager of the Wichita, Kan., branch of Kulite Semiconductor Products Inc. and Jim Dornbusch, Sr., director of aerospace. The elder Dornbusch was program manager of the Hawker Horizon for Raytheon Aircraft, also in Wichita.
It's beginning to look like NASA will have the money it needs to build the ``core complete'' version of the International Space Station, without any more nasty surprises like last year's $4.8-billion shortfall. Administrator Sean O'Keefe says the early word he's getting shows at most a ``nominal'' adjustment will be needed in the amounts budgeted for the truncated three-person station adopted to cover the shortfall.
Wall Street is anticipating a strong second-quarter for defense stocks, with many companies likely to report double-digit earnings growth. Some contractors may even raise their earnings guidance for the second half of the year. With defense stocks up by more than 15% as of last Thursday, the sector probably is as safe a haven as professional investors are apt to find in the current bear market.
Emily Carter has been appointed vice president-marketing and industry relations for the Washington-based Universal Air Travel Plan Inc. She was director of marketing.
Turkey has signed on to the next phase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program last week. Pentagon acquisition chief E.C. Aldridge, Jr., met last week with Turkish Underecretary for Defense Industries Ali Ercan to ink a $175-million memorandum of understanding for the development phase. Turkey earlier invested $6.2 million in the concept demonstration phase. As a level three partner, Turkey will participate with the U.K., Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark and Norway for the next 10 years of the system's development-and-demonstration phase.
USAF Brig. Gen. (ret.) Jerome A. Landry has become partner executive for the Global Defense and Space Group of Cisco Systems Inc., Herndon, Va. He was a vice president of TRW and previously senior vice president-business development for BDM International.
Airbus will contribute 60% of the 80-million-euro ($79.5-million) budget for its new technology program, Aircraft Wing with Advanced Technology Operation (Awiator). The four-year project, cofunded by a consortium of 23 partners from Europe, will validate advanced technologies for wing design applications on future transport aircraft. Many technologies will be investigated and eventually flight tested on the company's flying testbed A340, MSN 001.
Caroline M. (Maury) Devine has been named to the board of directors of Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings, Dulles, Va. She is a fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and was secretary of the Mobil Corp.
Facing an aviation community as divided as ever on what to do in the long run about congestion and delays at New York LaGuardia Airport, the FAA has bought itself more time--two years--to sort things out. Along the way, it will factor into its thinking a strong endorsement of the most market-oriented of options, slot auctions, from an unexpected, influential source, the Justice Dept. Large airlines still argue that the FAA doesn't need to do anything at LaGuardia (LGA) because the current demand-management regime keeps delays at a tolerable level.
Top level British defense aerospace executives met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and senior ministers here, during which a radical overhaul of the British defense procurement system was raised. The June 18 breakfast meeting saw senior level industrialists, including BAE Systems Chief Executive Officer Mike Turner, raise concerns about Britain's defense aerospace industrial base. Following the discussions, Turner wrote to Patricia Hewitt, secretary of state for trade and industry. He urged the government to reconsider its approach to defense procurement.
Lockheed Martin's ``Pantera'' precision attack system recently won the Royal Norwegian Air Force's Laser Target Designator Pods competition. The intake-mounted pods will be integrated with RNAF's fleet of F-16 Mid-Life-Update fighters. The $27-million award marks the first international sale for Pantera. The precision attack navigation and targeting system is an export version of the company's Sniper extended range pod, which is in development testing as the U.S. Air Force's advanced targeting pod for F-15, F-16 and other aircraft (AW&ST Feb. 5, 2001, p. 60).
Last week's crash of another Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft leaves Pentagon planners without an electro-optical/infrared payload to gather intelligence over Iraq should a conflict develop there. Air vehicle No. 4 carried the only available EO/IR sensor package when its Rolls-Royce engine failed, leaving just two of the aircraft for operations. Those will be restricted to synthetic aperture radar sensor payloads that are less precise than the EO/IR payload.
