Rannoch Corp. and Rockwell Collins will collaborate on development of a real-time runway incursion prevention system under a $1.5-million NASA Langley contract. Rannoch has been working with NASA for the past two years developing and testing its PathProx cockpit warning algorithms. Work under the new contract will integrate the algorithms into an electronic moving map display that Rockwell Collins is developing, implement it in an aircraft, and define the certification path.
Improvements made to the S-3B Viking as part of a service life extension program are being verified in full-scale fatigue tests being conducted by Lockheed Martin. If successful, the upgrades will allow the U.S. Navy to keep the aircraft in the fleet until 2015. S-3 fatigue life was set in the early 1970s at 13,000 flight hours and 3,000 catapult launches, but as of early this year, of the 109 S-3s in the active fleet had already accumulated an average of 9,800 flight hours and 2,000 catapult launches and arrests.
The Thai government has abandoned its plans to sell a 10% stake in Thai Airways International to a strategic partner to raise cash for repaying debt, citing an ``improved financial performance'' in recent months by the national carrier. A Finance Ministry official in Bangkok declined to give details. The government's decision does not come as a surprise to Asian political observers, who see it as a message to potential investors not to take seriously proposed sales of state-owned enterprises in Thailand, especially in the aviation industry.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is looking for a seven-fold increase in its engine overhaul business by 2005 and, toward that end, will build a PW4000 test cell at its Komaki plant near Nagoya. MHI, which does about $25 million in overhaul work now, expects to reach $170 million in the next three years, including overhauls of more than 100 PW4000s from Japanese and other carriers. MHI has a vested interest in the PW4000--it holds a 10% development/production share.
Lars Gurfeldt has been appointed CEO of Stockholm-based Tradevision. He was vice president-commercial cargo for SAS Cargo. Gurfeldt succeeds Clas Straat.
First flight of Korea Aerospace Industries' T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic advanced trainer is expected on or about July 23 from Sachon, South Korea. The trainer/light attack fighter, jointly developed with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, is the first indigenously designed aircraft for KAI. The first-flight article recently completed low- and medium-speed taxi tests and is expected to finish high-speed taxi tests shortly before the debut flight. A second flight test article has entered ground testing and is expected to fly in November.
Six employees of The Nordam Group's Interiors and Structures Div., Tulsa, Okla., have won the FAA Standards Office's Star Quality Award. They are: Pat McCoy, engineering and certification general manager; Kelly Gonzales, integration engineering manager; Angela Borrell, admini- strative coordinator; Vincent Galioto, Galaxy program manager; Russell Stites, quality assurance inspector; David Rogers, senior technical engineer; and Garry Campbell, senior program engineer.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. (ret.) George Naccara's new job combines many skills--facility space allocation, perimeter and internal security, structural engineer, information technology leader, acquisitions, policy development and training. However, what keeps him awake at night in his post as the new federal security director (FSD) at Boston Logan International Airport aren't these things; it's the people part. Naccara will hire about 2,000 people as federal employees to work security at Logan. He needs them in place, trained and certified by Nov.
An Ariane 5 heavy-lift booster on July 5 launched into geostationary transfer orbit two telecommunications satellites, Japan's N-Star, developed by Lockheed Martin and the Orbital Sciences Corp., and Europe's Alcatel Space Stellat 5. The next Ariane 5 launch is scheduled for Aug. 27.
The U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., has completed tests of a full-scale Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) equipped with an FMU-152 A/B turbine alternator and FZU-55 A/B fuze mechanism. The tests were conducted in the facility's 16-ft. transonic wind tunnel. The fuze and alternator will allow pilots to reprogram the JDAM during a mission, according to AEDC officials.
Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector, a principal subcontractor on the Joint Strike Fighter program, will assemble components for the JSF at its Palmdale, Calif., facility and expand its JSF development and component manufacturing operations in El Segundo, Calif. One of Northrop's primary responsibilities is the design, integration and manufacture of the aircraft's center fuselage section.
Northrop Grumman Corp. is expected to encounter little difficulty winning regulatory approval of its proposed acquisition of TRW Inc., even though the transaction will concentrate some critical aerospace and defense technologies among fewer large players. The consensus of some former Defense Dept. officials and various industry observers is that there is no significant overlap of the companies' products and technologies, and that the combination is more likely to stimulate rather than inhibit technology innovation.
Moving where it thinks its military customers and much of the aerospace industry are going, Boeing Co. is merging its defense, space and communications businesses into a single unit, Integrated Defense Systems.
Adam Aircraft's A500 production prototype aircraft completed a first flight on July 11 from Centennial Airport near Denver, flown by test pilots Bruce Barrett and Glenn Maben. The approximately 6,500-lb. gross-weight, carbon-fiber composite aircraft features a side-stick controller, six-place seating and twin centerline-thrust 350-hp. Continental TSIO-550 reciprocating engines driving three-bladed, scimitar-shaped Hartzell propellers. Eventually, the powerplants will be equipped with full-authority digital engine control systems.
Earlier this month, Russian Aircraft Corp. MiG inked a deal with the Slovakian Ministry of Defense for the overhaul and lifetime extension of its air force's MiG-29 fleet. Eighteen fighters will be repaired at the Slovakian overhaul plant in Trencin through 2003. MiG also proposed to upgrade the MiG-29s in accordance with NATO standards, but the Defense Ministry has deferred a decision.
As further evidence of belt-tightening in the Japanese space program, the Space Activities Commission has decided not to support development of the GX medium-lift booster. To be built by Galaxy Express, a partnership of seven Japanese companies led by Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Trading Co., the GX is to replace the National Space Development Agency's J-1. Total development costs have been forecast as $420-450 million. The Japanese government was expected to underwrite half to two-thirds of that cost.
Everette Webb, one of the key designers of the Boeing 747, died July 2 in Renton, Wash. He was 80. Webb also was vice president of engineering for the 767, vice president of engineering for commercial airplanes and general manager of the division that built 747s and 767s in Everett, Wash. He retired from Boeing in 1987 after a 46-year career. Webb helped engineer the 707 and 727, and then led the design of the 747 along with Joseph Sutter, Kenneth Holtby and Robert Davis.
Herb and Arlene Elliott, founders of Moline, Ill.-based Elliott Aviation, have received the William A. Ong Memorial Award from the National Air Transportation Assn. They were cited for achievement and meritorious service to the general aviation industry.
Efforts to make firearms available to airline pilots should cruise through the Senate and be bulletproof to a Bush administration veto, backers say, provided it can be hitched to a homeland security bill. The House voted 310-113 last week to arm pilots as a last-ditch effort to guard the cockpit. The measure was much broader than the watered-down version that came to the floor from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which tried to appease critics by capping the number of pilots armed by the end of the two-year test to about 1,400.
The international team investigating the July 1 midair collision over Lake Constance, in southern German airspace, needs to put a damper on bickering among Russian, German and Swiss authorities. Politics can't be allowed to intrude on the effort to perform an objective analysis of possible problems with equipment, communications, human factors, procedures or organizations. The lessons learned could prevent a recurrence. With the investigation just underway, it is clearly too soon to draw conclusions.
Scientific priorities set by a top-flight outside scientific panel will help NASA decide how much capability it wants to build into the International Space Station, according to Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who anticipated the priorities would serve as a ``good running start'' on setting a final ISS configuration. That start turned out to be anything but a blast out of the blocks, however, as NASA's independent advisory body reacted to the priority report with concern it could be used as justification for killing the station project. Former Sen.
Thanong Bidaya has become chairman of Thai Airways International. He succeeds Virabongsa Ramangkura, who has resigned. Thanong was Thailand's finance minister and a former member of the airline's board of directors.
Thomas Gebhard has been named vice president-European commercial development of United Parcel Service. He succeeds Derek Woodward, who is now vice president-international marketing.
