India's infotech industry is still on track to have $70-80 billion of revenue by 2008, according to a report by McKinsey & Co. and India's National Assn. of Software and Service Companies. That would be about 7% of gross domestic product and 30% of total foreign exchange inflow, from a projected employment of 4 million, highlighting the importance of infotech to the country. It was just 0.3% of GDP in 1998-99.
Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is firmly in the camp opposed to a big attack on Iraq. ``He's saying, `Don't even consider it,''' according to a senior defense official. Nor are there indications of any major preparations for a near-term offensive. ``In order to prepare the forces for a campaign in Iraq, you need to name the commanders, pull them together and give the forces involved 2-3 months of intensive training,'' the official said.
Japan Airlines Cargo will join WOW, a global air cargo alliance, while founding member Lufthansa Cargo plans to divest from DHL International and sell its stake in the courier operator to Deutsche Post World Net. JAL Cargo's decision will be implemented by mid-2003 after bringing its Information Technology systems up to WOW standards. WOW member airlines jointly operate all-cargo aircraft and 760 passenger transports with lower deck freight capacity.
Add three airlines, for a total of 14, to the list of applicants for a federal loan guarantee. The previously unnamed carriers whose proposals beat the June 28 deadline and were being reviewed for completeness are Gemini Air Cargo, Corporate Airlines and MEDjet International (AW&ST July 8, p. 15). A spokesperson for the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, which administers the loan guarantee program, said the board still may decide that some of the applications are incomplete, but all are considered to have been received by the deadline.
The Air Force and TRW are looking for ideas to thwart hostile satellite surveillance systems and want to initiate several efforts for concept development. The goal is to give military commanders ``the capability to counter the threat imposed by adversarial space-based imaging sensors.'' The hardware should be easily transportable and be able to only ``temporarily deny'' use of the satellites, rather than destroy them outright, the Air Force Space Command said.
Chuck Taylor has been named director of corporate communications for DynCorp, Reston, Va. He was senior vice president of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide.
Hopes of rescuing Fairchild Dornier are fading in the wake of a Lufthansa German Airlines decision to cancel its order for 60 728 twinjets. Lufthansa long believed in the 70-seat 728's merits and considered the aircraft the right product for its regional subsidiary CityLine. However, a company official said late last week that the airline's management had no choice but to cancel the order. Lufthansa is believed to be evaluating the Embraer 170 and Bombardier's CRJ 700 to rejuvenate CityLine's fleet.
Selection of ITT's Avionics Div. to provide an integrated electronic warfare system for the Chilean air force's F-16s (Block 50) shows that the company has emerged as a major EW system supplier for the international as well as the U.S. market. ITT Avionics has achieved this goal primarily by extrapolating the technology from its ALQ-211 system originally developed for U.S. Army helicopters to high-flying F-16s, instead of by acquiring other EW companies.
Tiltrotor aircraft are more susceptible to rotor flow instabilities than standard single-rotor or tandem-rotor helicopters, according to a computational fluid dynamic study conducted at the University of Maryland. The study shows that powerful lift asymmetries can build up in descent conditions well short of the classic ``vortex ring state,'' where the descent rate is about the same as the rotor downwash velocity and the rotor is affected by its own wake.
Users of Dassault Systemes' Catia Analysis V5 structural analysis program will have the ability to model crashes. The French company Mecalog has become a V5 software partner and is integrating its M-Crash software with the Catia program. M-Crash has been used for more than 10 years by the car industry, but Mecalog has also modeled helicopters hitting the ocean and submarines colliding with surface ships.
Avions de Transport Regional will begin delivering secure cockpit doors in November that comply with post-Sept. 11 rules. More sophisticated on-board security systems, including video surveillance, are also being planned by the Franco-Italian twin-turboprop builder. Although regionals are less likely than big commercial transports to become terrorist targets, the worldwide effort to tighten air transportation security involves all aircraft types in the U.S.
Brian Geary has been appointed to the board of directors of LMI Aerospace Inc. of St. Louis. He was owner of the Versaform Corp., which was acquired by LMI.
James Dotan has been appointed vice president-business development for Athena Technologies Inc., Manassas, Va. He was a director of programs for BAE Systems.
LCOR Holdings, a real-estate company, and Hochtief AirPort have agreed to undertake development of the proposed South Suburban Airport near Chicago. The companies have joined with suburban Chicago communities in a public-private partnership, the South Suburban Airport Coalition. The coalition selected the two developers after a review of more than a dozen candidates.
Danielle Tocco has been named area marketing manager for Los Angeles, Sharon Thompson for the Dallas/Fort Worth area and Ana Schwager for Albany and Buffalo, N.Y., for Southwest Airlines. All three were marketing representatives. Bill Showalter has become station manager for Albuquerque (N.M.) International Airport. He held that position in Norfolk, Va.
The depressed space launch market is going to keep NASA in the business of flying the space shuttle fleet for the foreseeable future. Bill Readdy, deputy associate administrator for space flight, tells the Space Transportation Assn. a preliminary Rand report on shuttle privatization was interesting but not surprising, given market conditions. ``The first answer was not right now, certainly not in the next five years, probably not in this decade,'' he said.
Merrimac Industries Inc. will supply microwave components for target detection for the U.S. Navy's Standard Missile under a $600,000, multiyear contract.
DARPA AND THE AIR FORCE RESEARCH LABORATORY LAUNCHED a major initiative to develop revolutionary software-enabled control (SEC) systems for intelligent unmanned aerial vehicles. The intent is to give UAVs more ability to autonomously respond to unexpected system faults, as well as increased agility to avoid hostile actions, without exceeding aircraft limits. Boeing Phantom Works and Georgia Institute of Technology recently demonstrated a key component--an Open Control Platform on a Georgia Tech UAV helicopter testbed.
More details have emerged on Airbus' $850-million contract with major Japanese manufacturers to build components for the 555-seat A380 (AW&ST July 1, p. 20). Mitsubishi Heavy Industry's contract to produce forward and aft cargo doors will be carried out at its Oye plant in Nagoya. The first shipset is due in September 2003. MHI already produces cargo doors for the A330/A340 and shroud boxes for the A320 family. For Fuji Heavy Industries, the A380 program marks its debut with Airbus.
The few young people that our industry is managing to attract to aircraft maintenance are studying under curricula and certification procedures burdened by decades-old Federal Aviation Regulations. It's as if pilot training were regulated by round-dial cockpit technology rather than the multifunction display screens of today's commercial and military aircraft. The FAA's current--but outdated--Part 147 regulations governing maintenance technician schools and Part 65 rules covering their certification do not allow adequately for modern, computer-based training.
Hoping to make its aircraft more resilient in the face of increasingly sophisticated infrared-guided air-defenses, the U.S. Air Force's Special Operations Command (Afsoc) is upgrading self-protection gear on some of its helicopters and specially configured C-130s. The planned deal would lead to the installation of Northrop Grumman's AAQ-24(V) Directed Infrared Countermeasures (Dircm) defensive system on MH-53 Pave Lows, the Air Force said. Afsoc has put the project on the fast track, designating it a quick-reaction capability which indicates it has urgency.
DRAPER LABORATORY, LONG A LEADER IN INERTIAL NAVIGATION systems (INS) and integrated inertial and global positioning systems (INS/GPS), is using Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) technology to shrink the inertial part of an INS/GPS guidance system to a 100-gram (0.22-lb.) package for a micro UAV. INS holds the navigation solution during periods of GPS outages or denial. Using MEMS for INS has opened the door for INS systems in precision-guided and projectile-fired munitions.
NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland will develop an advanced ion propulsion system for spacecraft under a $21-million contract with the agency's Office of Space Science. The NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) program will build on the ion engine technology used on the Deep Space 1 mission to develop an engine with greater payload capacity and longer service life. A team headed by Boeing Electron Dynamic Devices of Torrance, Calif., will develop carbon-based ion optics under a $4-million contract awarded in an effort to extend ion thruster life.
Adventurer J. Stephen Fossett became the first man to fly around the globe solo in a balloon on July 2, covering a distance of 18,827 mi. in 13 days 12 hr. 10 min. in the circumnavigation itself, or a remarkable average speed of 58 mph. It was his sixth attempt to fly around the world solo. His flight will likely gain an absolute record for the fastest time around the world by a balloon, which requires that the path not penetrate a polar cap subtending 60 deg. and adjustable in position, creating a minimum distance of 13,024 mi.
