JetBlue Airways is tackling the problem of travel stress. Passengers may safely direct their hostilities, at least mentally, at eight yellow punching bags the carrier playfully installed at its Terminal 6 at New York JFK International Airport. Taglines on the ornamental bags--``Forget where you parked?'' ``Left the iron on?''--are an effort to neutralize travel anxieties.
Saab Bofors has defeated a Lockheed Martin/MBDA team to win the British Defense Ministry's 400-million-pound ($580-million) next-generation light antiarmor weapon program. The Saab Bofors Main Battle Tank Light Anti-Armor Weapon will enter service in 2006.
Singapore Airlines Engineering Co. predicts contributions from the 16 joint ventures it operates in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Ireland in aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul to grow 25-30% in the next 3-4 years. SIA Engineering recently opened a third hangar in Singapore and has plans for two more.
Barnes Machine Inc., a subsidiary of Compass Aerospace Corp., has won a five-year, $3-million contract covering assemblies and machine parts for Boeing 737 aircraft.
Yet another momentous task awaits the overworked Transportation Security Administration (TSA). While trying to fill a $4.4-billion budget shortfall, set up a 50,000-plus airport security workforce and put 1,100 explosives detection systems in hundreds of airports, it's also trying to roll out a credentialing program for 15-25 million transportation workers and possibly another 10 million frequent fliers.
Online fuel trader Jet-A.com has reached separate agreements with aviation e-marketplaces Cordium and Aeroxchange to offer Jet-A.com's jet fuel procurement and management services through their marketplaces. . . . Sikorsky will be writing its manufacturing work instructions with iBASEt's Solumina CAPP software. It can work with existing data as well as the latest digital models. . . . In its move to e-business, the U.S. Air Force plans to rewrite its 14,000 online business forms, which now exist as static documents, in the XML language to make them more interactive.
Flight tests of the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor resumed late last week at NAS Patuxent River, Md., ending an 18-month halt in the program to resolve problems stemming from two fatal accidents. Marine Col. Dan Schultz, program manager for the MV-22, said technical problems, including faulty titanium hydraulic lines and errant software codes, ``have been fixed'' and that the U.S. Navy ``has left no stone unturned'' in its quest to provide a ``safe and operational aircraft'' to the Marine Corps.
US Airways, as part of its planned expansion of regional jet operations, is reactivating the former Potomac Air and renaming it MidAtlantic Airways. US Airways expects startup of MidAtlantic in the fall and is soon to select regional aircraft types for the fleet. MidAtlantic will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of US Airways Group Inc. and a US Airways Express carrier, along with Allegheny, Piedmont and PSA Airlines. Potomac Air, created as the basis for DC Air as part of US Airways merger with United Airlines, ceased operations in October 2001.
The Pentagon is experiencing a sharp rise in aircraft accidents this year. And though safety officials aren't certain of the cause, they are pretty sure they can't blame the trend on combat operations in Afghanistan and other places. The U.S. Air Force through May 24 experienced 20 aircraft Class A accidents, those with more than $1 million in damage, for a rate of 1.32 incidents per 100,000 flight hours. By the same time last year, the service's accident rate was 0.85.
U.S. merchant bank Carlyle Group has expressed an interest in buying the information technology services unit of defense electronics company Thales, in partnership with French IT company Transiciel. France's GFI is also a candidate, as is a third unnamed company, thought to be Quebec-based CGI. Thales is envisioning the sale of the business, which generated 485 million euros ($446 million) in sales last year, as part of an effort to streamline its Information Technology and Services (IT&S) group.
The FAA intends to develop an environmental impact statement (EIS) for two new runways at Washington Dulles International Airport. Unfortunately, one of the two was intended as recently as 18 months ago to be completed in 2004, increasing capacity by 46% in good weather and 54% in bad. The new target is 2007--still ambitious, considering that the EIS is just getting started and meetings to receive public comments haven't been held yet. They are scheduled late in June.
The location of NetJets' operations base was incorrectly identified in the article entitled ``NetJets' Bucks Simulator Trend'' (AW&ST May 27, p. 56). The correct location is the Port Columbus International Airport.
With key technology support from Russia, China is developing a new active radar-guided beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile that could be fielded in the latter half of this decade. The weapon should significantly improve the Chinese air force's air combat capability. The program, called Project 129 or R129, was previously associated with the purchase or possible license-production of the Russian R-77 (AA-12 Adder) medium-range radar-guided air-to-air missile.
Regional airlines will have more access to digital data link communications in early 2003, when Rockwell Collins intends to bring out a new generation of equipment. The suite will consist of the VHF-4000 VHF transceiver, which can operate with the existing CMU-900 communications management unit or with the new CMU-4000. The system is part of the Collins Pro Line 21 family. Its capabilities include VHF data link (VDL) Mode 2 air/ground communications and the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) for airline operations.
The heads of the space agencies that are partners in the International Space Station are scheduled to meet in Paris June 3, and late last week NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe was on the list to attend even though he didn't have much new information to give. Still pending at NASA are reports on station science priorities and an independent station cost assessment. Without those in hand, O'Keefe won't really be in a position to negotiate.
Airlines may have to begin modifying their transponders as early as next year to assure continuous transmission of a hijacking code even after cockpit switches and circuit breakers are turned off. The upgrade was requested by the Transportation Dept. to prevent a repeat of the confusion of Sept. 11, when hijackers turned off the transponders. Deprived of aircraft identification and altitude information from the secondary surveillance radar, controllers were forced to revert to primary radar returns, which showed only aircraft locations.
Preliminary design of the GP7200, the 81,500-lb.-thrust powerplant being developed for the Airbus A380 by an industrial team headed by General Electric and Pratt & Whitney, should be frozen by the end of June. If schedules hold, the first full engine should begin testing at Pratt's East Hartford, Conn., facilities in April 2004, clearing the way for initial 747 flying testbed activities aimed at assessing engine operability in September of the same year.
The U.S. Air Force plans to spend $18.5 million to upgrade 94 B-52H and B-52G trainers with Rockwell Collins ARC-210 multimode radios, so they can communicate more easily with Navy ships. DynCorp Technical Services of Fort Worth will install the radios and upgrade them to a Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA) capability for satellite communication, which the original ARC-210 in the B-52s did not have. With DAMA, a computer controls network operations for some 200-250 satellite transponder channels and 14,000 satcom users.
AAR Composites has been awarded a contract by Lockheed Martin for fabrication and subassembly of advanced composite and carbon fiber structures for the Electro-Optical Sensor System on the U.S. Army Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. The EOSS is part of the helicopter's target-acquisition and night adverse weather pilotage systems.
Michael Johns has been appointed Melville, N.Y.-based general manager of marketing for North and South America for Swiss International Air Lines. He was vice president of Gentiva Health Services.
Comdev Europe will supply TRW Inc. with the beam select switch subsystem for the first two satellites of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite Project. The three-year contract is valued up to $9.5 million.
BBA/Signature Flight Support will build an FBO facility at Toulon-Hyeres airport, halfway between Nice and Marseilles, to serve the booming demand for business aviation services in the south of France. The facility will open in mid-2003 and is expected to handle 2,500 arrivals a year by the time a new $2-million, 20,000-sq.-ft. hangar and administration building complex is completed in 2-3 years.
Airbus has received certification from the Joint Aviation Authorities for its new cockpit doors that meet newly defined safety and security regulations. The first conversion kits will be available for in-service aircraft this week, while all aircraft from the production line will have the doors fitted starting in August. Airbus expects FAA certification of the modifications in June.
Even when the right people with the right credentials are allowed to go through the right airport doors, the wrong things can happen. That's because friend and foe alike are too often able to slip through supposedly secure portals by ``piggybacking'' or ``tailgating'' through the door behind the credentialed employee. Such a low-tech loophole can outsmart high-tech smart cards designed to boost security by authenticating via biometric signature that the cardholder has access to the secure area. Sept. 11 aside, there's been pressure to solve the problem for years.
