Marshall O. Larsen, president/chief operating officer for aerospace of the Goodrich Corp., has been named chairman of the board of governorsfor 2002 of the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Assn. Vance D. Coffman, chairman/CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corp., was appointed vice chairman. Reelected association president/CEO was John W. Douglass, and George F. Copsey will remain secretary/treasurer. Also on the executive committee are: Daniel P. Burnham, chairman/CEO of the Raytheon Co.; Stephen L.
Varig Brazilian Airlines has formed Varig Engineering and Maintenance to perform MRO work. The new company will be based at Tom Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro. A Varig official said the facility will focus on heavy maintenance checks of transport aircraft, avionics work, airframe conversions, engine overhaul and painting.
Swantech has entered into a multi-year contract with Pratt&Whitney to provide its SWANview system for on-board evaluation on the USAF/NASA C-17 T1 aircraft. The system provides propulsion health management technologies to be flight tested under the C-17 Intelligent Vehicle System program funded by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and Pratt&Whitney.
Harding L. Lawrence, who retired in 1980 as chairman and CEO of Braniff International, died Jan. 16 at home in Mustique, St. Vincent, West Indies. He was 81. Lawrence brought the supersonic Concorde to the U.S., operating it between Washington Dulles and Dallas in the late 1970s, under a short-lived dry lease from British Airways. Braniff filed for bankruptcy in 1982.
MICRO-ELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS have reached the stage of development where Honeywell is offering to design and produce MEMS devices for other manufacturers. Honeywell's primary MEMS product has been precision accelerometers for aircraft navigation and missile guidance systems, but MEMS also serve as sensors for automobile air bags and for controlling ink jet printers. A growing application puts micromirror systems on a single chip as low-cost optical switches.
Driven by strong economic growth, Russian airlines last year recorded an estimated 14% jump in passenger traffic and a 10% increase in cargo haulage. The industry's performance, which followed a modest turnaround in 2000, was the first substantial improvement since the early 1990s. Russian carriers transported almost 25 million passengers and 603,000 metric tons of freight. Though detailed results will not be released until February, experts believe industry's financial figures also will demonstrate a substantial recovery.
Joseph Vreeman has become vice president/general manager for the BAE Systems commercial aircraft modification, maintenance and repair facility in Victorville, Calif. He was senior vice president-customer support for Fairchild Dornier in San Antonio.
Singapore Airlines Flight SQ006's flight crew may once again face the prospect of prosecution for negligence in April, when the final accident report is scheduled for release. On the night of Oct. 31, 2000, in typhoon rains, the Boeing 747-400 was cleared to depart the active Runway 05 Left at Taipei's Chiang Kai-Shek airport. Instead, Flight 006 began its takeoff roll on the closed Runway 05 Right and crashed into construction equipment, killing 82 people (AW&ST Nov. 13, 2000, p. 42).
Machinists union members at United Airlines are expected to vote in coming weeks on a wage and benefit package crafted by the Presidential Emergency Board and reluctantly accepted by the airline. The PEB recommended that the top hourly pay rate for mechanics, currently at $25.60 with premiums, be increased in four increments to $37.54. The board said United's employees deserved a contract that is equivalent to one in force at American Airlines, including an improved retirement plan.
Arianespace started off the new year in style with a successful launch of India's Insat 3C telecom satellite on an Ariane 4 booster. The next Ariane launch, also an Ariane 4, is scheduled for Feb. 20, with an Intelsat 904 payload.
THALES ATM WILL DELIVER and integrate a display system for the ground movement guidance control system at Frankfurt airport. Thales had delivered the sensors and fused the data under a previous contract from Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide. The Taxi Control System/Cooperative Area Precision Tracking System is expected to increase the efficiency of ground operations, particularly during bad weather.
The U.S. is ratcheting up the number of military personnel deployed to the Philippines to aid in that country's antiterrorism efforts, mainly against the Abu Sayyaf group that is seen as having ties to Al Qaeda. Most of the 50 U.S. troops already there are members of an advance team, although the number of ``trainers'' who would work directly with the Philippine military is being increased. The total size of the force could grow to about 660 troops. The U.S. presence has run into opposition from some Philippine lawmakers.
Spot Image is counting on a network of new partnership arrangements and new capabilities afforded by its new Spot 5 imaging satellite to return the struggling company to health.
Japan's transport ministry and the public corporation that manages Tokyo's Narita airport are in a quandary about how to allocate additional slots when the facility's new 2,180-meter (7,150-ft.) runway enters service on Apr. 18. Only 882 weekly slots are to be allocated, but Narita is an essential hub in Northeast Asia. If the wishes of all 45 carriers from 23 countries were granted, Narita would need to add 1,129 additional slots. The additional runway is to boost the airport's handling capacity from 135,000 movements a year to 200,000.
A consortium led by Dassault Aviation has submitted an industrial cooperation proposal to the Netherlands as part of its tender for the Dutch fighter competition. The Rafale International consortium, which includes Snecma and Thales, is proposing to involve the Dutch as full partners in a new version of the Rafale, dubbed the F4 standard, equipped with an active-array radar antenna. The radar, which could have naval applications, would be derived from the passive array RBE-2 that currently equips the Rafale.
Air traffic controllers from Dallas/Fort Worth gave a positive evaluation of NASA Ames Research Center software designed to decrease departure delays. The Surface Management System can look into the near future at scheduled departures, predict potential congestion and help eliminate bottlenecks. It provides aircraft location maps, departure timelines and load capacity graphs to manage ground control (AW&ST May 7, 2001, p. 25).
Northrop Grumman suffered a second major setback to its unmanned systems programs when the U.S. Air Force pulled the plug on its contract for the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy.
NASA/Langley Research Center is preparing to test the X-43ALS and X-43BLS platforms to determine how hypersonic shapes respond when encountering ground effect during the takeoff and landing phase of flight.
Lufthansa German Airlines is facing more battering from labor unrest and low-cost carrier competition. In addition, it received a federal warning over alleged predatory pricing. However, Lufthansa executives say they see signs of a slow market recovery which could lead to a small profit in 2002.
John Rahilly (see photo) has been named vice president-operations for the Atlanta-based Mercury Air Centers. He was vice president-technical services for BBA Aviation Inc.
The company also was quick off the mark to propose payloads for the ``smart tanker'' proposed by U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper. He has called for a pallet of equipment and snap-on antennas that can turn tankers into major collectors and relayers of information over any far-flung battlefield. ``It's very feasible and very functional, and we've submitted ideas,'' Northrup Grumman's Iorizzo said.
George (Peter) Murnane, 3rd, has been appointed executive vice president-finance and planning of the Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group. He was both executive vice president/chief operating officer of Atlanta-based International Airline Support Group and COO/chief financial officer of North-South Airways.
Overall, we are impressed with the diligence and aggressiveness with which the Transportation Dept. and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have moved forward to meet the early deadlines included in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. While progress has been made, clearly the ``heavy lifting''--installing explosives detection systems to screen all checked baggage and hiring a workforce--lies ahead. . . .
A new family of small, flat-plate communication antennas, designed for stealthy operations, is being developed to replace the traditional, large parabolic arrays in an effort to better tie together ships, aircraft and satellites. The ``cooperative antenna development program'' is to be a joint effort between the Office of Naval Research and National Reconnaissance Office.
General Dynamics Corp. last week reported a 12% increase in net earnings for 2001, to $915 million, or $4.51 per diluted share, on 17% higher sales, to $12.2 billion. Raytheon Co., on the other hand, posted a net loss of $703 million, or $1.95 per diluted share, on flat sales of $16.9 billion.
