Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. is grappling with organizational issues and contemplating what role, if any, Boeing will play in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program as it prepares to enter the Systems Design and Development phase. First flight of a production aircraft is anticipated in 2005.
Another program is available for airlines and other companies to keep their cost of fuel and energy down (AW&ST Jan. 15, p. 421). Kiodex Risk Workbench (www.kiodex.com) puts together pricing tools, market data and financial reports, and provides information from online energy trading systems such as EnronOnline and enymex. The Risk Workbench also provides a documentation trail for audit verification. . . . Raytheon has created a wholly owned subsidiary, SilentRunner Inc., to handle its information assurance business, in particular the SilentRunner software.
The French government selected Chaulnes, 80 mi. north of Paris, as the location for a new international airport. It is tentatively scheduled to be inaugurated in 2015 and cost about $6.5 billion.
The MS Series 6000 psi full-ported, bi-directional ball valve is designed for severe service use. It has a 316 stainless forged body, with a variety of seat materials to provide for fluid compatibility in most systems. An array of end connections and valve operators are standard features. Suitable for temperatures from cryogenic up to 500F, the valves are applicable in various rocket engine test stands and launch stands. They serve as the main supply valves on high-pressure, high-flow helium and nitrogen systems.
The two-video course, ``Flying GPS Approaches--Featuring the KLN 89B,'' is designed to introduce pilots to GPS navigation. In Part 1, pilots learn how to go beyond ``direct to'' and use an IFR GPS. The program covers the basics of the GPS system, through the mechanics and details of manipulating flight plans. In Part 2, pilots learn to call up, activate and fly IFR GPS approaches. An intro to accessing and using stored database procedures with departure procedures, followed by a review of the GPS stand-alone approach, is featured.
Two new supercomputers from Silicon Graphics have been installed at NASA facilities to crunch data to make more accurate assessments of climatic change, both natural and man-made. One, installed at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., is an SGI Origin 3800 single-system supercomputer that it describes as the world's first 1,024-processor unit. The second also is an Origin 3800 but half the size, a 512-processor. It was installed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
James C. Christiansen has become vice president-national accounts and Mark Booth co-chairman of the London-based NetJets program of Executive Jet Inc., Woodbridge, N.J. Christiansen was executive vice president/chief operating officer of TAG Aviation USA, while Booth was general partner of News Corp. subsidiary epartners.
On the morning of Nov. 12, is there anyone reading this magazine who did not think, at least for a moment, ``Oh my God, not again!'' Of course not. All of us recognize that one more successful terrorist act against an airliner would downgrade the aviation industry's post-Sept. 11 financial and operational condition from serious to grave. To the relief of the aviation community, it looks at this writing like the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 was no more than a hard-to-explain accident.
Charles Whetsel has been appointed chief engineer of the Mars program at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He has been acting in that position and was manager of the Flight Systems Engineering and Test Section.
This is a 3-volt, cold spare input/output (I/O) buffer LVDS (low voltage differential signaling) quad driver and quad receiver for spaceborne applications. Cold sparing is required to implement redundant system architectures or subsystems electrically connected without power supplied. Designed for higher bandwidth data communication, it addresses increasing demand to move large amounts of data quickly between systems or components within a satellite while consuming low power, generating low noise and having high immunity to noise.
TELEAVIONICS, A RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CALIF.-BASED telecommunications research company, proposes using civil airliners as relay platforms for broadband wireless voice and data communications, providing a cheaper service than low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and fiberoptic cables. The $500,000-2-million cost of equipping the aircraft would be borne by the service supplier or equipment manufacturer in exchange for a share of the revenue stream. The Internet and data infrastructure, called WingTouch, would utilize avionics already in use by LEO satellites.
THE U.S. AIR FORCE F-15E WILL BE GETTING NEW COLOR Head-Up Display Cameras (HUDC) to replace the monochrome cameras now used on HUDs for documenting missions. Rockwell Collins' Kaiser Electronics has delivered the first HUD camera to Warner Robbins Air Logistics Center in Georgia, with 150 to follow for existing aircraft, and 13 for new-production HUDs. The cameras, mounted on the HUD in front of the combiner glass, record the outside world that will later be combined with HUD symbology and any sensor information shown on the display.
Smart Software received a U.S. patent for a ``system and method for forecasting intermittent demand.'' The system has been incorporated into the company's demand planning and forecasting software, SmartForecasts Enterprise, which is finding aerospace OEM applications in reducing inventory, the company said. ``Slow-moving'' demand is present when historical demand data used to generate a forecast includes a high proportion of zero values intermixed with random non-zero values.
SWANguard was designed to integrate with industrial engineering and maintenance programs by providing information needed to detect faults, and provide a condition monitoring capability for use with mission-critical machinery such as generators or pumps. The technology is based on monitoring and analyzing high-frequency sound generated by friction between machinery moving parts. Using patented stress wave analysis (SWAN) technology, the system is designed with fault detection capabilities in the earliest stages of failure progression.
Voters have thrown a new wrinkle into San Francisco International Airport's (SFO) plans to expand its runways. By a 3-1 margin, voters stipulated that they must approve any project that will involve filling in more than 100 acres of San Francisco Bay. The measure was written to head off plans by the airport to fill as much as 1,300 acres of the bay to extend runways. The airport is one of the nation's busiest hubs and is plagued by delays caused by rain and fog because separation of parallel runways is too narrow to permit simultaneous takeoffs and landings.
Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer reported a 34% rise in third-quarter net profit, to about $100 million, on a 42% jump in revenue. The company profited, literally, from a depreciation in Brazil's currency, as about 97% of total revenues come from export sales.
Latin American carriers, while struggling with the challenges of volatile national economies and foreign competition, still hope for vigorous growth in the long term. According to the the International Air Transport Assn. (IATA), the region's carriers were performing poorly prior to September, measured against the global traffic average (see table).
Richard Ziskind has become Connecticut-based senior vice president-private travel and Paul Desalis vice president-corporate shuttle, based in Geneva, for PrivatAir. Ziskind was head of charter sales and marketing for American Trans Air, while Desalis was commercial director of Virgin Express in Brussels.
Japan will buy two Gulfstream V special mission aircraft for use by the Japan Coast Guard for ocean surveillance and rescue missions. The twin-engine, long-range jets will be equipped with surveillance radar and Flir.
While U.S. regional carriers have been stung by the market downturn, they have fared somewhat better than major airlines because of regional jet redeployments on routes that have been flown by mainline jets. In addition to route trade-downs, the regionals have been aided by the momentum of their strong growth, their contractual arrangements with code-sharing partners and the fact that they tend to be the low-cost providers in a regional-mainline partnership.
The QubePak module is an RF life-test system used in production and testing environments. It supports the ThetaDelta's BakPak technology, a temperature controlling technique for burn-in and test of semiconductor devices. The technology has applications in testing mission-critical parts such as semiconductors used in satellites. It can control the temperature of either a single or multiple device under tests (DUT) and applies individually programmable DC, pulse DC, and AC voltage stimulus to each DUT.
Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co. has made its claim for a much bigger stake in China's maintenance, repair and overhaul business with the ground-breaking of a $100-million hangar project at the New Baiyun International Airport, which is under construction. Gameco, a joint venture of China Southern Airlines and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics International, expects the 96,253-sq.-meter (1.04-million-sq.-ft.) facility to be completed in October 2003.
Airbus Military Co.'s industrial partners still expect to launch the A400M airlifter before the end of next month. In an 11th-hour decision, a launching ceremony scheduled to be held in Berlin on Nov. 16 had to be canceled.
This family of colored, low-surface-energy tapes are designed to replace aircraft top coat paints. The solvent-free film resists accumulation of surface contaminants. For aircraft surface protection, fluoropolymer construction isolates and protects surfaces from natural and man-made elements including jet fuels, hydrocarbons, petroleum, solvents, moisture and corrosion. The tape is stable, and resists degradation and discoloration caused by ultraviolet light exposure. It is designed to adhere and conform to complex exterior and interior surfaces.
