The U.S. Navy has made some key adjustments in operating its aircraft to be able to handle the challenges posed in carrying out bombing raids against targets in Afghanistan. But the latest developments on the ground have created new problems.
F-14 crews participating in air raids over Afghanistan have expanded the use of the multirole fighter even as the first of the veteran aircraft head for retirement.
Boeing is making sharp cutbacks in production and refocusing preliminary design work on several future aircraft models in an effort to weather the unprecedented downturn in the commercial transport industry. Soon after airlines began seeking delivery delays for aircraft on order with Boeing, the company responded by cutting delivery projections and announcing plans to lay off up to 30,000 employees by the end of next year.
The FAA is giving Boeing 737 operators 60 days to comment on a proposed airworthiness directive calling for major rework of the aircraft's rudder control system. The action comes more than a year after the agency first warned operators of 2,000 of the aircraft in service in the U.S. that significant changes, including new hydraulic actuators and a cockpit alert system, would be required by 2006 (AW&ST Sept. 18, 2000, p. 22).
By Robert Gandt New American Library 368 pp., Softcover, $6.99 I have two admissions to make. First, I have known Bob Gandt since the early 1960s when we both flew U.S. Navy A-4s in VA-36 from the USS Saratoga. Second, I have read all of his books and enjoyed them very much, especially Skygods, which recounts the demise of Pan Am as seen through the cockpit window. Gandt has spent most of his life in the cockpit (he recently retired from Delta Air Lines), and his newest book reflects this unobstructed view.
Lockheed Martin will use Green Hills Software Inc.'s Integrity real-time operating system to control all the general purpose airborne PowerPC processors on board the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's avionics systems. Programming for the subsystems--navigation, cockpit displays, stores management, fire control and the like--written by Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors, will be developed using Green Hills' AdaMulti IDE development tools and Ada 95/C/C++ compilers.
Asian carriers counted on transpacific passenger and cargo traffic to sustain them during the region's devastating recession in the late 1990s. The strength of the U.S. economy encouraged business travel and brought markets for all sorts of Asian products, particularly electronics exports, to propel the information technology boom. But when Silicon Valley started going bust late last year, even some of Asia's ``recession-proof'' economies spiraled downward. The Sept. 11 attacks added another bruising blow.
Some airports are giving their retail concessionaires a break on payments and virtually all some flexibility on items like business hours to account for recent traffic declines. But a key executive at concession industry leader HMS Host sees airport retailers retrenching after years of expansion that probably went too far.
Grant T. Hollett, Jr., has been appointed chairman and interim president/CEO and Bert Iedema interim senior vice president/chief financial officer of Eagle-Picher Technologies of Cincinnati. Hollett succeeds William E. Long, who is retiring. Hollett has been vice president/general manager of Siemens Motion Controls Systems. Iedema succeeds Philip F. Schultz, who has resigned. Iedema is also CFO of Granaria Holdings, the controlling shareholder of Eagle-Picher.
The war in Afghanistan is entering a new phase that may expose U.S. neglect of its reconnaissance and surveillance technologies. It could also point out a continuing inability to meld the products of intelligence-gathering into a single product that can be used easily in combat.
Premier Farnell, a small-order, high-service distributor of electronic component and industrial products that operates in 22 countries, has created a customized catalog on the Exostar exchange for BAE Systems, one of Exostar's five founding industrial partners. Building on a global supplier agreement that the two signed last year, BAE Systems approached Premier Farnell early this year about creating catalogs tailored by country, that sit behind BAE Systems' firewall. This allows authorized BAE Systems employees to buy directly from the catalog anywhere in the world.
Although the economic downturn affecting the airline industry has been aggravated by the terrorist attacks and the Nov. 12 crash in New York, European aviation officials believe that in the long term, robust traffic growth will be restored and the commercial transport market will bounce back.
This aviation software developer has developed a bird/wildlife safety control program for use by airport authorities/operations as a management safety tool to track wildlife numbers in and around airspace. Called ``clickairport BIRDS,'' the system records details of sightings within airspace area using a pocket PDA computer that graphically captures the full airport layout. All information is uploaded to a master database automatically. The information held within the database provides a series of management reports via a Web browser connected to the airport intranet.
Astronaut Frank Culbertson and cosmonaut Vladimir Dezhurov performed a 5-hr. extravehicular activity outside the International Space Station on Nov. 12 to connect wiring between the new Russian docking module and Zvezda service module. They also checked out the Russian Strela crane.
The Denali headset from Flightcom is available in helicopter configurations. The headsets, in both passive and ANR versions, are designed for the excessive noise and vibration found on helicopters, and provide comfort and performance similar to fixed-wing headsets, according to the company. The units are configured with four-conductor coiled communication cables, and range from $165-605. Patents are pending on the product's ear seal, headband and elliptical microphone housing. The headsets have a 30-day guarantee. Flightcom, 7340 SW Durham Road, Portland, Ore. 97224.
The FAA was poised to order inspections of the entire U.S. fleet of Airbus A300-600s as U.S. and French investigators late last week focused on wake turbulence and composite material structures as major factors in the Nov. 12 crash of American Airlines Flight 587.
John-Gary Hewitt has been named to the board of directors of the Nimbus Group, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He is a former president of Knight Securities Inc.
Russian flag carrier Aeroflot Russian Airlines plans to develop its European operations by establishing a regional airline registered in Ireland. Earlier this year, Aeroflot flirted with the acquisition of Virgin Express' Irish subsidiary, but the initiative failed (AW&ST Aug. 6, p. 53). Recently, the airline began negotiations with a group of international investors to set up a new airline in Ireland, and those talks are apparently close to completion.
David Levi has been appointed chairman of Avcorp Industries Inc. of Vancouver. He was vice chairman and is president/CEO of GrowthWorks Capital Ltd. John Sandford has resigned from the board.
NASA faces some sharp belt-tightening under Administrator-designate Sean O'Keefe, who oversaw development of the Bush Administration's get-tough policy toward the agency as the No. 2 ``bean counter'' at the White House and signaled his intent to enforce that policy as word of his pending nomination was leaking.
Reflecting the industry trend in Europe--except for no-frills carriers--Iberia says year-on-year earnings are down 41%. Nor does that nosedive show the true impact of the airline industry crisis, the carrier warns. Seat demand in October was off 8%, but as with other airlines, Iberia took a pounding in business class, which fell 25% from October a year ago. Wall Street economists are convinced a revival of U.S.
With its mainstay international routes hurting, Japan Airlines is looking for an insurance policy at home by acquiring Japan Air System, the nation's third largest carrier.
The second annual Harry Kolcum Memorial News and Communications Awards, which honor the late Aviation Week&Space Technology managing editor and senior editor at Cape Canaveral, were presented Nov. 15 by the National Space Club's Florida Committee before about 150 aerospace managers at the Cape. Hugh Harris, who had a 35-year NASA career and served as the ``voice of shuttle launch control,'' received the public affairs award, while Dan Billow of WESH-TV, the NBC affiliate in Orlando, Fla., received the journalism award.
China is developing a more powerful and flexible rocket fleet to gain competitive launchers for the global market and a heavier military satellite capability. The launch of a 25-ton Chinese space station is also part of the long-term booster plan that will use a concept similar to the U.S. Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.
