USN Rear Adm. (ret.) John A. Gauss has been nominated to be assistant Veterans Affairs secretary for information and technology. He was commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command until retiring June 30.
Hanns R. Rech will continue as chairman/CEO of LSG Lufthansa Service Holding now that it has completed its acquisition of Onex Food Services, parent company of Dallas/Fort Worth-based Sky Chefs Inc. Other board members will be: Patrick Tolbert, finance; Ulrich Broscher, operations; Randall Boyd, marketing; and Horst Bultmann, human resources. Tolbert and Boyd are, respectively, executive vice president/chief financial officer and senior vice president-marketing and sales of Sky Chefs. Broscher and Bultmann already were LSG board members.
An aircraft propelled by a reusable rocket entered flight tests July 21 at California's Mojave Airport. XCOR Aerospace's EZ-Rocket is a modified Long-EZ aircraft powered by twin 400-lb.-thrust, regeneratively-cooled rocket engines using anhydrous isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen as propellants. The vehicle reached full thrust, rotated and flew a few hundred feet before touching down. Test pilot Dick Rutan said all systems operated normally. XCOR President Jeff Greason says the program's purpose is to drive down the costs of operating reusable rocket vehicles.
Sikorsky has completed first flight of the first MH-60R test article, the aircraft that will be used by the U.S. Navy to replace its aging SH-60B Seahawks, SH-60F CV-Helos and HH-60H aircraft. During the initial 1.7-hr. first flight on July 19, Sikorsky pilot Chris Geanacopoulos performed basic flight acceptance checks, including engine power, auto rotation and vibration. Since the first flight, the aircraft has accumulated another 2.3 hr. in the air.
Multiply spending on science and technology (S&T) by a factor of 1.5-2, a National Research Council panel advises the Air Force. The Army, Navy and defense research agencies have increased such spending since 1989, the NRC report says. ``The sole exception is the Air Force, whose real S&T spending is down 46%.'' For this year the service requested $1.2 billion for S&T--which Congress bumped up to $1.5 billion--and is seeking just $1.4 billion in Fiscal 2002.
House members voted 336-89 for an appropriations bill that includes $14.9 billion for NASA in Fiscal 2002, after rejecting an amendment by perennial International Space Station foe Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) that would have capped station spending at $25 billion. The bill includes $275 million for an ISS lifeboat not contained in the version of the bill pending in the Senate, setting up a debate on station funding shortfalls in conference committee.
Michael Coughlin (see photo) has been appointed executive vice president of Cascade Aerospace Inc., Abbotsford, British Columbia. He was CEO of Acro Aerospace and is president of the Aerospace Industry Assn. of British Columbia.
Supercomputer specialists at NASA's Ames Research Center have adapted codes used to manage computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations for aeronautics design work to boost the speed of climate-modeling operations as much as tenfold for the agency's Earth scientists.
Brad Stanius, who has been executive chairman, will also be interim CEO of Worldwide Flight Services of Fort Worth, following the resignation of Peter Pappas as chairman/CEO.
Sikorsky has received deposits for three S-92 medium-lift helicopters from ERA Aviation for offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, Cougar Helicopters, an offshore oil operator in eastern Canada, has placed a deposit for the first production S-92 with options for four more aircraft, according to Sikorsky.
Astronomers in the U.S. and Britain are pleased with results generated by a new X-ray telescope that uses multi-layer mirror technology instead of bulkier grazing incidence mirrors to focus X-rays for measurement. The J-PEX spectrograph produced ``the most detailed X-ray spectrum of a celestial body ever'' over a 5-min. observation during a sounding rocket flight from White Sands, N.M. The flight produced evidence of ionized helium in the spectrum of a white dwarf star, giving astronomers another clue as to how fast helium and hydrogen separate in white dwarfs.
Expansion-minded Qatar Airways is opening several more routes this year and sees additional opportunities with the delivery of new Airbus A330-200 aircraft next spring. The airline, which carried more than 1.5 million passengers in 2000, has been steadily expanding its route network since it was relaunched in 1997. The flag carrier of the Qatar, which is located along the western coast of the Persian Gulf, currently serves a total 28 destinations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia from its Doha hub.
Dubai International Airport will begin a $1.5-billion expansion that includes construction of an underground passenger terminal and a concourse dedicated for Emirates Airlines. The airport is experiencing double-digit growth and is expected to handle 14 million passengers this year, up from 12.3 million last year. Work on the terminal and concourse is to begin late next year or early in 2003. The Emirates concourse will be able to handle the Airbus A380 transports it has ordered. A cargo terminal also is planned.
Russia's air transport industry is showing some signs of recovery after years of decline, but the sector is still constrained by the low ticket-buying power of most Russians, poor and obsolescent infrastructure and a lack of local investors. Overall, the industry has changed dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when the giant enterprise Aeroflot was split into more than 300 independent operators.
The FAA is giving operators of certain ATR 42/72, EMB-120 and other commuter aircraft two weeks to fix a safety problem the agency says could result in pilots receiving incorrect collision resolution advisories. The airworthiness directive calls for the modification of altitude encoder inputs on certain Rockwell Collins CTL-92 Mode C and Mode S transponders that interface with Gillham-encoded altitude sensors.
In a major shift to improve its business competitiveness in space, Boeing will move 1,100 employees from California to the Kennedy and Johnson space centers in Florida and Texas. The move will relocate the core of Boeing's space shuttle and International Space Station engineering workforce to the primary NASA manned flight centers. ``This is a huge undertaking for Boeing to do this transition,'' said Michael Mott, vice president and general manager for Human Space Flight&Exploration. This Boeing business unit has up to $2 billion in annual revenues.
Koh Boon Hwee has become non-executive chairman of Singapore Airlines. He succeeds Michael Fam, who has retired. Also reappointed as board members were Edmund Cheng Wai Wing, Fock Siew Wah, Ho Kwon Ping and Davinder Singh. Moses Lee Kirn Poo, Maj.-Gen. Raymund Ng Teck Heng and Tjong Yik Min have retired as board members.
Carol Hallett, president of the Wings Club of New York, recently received a photograph taken during the Soyuz mission to the International Space Station Apr. 28-May 6. Presenting the photo were the two Russian cosmonauts on the mission, Yuri Baturin and Talgat Musabayev.
NASA Chief of Staff Courtney Stadd, the top Bush appointee at the agency, is hard at work on a ``commercialization strategy'' for the agency to recapture the momentum lost as it railed against the Russians' sending Dennis Tito on his $20-million space tour. NASA's Dan Tam says Stadd's aim is a ``proactive'' policy, coordinated with Congress and NASA's international partners, that covers all the bases, so there isn't another surprise like the Tito trip. Tam says NASA had considered tourism even before Tito showed up and continues to do so.
EUROCONTROL MAASTRICHT UPPER AREA Control Centre claims first use of controller-pilot data link communication (CPDLC) over the Aeronautical Telecommunications Network (ATN) with a commercial flight, one of the key step toward moderinizing ATC in Europe and the U.S. The center used voice and data messages to communicate over the ARINC VHF Data Link Mode 2 with an American Airlines Boeing 767 equipped with Rockwell Collins avionics. Maastricht controlled several other aircraft at the same time, using conventional voice circuits.
American Airlines will remove five additional Boeing 727s from its fleet by the end of this year instead of in 2003 as originally planned, chiefly because of weak demand for airline travel. The airplanes will be returned to lessors or sold, according to American. Plans call for the carrier to retire 58 aircraft this year--21 727s, 18 MD-80s, 11 DC-9s, seven MD-11s and one Fokker 100. In addition, Delta Air Lines retired its last Lockheed L-1011 on July 31 after 22 years of service and 30,890 flights.
Northrop Grumman rolled out its X-47A demonstrator drone on July 30, and plans to have it flying by the end of the year following systems checkout. The composite airframe was built by Scaled Composites working with Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems Sector, and was unveiled at Scaled's facility at Mojave, Calif. It will be moved this month to Northrop Grumman's El Segundo, Calif., facility for the preflight tests.
The Royal Thai Navy has ordered two Super Lynx Series 300 maritime helicopters from AgustaWestland. The $35.7-million package includes logistics support and services. The helicopters will be used for antisubmarine and surface surveillance operations.
Taxiing outbound from London's Gatwick Airport the other day, I noticed how precisely the pilots steered their airliners along the thin taxiway centerline. I wondered when unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) might achieve such human precision. The answer, of course, is that they already have. The Air Force's new Global Hawk came to a stop just inches to the right of the runway centerline, without human input, to conclude its first flight in February 1998.
Israel Aircraft Industries saw slightly lower sales in the first half of 2001, but posted a record net profit due to its sale of Galaxy Aerospace to Gulfstream. Net profit for the first six months of the year grew to $75.7 million, compared with $44.4 million for the same period last year. The figure includes a capital gain of $34.2 million based on the sale of IAI's Galaxy business jet subsidiary. Net profit exclusive of capital gains totaled $41.5 million, a 6% drop from the previous year.
