China Eastern Airlines is investigating its second botched MD-11 landing in less than a year at its home base at Shanghai's Hongqiao airport. The incident involved a flight from Beijing with 189 passengers and crew on board that reportedly bounced twice after touchdown before overshooting the runway and coming to rest about 100 ft. from a ditch marking the airport's boundary. One pilot observer said the landing was ``hot'' and should have been aborted. No one was reported injured. Conditions were calm and clear.
Raytheon has received FAA-type certification for the T-6A Texan II Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) it is building for the Defense Dept, but U.S. Air Force officials are worried about likely cost increases because of a dearth of international orders.
The White House isn't passing up a chance to poke Congress in the eye over House plans to cut $1 billion from NASA's budget and reduce President Clinton's civilian research and development priorities by $1.8 billion (see p. 90). The House Appropriations Committee says the cuts are needed to comply with the 1997 balanced budget agreement with the Administration, but Clintonites claim it's really a case of misplaced priorities. They say the Administration submitted a balanced budget request and that lawmakers added nearly $1 billion of their own R&D earmarks.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is trying to generate some near-term payoffs from its dwindling science and technology program to protect that money from being used to cover cost increases in high-profile missile defense programs.
Allegations about China's theft of U.S. nuclear weapons data from Los Alamos National Laboratory will reemerge this week. Energy Dept. Secretary Bill Richardson is nearing a decision about what can be declassified for grand jury deliberations this week. Also, he will announce serious disciplinary action--although not involving legal or financial penalties--against employees in the Energy Dept. and at Los Alamos for their early handling of the spying allegations.
AlliedSignal has successfully completed initial test runs of its 7,500-lb.-thrust-class AS900 series powerplant for the Bombardier Continental business jet and British Aerospace Avro RJX regional transport.
The Army's Theater High-Altitude Air Defense system is enjoying a two-hit period of success after a six-miss series of failures, and now the question is whether this streak is luck or whether it can be maintained. After a shakedown of the ground testing and fabrication processes, Army and Lockheed Martin officials hope the problems are behind them. But the no-redundancy nature of Thaad requires constant vigilance, and the current test series doesn't come near to stressing the design to its limits in closing speed or countermeasures.
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace will become the biggest shareholder in Spacehab in what is expected to be the first of a series of steps to increase the German company's presence in non-European markets, particularly the U.S.
The U.S. Army has selected the AAI Corp. Shadow 200, Alliant Techsystems Outrider, General Atomics Prowler II and TRW Sentry unmanned aerial vehicles to participate in a fall fly-off for the service's Tactical UAV competition. The Army plans to pick the winning system in December with a goal of fielding it within less than two years. Bids from GEC Marconi/Freewing, DynCorp/Sagem and AeroVironment were rejected.
Donald C. Boone has been appointed vice president-management information systems and Carl I. Jacobson vice president-legal of Dobbs International, Memphis, Tenn. John C. Krebs has been promoted to vice president-field support services from senior operations controller and William A. Gearing to senior director of training and development programs from manager of process improvement.
Russia will receive eight mothballed Ukrainian Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack bombers in exchange for Russian natural gas supplies under a recently concluded barter deal. Russian Air Force commander Col. Gen. Anatoly Kornukov expected the transfer to be complete by the end of September. Russia currently has a force of six Tu-160s, two of which are used by Tupolev for research and development. The exchange also includes supplies of unspecified weapons thought to include AS-15 Kent cruise missiles.
The Air Force Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral will be closed for launch operations on Aug. 20-28 to enable technicians to complete installation of new communications systems under the Range Standardization and Automation (RSA) modernization program. A similar maintenance period was conducted from July 26-Aug. 12. The upgrades will switch the communications circuits used by the Range Operations Control Center (ROCC) from a land-line/microwave and satellite system to a full satellite communications system.
The launch of the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) on Endeavour has been delayed until early October from its planned Sept. 16 liftoff to ensure that the orbiter does not have a frayed wire like one found on Columbia that caused a short circuit during launch on July 23. Columbia's engine controllers were cleared in the investigation (AW&ST Aug. 9, p. 81). But technicians found a wire in Columbia's port side belly that had insulation chafed, causing it to arc in contact with a nearby screw, resulting in the short.
BMW Rolls-Royce GmbH. will train personnel and provide technical assistance for the repair and maintenance of BR715 engines at Beijing's Ameco maintenance base. The BR715 powers the 717 regional transport and the engine manufacturer believes there is a significant market for the 100-seat jet in China. As part of the agreement, Ameco will help sell the BR715 to Chinese carriers interested in the 717. If a sizeable sale is made to China, BMW Rolls-Royce has agreed to appoint Ameco its official warrantee station in the country.
Turning to international problems, Richardson refused to confirm charges North Korea is seeking uranium enrichment technology, but echoed the international condemnation of Pyongyang's apparently imminent test of its Taepodong II multi-stage ballistic missile. South Korean officials estimate its range at 4,000 naut. mi. and American analysts confirm that potential, pointing to improved rocket motors and better fuel. North Korea is portraying the test as a ``space launch,'' and U.S. officials do expect another attempt to put a crude satellite into orbit.
Pratt&Whitney, in a sweeping corporate restructuring, will move its large military aircraft engine business from West Palm Beach, Fla., to East Hartford, Conn., where the military division will be collocated with Pratt commercial engine personnel. As part of the restructuring, turbine manufacturing will be transferred from North Haven, Conn., to East Hartford, and turbine rotor work will be transferred from Middletown, Conn., to East Hartford.
Dennis McCarthy has been named associate director of business development at Swales Aerospace, Beltsville, Md. He was director of the Johns Hopkins University Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer program.
China Airlines has reversed earlier plans to buy the Boeing 777 in favor of Airbus' A340 in a decision whose timing raises questions of politics. The order for seven A340-300s with five options (one A340-300 and four A330-300s) was signed last week and displaces an option the Taipei-based carrier placed for 12 777s in 1995. Counting orders to both manufacturers, China Air is buying about $4 billion in new aircraft.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson probably will urge Clinton to veto the Fiscal 2000 defense authorization bill, on grounds its cleanup of the department goes too far. Furious about Energy's ``gross mishandling'' of Chinese espionage at its nuclear weapons labs, Republican lawmakers want a National Nuclear Security Administration, to streamline the department's chain of command.
British Airways' low-cost subsidiary Go will add two new destinations--Prague and Barcelona--to its network this summer. The new daily services will start on Sept. 23. They will bring the total number of destinations served by Go from its London Stansted hub to 17, with possibly more to be added before year-end. The carrier, which started operations a year and a half ago, is also considering offering cargo space on its 737-300 aircraft.
A newly formed joint venture of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and TRW is in the early stages of redefining the program for an orbiting missile defense system, following an Air Force decision to completely restructure its Space-Based Laser program.
The FAA has backed away from plans to order the wholesale replacement of insulation on the world's commercial transport fleet, in part because the agency has been unable to settle on an acceptable test for proving that the existing insulation poses an inflight fire threat. Airline officials had estimated such a replacement would have cost more than $3 billion for the U.S. transport fleet alone.
