Sikorsky's decision to cut 13% of its Connecticut workforce and reduce 20% of its floor space is aimed at reducing production overhead costs and allowing the United Technologies division to maintain its profit margins despite a flat order book.
Japan Airlines is closing out the 1990s where it started, instituting new plans to cut costs and improve efficiency to keep ahead of declining yields. So far, the yields are winning. JAL President and CEO Isao Kaneko could express only ``cautious optimism'' for a turnaround in 1999 on the recent news that Japan's economic growth is accelerating. Consumer spending is rising and passenger traffic has been increasing. But JAL is still under pressure at home and abroad.
British no-frills carrier EasyJet has secured slots at London Gatwick Airport and plans to begin flights to Geneva starting in October. The low-cost airline, which operates from London's smallest airport, at Luton, has long been seeking access to the capitol city's larger airports. EasyJet said fares on the Gatwick-Geneva route, which will run during the ski season, will be higher than its normal budget fares, to cover the costs associated with operating from the more expensive airport.
Alain Bensoussan has been elected chairman of the European Space Agency Council for 1999-2000. He is president of the CNES French space agency. Bensoussan succeeds Hugo Parr, who is director-general of the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry.
INTELCAN TECHNOLOGIES INC. OF OTTAWA WILL DESIGN AND SUPPLY the new Air Traffic Management System for the Cuban Area Control Center in Havana. It will be a fully integrated system including voice and data communication, radar and flight data processing, and aeronautical telecommunication network message switching. Implementation is expected to take approximately two years. The new system and software are designed to permit Cuba to make the transition to the new CNS/ATM environment in a few years.
Lockheed Martin Michoud Space Systems and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have signed a Space Act Agreement to demonstrate a hybrid propulsion sounding rocket system with a solid fuel grain and separate oxidizer source (see artist's concept). Under the agreement, Lockheed Martin will provide engineering design, manufacture, assembly and checkout of test articles and the flight vehicle, while Marshall will provide overall program management.
Space Systems Loral intends to pull its Telstar 7 communications spacecraft off the first flight of the new Russian-powered Lockheed Martin Atlas III and instead launch it on a European Ariane because of delays to U.S. schedules caused by the failure of an RL10 upper stage engine. The delays, coupled with a lucrative offer from Arianespace, are drawing the $85-million-class mission to Europe.
Boeing will use a moving assembly line, much like an auto manufacturer, to efficiently build as many as 40 Delta IV common booster cores a year. The 2.5-story-tall booster will roll down the production line at a half-inch/min. rate at Boeing's new Decatur, Ala., factory. Major parts will arrive at the line tested and ready for assembly and checkout. Length of stay at any one of the line's eight work cells is just under seven days, Boeing said. The common booster core will be used as the first stage of all seven planned Delta IV versions.
ViaSpace Technologies has received a contract from the University Corp. for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to develop a tunable diode laser-based water vapor sensor which could be used to collect atmospheric data from commercial aircraft. The sensor was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) during the past decade. Six tunable diode laser gas sensors developed at JPL were launched to Mars last January and will measure water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and soil of Mars when they land in December.
Boeing is rapidly reducing employee numbers at its Wichita (Kan.) Div. with about 4,400 workers scheduled to depart through the end of this year. As of late June, about 2,300 workers had been laid off, retired, voluntarily left the company or ended temporary labor contracts, reducing employment totals at the plant to 18,900. Company-wide, Boeing plans to cut as many as 53,000 workers through 2001, largely due to falling commercial transport orders. A small portion of those layoffs occurred in 1998.
Donald D. Engen, director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, was killed in the crash of a sailplane on July 13 near Minden-Tahoe, Nev. Don Engen, who was a friend to all of us in aviation, will be greatly missed. Engen was flying with William Ivans, a sailplane pilot with many hours of experience and a former president of the Soaring Society of America. They were flying in a two-seat Schempp-Hirth Nimbus 4DM, owned by Ivans, when the sailplane apparently broke up near 11,000 ft. Both Engen, 75, and Ivans, 79, were killed in the crash.
Casper, Wyo.-based Wickman Spacecraft&Propulsion Co. has successfully test-fired rocket and jet engines that use carbon dioxide as an oxidizer. The powerplants are aimed at future Mars exploration missions, as Mars' atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide. The engines' magnesium powder fuel is abundant on Earth and believed to exist in the soil of Mars, according to company President John Wickman. For the rocket engine, which develops about 40 lb. of thrust, carbon dioxide on Mars would have to be condensed into a tank before use.
Lufthansa might need proposed new 500-seat and larger transports such as the Airbus A3XX and Boeing 747-400X, but not many, according to Dietmar Kirchner, senior vice president for corporate purchasing and properties. He estimated his airline's need at between 5-10, ``too few to launch a project and too many to stop it,'' he said, referring to Airbus' financially risky plan to go ahead with the A3XX by year-end. Lufthansa would use the giant aircraft on routes where traffic rights or airport slot problems prevent increased frequencies.
NASA is coming to the defense of the Russian Space Agency. John D. Schumacher, NASA's external relations chief, told the House space and aeronautics subcommittee that classified information shows that RSA's senior leaders haven't assisted Iran in developing long-range ballistic missiles. But that doesn't mean sensitive technology isn't being transferred. Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Middle East Data Project Inc.
The time has come for America to set itself a bold new goal in space. The current celebrations of 30th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing have reminded us of what we as a nation were once able to accomplish, and by so doing have put the question to us: Are we still a nation of pioneers? Do we choose to make the efforts required to continue to be the vanguard of human progress, a people of the future; or will we allow ourselves to be a people of the past, one whose accomplishments are celebrated not in newspapers, but in museums?
Qantas Airways has slammed the Australian government's decision to allow Dubai-based Emirates to operate up to 25 flights per week to Australia. The new services are the first to be negotiated after a more liberal aviation policy was put in place by Australia's government. Qantas argues that Emirates will use the right to carry Australian passengers to Europe through its Dubai hub.
Norman Witteveen, who recently retired as deputy director of aviation planning and development for Denver International Airport, is now national director of aviation quality assurance/corporate adviser of the HNTB Corp. in Denver.
CONDOR SYSTEMS' EARLIER-ANNOUNCED PLAN TO ACQUIRE LITTON Industries' Advanced Technology Div. (ATD), which pioneered the development of airborne radar warning receivers and is a major supplier of such systems (AW&ST Oct. 28, 1998, p. 19), has been terminated. Acquisition of ATD would have more than doubled Condor's annual sales.
John P. Capellupo and Jacques-Henry Dufour have been appointed to the board of directors of Messier-Dowty, Velizy, France. Capellupo is retired president of McDonnell Douglas Aerospace and executive vice president of the McDonnell Douglas Corp. Dufour is senior vice president of the Snecma Group Equipment Branch.
A U.S. Air Force Reserve C-141 flew to the South Pole on July 10 in response to a medical emergency to help a doctor wintering-over in Antarctica who discovered a lump in her breast. Since evacuation is not an option during the southern winter, a parachute drop of medical supplies and equipment was arranged. To make sure the flaps could be lowered for an airdrop and then raised--despite low temperatures--for the return flight, the grease on the actuators was replaced with a thin coat of light oil.
