As the White House released the Rudman report, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson hastened before TV cameras with promises of even greater reform, bent on preserving the nuclear weapons turf that accounts for one-third of the Energy Dept.'s $18-billion budget. A prospective running mate with Vice President Al Gore in 2000, Richardson named retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, former chief of Strategic Command, as the Energy Dept.'s new security chief.
Students, faculty and volunteers have converted a surplus United Airlines cockpit procedures trainer to a functional fixed-base DC-10 simulator, giving Metropolitan State College of Denver a unique educational resource for its aerospace science degree and flight training programs. Under contract, the simulator also is being used to prepare prospective flight engineers hoping to be hired by United.
Signal Technology Corp. has received from Raytheon System Co. contracts totaling $1.7 million to develop and manufacture frequency multipliers for the Patriot missile.
Loral Orion is implementing an end-to-end digital video broadcast (DVB) service for customers anywhere in the world. The company is assembling dedicated communications capacity to deliver the DVB broadband all-in-one service using antennas less than 1 meter in diameter. The new service will allow video, audio and real-time or scheduled data to be merged into a single data stream, making it possible to send hundreds of separately encrypted data streams simultaneously.
BFGoodrich chief David L. Burner said AlliedSignal's proposed acquisition of Honeywell will have a ``very real impact on his company,'' and he will express his concerns directly to Honeywell, a major customer. ``Our approach will be quite different from AlliedSignal's,'' said Burner, referring to AlliedSignal's legal challenge to BFGoodrich's proposed merger with Coltec Industries. ``AlliedSignal never called me.''
Logicon has been awarded an $11.4-million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command to conduct combat systems engineering for digital computer-based shipboard combat systems.
A presidential advisory panel one-upped the Cox Committee's security reforms for the nation's nuclear weapons labs. A report by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, led by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, said a new government agency should take over responsibility for nuclear weapons, in view of the Energy Dept.'s ``abominable record of security'' against Chinese espionage. Last month's Cox report was softer, suggesting Congress reevaluate the department's suitability for the job (AW&ST May 31, p. 26).
A series of satellite glitches is forcing Arianespace to postpone launches until the end of the summer, threatening to throw this year's manifest into disarray. Arianespace has only managed two launches so far this year, the last, Insat 2E, on Apr. 2. The next two missions, New Sky Satellites' K-TV and the Telkom/AsiaStar double launch, which had been set for April-May, then June-July, respectively, have now been delayed indefinitely because of a generic problem with solar arrays on K-TV and AsiaStar.
Northrop Grumman and Airbus Industrie have agreed to jointly pursue a program to meet NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) mission requirement. The organizations are determining which Airbus aircraft would be integrated with a U.S. advanced radar for AGS, which would be owned and operated by NATO.
Savvy insiders predict the Republican Party will forfeit some of its clout on defense issues in the 2000 elections because of GOP scorn for the Administration's conduct of the air war to liberate Kosovo. Republicans had expected to garner votes by vilifying President Clinton as an incompetent commander-in-chief who mired NATO in a disastrously gradualist bombing campaign. But with the Serbs in mass retreat, ``that's a much harder case to make as a dominant political issue right now,'' says congressional scholar Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.
Iron mockup of a Boeing 737-900 fuselage is shown on a rail car at Boeing's Renton, Wash., plant. The truncated frame was built and shipped by rail from Boeing's Wichita, Kan., factory to prove there were no problems with tail swing during transportation of the -900 fuselage, which at about 138 ft. in length will be the largest 737 built. The first actual -900 fuselage will make the 2,200-mi. journey in April next year. The 737 fuselage is built in Wichita and then sent to Renton for wing and tail mating and final assembly.
Bruce Ashby has been appointed senior vice president-corporate development of US Airways. He was senior vice president-planning. Ashby has been succeeded by Gregory Taylor, who was vice president of US Airways Express. Donna Paladini has been named director of customer advocacy. She has been Mid-Atlantic director of customer service.
Strong air freight demand caused the world's wide-body freighter fleet to more than double to 463 from 229 units in 1995, according to the Seattle-based Air Cargo Management Group. The total of wide-body freighters on order or set for conversion from passenger configuration has almost tripled to 306 in the same time period, Edwin Laird, managing director, said. This includes aircraft ranging in size from the Airbus A310F to the Boeing 747-400F, including converted passenger transports. Freighters operated by the Commonwealth of Independent States were not counted.
The C-27J, a modernized version of the G222 tactical airlifter, was rolled out last week in Turin. The Rolls Royce AE2100-powered aircraft, a joint development of Alenia and Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems, is being tendered for competitions in Australia and Greece and is also being actively marketed in several other countries. The C-27J is fully interoperable with the C-130J, with which it shares powerplant and avionics.
Scientists at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory have made sense of puzzling cycloid and other arc-shaped cracks on Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The theory requires that there be global subsurface liquid for the cracks to form, adding to other evidence for at least the past existence of a hidden ocean that could be a brewing ground for life. Scientists estimate there is 2-3 times as much water on Europa as on Earth.
Singapore Airlines' (SIA) membership in the Star Alliance may be delayed further, after its bid to buy News Limited's 50% stake in Ansett Australia collapsed early this month (AW&ST June 14, p. 57). Consensus among leading industry observers in the region suggests that SIA wanted to complete the Ansett deal before signing with Star. Some say that Singapore Airlines may review its alliance strategy with Ansett and Air New Zealand (Air NZ), if a deal cannot be salvaged.
Aero Systems Engineering Inc. has been awarded four contracts totaling over $6 million. The first is for facility and system upgrades for GE Malaysia, the second from Volvo to provide a new ASE2000 data acquisition system for one of their gas turbine engine test cells, the third to provide a new ASE2000 system for GE-Varig, the fourth for Kawasaki Heavy Industries to supply jet engine test equipment.
Dr. Sarah A. Nunnelley, founder of the environmental physiology research program at the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and Armstrong Laboratory, has received the Louis H. Bauer Founders Award from the Aerospace Medical Assn. Other honors presented recently were: Mary T. Klinker Award for contributions to the field of aeromedical evacuation, to USAF Maj. Virginia Schneider; Harry G. Moseley Award for contributions to flight safety, to USAF Col. (Ret.) Geoffrey W.
Ed Hennessy has become vice president-sales and marketing of Sky Computers, Chelmsford, Mass. He was senior vice president-sales and marketing of DY4 Systems.
Marconi Avionics has received a 2-million pound ($3.2-million) technology demonstrator contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense for a mid-infrared, solid state single band laser designed for use in the Directed Infrared Counter-Measures (DIRCM) system. A flight-qualified laser jamming system based on a Nemesis DIRCM transmitter will be integrated on a Sea King helicopter for flight trials this autumn. DIRCM, developed by Marconi and Northrop Grumman, is intended to defeat threats to fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft from shoulder-launched infrared guided missiles.
Northrop Grumman and Elisra Electronic Systems have teamed together to provide an integrated missile warning and countermeasure system which is being considered for Israeli air force helicopters. Elisra is providing its passive warning system while Northrop Grumman will supply its direct infrared countermeasures system.
Still nursing wounds from passenger backlash over the snowstorm fiasco last January at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Northwest Airlines is establishing a regional headquarters in Detroit's downtown Commerical Tower. The office is scheduled to open at the end of this month as a center for sales, human resources, external communications, operations, government and community affairs and administration. Ray Vecci, president of Michigan Operations for Northwest, has been appointed to manage the office.
Bombardier, Transport Canada and Air Canada failed to fully inform flight crews of the dangers of rejected landings in Canadair Regional Jet at very low power settings and airspeeds, investigators concluded in a report on a 1997 RJ crash.
Ira M. Blatstein has been named deputy assistant director for programs of the Johns Hopkins University Allied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. He recently retired from the Naval Surface Center Headquarters as acting commander/technical director and director of the University Affiliated Research Center Management Office of the Naval Sea Systems Command.
