Ricky Heath has become director of airline sales and marketing and Cheryl Weldon director of agency marketing and sales programs for Worldspan of Denver.
Tsuda Yoshihisa has been appointed president of the Rocket System Corp., the Japanese launch industry consortium, succeeding Takaaki Yamada.Yoshihisa was senior vice president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The Europa Motor Glider is a versatile kit-built aircraft. The wings feature a span of 42 ft., an aspect ratio of 13:1 and a laminar flow airfoil section. The carbon fiber-shaped wings have no flaps. Instead a pair of trailing edge airbrakes rotate to 80 deg. to steepen the descent. Powered by a 100-hp Rotax 912S, the rate of climb at 50 kt. at maximum gross weight is expected to succeed 1,100 fpm. Europa Aircraft Co., Kirby Mills Industrial Estate, Kirkbymoorside, York, YO62 6NR, England.
FLIGHT VISIONS WILL TEAM WITH BVR AVIONICS of Israel to develop a next-generation embedded Remote Air Combat Training System. That system will use BVR's Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation processor, embedded in Flight Visions FV-3000 mission computer, to replace aircraft pods that are currently used for air-to-ground weapons training. With the new system, the mission computer would capture the aircraft's own maneuvers and geographic position from its own INS/GPS.
AHF-Ducommun has received a $7.5-million long-term contract to manufacture leading-edge wing skins for the Airbus A330/A340, including the newest version of the -600.
The FAA felt the wrath last week of the House Appropriations Committee, which wielded its formidable budget power on the agency's Fiscal 2000 spending priorities. The panel took a big slice--$36.3 million--out of the largest procurement program, the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System. That wiped out STARS production money, but a hefty $100 million was added to system development. Not content with that action, appropriators then proceeded to beef up safety-related accounts, adding close to $38 million.
A British Aerospace Hawk 200, slated to perform at the Paris air show, crashed during a flight display at an air show in Bratislava, Slovakia, on June 6. British Aerospace test pilot Graham Wardell was killed in the crash when the aircraft failed to pull up during a loop maneuver. One spectator was also killed and three others injured. BAe said it will not be exhibiting a Hawk at Paris.
Bell Helicopter Textron's XV-15 tiltrotor demonstrator aircraft has completed a series of takeoffs and landings on board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk near Key West, Fla. Bell is proposing its Model 609 tiltrotor, which is similar but larger than the XV-15 technology demonstrator, as a mission-flexible alternative to the Coast Guard's mixed fleet of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. A prototype 609 is scheduled to make its first flight next year, according to Bell.
The next meeting of the Aircraft Standardization Task Force is planned for July 15 in Washington. The ad hoc industry group, now backed by the Air Transport Assn.'s influential Engineering, Maintenance and Materiel Committee and SAE's Aerospace Standards group, attracted representatives of 10 airlines to its first meeting eight months ago and aims to double that figure this time around.
Ascent Logic has formed a partnership with Mesa Systems Guild in which Ascent's systems engineering and life-cycle models can disseminate information more broadly using Mesa's Web-based technologies. . . . The Numerical Algorithms Group is offering a low-cost package of more than 50 statistical functions to add to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The functions are implemented as four books in the spreadsheet's Function Wizard and automatically update as the data change. List price is $149 and a demonstration is available at http://extweb.nag.com/stats/ae/ ae.html.
Don Fuqua, former president of the Aerospace Industries Assn. of America, has been appointed to the board of directors of the B.H. Aircraft Co., Ronkonkoma, N.Y.
Stephen A. Cerwin has been promoted to director of the Applied Physics Dept. of the Southwest Research Institute's Instrumentation and Space Research Div., San Antonio, Tex., from assistant researcher in the Electronic Systems Dept.
How will civil air transports change in the 21st century? Initially, the aircraft won't look much different from those of today. But a revolution in navigation and communications is apt to dramatically change operations. And 20 years hence, 1,000-passenger flying wings and supersonic transports and aircraft that can deform their shapes may become common.
Emcol IRR can be used to repair asphalt, concrete and other materials used on airport runways and taxiways. It abuts to metal and composite materials and is not subject to shrinkage, stripping or liquid/aggregate separation. The material consists of a combination of selected aggregates and a binder liquid based on penetration bitumens, resin, adhesives and other additives. It is applied cold without the use of hot-laid asphalt. The product has a storage life of 10 months. Emcol International, 96 Bridge Road East, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, AL7 1JW, England.
An undersubscribed follow-on stock offering by ICO Global Communications may indicate that investor confidence in the future viability of satellite phone constellations, already badly shaken by problems with Iridium, continues to erode.
U.S. security rules aimed at preventing bombs from getting on commercial aircraft require airline personnel to ask the wrong question of passengers checking in for flights, according to the FAA's associate administrator for civil aviation security, Cathal (Irish) Flynn. Airline personnel typically ask a passenger whether he or she has been given anything to carry on board by someone the passenger doesn't know.
Frederick W. Sine has become vice president-airline operations of the Nova Advisory Group International, Oakton, Va. He was vice president-line maintenance for US Airways.
Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Army finally have had a successful intercept with its Theater High-Altitude Area Defense missile. After six unsuccessful tries, Thaad scored a hit on a target representing an incoming ballistic missile warhead at an altitude of just under 60 mi. with both target and interceptor traveling at just under 1 mi./sec.
At first glance, the airport of the future may look little different from today's--only busier. Change will be less visible than felt. It is likely to register in more orderly takeoff and landing sequences and faster check-in, customs and baggage clearances. Asian crisis or not, ``the passenger growth rates we project haven't changed much,'' said David Gamper, head of the Airport Council International's airports design committee. ``They are 5% per annum. At that rate, they will double in about 14 years.''
Honeywell is positioning itself as a key player in the upcoming shift to helmet-mounted displays and weapons cueing by world militaries with successful demonstrations of its Advanced Metal Tolerant Tracker system on the Apache Longbow helicopter and F-16 Vista testbed aircraft.
Joseph E. DeFrancisco has been named vice president-Army systems, J. Daniel Howard vice president-Marine Corps systems, Fred P. Moosally vice president-Navy systems and Richard T. Swope, vice president-Air Force systems, all in the Washington operations office of the Lockheed Martin Electronics Sector. DeFrancisco recently retired from the Army as a lieutenant general and deputy commander-in-chief/chief of staff for the U.S. Pacific Command.
Airbus has taken delivery of the first element of the nacelle for its new A340-500/600 wide-body transport, the consortium's answer to the Boeing 747. The thrust reverser was handed over by Aircelle, a joint venture of Airbus and Snecma subsidiary Hispano-Suiza Aerostructures (AW&ST June 29, p. 41). The thrust reverser is due to begin testing later this month on the A340-500/600 powerplant, the Trent 500, which recently began running at the Rolls-Royce test facility in Derby, England (see p. 51).
Brian Mathy has been appointed program manager for new products for Stevens Aviation, Greenville, S.C. He recently retired as an aviation maintenance officer for the U.S. Army in Washington.
