Of all the aerospace companies in the 1999 Index of Competitiveness, UMECO plc earned the highest score for asset utilization--a measure of how efficiently a business is using its capital resources to generate revenues and net returns to shareholders. ``We are very much of a return-on-capital kind of company, and we're constantly looking for ways to improve in that area,'' Chief Executive Clive Snowdon said.
The U.S. may have to renegotiate its agreement with the government of the Marshall Islands over the use of the Kwajalein missile range in the South Pacific. The Defense Dept. is expecting to use Kwajalein heavily in the coming years to test its National Missile Defense system. Current agreements bar testing during four times of the year when the range is closed for weeks at a time. ``If we have a situation where we have to leap-frog whole months of time [because the ranges are closed] that could impede our ability to do timely testing,'' said USAF Lt. Gen.
UEF Aerospace of Sheffield, England, has received a five-year contract from BMW Rolls-Royce to supply Hp compressor disc forgings for BR710/715 engines.
India also has at least verbally agreed with Poland to buy 12 Iskra TS-11 trainers, with an option on eight more, in a deal that is to be final by year-end. The ex-Polish air force basic jet trainers will be sent to the WZL aircraft plant at Bydgoszcz for complete overhauls. The purchase will replenish a fleet of 50 TS-11s bought in 1975 that has been reduced to about 30. The purchase is seen as an interim measure until a new Indian-made basic trainer, the HJT-36, completes development.
The Best Managed companies in Aviation Week&Space Technology's Index of Competitiveness for 1999 represent a broad cross section of the aerospace and airline industries. Yet all six companies share something very fundamental. Each one has mastered the intricate relationship between operational and financial performance--a skill that eludes many companies. Further, their track records of the last five years attest to the fact that their rise to the tops of their respective peer groups is not a one-year anomaly.
Robert J. (Jeff) Wilson has been appointed vice president/general manager of Lockheed Martin Astronautics' Advanced Space Launch Systems in Denver. He will succeed Nathan J. Lindsay, who will retire June 30. K. Michael Henshaw has become president/chief operating officer of the Energy and Environment Sector. He succeeds Robert J. Stevens, who will remain corporate vice president-strategic development.
Ken Taylor has been appointed vice president-engineering, Chris Anderson vice president-operations, Beverly Rechkoff director of quality and materials and Steve Kern director of manufacturing, all for the Avtech Corp. of Seattle. Taylor was engineering manager and Anderson operations engineering manager. Rechkoff was operations systems manager and Kern operations manager.
Ernie Edwards has become London-based vice president-international sales of the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga. He was sales director in Europe and the Middle East for Cessna Citations.
Vincent L. Pisacane has become assistant director for biomedical programs and Kenneth A. Potocki assistant director for research and exploratory development at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. Pisacane has been director of of the APL Institute of Advanced Science and Technology in Medicine, while Potocki was deputy assistant director of research.
Susan Turner, who has been assistant director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Propulsion Laboratory, has been appointed project manager for the X-37 technology demonstrator.
Aerospace companies in the U.K. are already recognized as the most competitive in Europe, but Aviation Week&Space Technology's 1999 Index dramatically reveals that some of them are outperforming even the best U.S. suppliers.
Claverham Ltd. (formerly Fairey Hydraulics Ltd.) has won a $97-million support contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense for Tornado flight control actuators.
The basic methodology used to compute the Index of Competitiveness rankings for 1999 remains essentially unchanged from last year. Rankings have been compiled from fiscal 1998 data provided by Standard&Poor's Compustat, a unit of McGraw-Hill Companies.
THE U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE is urging users of Global Positioning System navigational receivers to verify that those units can work through an internal date change in the system this August. GAO officials told a congressional hearing on May 12 that the August change will occur because GPS is designed to ignore calendar dates but keep precise time measured in seconds and weeks. Only 1,024 weeks were allotted from Jan. 6 in 1980 before the system resets to zero. The change will occur Aug. 21-22.
London-based National Air Traffic Services Ltd. has purchased AD OPT's ShiftLogic software to schedule the work of its employees. NATS provides most of the U.K.'s air traffic control services and has more than 5,000 employees. . . . Northrop Grumman plans to acquire DPC Technologies, an infotech outsourcing company serving U.S. intelligence agencies and the Defense Dept., for about $33 million. Located in Laurel and Ft. Meade, Md., DPC Technologies has 180 employees and 1998 revenues of $60 million and will become part of Northrop Grumman's Logicon Inc.
British Airways plans to cut some of its less profitable short-haul routes and is introducing new bed-style seating in business class after posting its lowest pretax profits in six years.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries dominated Japanese defense contracting in 1998, as it traditionally has. It accounted for $2.77 billion in total contract awards from such key programs as the F-2 close support fighter, battle tanks and license-built production of Sikorsky SH-60J helicopters and Raytheon Patriot air defense missiles. Mitsubishi Electric ranked second at $859 million based on contracts to build AIM-7M, RIM-7M and Hawk missiles, as well as radar work.
The F/A-18 Advanced Weapons Laboratory at China Lake is conducting Y2K ground tests on the SLAM and SLAM-ER attack missiles that include the GPS navigation system, the mission planning system and the interface with the F/A-18 fighter. These tests have produced tools that can be used on all GPS-guided weapons to verify that they are Y2K-compliant, Navy officials said.
The Austin-Bergstrom (Tex.) International Airport, converted from the former Bergstrom AFB into a public facility, opened for commercial airline flight operations on May 23. Costing about $585 million to complete, the new facility replaces the city's Robert Mueller Municipal Airport that has served the community for nearly 70 years. Austin-Bergstrom features a 4,200-acre site, a 600,000-sq.-ft. terminal, 25 gates expandable to 55, and a 12,250-ft. runway that can handle the largest and heaviest jets, including cargo transports. In addition, a 9,000-ft.
President Clinton is expected to sign a $15.1-billion emergency supplemental appropriations bill for Fiscal 1999, most of it to finance U.S. participation in NATO's air war against Yugoslavia and pay for containment operations against Iraq. Receiving final congressional approval late last week by the Senate, the bill also includes money for military shortfalls that arose before NATO's attempt to liberate Kosovo began Mar. 24, including weapons and spare parts.
NASA and Lockheed Martin have completed negotiations on a $625-million contract for final purchase of materials required to build 60 new external propellant tanks for the space shuttle (see photo). It is the sixth purchase of tanks for the shuttle by the agency and the first made up entirely of super-lightweight tanks, which weigh about 7,500 lb. less than the previous design through use of a new aluminum lithium alloy.
Closer transatlantic industrial ties are crucial to stemming the growing gap between U.S. and European defense capabilities, now being revealed in Kosovo, but Pentagon efforts to modify security policy and practices to facilitate such cooperation face tough going at home.
Strict new export regulations intended to prevent spacecraft builders from transferring technology to China are having an impact on companies far outside the satellite industry.
Paul J. Coco has been appointed vice president-aerostructures for the Northrop Grumman Corp. Integrated Systems and Aerostructures Sector in Dallas. He succeeds Jim C. Hoover, who has retired. Coco was senior vice president-program operations.
