Virginia Barclay has become reservations manager and Jennifer Jenks advertising, public relations and sales promotions manager, both for the U.S. and Canada and both based in San Antonio, Tex., for Mexicana Airlines. Ivan Parilla has been named general manager for Puerto Rico.
Inmarsat's Board of Directors has elected Richard Vos as chairman and George Rorris as vice chairman. Vos is head of International Consortia for British Telecom, and Rorris is manager of Mobile Satellite Systems with OTE of Greece. They head the first board of directors for Inmarsat. It became a private company on Apr. 15, and is believed to be the first intergovernmental organization to make that transition.
Thomas F. Offutt (see photos) has been named vice president-legal and regulatory affairs and Sarah J. Thompson vice president-advertising and public relations of the Avemco Insurance Co., Frederick, Md. They were assistant vice presidents.
Aerospace Industries Assn. (AIA) President John Douglass says U.S. builders of satellite components have already lost an estimated $1 billion in business due to Washington's overzealous export regulators. He says European customers are leaving their American suppliers of satellites and related components due to red tape at the State Dept., which took back satellite export authority from the Commerce Dept. on Mar. 15. Frantic U.S.
Southwest Airlines has exercised options for six additional Boeing 737-700 transports. The airplanes are scheduled to be delivered in 2000. Southwest said it is experiencing 7% lower fuel burn for its 737-700s than predicted. With this latest order, Southwest has signed for 135 737NGs, of which 31 have been delivered.
The Philippines government has bowed to Philippine Airlines (PAL) owner Lucio Tan's demands for protection from competition by limiting foreign access to the country. Philippines President Joseph Estrada, whom Tan supported in last year's presidential election, said his government will not renew open skies agreements with Hong Kong, South Korea or Taiwan. In another surprise, Tan, who owns 70% of PAL's stock, said he will resume the role of chief executive--a post that creditors forced him to relinquish in 1998. But the U.S.
COHERENT TECHNOLOGIES HAS SIGNED MEMOS OF UNDERSTANDING with AlliedSignal Aerospace and United Airlines to develop a system to detect clear air turbulence. The effort will team a Doppler laser radar (lidar) from Coherent Technologies (AW&ST July 27, 1998, p. 73) with an AlliedSignal microwave radar. The Coherent sensor uses a pulsed lidar operating in the 2-micron band, and is expected to be able to detect the aerosols in clear air turbulence up to 15 km. (8.09 naut. mi.). The laser would probably be installed in the nose cone and would transmit through a 4-5-in.-dia.
Parametric Technology is using its recent corporate acquisitions to expand its Windchill enterprise software. The new version 2.1 is integrated with Info*Engine, which came with the $79-million purchase of Auxilium (AW&ST Apr. 5, p. 21). Info*Engine assembles information from multiple sources along the supply chain. Version 2.1 adds ProductView, to view and annotate product information using a Web browser. ProductView was acquired with Division Inc.
Vaisala Inc. has won a contact to install seven Automated Weather Observing Systems (AWOS). The contract valued at over $400,000 includes installation of AWOS IIIs and one year of maintenance.
NATO Supreme Commander Wesley K. Clark's admission that the air war against Yugoslavia has not broken Belgrade's lock on Kosovo has quickened the censure of NATO's 50th anniversary summit for not authorizing the deployment of ground forces, poised to invade Yugoslavia. Criticism of the air campaign also abounds as it enters its sixth week, with accusations that the U.S. prepared for ``the wrong war'' in the 1990s, shortchanging precision-guided weapons, jamming capability and aircraft carriers.
Dale Quattrochi, a geographer and senior remote sensing research scientist at NASA's Global Hydrology and Climate Center at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., has received the Assn. of American Geographers Remote Sensing Specialty Group's Outstanding Contributions Medal for 1999. The award recognizes leadership in thermal infrared remote sensing for urban heat island analysis.
The Airbus consortium's executive board last week approved the A318's go-ahead with more than 100 firm orders and commitments. Airbus Industrie is scheduled to deliver the first A318 short-haul twinjet during the fourth quarter of 2002.
Thiokol Propulsion has facilitated discussions with U.S. aerospace firms and Kosmotras to utilize the Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr vehicle in future launches.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has been awarded a $1.3-billion acquisition contract for the procurement of 21 airborne early warning E-2C aircraft in the Hawkeye 2000 configuration for the U.S. Navy, and long-lead material for one aircraft for the government of France.
The Dept. of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) is developing programming tools to keep up with increasingly powerful computers, including ``ultra-scale'' machines with more than 6,000 processors. ASCI recently awarded Etnus Inc. a three-year, $1.9-million contract to expand the company's TotalView debugger to handle computers with more than 6,000 processors and speeds up to 30 teraflops.
Of the 10 major U.S. airlines, US Airways is ranked first and United Airlines last in the annual Airline Quality Rating report for 1998 that reveals a trend toward poorer service that is fueling growing consumer discontent with the overall level of performance achieved by carriers.
Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific and South African Airways signed a code-share and marketing agreement last week that hints the African carrier could become a member of the Oneworld alliance that Cathay helped found. Lufthansa, a leader in the rival Star Alliance, and Singapore Airlines, which is due to join Star later this year, were prominent bidders for an equity stake in SAA, which had been expected to become a member of the Star Alliance.
Some of the aviation industry's biggest players are rising above long-standing rivalries to establish a legal framework that would reduce the risks, and thus the costs, of financing new commercial aircraft and engines. If the ambitious undertaking succeeds--and the prospects appear encouraging--the potential benefits could be enormous. And not just for airlines. Equipment manufacturers also could be a major beneficiary, as could the traveling public.
UniCapital Corp. has signed two separate letters of intent to acquire 45 commercial jet aircraft for more than $1.5 billion. These acquisitions will increase their portfolio to 70 commercial aircraft.
DuganAir Technologies Inc., Bellevue, Wash., is challenging pending European Community rules that would ban hushkits on transport aircraft. At a sunrise demonstration during the Paris air show this June, DuganAir says it will prove a Boeing 727-200 modified with its Quiet Wing System Stage 3 kit is quieter than the European-made Airbus A-300 transport. Combined Effective Perceived Noise Level for the 727-200QWS is 290.7 dB. compared with 294.3 dB. for the Airbus, according to Robert Olson, DuganAir president. The hushkitted 727's emissions also are less, he said.
Debbie Kelley has been named director of marketing of the Universal Pilot Application Service, Leesburg, Va. She was director of advertising and special events for Air Inc.
SAP has established a Product Data Management support center for the Americas. Activities include helping PDM expert consultants who are assisting customers, supporting the SAP training department to develop and give courses and helping customers build PDM expertise. More information is at http://www.sap.com/pdm. . . . MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. has started an electronic market for engineers with products, services, information and links to engineering sites. It's located at http://www.Engineering-e.com.
Unless the U.S. begins severely rationing high-accuracy, all-weather bombs and air-launched cruise missiles, the Air Force could run out of its weapons of choice in NATO's air war against Yugoslavia before the end of May. ``At the current expenditure rate, it's going to really be touch and go as to whether we will [run out of] JDAMs before we get the next delivery,'' said Gen. Richard Hawley, chief of Air Combat Command. ``It's iffy. It's very close. There isn't any room for error if we're going to be able to sustain [the air campaign].''
Crew confusion over altitude and the possibility of control problems are emerging as factors in the loss of a Korean Air MD-11 freighter that crashed into a Shanghai suburb moments after takeoff, killing eight and injuring 37. The aircraft took off at 16:04 on Apr. 15 from Runway 18 at Hongqiao Airport on a routine cargo flight to Seoul. It crashed a few minutes later, 7 mi. away in the suburb of Minhang and was demolished. The two pilots and an airline mechanic were among the dead.
On Apr. 12, two Energy Dept. officials gave conflicting testimony on the investigation into China's alleged theft of nuclear secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Norta Trulock, the Energy Dept.'s former director of intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that former acting Energy Secretary Elizabeth Moler prohibited him last July from briefing a congressional committee about the matter. Moler, who has since left Energy, denied the accusation. Both agreed to submit to polygraph tests. Last week, Sen. James M.
