The Pentagon is poised to circulate for comment a classified study assessing the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles to civil aircraft operating in the U.S. Concern arose after the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800, in which a terrorist bomb or a missile attack was suspected initially. Both were ruled out as the likely cause, but investigators concluded that transports flying to or from airports such as Flight 800's origin point of Kennedy International Airport were within range of shoulder-fired missiles available on the black market.
As all of us become more and more world travelers, international aviation safety grows as a factor in all of our lives. The actions and programs of the FAA, European regulatory and safety organizations, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and aviation regulatory bodies of other countries have been generally effective in making air travel a safe experience.
Technology development road maps covering hyperspectral imaging and large optics systems will soon be released by the U.S. Space Technology Alliance, a multiagency consortium formed to avoid duplication of efforts and to leverage tight research and development budgets.
The nonprofit Washington Aerospace Alliance and Shoreline (Wash.) Community College have combined to allow aerospace workers to attend training courses at no cost, except for the price of textbooks. The training focuses on the skills needed to operate and support computer numerically controlled equipment--including CNC programming, according to Ken Rouse, assistant program manager, CNC machining, at SCC. The 3-hr.-long courses are held one night a week and can be converted to college credit.
Aerospace executives were disappointed the Sino-American summit did not result in China's entry into the World Trade Organization, but the industry did gain a consolation prize. On the eve of President Clinton's White House parley with Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, Washington and Beijing agreed to a doubling of passenger and cargo flights between the two nations, the entry of another U.S airline into the Chinese market and an expanded number of U.S. cities that can have direct air service to China.
Joe Wadsworth has been promoted to vice president of the Telecommunications/Commercial Operations Div. of Oceaneering International Inc. of Houston from general manager of the Marine Engineering and Construction Div.
Signal Technology Corp. has received a $600,000 contract from the U.S. Navy to supply shipboard wide-band satellite communications amplifiers. Hercules Aerospace Co. has been awarded an $18.4-million order from the U.S. Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command as part of a contract for the manufacture of 90,000 MK 90 propellant grains for the Hydra 70 Rocket System.
Robert S. Arendal has become adviser to the president of Atlas Air Inc., Golden, Colo. He was senior vice president-sales, marketing and cargo services for Cargolux Airlines International of Luxembourg.
A third consecutive year of losses has forced Air India to postpone fleet renewal plans until it straightens out its finances. The state-owned flag carrier lost about $50 million in its latest fiscal year, which ended Mar. 31. Indian Airlines, the government-owned domestic airline, is marginally profitable. It is expected to begin fleet replacement studies this summer for its wholly owned Alliance Air subsidiary. Alliance operates 12 737-200s on thinner domestic routes and uses contract cockpit and cabin crew to reduce costs.
The special Senate panel monitoring agency compliance with Y2K fixes says the FAA, among others, is behind schedule. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had set a Mar. 31 deadline for agencies to finish their ``millennium bug'' troubleshooting, but the FAA got a late start and was granted an extension until June 30. Nevertheless, lots of folks are looking over the agency's shoulder: not only OMB and Senate watchdogs, but also the General Accounting Office and the Transportation Dept.'s inspector general.
Rene Beauchamp has been named director of communications for the Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn. He was director of business development for Litton Guidance and Control Systems.
The Air Force's move toward space-based systems is triggering major efforts in basic research to understand and predict the natural threats to spacecraft and humans. ``Space weather'' studies being conducted here will have applications to all satellites and should make them less vulnerable to damage in orbit. The work is fundamental to the push by the Air Force Research Laboratory to move surveillance and command and control systems from aircraft into space.
Advanced technologies that will dramatically reduce the size, weight and power consumption of military satellites, while also increasing their capabilities, are being tested in orbit by new families of demonstrator spacecraft.
Doug Stone, Boeing vice president/ general manager for the International Space Station (ISS), has received the Astronautics Engineer Award from the National Space Club. Stone was selected for contributions to the success of the ISS program and ``leadership of the industry team in the design, development, testing, launching and operation of the first international orbiting laboratory.''
In 1984, drug and consumer-products giant Johnson&Johnson was looking skyward. Teamed with McDonnell Douglas, the company was involved in a program to make hormones in space that executives confidently predicted would be bringing in $1 billion a year by the mid-1990s--not bad for a company that at the time was raking in $6 billion. Only three years later, the electrophoresis-based effort collapsed, and Johnson&Johnson pulled out.
Mick Manne has been promoted to vice president-development from director of program and capital gifts and Lee Siudzinski to vice president-education from executive director of the Science-Math-Technology Leadership Project, of the Experi- mental Aircraft Assn. Aviation Foundation, Oshkosh, Wis.
Stronger, cheaper and less brittle aerospace composites may result from ongoing research at Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory. Scientists at the lab found short fibers shaped like a cartoon dog bone with enlarged ends will anchor into the surrounding matrix at both ends while only bonding weakly along their length. This allows effective load transfer while preventing the brittleness that occurs when fibers are bound too tightly, according to Yuntian Zhu, project team leader at the lab's Materials Science and Technology Div.
The SAirGroup, Swissair's parent company, will acquire a 20% stake in TAP/Air Portugal, with an option to acquire an additional 10% in the next four years. The agreement requires the European Commission's authorization before it is implemented.
The loss of an F-117 Nighthawk fighter-bomber in Kosovo has raised questions about the impact of first-generation stealth technology being compromised, and why the wreckage was not immediately destroyed by follow-on air strikes.
High-ranking executive turnover has struck two Washington-area space companies, Iridium Global Communications and the stateside arm of France's Spot Image. Iridium, facing a $1-billion or more near-term revenue shortfall, is about to lose Chief Financial Officer Roy Grant, who is said to have resigned ``for personal reasons,'' not for the venture's slow startup (see p. 15). Longtime Spot President Ted Nanz said he left his post to spend more time with his family. But Spot senior international managers claim he was forced out.
American analysts dismiss German reports that a Czech-made Tamara antiaircraft radar system may have been obtained by Yugoslavia and used in shooting down an F-117 (see p. 31). First, they point out, the antiquated Tamara is not a radar, it is a passive system that locates and categorizes electronic signals. Second, F-117s operate in electronic silence. Tamara can calculate the routes of emitting aircraft and pass them to antiaircraft radar sites, but it almost always is misidentified as a low-frequency radar.
Warsaw's Okecie Airport is planning to construct a new terminal, which would allow doubling of the annual capacity to 7.6 million passengers per year. According to Waldemar Domanovski, general manager of airport operator Polski Porty Lotnicze, a request for proposals for the new terminal will be issued this year.
Cubic Defense Systems Corp. has won a $23.8-million contract to provide 24 pods, six sets of display and debriefing equipment, three control and computation substations, associated data, spares, software, support and test equipment for the Global Positioning System Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation Program. The contract is in support of F-15 and F-16 aircraft and training systems being sold to Taiwan.
