Boeing Chairman and CEO Phil Condit intends to put the corporation's underperforming businesses on notice: If they don't shape up by year-end, they could become candidates for sale. During the next 6 months, every program and process will be examined for the amount of value they contribute to the overall corporation. The fact that some programs aren't creating value [for Boeing] doesn't mean they can't create value for another company, he said last week. ``It may add value to sell some operations,'' he noted.
U.S. and U.K. negotiators have failed to resolve differences that have stalled negotiations on a more liberal bilateral air-services treaty and blocked U.S. consideration of a proposed alliance between American Airlines and British Airways.
Christoph Mueller has been appointed chief operating officer of Sabena Belgian World Airlines. He was senior vice president-corporate planning of Lufthansa CityLine.
Hideo Itokawa, a designer for the Japanese Imperial Army and, later, a pioneer designer of its rockets, died Feb. 21 of a brain infection. He was 86. Itokawa was an engineer for Nakajima Aircraft Co. from 1935-45 and led a team that developed the KI-43 Hayabusa (known as Oscar to U.S. forces) attack fighter. After World War II, he became a professor at Tokyo University. In 1955, he emerged as a leader of Japan's sounding rocket program, contributing designs that evolved into today's H-2 launcher. For that reason, he was regarded as the Wernher von Braun of Japan.
Boeing Technology Services is offering its pressure sensitive paint technology to outside users of its wind tunnel facilities. The PSP system uses luminescent paint sprayed on an aerodynamic surface to measure pressures at all points on the surface. The nonintrusive technique uses digital cameras to measure pressures optically. Local air pressure is derived from the intensity of the light emitted from the coating.
Lockheed Martin, Spectrum Astro and TRW will compete to design and build a constellation of low-cost radar satellites that are intended to provide tactical commanders with up-to-date information on an enemy.
Boeing 737s continue to experience inflight upsets that probably will be difficult to explain considering the lack of data, even as the NTSB prepares to hold a public meeting on the 1994 crash of a USAir 737-300 near Pittsburgh. The latest incident involved a US Airways MetroJet 737-200 en route from Hartford, Conn., to Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 23 with 116 people on board. The aircraft yawed to the right and then rolled to the right 10 deg. initially at flight level 330. The rudder pedals were displaced and difficult to move.
Air France, Europe's third biggest airline, has retreated from subsidization, restored profitability and is now implementing an aggressive growth strategy. During the first half of its 1998-99 fiscal year, which ends Mar. 31, Air France made a $228-million net profit on $5.2 billion in revenues despite a 10-day walkout by its pilots. Recently, lengthy and complex negotiations with unions representing flight crews and ground workers restored labor peace in the company.
Lufthansa German Airlines has concluded a code-sharing agreement with Regional Airlines that should at least partially meet Lufthansa's several-year-long quest to obtain a firm foothold in the French air travel market, Europe's largest. In mid-1997, the German carrier had inked a broad-ranging partnership accord with Air Littoral, but this agreement came undone a year later when the French regional, in need of fresh equity that Lufthansa chose not to provide, allowed itself to be taken over by the Swissair Group (AW&ST June 16, 1997, p. 82).
It probably will be months before we know the full business impact of the U.S. government's decision to block the sale of two Hughes Electronics Corp. commercial spacecraft to a Chinese consortium (p. 26). But in an industry sector as competitive and with as much revenue potential as this one, it certainly won't help.
Nearly committed to multiple joint missions to Mars, the U.S. and France are strongly signaling that they hope to broaden international cooperation to make continuous exploration of the red planet a hallmark of space science in the 21st century.
Direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television companies are gearing up for a battle royal over the right to carry network TV signals. A federal court in Florida has ordered PrimeTime 24, a major distributor of satellite programming, to stop providing programming from CBS and Fox to customers who can receive the signals over the air. The ruling immediately affects hundreds of thousands of satellite TV subscribers. DTH analyst Mickey Alpert predicts DirecTV and EchoStar will sidestep the order by distributing the programming on their own, instead of through PrimeTime 24.
Expenditures for Earth observation--including reconnaissance spacecraft--and communications satellite research are highlights of the $3.2-billion fiscal 1999 budgets approved for Japan's various space agencies. The overall budgets, which take effect Apr. 1, represent a 1.8% increase over current spending. Japan's main space agency, the National Space Development Agency, accounts for $2.3 billion of the total. NASDA takes the lead in Japan's manned and unmanned space technology research and its Earth-observation missions.
THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY WILL EQUIP 16 of its S-70B Seahawk helicopters with Northrop Grumman's AAR-54 (V) passive missile approach warning system (PMAWS). The passive UV warning system will be used to alert the crew and to cue the ALE-47 chaff/flare dispenser system. Tenix Defense Systems of Melbourne, Australia--the prime integrator for the avionics upgrade--awarded a $4.1-million contract to Northrop Grumman's Baltimore-based Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector for PMAWS.
EL OP ELECTRO-OPTICS INDUSTRIES OF REHOVOR, ISRAEL, chose Orbital Sciences Corp. to supply its high-speed solid-state recorder for a fighter recon program. The recorder, manufactured in Orbital's Fairchild Defense Div., in Germantown, Md., uses solid-state flash memory chips and has no moving parts, which enhances its reliability. The recorder is designed with interfaces compatible with two of the widely used aircraft tape recorders.
The 406 Series of high reliability latching switches is qualified for use in space applications. Applications comprise UHF, L and S bands. The coaxial switch can be used to alternate the path of an incoming signal to one of two outputs, or can select either of two inputs and route it to an output. The 406 Series uses break-before-made contacts. Typical performance at 1.67 GHZ. is VSWR of 1.15:1 maximum, insertion loss of 0.15 dB. and isolation of 70 dB. min. Dow-Key Microwave Corp., 3822 McGrath St., Ventura, Calif. 93003-7718.
A Windows NT version of NCL multi-axis machining software can generate simultaneous 2 through 5-axis numerically controlled tool paths and provides parametric three-dimensional modeling. The geometric modeling and tool path functions are fully associative, so a change to the model results in an immediate change to the corresponding tool paths. NCL is used in aerospace, turbomachinery and composite manufacturing. Numerical Control Computer Sciences, 4685 MacArthur Court, Suite 200, Newport Beach, Calif. 92660.
Annapolis Microsystems' new Wildstar digital signal processor board boasts 11.8 billion floating-point operations per sec. doing 20-bit fast Fourier transforms. The Wildstar is powered by 3 Xilinx Virtex 1000 field-programmable gate arrays, each with 1 million gates. Using two of the elements, the board can process a 1,024-point 32-bit complex FFT in an average of 10.3 microseconds, with data input at 99 million samples per sec. Wildstar works with VME64X, PCI and Compact PCI buses. First delivery is to be this quarter.
The American Aircraft Industry is a comprehensive, survey history of the American aerospace manufacturing industry that spans the beginnings of heavier-than-air flight to the present. Using original sources, the book focuses on the business of aircraft, analyzing key ecomonic, military, technological and international influences on the industry. The University of Michigan Press, P.O. Box 1104, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106.
Croatia has selected Elbit Systems Ltd. and Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) to lead an upgrade program for its MiG-21 fighters. Negotiations are to start shortly on a contract which could be worth $80-120 million, depending on how many of the Croatian air force's fleet of 40 MiG-21s will be involved. The proposal from Elbit, which is teamed with IAI, was selected over competition from Russia's arms export organization Roosvoorouzhenie and Sokol. Croatia wants part of the work to be conducted in-country by ZTZ, which is near Zagreb.
Horizon is a noncontact optical profiler designed for nondestructive surface imaging. It can be used on both smooth and rough surfaces and features an X and Y scan range of up to 1.75 mm. and a Z range of up to 100 microns. The unit provides vertical resolution on the Angstrom scale. The system runs on the Windows 95 operating system, allowing easy integration with conventional networks and equipment. Burleigh Instruments Inc., Burleigh Park, Fishers, N.Y. 14453-0755.
The commercial helicopter business is undergoing limited growth, but global economic pitfalls and unresolved operational and regulatory issues threaten near-term growth as well as future stability. Although the overall consensus industry-wide is for contained expansion this year, some segments are thriving while others are struggling to maintain current levels of activity. In terms of new aircraft, U.S. manufacturers delivered more than 550 helicopters in 1998 but demand in certain markets remains relatively flat.
