Europe and America are battling over hushkit restrictions that the continent insists are essential to its environmental protection, but that Washington claims will discriminate against U.S. aviation to the tune of more than $1 billion in threatened exports and services. If Europe proceeds, its actions ``certainly will not go unanswered,'' a high-ranking Clinton Administration official said, hinting at financial and trade retaliation.
Southwest Airlines is to double its gates to four at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which likely will mean more competition for Northwest Airlines at the Motor City hub. Southwest has been seeking additional gates to build on its schedule of 20 flights a day. Current destinations are Chicago Midway, St. Louis and Nashville. Spirit Airlines of Eastpointe, Mich., is expected to take two gates. In both cases, the gates are considered temporary while the airport is working on its $2-billion expansion.
Cessna Aircraft Co. delivered 1,077 new airplanes in 1998, compared with 618 the previous year, and says it holds an order backlog worth $4 billion--the highest in the company's 71-year history. Chairman and CEO Russell W. Meyer said deliveries included an all-time industry record of 200 Citation business jets, of which 30 were Cessna's flagship, the Citation X. Cessna also delivered 64 CitationJets, 34 Citation Bravos, 46 Citation Ultras (including five UC-35As for the U.S. Army), 15 of the new Excel and 11 Citation VIIs.
American Airlines plans to sell lower deck cargo space on its new Boeing 777 during route trials scheduled to be conducted throughout this month. Freight will be flown on flights from Dallas/Fort Worth to London, Osaka, Tokyo, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles as well as other major cities in the U.S. The airline took delivery of the first 777 on Jan. 21 and the second on Jan. 29. An additional nine of the twin-engine jets are scheduled for delivery this year. American is scheduled to receive 34 777s during the next 3 years.
HONEYWELL HAS SIGNED A LETTER OF INTENT to purchase Boeing's micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technologies and related patents for inertial guidance systems. The technology is considered critical for future military ``gyro-on-a-chip'' applications where light-weight and low-volume properties are needed. In the near-term, Honeywell expects to use MEMs gyros and accelerometers for tactical munitions, which have accuracy requirements of 1-30 deg. per hour.
Belgium's Barco Displays Systems has been selected by Boeing to supply color head-down displays for the NightHawk Targeting System, a Flir and TV sensor imagery system.
Indonesian national carrier Garuda Indonesia has named Germany's Lufthansa as an operational consultant until 2000 to improve the airline's performance. Lufthansa will receive an incentive fee based on measurable success of the program. Garuda's international routes to Europe are the main focus for Lufthansa but it also will advise the airline regarding its operations in general. Garuda recently took delivery of the last of six Boeing 737s and canceled plans to acquire six 777s while it restructures debt.
Virgin Atlantic Airways has won a 3-year contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense to fly British troops and other military personnel between London and Washington.
Aeroquip-Vickers Inc., declaring it has insufficient mass to remain a viable player amid rapid consolidation, expects to be acquired by Eaton Corp. within weeks. ``At $2.2 billion, [the company] is too small to realize the full advantage of its strengths,'' Aeroquip-Vickers Chairman Darryl F. Allen said. Eaton will purchase all of the company's outstanding common shares for $58 each in cash. The transaction is valued at about $1.7 billion and is expected to close by early April.
Japan's oft-postponed launch of its $80-million Lunar-A mission to send a pair of penetrators into the Moon's surface may be postponed again. The Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) is analyzing the U.S. Sandia National Laboratories' test results of the surveyor's penetrators. ISAS had hoped to launch the mission this August on an ISAS/Nissan M-5 booster that would place the Lunar-A orbiter in position in March 2000 to fire two 28-lb. penetrators into the lunar surface for seismology and heat-flow studies.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. is scheduled to acquire Associated Aircraft Group, with an eye on developing a helicopter fractional ownership market. The transaction is expected to close within 60 days.
To predict when electronic components will become obsolete and find replacements for them, IHS Engineering has formed a partnership with Manufacturing Technology Inc. The joint product will be called ``TDMplus'' for Total DMS Management. ``DMS'' stands for diminishing manufacturing sources and materiel shortages. IHS is a major publisher of engineering and regulatory information, and will provide the database for commercial electronic components. MTI mainly works with the Defense Dept. and will provide its DMS software expertise.
A Russian space mirror experiment failed initially on Feb. 3 when the 82-ft. circular aluminized mylar-type mirror failed to unfurl properly from a Progress resupply spacecraft after undocking from the Mir space station. The Znamya (``banner'') mirror became entangled on a Progress antenna when commanded to unfurl by the two cosmonauts on Mir. The cosmonauts eventually maneuvered the Progress to untangle the mirror, but it failed to take its proper shape.
Russell B. Spencer has become associate vice president/manager of the Advanced Technology Div. of Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall of Los Angeles. He also will be president of Geolinc.
The Galileo spacecraft entered a hibernating ``safe mode'' 4 hr. after its encounter with Jupiter's moon Europa on Jan. 31, and 20-30% of the data from the overall encounter may have been lost, but data from closest approach appear intact. The safe mode stops the collection of scientific information, and the later outbound observations were not made, said James K. Erickson, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Galileo project manager. The spacecraft had also passed Jupiter about an hour before the safe mode.
Meggitt Aerospace Components has been awarded a contract valued at 1 million pounds ($1.66 million) from GKN Westland Helicopters to supply air start and environmental control systems for the Cormorant search and rescue version of the EH 101 helicopter being acquired by Canadian Forces.
Douglas F. Flood has become vice president-corporate development of Mercury Computer Systems, Chelmsford, Mass. He was senior vice president-business development and planning for FTP Software.
In an effort to reconcile the left-wing's economic dogmas with the need to comply with free economy's rules, the French gov-ernment has confirmed an earlier decision to partly privatize Air France. Government officials, however, claim the goal is to ``open'' the state-owned carrier's capital to investors instead of partly privatizing the company. The government's stake in Air France is scheduled to decrease to 64% after floating nearly 20% of the carrier's capital and the acquisition of shares by flight crews and ground workers. Beginning on Feb.
Frontier Airlines posted record fiscal third-quarter profits of $2.5 million, marking a major turnaround from the same quarter in 1997 when the carrier lost $11.5 million. Load factor for the period was 53.5% on a capacity increase of 20.6%, and cost per available seat mile decreased to 7.66 cents from 8.52 cents. Frontier plans to replace five Boeing 737-200s and add another three new jets in the next 12-15 months, bringing its fleet to 20 737s.
The causes of a string of failures of high-profile Japanese space missions over the last 4 years can be explained individually, but when viewed across the board they point to a lack of management at the National Space Development Agency, an international review panel says.
Lockheed Martin appears to be facing a cost overrun of at least $100 million in its program to build Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator aircraft--a serious problem given the government's prohibition against contractors spending their own development money in the heated competition.
In a first for the U.S. aerospace industry, all of the key players who produce and use investment castings are collaborating on pre-competitive issues to solve common problems to improve the affordability of man-rated gas turbine engines. The government-sanctioned Engine Supplier Base Initiative (ESBI) is a dramatic departure from traditional, one-on-one partnerships. This is a sector-wide effort, and that's what makes it unique, according to some of the principals involved.
James P. Cravens (see photo) has been appointed assistant director of the Instrumentation and Space Research Div. of the Southwest Research Institute (SRI) Space Sciences Dept., San Antonio, Tex. He has been instrument manager for the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration. Henry O. Sees has been promoted to assistant director of the SRI's Warner Robins, Ga.-based Electronics Integration and Information Technology Dept. from SRI manager of integrated support systems.
Southeast Asian airlines are introducing discount fares to stimulate waning tourist numbers. The Asean Tourism Assn. (Aseanta) has led discussions to introduce an air pass that allows international passengers to buy $90 coupons for travel in the region. Participating airlines include Garuda Indonesia, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways International, Philippine Airlines and Royal Brunei. Passengers are required to purchase a minimum of three coupons together with their international ticket, and the coupons are valid on any of the carriers.
U.S. Air Force Titan IVB launch vehicles have been cleared by USAF for return to flight, following program reviews in the wake of findings that the failure of a Titan IVA at Cape Canaveral last Aug. 12 was probably caused by a short in the vehicle's power-supply wiring harness. In light of the findings, managers had been weighing whether to return Titan IVBs already in the field to Lockheed Martin in Denver for inspection.
