Alex Dorrian has become senior vice president-naval business group of Thomson-CSF. He was deputy managing director of British Aerospace's Defense Systems Group.
Camouflage, concealment and deception mechanisms are expected to grow among militaries worldwide. So far, concerted use of those techniques is largely limited to countries, like North Korea and Iraq, that worry about the U.S.' vast intelligence capabilities, says Patrick Neary, an Army intelligence analyst. But as low-cost recon systems proliferate and higher-resolution space imagery becomes available, more forces will try to disguise equipment, he said.
Matra BAe Dynamics has completed the first phase of development for the Storm Shadow/Scalp standoff missile, with deliveries due to begin in 2001 under French and U.K. contracts worth more than 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion). This phase was completed in only 18 months, as compared to 3 years for the Apache standoff missile on which Storm Shadow and Scalp are based.
AlliedSignal Inc. last week reported a 12% increase in fourth-quarter net income, to $352 million, or 62 cents a diluted share, while TRW Inc. reversed a year-earlier loss with net income of $117.4 million, or 96 cents a diluted share.
In an indication that there will be no quick recovery from the Asian economic crisis, Delta Air Lines plans to suspend its daily nonstop service between Portland, Ore., and Seoul in mid-February. Delta said economic conditions in South Korea made the flights no longer profitable. Since last Fall, Delta was the only U.S. carrier providing daily nonstop U.S.-South Korea service.
NATO nations bolstered their air assets based in Italy last week and shifted to a 48-hr. standby posture for possible air strikes, as diplomatic efforts failed to curb renewed Serbian military action in Kosovo. Washington ordered the USS Enterprise into the Adriatic while the U.K. said it would deploy four additional Harrier GR7s and an aerial refueling tanker to Italy. Belgium was increasing its force of F-16s in Italy from 6 to 10 and the Netherlands deployed a further eight F-16s. Part of the U.S. alert package are B-2 bombers.
LOCKHEED MARTIN'S JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER team is developing an inflight planner that could greatly improve a pilot's ability to revise missions in flight. The Integrated In-Flight Planner was demonstrated in a full-mission simulation at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. When the pilot defined a new mission, the planner applied high-fidelity threat modeling to automatically determine aircraft susceptibility while finding the most survivable route to carry out the assignment, within fuel constraints.
Falling demand for international and domestic services promises to combine with overcapacity in major markets to depress the performance of major U.S. airlines this year, according to industry officials and financial analysts. Last year was the fourth in a string of good years for the major airlines, some of which reported record earnings. But adverse trends hurt almost every carrier's performance in the last quarter of 1998, and those trends likely will persist for several months, analysts and airline executives said.
The avionics team for Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter program has completed demonstrations of its Integrated In-Flight Planner (IIFP) as part of the Defense Dept.'s Virtual Strike Warfare exercises held recently at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Capt. Mike Ballinger (see photo) has been appointed chief pilot of London Executive Aviation. He succeeds Capt. George Galanopoulos, who is now managing director.
NASA has again delayed the launch of a new $1.5-billion X-ray telescope, this time by at least 5 weeks, after builder TRW made a last-minute discovery of faulty circuit boards that could have triggered a major failure. The Chandra advanced X-ray astrophysics facility, formerly known as AXAF, had been set to launch on Space Shuttle Columbia on Apr. 8. NASA and TRW officials were still working last week to determine the scope of the circuit board problem, which was initially detected in the spacecraft's command and telemetry unit.
Cancellations largely resulting from the Asian economic crisis cost Boeing orders for 50 commercial transports last year. The Seattle-based manufacturer said the net increase to its order backlog last year totaled only 606. Boeing took orders for 656 new commercial jet transports during 1998 (AW&ST Jan. 11, p. 422).
Arescue effort involving a gravity assist from the Sun has been devised to put Japan's Nozomi mission to study the upper atmosphere of Mars back on track after a stuck thruster valve robbed it of critical fuel. In a report, Japan's Space Activities Commission, its highest space programs authority, said that Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences' Nozomi is now expected to arrive at Mars in December 2003 or January 2004 rather than Oct. 11 this year, as originally planned.
In the airports category of the OAG awards, Singapore Changi Airport took the gold, retaining its title as the world's top international gateway. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport won the silver award, and Copenhagen the bronze. For the region of the Americas, the Cincinnati airport was named top airport over second-placed Denver and third-placed Orlando.
Frontier Airlines has prepaid a senior secured note with Wexford Management LLC, a Connecticut-based investment management company that had loaned the carrier $5 million in December 1997 and received a seat on the company's board of directors. Although the money was ostensibly for acquiring more Boeing 737-300s and to provide working capital for the Denver-based airline, the loan was made at about the same time Wexford and Frontier offered to take over then-bankrupt Western Pacific (AW&ST Dec. 1, 1997, p. 51).
Two U.S. fighter crashes in Japan have raised concerns among local government officials. A U.S. Air Force F-16 crashed Thursday into a wooded area south of Misawa. The pilot ejected safely. On Wednesday, two Marine Corps F/A-18s collided during a training mission. One F/A-18 returned to its base at Iwakuni, but the other pilot had to eject. Both Marine aviators were not hurt.
Moving ship decks, better access to data and improved trim routines are part of Virtual Prototypes' new FLSIM 7.0 and HELISIM 3.0 versions of its flight simulator software. HELISIM 3.0 also adds models for skid landing gear and nonlinear transmission behavior. The company is also selling databases to simulate a number of specific aircraft. . . . Sanyo Electric has developed a reflective color liquid crystal display that doesn't use a backlight and doesn't lose resolution.
The ANPK MiG design bureau rolled out its MiG Project 1.42 fighter technology demonstrator on Jan. 12 at the Zhukovsky flight test center near Moscow, and hopes to fly it in February (AW&ST Jan. 11, p. 436). The demonstrator was built in 1991 but weak funding delayed the first flight until now. Powered by Lyulka-Saturn AL-41F engines with a thrust-to-weight ratio of 10, the aircraft has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.2-1.3 and should be able to cruise without afterburner at Mach 1.3-1.6, said Mikhail Korzhuev, designer and director general of ANPK MiG.
A Southwest Airlines 737 came within 100 ft. of colliding with a Cessna 210 during takeoff on Jan. 20 from Austin, Tex., FAA and airline officials said in confirming an incident first reported by The Dallas Morning News. Southwest Flight 553, with 125 on board, had just lifted off from runway 31L when the captain noticed a Cessna 210 coming at the aircraft from a crossing runway. A Southwest official said the captain pulled the 737 into a steeper climb and the Cessna passed below. The incident is being investigated by the FAA.
U.K. negotiators have asked their U.S. counterparts to meet next month informally to explore whether talks on a new air-services treaty can resume, but the Americans are leery. The Transportation Dept.'s aviation and international affairs guru, Patrick V. Murphy, told the Senate Commerce Committee's new member, Max Cleland (D-Ga.), that U.S. negotiators walked out of the 6-year-old talks last year after being invited to London for what turned out to be a fruitless session. One of the latest obstacles to talks is an old problem--slots to serve London.
Honeywell is closely watching the progress of a draft FAA advisory circular on satcom-based integrated cockpit voice systems. This could lead to elimination of one of the two HF radios required on long-haul transoceanic flights. As a next step, the company's Phoenix-based Business and Commuter Aviation Systems group is studying a dual satcom installation, using two dissimilar systems, which potentially could replace both HF radios on long flights.
Average delays for scheduled services at London's five airports rose to 16 min. in the third quarter 1998 from 13 min. during the same period in 1997, according to the the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority. The percentage of ``on-time'' flights at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City airports fell to 65% from 71%. Average delays for charter flights declined to 38 min. from 46 min., with 48% on time, versus 45% in 1997. Regional U.K.
After concluding an agreement last October to launch a mobile satphone service, direct-to-home TV broadcast specialist Eutelsat is pushing into broadband satellite telecommunications.
Gary Kendall (see photo) has been appointed business manager for standard products for Microwave Instrumentation Technologies of Atlanta. He was manager of advanced gateway programs for Scientific-Atlanta Inc.
