Under a government directive, the heads of China's 23 domestic airlines will board their carriers' respective aircraft on Jan. 1, 2000, in an effort to soothe the nerves of passengers concerned about problems caused by the Y2K bug, reports Xinhua, China's official news agency.
Arkia Israeli Airlines is poised to benefit from the planned liberalization of international Israeli air routes by aggressive expansion into the Middle East and Europe. Arkia, a privately owned carrier based here, was formed in 1980. Israel has already opened up its domestic market. Now, as part of a plan to privatize state-owned El Al, which still enjoys a monopoly on international flights, the government is planning to expand this open skies policy to the international sector.
Business executives and weapons proliferation experts are supportive of the Administration's Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), and the role industry can play in it, but they caution that the challenges are many, and daunting (see p. 37). The NCI concept is appealing because it is geared to economies of scale and it concentrates efforts in central locations--Russia's closed nuclear cities--says Zachary Selden, a research analyst with Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan defense reform group.
Aerospace and defense companies are engaged in massive efforts to reengineer and computerize their business processes with ERP software, but it is not yet clear who will be successful with these grand schemes.
The Pentagon has pushed back by 2 years the earliest date it would deploy a National Missile Defense system and it has restructured its approach to building theater missile defenses to create competition between the Army and Navy programs.
The four largest U.S. military contractors expect to face a tougher competitor globally after British Aerospace acquires the Marconi defense unit of General Electric Co. PLC. Some industry observers think British Aerospace also may be able to expand its beachhead in the U.S. market because of Marconi's purchase of a North American family of defense suppliers in recent years.
A House of Commons Select Committee on Transport report last week said the U.K. government should ``reevaluate'' its proposals to privatize National Air Traffic Services (NATS), saying further evidence addressing safety issues is needed. The report also said any move to privatization should wait until after the opening of the long-delayed Swanwick control center, now tentatively scheduled for 2002.
Tactical unmanned aerial vehicle makers will have two near-term chances to sell their wares to the Pentagon. First, the U.S. Army will compete the requirement for a brigade commander's system that can fly at least 50 km. (30 mi.), stay aloft 4 hr., and operate at 10,000 ft. This is the Army's third attempt in recent years to field a tactical UAV. It failed with the Hunter and Outrider programs. Three to five aircraft will be given the chance to demonstrate their capability, and the Army will pick one to be fielded less than a year later, according to U.S. Army Col.
Don't bet your lunch money that Stars--the new Raytheon workstation for air traffic controllers--will be up and running soon at Reagan Washington National Airport. The FAA is reviewing the schedule for Stars, short for Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, but is not optimistic it will make the Mar. 31 target at National. Stars is to replace 15-to-25-year-old equipment at 172 FAA Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities around the country. Under congressional pressure, the FAA had moved National's Stars priority up, from 2001 to September 1998.
Finland's Patria Industries will form a command and control unit that will focus on missile electronics. In a related initiative, Patria Vammas, a Patria Industries subsidiary, will acquire Nokia's fire control systems business.
Pratt&Whitney is making the largest information technology investment in its history to employ SAP's R/3 enterprise resource planning software throughout its operations.
Dassault Aviation plans to boost production of its Falcon business jet line to a combined rate of more than six aircraft per month, from four per month. In 2000, the manufacturer's Bordeaux production facilities are scheduled to assemble 75 two- and three-engine Falcons, company executives said. In 1997-98, Dassault concluded orders for 173 business aircraft valued at $4 billion and also sold 20 used aircraft. In the next few months, Dassault is expected to decide whether to launch its proposed Mach 1.8-cruise-speed SuperSonic Business Jet.
Satellite manufacturers see the new century dawning as an age of rapid communications for consumers, and they are introducing an array of powerful new on-board digital signal processing techniques to meet that demand. The direct-to-home television and handheld satellite telephones that have begun to change telecommunications markets in the 1990s are precursors for this new age. But the Internet is expected to greatly broaden its base.
A Continental Airlines Boeing 747 hit turbulence at 33,000 ft. over the Pacific on a Jan. 20 flight from Tokyo to Honolulu injuring 22, including 18 passengers and 4 flight attendants. Four passengers were treated at a hospital in Honolulu.
British Aerospace's agreement with General Electric Co. PLC to acquire its defense and aerospace businesses offers Europe the kind of industrial powerhouse industry and government officials maintain is necessary to compete on an equal footing with U.S. rivals.
Glenn E. Cunningham, manager of NASA's Mars Surveyor Operations Project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has been named deputy director of JPL's Mars Exploration Directorate. He has been succeeded by Richard Cook, who was flight operations manager for the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission. Richard Doyle has become manager of the Information Technologies and Software Systems Div. He succeeds Chris Carl, who has retired. Doyle was manager of the Information and Computing Technologies Research Section and assistant manager of the Autonomy Technology Program.
Robert S. Harris has been appointed vice president-executive education and development for the United Technologies Corp., Hartford, Conn. He has been C. Stewart Sheppard professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
Boeing will spend the first part of this year trying to sell about 100 Block 1 Harpoon missiles before starting to aggressively market the newer Block 2 version, company officials said. The upgraded Block 2 is supposed to be more effective against targets in the littoral area. Boeing sold 217 Block 1 Harpoons last year and will stretch production over a year and a half to smooth the transition to Block 2. However, the company still has to sell about 100 Block 1s to avoid any production gap between the two Harpoon versions.
As editor-in-chief of a magazine that has closely followed--and even tried to foretell--the amazing advances of aviation and aerospace in the first century of flight, I have the privilege of introducing a new series of Viewpoints. This series will examine what we might expect in The Next Century of Flight. Each month, through December 2003, we will offer Viewpoints that are thought-provoking, insightful and not afraid to topple icons of the past, present and future.
Exposed wiring caused the most expensive unmanned accident in Cape Canaveral's history when a Titan IVA rocket carrying a highly classified Mercury signals intelligence satellite exploded Aug. 12. The launcher was plagued by poor assembly. Investigators noted that the rocket ``had 44 wiring defects with shorting potential, the highest defect rate of all Titan IVA launch vehicles.'' Those and other problems resulted in rework after the Titan was assembled which, program officials said, increases the risk of additional faults going undetected.
Much has been made of the price that British Aerospace will pay to ensure that the Marconi defense unit of General Electric Co. Plc. does not wind up as a U.K.-based subsidiary of one of BAe's U.S. rivals. The acquisition, which is expected to close this summer, will cost British Aerospace $9.4 billion (5.71 billion pounds) plus the assumption of $3.3 billion (1.99 billion pounds) in debt (see p. 30). Some U.S.
British Airways' proposed $125-million acquisition of franchise partner CityFlyer Express has been referred to the U.K.'s Monopolies and Mergers Commission for review. Recently appointed Secretary for Trade and Industry Stephen Byers said the deal raises competitive concerns. The acquisition would give BA control of 39% of takeoff and landing slots at London Gatwick airport (AW&ST Dec. 7, 1998, p. 37). Virgin Atlantic, which had expressed an interest in CityFlyer, complained that it had not been given an opportunity to bid.
Australia's international carriers are showing signs of confidence that a recovery is underway in Asia, and the latest regional traffic figures back them up. Qantas is increasing flights into the region for the first time in more than a year and is evaluating the purchase of six 747-300s from Cathay Pacific to handle demand and replace some older aircraft. After a long struggle, its much smaller rival, Ansett International, says it also is ready to expand Asian services with newly leased 747-400s and open its first flights to the U.S. and U.K.
Revolutionary technologies on the horizon promise to dramatically improve the capabilities and costs of tomorrow's spacecraft. But in a departure from the past, it will be commercial markets, not governments, that define what these new systems will look like. In this special report, Aviation Week&Space Technology editors outline some of the most promising technology trends and how they could alter the space landscape over the next two decades.
