Radar-equipped Discoverer 2 satellites will probably be able to observe missiles and satellites in addition to tracking moving targets on the ground. The Air Force, National Reconnaissance Office, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are designing the constellation of 24 low-Earth-orbit satellites to track vehicles and to do detailed mapping of the Earth. But some ``back of the envelope'' calculations predict the system also could be cued by Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS)-High satellites to track objects in space.
The Software Engineering Institute has given five Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems and Aerostructures sites a Level 4 rating for quality of software development, management and quality improvement processes. Level 5 is the best possible, and only 3% of the more than 200 federal contractor locations surveyed by SEI have achieved Level 4. The sites are Bethpage, N.Y.; Oklahoma City; and El Segundo, Palmdale and Pico Rivera, Calif.
UMC Group of Taiwan and Xilinx Inc. of San Jose, Calif., have produced the first field-programmable gate array capable of operating at 1 gigahertz. The device is a derivative of the XC4036XV family and was developed to push new 0.18-micron fabrication technology. Toward that end, United Silicon Inc., a wafer foundry subsidiary of UMC and Xilinx, has completed development of an advanced 0.22-micron process technology as part of a series of FPGAs that include a million-gate, 75-million transistor device.
The Model 9011 accelerometer power supply system is designed for testing aircraft accelerometers. It can be programmed with specific amplitude, phase and frequency to create a wide range of sinewave outputs. The six-channel system features accurate and stable waveforms with 0.005% distortion and phase resolution of 0.001 deg. Pragmatic Instruments Inc., 7313 Carroll Road, San Diego, Calif. 92121-2319.
The French government is expected to finalize in the next few days a plan to float about 20% of Air France's shares. Despite the pilots' 10-day walkout last June, the state-owned carrier in the last few months strengthened its profitability, according to company executives.
The FAA's decision to refrain from routinely using data from Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) programs to punish pilots is a victory for aviation safety. Lawyers within the U.S. agency had stonewalled against this common-sense approach. Administrator Jane F. Garvey is to be commended for her tenacity in breaking the bureaucratic logjam (see p. 37).
Dale Moss has become director of worldwide sales for British Airways. He was executive vice president-sales and marketing in the U.S. Moss succeeds Peter White, who has retired.
A NASA-Silicon Graphics Inc. team has built and programmed a 256-processor supercomputer that is now being tested at Ames Research Center. It is named in honor of the late Joseph Steger, an Ames fluid dynamicist, and can execute the ``Overflow'' fluid dynamics code at 20.1 gigaflops, compared with 4.6 gigaflops on a 16-CPU Cray C90. The slower C90 cost $40 million while the Steger cost $10 million. The Steger is based on the SGI Origin 2000 computer, with software and hardware changes to increase the number of nodes to 256 from 128.
Frederic C. Hall has been named director of marketing and sales of the CTS Corp.'s microeletronics business, Elkhart, Ind. He was director of international sales and marketing of Hubbell Inc.
Raytheon's new Captive Carry SM-3 seeker has successfully tracked a pair of U.S. Navy missiles flying representative Theatre Ballistic Missile profiles. The sensor, mounted atop Boeing's Airborne Surveillance Testbed, a modified 767 transport, is planned for use in the Navy's next-generation TBM interceptor missiles. It is the second payload carried in the hump-backed crown of the AST. The other is a long-wavelength infrared sensor sensitive enough to detect the heat of a human body from 1,000 mi. against the dark background of space.
Mark A.P. Drusch has become senior vice president-network management of Delta Air Lines. He was vice president-marketing development. Other recent appointments were: Mike Bell, vice president-schedule development; Joe Licitra, vice president-airport customer service; Doug Blissit, vice president-network analysis; and Greg Riggs, vice president/deputy general counsel. Bell and Licitra were managing directors of schedule development and airport customer service, respectively. Blissit was director of market analysis and Riggs associate counsel.
Japan's Ministry of Transport has issued an airworthiness directive to the country's five Boeing 747 operators after a 7.5-in. crack in an upper portion of an aft pressure bulkhead was discovered in a Japan Airlines 747. A cracked aft bulkhead caused Japan's worst air accident in 1985, so authorities are particularly sensitive to the problem. The JAL aircraft had about 25,000 cycles on it. Airlines are to inspect aircraft with more than 20,000 cycles on them. The directive affects 65 of 132 747s currently being operated in Japan.
Malaysia has expressed an interest in the Gzhel M-101T business aircraft developed by Russia's Myasischev Experimental Aircraft Building Plant. A preliminary agreement was signed in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 18 to explore possible coproduction of the 7-passenger aircraft in Malaysia. Myasischev's Designer General, Valery Novikov, said his company would supply the aircraft fuselage, equipped with a number of systems that Malaysia would supplement with Czech-made engines, avionics and interiors.
An optional card allows existing or new TEAC airborne video tape recorders to directly time stamp GPS, Zulu or IRIG clocks onto an aircraft's videotape. It plugs into V80, V82 and V83 Hi-8-mm. recorders, allowing for exact synchronization of video from multiple aircraft. The flight crew can select to display the time over the picture or use vertical interval time code, the broacast industry time stamping standard, to encode it on the tape with identification information for separate display. TEAC Communication Recorders, 7733 Telegraph Road, Montebello, Calif. 90640.
The Pentagon should insist that defense contractors pass on to the taxpayer the savings that accrue from big-ticket mergers, despite the difficulty of estimating such savings, a congressional watchdog agency says. The General Accounting Office (GAO) agrees with the Pentagon and weapons contractors that economic variables such as inflation and business ups-and-downs make it hard to determine just how much individual contract prices should drop when companies merge. These companies usually reduce overhead costs by laying off employees and closing facilities.
The first two Boeing Business Jets were delivered to outfitters for extended-range fuel tank installation last month. The first BBJ, destined for program partner GE, could enter service as soon as June and be displayed at the Paris air show. Firm orders for the BBJ stand at 46, including a Boeing demonstrator and nine reserved for the Boeing Netjets fractional ownership program, a joint venture between Boeing Business Jets and Executive Jet. Boeing plans to deliver up to six more BBJs for outfitting through the end of the year.
The Roxboro Group of Cambridge, England, has signed an agreement to acquire Norwich (N.Y.) Aero Products, a temperature sensors supplier, for $7.8 million. The company would be merged with Roxboro's Weston Aerospace subsidiary, which is based in Farnborough, England.
In another setback for the commercial imagery industry, Space Imaging delayed again the launch of its 1-meter-resolution Ikonos 1 spacecraft, this time to June 1999. An earlier slip had pushed the launch back from June to December 1998. The new delay was attributed to a durability problem with a ring laser gyro that was detected during the satellite's final verification testing. AlliedSignal, which supplies the component to prime contractor Lockheed Martin, now plans to upgrade the gyro's life span.
Competition is intensifying in the inflight entertainment systems market, as BE Aerospace--taking a cue from Hughes-Avicom International's success since joining forces with Rockwell Collins--seeks a strategic alliance of its own. The company is talking with several possible partners and expects to reach an agreement by the end of February.
Henry (Red) Barringer has been promoted to vice president from director of customer service and station operations and Roger Sorensen has been named director of Denver station operations for Frontier Airlines. He was manager in El Paso, Tex. James B. Upchurch, president/chief operating officer of Libra Investments Inc. of Los Angeles, has been appointed to the board of directors.
Jean Calmon has been elected president of France's national air and space academy for 1998-2000. He is a former Snecma engineering and production top executive. Calmon succeeds Pierre Vellas.
Adm. Harold W. Gehman, Jr., new chief of U.S. Atlantic Command, has been given an interesting task. He has been deputized by the other U.S. commanders-in-chief around the world to try to make various weapons developed by the different armed services work together (see p. 110). ``They've turned it over to me to come to town and whack everybody with a two-by-four to get this stuff done,'' he said.
After battling their most difficult year on record, with combined losses of $843.8 million, encouraging traffic figures are giving Asia's airlines reason for optimism. The 19-member Assn. of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) said traffic for September increased 2.2% over last year, while average load factors were up 3.6 points to 72% and well up from a low spot of 63% last May. AAPA Director General Richard Stirland told the annual presidents' meeting here that the traffic decline has bottomed out and there are signs of recovery.
Cathay Pacific Airways has been getting mixed results from on-wing tests of eight Rolls-Royce RB211-524 engines upgraded to the G/H-T standard. Engineering Director Derek Cridland said the engines are meeting expected temperature margins, but not the 2% better fuel efficiency promised by Rolls-Royce. Cathay is upgrading the -524s on all of its 21 747-400s.
A budget dispute within the European Space Agency threatens to lead to the demise of Mars Express project, a probe equipped with an orbiter and possibly a lander to study the interior, surface and atmosphere of that planet. The ESA Science Program Committee unanimously approved Mars Express last month. Last week, the agency's Industrial Committee recommended that a 60-million-ecu ($70-million) prime contract for the 1,100 kg. (2,425-lb.) probe be awarded to Matra Marconi Space (AW&ST Nov. 16, p. 36).
