American Airlines and other major U.S. carriers are modifying their fleet planning and route structures for 1999 as economic instability worldwide breeds caution within the airline industry. Although senior American Airlines officials still view 1999 as a year for growth, ``we have revised our plans to reflect changing global economic conditions,'' said Gerard J. Arpey, the airline's senior vice president for financial planning and chief financial officer. He expects capacity to increase 4% next year instead of 6% as was originally planned.
Airbus Industrie's use of computers, particularly in fly-by-wire control systems, has long given it a ``high-tech'' image in the popular imagination. Ironically, the aircraft that have allowed it to challenge Boeing most successfully, its A320 and A330/A340 families, came along too early to benefit from many of the industry's most successful computer-aided design and manufacturing techniques.
Robert T. Elrod has been appointed executive vice president, William B. Anderson vice president of F-16/F-2 business and Charla K. Wise vice president-product engineering, all of Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems of Fort Worth. Elrod succeeds William B. Bullock, who has been named president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems, Marietta, Ga. Anderson succeeds Elrod, and Wise succeeds Anderson.
A presidential pardon for Jonathan Pollard, who passed reams of top secret documents to Israel, seems less likely. But intelligence community veterans are circling the wagons just in case. The New York Times reported last week that CIA chief George Tenet told President Clinton he would resign if Pollard were freed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked for a pardon before signing the peace agreement with Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat at Wye, Md. Instead, Clinton promised a review of Pollard's case, and one is underway.
The European Space Agency has finished the first phase of selection for the new European astronaut corps, set up earlier this year to replace individual national astronaut programs. The recent recruit, Frank de Winne of Belgium, joins 13 other astronauts: Andre Kuipers of Holland, Jean-Francois Clervoy, Leopold Eyharts and Jean-Pierre Haignere (France), Thomas Reiter, Hans Schlegel and Gerhardt Thiele (Germany), Paolo Nespoli, Roberto Vittori and Umberto Guidoni (Italy), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden), Claude Nicollier (Switzerland) and Pedro Duque (Spain).
Jay A. Musselman (see photo), retired president of Lockheed Martin Vought Systems of Dallas, has received the 1998 John W. Dixon Award from the Assn. of the U.S. Army. He was cited for work in advancing warfighting technologies and capabilities for the defense of the U.S.
HeliFlite Shares is offering fractional ownerships in executive helicopters and plans to begin operations of a regional-based corporate transportation service in the first quarter of 1999. The turnkey aircraft management service would initially be limited to the North Texas region, covering a radius of 250 naut. mi. from the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. If the program is successful, plans call for expanding service to the Northern and Southern California regions later in 1999, according to company officials.
We will confess to being amused by the range war between Dallas and Fort Worth over expanded airline service from Love Field. How ironic! Texans, those proselytes of the entrepreneurial spirit and laisez-faire economics, are arguing publicly about the particular type of governmental interference to have in the air transport market in ``the metroplex.''
Craig Kreeger has been named vice president/general sales manager of American Airlines. He was vice president-pricing, yield management and distribution planning. Kreeger succeeds Peter Bowler, who is now president of American Eagle.
Space officials from Europe are scurrying to put together a proposal for a follow-on atmospheric reentry vehicle demonstration project to be presented at the next European Space Agency (ESA) ministerial meeting in June.
K. Mason Schecter has become vice president-corporate development of Barringer Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J. He was vice president-corporate finance of Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc.
Titan Corp. of Reston, Va., is finalizing an electron-beam decontamination system for protective clothing that has come in contact with chemical and biological agents. The system, called SureBeam Decon, is planned for deployment on a shielded military 5-ton truck, according to Darren McKnight of Titan's Research&Technology Div. It is based on Titan's SureBeam medical device sterilization system, which uses an electron linear accelerator and has been operating for five years at two company locations.
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes has called for an integrated command of the army, navy and air force as part of a systematic overhaul of the country's security establishment. Addressing senior military commanders from the three services, he called for formation of a national security council, adding that mere ``tinkering with the existing systems will not do.''
Scrap, rework and other earmarks of inferior quality cost all businesses billions of dollars annually. And the aerospace/defense industry, despite its reputation for being quality-conscious, incurs some of the heaviest financial penalties, according to industry officials and observers. Industry executives believe they are unlikely to reach the point where the incremental cost of higher quality will outweigh the rewards as measured by customer satisfaction and increased sales.
From laptops for salesmen to group-wide resource planning, Lufthansa German Airlines is increasingly trying to cut costs and improve efficiency by consolidating and updating its computer and information technology systems. Lufthansa is the world's eighth largest passenger airline and number one in cargo. It is Airbus' biggest airline customer, with 177 aircraft on order or in service. An early A320 customer, it launched the A321, the A340-200/300 and helped launch the A340-600.
AeroVironment's Centurion solar-powered drone made its first flight here on Nov. 10 and demonstrated excellent handling under benign conditions. The test allayed concerns about how the 206-ft.-span, 1,385-lb. flying wing would handle, both on the ground and in flight. The NASA-funded Centurion readily made turns at up to 3-deg./sec. rate and was towed several miles between its hangar and the Edwards lakebed without incident.
Kim Cohen (see photo) has joined the Lockheed Martin Corp.'s London office as vice president-U.K. for business development. He was commercial director for defense systems for British Aerospace.
The U.S. and Italy initialed a new open skies air services agreement, which will eliminate all restrictions on routes, capacity and pricing between the two nations, when implemented. Italian negotiators gave the U.S. a letter stating they would permit the pact to go into effect after the U.S. Transportation Dept. approves an Alitalia alliance with a U.S. partner airline and grants it antitrust immunity. Sources say Alitalia will seek approval for an alliance with Northwest and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which already have such a partnership.
Aerospatiale/Matra Hautes Technologies and Dassault Aviation will be unified to form Europe's biggest aerospace group with an estimated $18 billion in revenues and 66,000 employees.
Installation of a Transponder Landing System at Subic Bay in the Philippines paid off for Federal Express during a recent typhoon. The system, manufactured by Advanced Navigation and Positioning Corp. of Hood River, Ore., provides a Cat. 1-certified, ILS ``lookalike'' signal for individual aircraft based on its transponder code. No new equipment is needed in the aircraft (AW&ST July 7, 1997, p. 50). FedEx recently received operational approval for the 9-deg.
A Boeing Delta 2 booster successfully deployed five Iridium communications satellites on Nov. 6 following launch from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The 5:37 a.m. PST launch from Space Launch Complex-2 (SLC-2) was the 11th Iridium mission for the Delta 2 program, during which 55 of the spacecraft have been placed in orbit. The five most recent satellites, deployed from the booster within 85 min. after liftoff, were placed in polar orbit as part of a replenishment mission for the 66-satellite Iridium constellation.
The Japanese cabinet has approved a plan by Mitsubishi Electric to build and orbit a 4-satellite reconnaissance constellation by 2002. The cabinet's Nov. 6 signoff on a $1.3-1.7-billion development program means passage by the Diet later this month is all but assured, despite some opposition (AW&ST Nov. 9, p. 34). Early proposals had called for Mitsubishi to build a combined civil-military spacecraft using a bus from the advanced land observation program (ALOS). But the cabinet opted instead to start from scratch.
