Arianespace has successfully launched two direct broadcasting satellites: W2 for Eutelsat and Sirius 3 for Sweden's NSAB. The launch was the 39th consecutive successful mission for the Ariane 4 rocket. The next Ariane 4 flight, to orbit WorldSpace's AfriStar and GE Americom's GE5, is set for Oct. 28. The mission will be preceded by the third and final Ariane 5 qualification flight on Oct. 20.
Travelers from Flint, Mich., will no longer have to drive 60 mi. to Detroit--or change planes there--to catch a nonstop flight to the New York area. On Oct. 26, Kiwi International Air Lines will begin nonstop jet service from Flint to Newark with connections to Orlando and West Palm Beach, Fla., and Puerto Rico. The low-fare airline operated into Detroit for one month during the recent Northwest strike and sensed strong sentiment for competition. But loads dropped when Northwest resumed flying, matched Kiwi prices and offered triple miles in its frequent-flier program.
Russia's financial crisis has paralyzed development work at MiG-MAPO, according to its chairman, Vladimir Kuzmin. The inability to receive even minimum funds has essentially stopped production of aviation hardware, spare parts and assemblies. However, the most devastating blow has been delivered to long-term cooperative plans with foreign partners. Investors and potential partners ready for codevelopment of high-technology military and commercial hardware have been frightened off by the lack of stability in Russia, Kuzmin says.
Boeing's application of advanced automated numerical control (ANC) production techniques has reduced detailed design hours by 80% for complex parts requiring five-axis machining. The practice, which eliminates the need for fully dimensioned part drawings or files, also reduces NC programming time by 50%, according to Rick Behrens, ANC project manager. Related ``critical feature'' quality inspection and overall set-up and production times have dropped by 50% and 66%, respectively.
Peter Daly (see photo), a professor at the University of Leeds, England, and director of the CAA's Institute of Satellite Navigation in the U.K., was honored for sleuthing out details of the Russian Glonass satellite navigation signals, and given the Johannes Kepler Award at the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Div. of the Alexandria, Va.-based Institute of Navigation last month. The annual award recognizes an individual for contributions to the development of satellite navigation.
United Airlines has just added a fourth Boeing 777 simulator to its Denver, Colo., flight training center. The simulator, built by Thomson-CSF, is the 10th full-flight simulator installed at the Flight Center since June 1997. The addition of a fourth Airbus A320 simulator, planned for March, will bring the center's population to 36 full-flight simulator bays. United says it has invested more than $340 million in training equipment at the facility.
The Lunar Prospector has raised the possibility that pure water ice, as much as 3-billion metric tons of it, is trapped in vast sheets that are like frozen ponds just beneath the surface of the Moon's poles. These water concentrations are a far cry from the ice crystals trapped in the shadows of lunar craters that have previously been identified.
Combat looms closer, as White House officials say they have approved Defense Secretary William Cohen's recommendation to ready a force of more than 250 aircraft--including two precision-bombing B-2s, 12 stealthy F-117s and six heavy-payload B-52 bombers--to support military action against Yugoslavia. Administration officials say the commitment, made late last week, doesn't mean a decision has been made to attack targets in independent Bosnia and the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, but it does signal the resolve to strike.
Starsem, a joint venture of Aerospatiale, the Samara Space Center, the Russian Space Agency and Arianespace, has concluded an agreement to launch 12 additional satellites for the Globalstar LEO telecom constellation. The satellites, to be launched by three Soyuz boosters in 1999, will replace 12 units lost in a Zenit failure in September. The first four satellites are to be orbited in November.
A lack of firepower in current models of air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, including those used in recent attacks against Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan, may be eliminated by the addition of a new generation of penetrator warheads.
Rep. Henry Hyde was busy last week. In addition to presiding over the House Judiciary Committee's vote for an impeachment inquiry into the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Illinois Republican is said to have prevailed on House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to block an effort to add slots for 30 new daily flights at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Hyde's district is home to the facility. Language adding the slots was included in the FAA reauthorization bill passed by the Senate last month, despite protests by Illinois' senators.
Perhaps the biggest successes of the Air Force's first expeditionary force experiment, EFX 98, are something that likely won't be discussed in the open for decades--offensive and defensive information warfare, according to senior service officials. ``Some things went very, very well, but they were mostly in the Black World,'' said a senior Air Force official. ``Information operations, both offensive and defensive, were markedly increased [in volume and success]. They made great strides there.''
British Aerospace Asset Management has obtained an order for a 19-seat Jetstream 32EP twin-turboprop transport with Australia's Flight West Airlines. It also leased three Jetstream 32s to Sweden's Highland Air.
The race is on between the development of an advanced, Israeli-built Arrow ballistic missile defense weapon and the anticipated fabrication or purchase by hostile regional governments of maneuverable warheads and decoys that can be mounted on offensive ballistic missiles, say Israeli officials. Both the improved versions of Arrow and the modified warheads it is to defend against are expected to be operational in about 15 years.
NASA's Langley Research Center is testing the effects of electromagnetic interference on general aviation aircraft. The Hampton, Va.-based center's High-Intensity Radiated Fields Laboratory is subjecting a ``Mooney-like'' fuselage and its flight systems to high-intensity electromagnetic radiation in a specially shielded mode-stir chamber, according to Jay Ely, aerospace engineer in the Flight Electronics Technology Div.
Rocketdyne has tested the startup, low-power operation and shutdown of its new RS-68 rocket engine that will power Boeing's Delta 4 family of launchers, and is proceeding to full power development and flight certification.
While flying fighter/attack aircraft involves its own risks, the pilot entering combat wants to be assured that the intelligence on the enemy's capabilities is the best available. Naturally, too, he or she wants assurance that the weapons load is correct for the target and that the planning and coordination have been thorough--that everything has been done to reduce the risks. In other words, if pilots are going to be shot at, they want the best odds of getting through, along with reason to believe their efforts made a difference.
Alan Mulally, new president of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, has restructured the transport-making operation and put into place a slate of top managers that includes mostly Boeing ``old hands'' experienced in transport-making operations.
A technology demonstration satellite built for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was launched on board an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus booster on Oct. 3 from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The 1,540-lb. Space Technology Experiment (STEX) is designed to test 29 advanced technologies in orbit (AW&ST Sept. 28, p. 21). STEX was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics and is the first NRO satellite publicly identified and acknowledged prior to launch.
European regional airlines are apprehensive about new environmental restraints and higher infrastructure costs that may curtail their strong growth. In recent years, Europe's regional traffic has expanded at a double-digit clip--twice the growth rate of the major carriers. This year, the European Regions Airline (ERA) association expects its 73 member airlines to carry around 60.5 million passengers, a 12% boost over 1997 figures. In 1997, regional traffic rose 13% (AW&ST May 18, p. 58).
The FAA has licensed an Alaska spaceport for commercial launches. The Alaska Aerospace Development Corp. received a long-awaited operators license last week to conduct commercial launches from the southern tip of Kodiak Island. It is the fourth commercial U.S. spaceport licensed by the FAA, joining facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., Vandenberg AFB, Calif., and NASA's range at Wallops Island, Va. Kodiak is the first U.S. spaceport not colocated with a federally operated launch range.
With little fanfare, India's second Light Combat Aircraft was rolled out recently at Hindustan Aeronautics Laboratory in Bangalore. The rollout came three years after the first LCA Technology Demonstrator was launched. The TD-1 and -2 aircraft are to begin flight testing in the second half of 1999. Both will be powered by General Electric F404-FJ213 engines.
Ansett Australia is soon expected to place an order on behalf of its wholly owned subsidiary, Kendell Airlines, for 12 Embraer ERJ-145 regional jets, with options for eight more. The ERJ-145s have overcome the Canadair CRJ200s in a competition to replace Ansett's Boeing 737s and BAe 146s on east coast routes. Deliveries are to start in November 1999. The Kendell win is expected to benefit Embraer when Ansett's west coast subsidiary, Skywest Airlines, also takes over some of Ansett's marginal routes now flown with BAe 146s.
