Final numbers for ``Laima,'' the only one of four nearly identical Aerosonde unmanned aerial vehicles to cross the North Atlantic last month, indicate the long-range weather reconnaissance drone landed with 1 kg. (2.2 lb.) of fuel remaining (AW&ST July 27, p. 13). Fuel burn for the 26.75-hr.-long flight from Nova Scotia to Scotland was 4 kg. (8.8 lb.) and oil loss was 30 cc. out of a total of 220 cc. Laima's wind-aided but rain-swept ``south of great-circle'' route measured about 3,270 km. (2,044 mi.). The 3-ft. wingspan UAV is powered by a 20-cc.
Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co. in Beijing is benefitting from spillover work from Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg. Ameco is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Air China and has become China's largest maintenance overhaul center. Its latest customer is Saudi Arabian Airlines, which is having a D-check, cabin reconfiguration, repainting, Sec. 41 and strut modification done on a 747-100 in Beijing. The work was shifted from Hamburg to Beijing because of Lufthansa's heavy workload and after Saudi had inspected and approved the Chinese facility.
France-based Regional Airlines late last week concluded an order for five 37-seat Embraer ERJ-135s and five additional 50-seat ERJ-145 twinjets. The contract is valued at about $150 million, according to Embraer officials. First delivery is planned for October 1999.
Korean Air expects to use IBM Global Services to run its computer systems, technical support services and management network. The carrier has provided a letter of intent to begin outsourcing its IT functions to IBM by the end of the year in a deal expected to be worth more than $400 million over a 10-year period.
Russia and China are exploring setting up an aircraft-building consortium to reduce their reliance on Western-made aircraft and preserve skilled aerospace jobs. Moscow has proposed that the starting point for such an effort could be joint production of Russian civil transports, such as the Tu-204, Tu-334, Il-114 and Il-96. But such projects have little chance for success unless these aircraft secure certification according to Western airworthiness standards, a process beset by delays.
In the past, American Eurocopter's reputation for customer support has been less than satisfactory, but new management at the company's facilities here has instituted a series of key changes that are reversing that trend. Based upon feedback from operators, ``We have made tremendous progress'' in improving services and ``are continuing to place a lot of emphasis on customer support,'' said Cary Brown, senior vice president for customer service, marketing and sales.
LanChile, the TACA group of El Salvador and TAM of Brazil have all selected AlliedSignal's enhanced ground proximity warning system for Airbus A320 series aircraft in contracts worth more than $100 million. The deal includes flight data and cockpit voice recorders and auxiliary power units.
Barry Eccleston will become senior vice president of the Fairchild Aerospace Corp., San Antonio, Tex., on Nov. 1. He has been president/CEO of International Aero Engines, Glastonbury, Conn. Stephen Marinshaw has been appointed vice president-328/328JET program, Stan Deal vice president-428JET, Jack Pelton senior vice president-728JET and Roland Rischer vice president-design engineering. Marinshaw was director of engineering at DynCorp Aerospace Technology.
An Italian government decreerestricting operations at Milan-Linate airport to routes handling more than 2 million passengers a year has been declared discriminatory and illegal by the European Commission. Alitalia's Milan-Rome is the sole route to meet the proposed conditions required to operate at Linate (AW&ST Aug. 17, p. 36). EC Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock said: ``Italy had months of repeated warnings that the arrangement posed legal problems.'' But the EC has no power to impose alternative solutions to the Italian government, Kinnock acknowledged.
William Jackomis(see photos p. 8) has become senior vice president/general manager and Ronald C. Hudson director of sales for G&H Technology, Camarillo, Calif. Jackomis was Great Falls, Va.-basedvice president-government affairs and business development, and Hudson was worldwide marketing manager for Amphenol Aerospace, Sidney, N.Y.
Thomson Training&Simulation (U.K.), Indra (Spain), Meteor (Italy) and ARGE STN-Atlas/CAE GmbH. (Germany) are forming a joint venture to provide aircrew synthetic training aid systems for Eurofighter. The company--Eurofighter Simulation Systems--will be based in Munich and work closely with Daimler-Benz Aerospace, the prime contractor for Eurofighter synthetic training aids. More than 30 training devices are expected to be required by the four air forces acquiring Eurofighter.
Nabil Sultan has become general manager for the U.K. and Ireland of Emirates. He succeeds Mohamed Qasim Al Ali, who has returned to Dubai as general manager of passenger services for Dnata, Emirates' ground handling division at Dubai International Airport.
Colin Judge has been appointed national sales director for Flight Environments Inc., Woodland Hills, Calif. He was completions manager for The Jet Center, Van Nuys, Calif.
American Airlines has selected Rockwell Collins' Total Entertainment System (TES) for inflight entertainment on its Boeing 777 fleet. TES was initially installed in March on Air France's first 777s and has since been adopted by British Airways. American also will use Rockwell Collins to install personal video systems in the first-class section of four 767s and overhead videos on 75 737-800s and 12 757s on order.
With summer over, State and Transportation Dept. officials are gearing up for talks about new air services bilateral agreements. They will meet their counterparts in Italy and Hong Kong this week, Argentina and the United Kingdom in October. Also on the near-term agenda are initial queries about potential ``open skies'' agreements with Ghana, Kenya, Colombia and a group of Caribbean nations.
Delta Air Lines plans to eliminate first-class seating on transatlantic, transpacific and Brazilian flights in favor of an upgraded business-class product similar to Continental Airlines' BusinessFirst. In December, Delta will stop selling first-class and begin reconfiguring 42 Boeing 767 and 15 MD-11s with a newly designed business-class seat. In a transition period through the spring, the carrier will replace first-class service on affected flights with its current business-class product. Completion of modifications is scheduled for the summer of 1999.
Dato Paduka Haji Mohammad Alimin bin Haji Abdul Wahab has been named chairman of Royal Brunei Airlines. He succeeds Brunei's retiring deputy minister of finance, Pehin Dato Haji Ahmad Wally Skinner, who had been acting chairman. Dato Haji Alimin was at the Ministry of Defense.
The FAA selected Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector to develop the Airport Surveillance Radar-Weather System Processor Program. Five will be built initially, followed by production of up to 37 of the systems. The contract has a potential value of $49 million.
The $5.5-billion Iridium satellite venture, which was supposed to begin commercial service of its worldwide mobile telephone network this week, has delayed the startup until Nov. 1 to verify the system's software is working properly. ``We want some more mileage on the system before we start billing customers,'' said an Iridium spokeswoman. Seven Motorola-built Iridium satellites have failed in orbit, and controllers recently lost communications with an eighth spacecraft. But Motorola executives are brushing off the failures.
A study of measurements from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter finds that meteoroid impacts over millions of years have pounded the surface of the rocky Martian moon Phobos into a fine powder at least 3-ft. (1-meter) deep. Infrared measurements taken by the spacecraft's Thermal Emission Spectrometer also detected extremely rapid heat loss during the moon's 7-hr. rotation. Sunlit areas registered temperatures as high as 25F (-4C). But as the Sun set temperatures plunged to as low as -170F (-112C).
Wolfgang H. Demisch has been named a managing director and Joseph San Pietro vice president/senior research analyst of Wasserstein Perella Securities Inc. of New York. Demisch was an aerospace/defense industry analyst and managing director at BT Alex. Brown, while San Pietro was an equity research associate in the Aerospace/Defense Group at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Operations and exercises such as Alaska's multinational Cooperative Cope Thunder show the shortfalls of U.S. E-3B/C AWACS aircraft--primarily underpowered engines, limited operating altitudes, outdated computers and aging electronic equipment. They, however, also illustrate the continually growing value of airborne surveillance and, even more, airborne command and control.
Dan Garton has been appointed senior vice president-customer services of American Airlines, effective Oct. 1. He had been president of American Eagle, and will be succeeded by Peter Bowler, who has been vice president-passenger sales. Robert W. Baker, who has been executive vice president-operations, will assume responsibility for purchasing, real estate, air cargo, safety and security. Thomas J. Kiernan has been named senior vice president-human resources.
Jupiter's rings were formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smashed into the planet's four inner moons, according to scientists from Cornell University and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Ariz. The scientists studied three dozen images of the rings and moons taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during orbits of Jupiter in 1996-97.
