The Lufthansa group expects a ``distinct improvement'' in earnings and a rise in sales this year, based on first-half results released last week. The group reported a first-half pretax gain on ordinary activities of DM928 million, a 134% jump, on consolidated revenues of DM10.6 billion (up 7.6%). Performance was attributed primarily to strong growth in passenger revenues (+7.6%), a record seat occupancy rate on passenger flights (71.6%, up 1.7 percentage points) and continued progress in containing unit costs.
Bell Helicopter Textron is using high-velocity machining techniques to reduce weight, cost and complexity of structural components for the new, twin-engine Bell 427. The keelbeam, which is a primary structural member of the aircraft's nose section, is being fabricated by high-speed (40,000 rpm.) machines that produce a single piece with wall thickness as low as 0.030 in. The thin walls are possible because heat generated during the cutting process is dissipated by the metal chips, leaving the part cool and undistorted, according to company engineers.
Northwest Airlines canceled 400 flights scheduled to operate Aug. 28-29 in anticipation of a potential strike by the Air Line Pilots Assn. The union has set a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. EDT on Aug. 29 if negotiations had failed to produce a new contract. The airline also stopped accepting cargo shipments on Aug. 27. Meanwhile, passengers and shippers sought to make other arrangements, and other airlines outlined the procedures they would use in accepting Northwest tickets.
The deepening silence out of the Pentagon about the details of the raids on Afghanistan and Sudan and the limited nature of these two strikes are signs that there are additional raids planned against other sites associated with terrorists, say Pentagon officials, defense specialists and former military leaders.
IRS TECHNOLOGIES HAS AGREED TO PURCHASE a portion of Raytheon's second-generation ground electro-optical systems and a portion of its focal plane array business. Raytheon agreed to divest those parts as a result of its acquisition of Texas Instruments' defense business and merger with the defense business of Hughes. Among the U.S. Defense Dept. programs using the Ground EO and FPA products are: the Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance System, Javelin missile, U.S.
The X-38 development team believes that it is pioneering low-cost aerospace manufacturing techniques by tying together computers, lasers and software in innovative ways. ``The limits on manpower here have forced us to use a lot of advanced information technology techniques,'' said John Muratore, overall project manager for crew-rescue vehicle development.
Sunil Dutta, senior ceramic engineer and director of the small disadvantaged business program at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, has been elected a full member of the International Institute for the Science of Sintering.
Aerojet GenCorp has won a $16.4-million contract from NASA to develop and test the deorbit propulsion stage for the first space test of the X-38 prototype. With all options, the contract would be worth nearly $72 million (see p. 58).
After its first two years of operation, Taeco is doubling capacity at its commercial transport heavy maintenance center here. Despite the economic and currency troubles plaguing much of Asia, Taeco has experienced a slowdown only on non-mandatory maintenance, according to John Chi, Taeco director and general manager. Upcoming long-term contracts with Northwest as well as a 747 freighter conversion program conducted jointly with Boeing should cushion any future business shortfalls.
Peter Wilhelm, director of the Naval Center for Space Technology at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, has won the NRL's Lifetime Achievement Award. Wilhelm was cited for his work on Navy and national space programs, including Clementine, the Multiple Satellite Dispenser, Low-Power Atmospheric Compensation Experiment, Timation/Navstar GPS, Living Plume Shield satellites and solar radiation satellites.
Marconi North America's Tracor Systems Technologies unit will provide engineering services for the U.S. Navy's Physical, Electronic and Computer Sensor Systems program under a $90.4-million contract awarded by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center of Charleston, S.C.
Government and industry efforts to reduce injuries to airline passengers and flight attendants caused by turbulence gained some momentum at a NASA/FAA workshop on the problem at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., last week. Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and the keynote speaker, said the government/industry partnership that dealt with wind shear in the 1980s is a good model for turbulence efforts. Workshop leaders want to form a senior policy group to coordinate a partnership approach to turbulence.
The French Transport ministry plans to complete a review of operations at Paris airports in the next few weeks. It is expected to lead to a revised policy that will restrict Orly to domestic and European flights. In a competitive context, complicated by environmental issues, such an initiative is expected to have a critical impact on Paris airports' fate. Combined traffic at Orly and Roissy/Charles de Gaulle (CDG), continental Europe's biggest hub, last year increased by 2.1% to 60.4 million passengers and 1.31 million metric tons of cargo.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded AlliedSignal Aerospace a $7.4-million contract for work on the Joint Expendable Engine Concepts 3 research and development program. The program seeks to demonstrate advances in gas turbine engines that will facilitate reduced fuel consumption.
Rolls-Royce said sales were up 7%, to 2.1 billion pounds ($3.4 billion), and pre-tax profits increased 16% to 135 million pounds ($221.4 million) in the first half of 1998. The company said its order book, at 10 billion pounds ($16.4 billion), was at its highest level ever, with a further 2 billion pounds ($3.28 billion) announced but not yet contracted. Rolls-Royce said it did not expect engine production rates to change despite the crisis in Asia. Officials noted North America and Europe accounted for roughly 75% of the company's order book versus 17% for Asia.
Norway's Braathens ASA is turning up the pressure on Nordic rival Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) by acquiring Malmo Aviation, Sweden's second-largest domestic carrier, for SKr600 million ($73.2 million). The deal will also bolster the Scandinavian presence of Braathen's alliance partners KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Northwest Airlines and Alitalia. KLM, which has a 30% stake in Braathens, will contribute $19.5 million toward the purchase which is expected to be completed this autumn.
White Mountain DSP has incorporated more debugging systems in its development tools for digital signal processors. One is Allant Software's ASPEX development environment, which offers high-level language debugging. ASPEX has been integrated with White Mountain's digital signal processor emulators. Another system is Code Composer by GO DSP. Code Composer works across a network to remotely debug signal processors, and supports Texas Instruments DSPs.
CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES IS BUYING an Airbus A320 flight training device and updates to existing simulators from CAE Electronics of Montreal under a $1-million contract. The device is expected to be ready for training at the airline's Zuhai PRC training center in December 1999. This is the second A320 FTD the airline has ordered from CAE.
Michael A. Ramirez has been appointed director of marketing for the Caribbean and Latin America for Arinc, Annapolis, Md. He was regional manager for air traffic systems and strategic manager for FANS in Latin America for United Airlines.
Garrett Aviation Services has established a parts and overhaul support facility in Toluca, Mexico. Aimed chiefly at business air-craft operators there, the facility provides more than 2,000 inventory items for engines and airframe rotable components as well as a wide range of replacement hardware, company officials said. In addition, line maintenance and troubleshooting are available along with limited repairs. Major airframe and engine repair or overhaul will be accomplished at Garrett's Total Aircraft Service Center in Houston.
The explosion of the first new Boeing Delta 3 booster shortly after its night liftoff from Cape Canav-eral Aug. 26 has shattered Boeing's plans to rapidly draw even with its global competitors in the development of a heavy new commercial launch vehicle. A catastrophic control problem that began to develop about 55 sec. into the flight first disrupted the vehicle's roll axis, then sent the Delta out of control in both yaw and pitch as the booster was climbing eastbound through 60,000 ft. at Mach 2.5.
Rather than buying a lot of new air defense radar systems, some nations are building networks of pre-surveyed sites supplied with power and underground communications that can't be intercepted. In an electronic shell game, a small number of radars would simply be moved from site to site to escape detection. ``They only have to move a half-mile or a mile to confound electronic locators and start confusing targeting,'' a senior Navy official said.
ITT INDUSTRIES' AVIONICS DIV. HAS COMPLETED TESTING of a Gallium Arsenide Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) chip that can provide a single chip transmit/receive module. The company has designed and fabricated high-power amplifier chips with 8 watts of output power, and efficiencies of 20-35% in the 6-18 GHz. band. One module can drive four cross-polarized antennas.
Assembly of the first production horizontal stabilizer featuring a graphite composite outer torque box for USAF's C-17s is underway at Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems&Aerostructures Sector near Dallas. The composite design is projected to weigh 20% less than the C-17's conventional aluminum alloy structure; parts count is reduced 88%, the number of fasteners has decreased 82%, and the structure costs 50% less to manufacture, according to the company. Plans call for installing the new stabilizers beginning with the 51st airplane.
