The Aerospatiale oxygen/hydrogen first stage for the first European Space Agency/CNES Ariane 5 mission is shown integrated with its SEP Vulcain engine prior to shipment to the Kourou, French Guiana, launch site. It is to arrive by ship later this month to begin checkout for the launch, tentatively set for spring.
AND WHY NOT DEVELOP more aircraft types? Raytheon Aircraft Co. had its first $2-billion year in 1995. The former Beech Aircraft Corp. dominated in virtually every one of its product lines, including a 100% share of the world twin-turboprop business aircraft market. Raytheon delivered 83 King Airs and 13 of its now-discontinued Starship model in 1995. The Wichita, Kan.-based aircraft manufacturer also won about 90% of the global 19-seat transport market with 65 deliveries of its Beech 1900D.
Special tests scheduled to begin this week in Seattle are intended to help the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board determine whether an uncommanded rudder deflection caused the September, 1994, crash of a USAir 737-300 near Pittsburgh.
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL Intelligence John Deutch has identified the Indian subcontinent as the most volatile hot spot in the world because of the potential for conflict between India and Pakistan. ``Each of these nations possesses nuclear capability, so every effort must be made to avoid military confrontation,'' he told the Senate Intelligence Committee Feb. 22.
NO CIVILIAN BYSTANDERS HAVE EVER been killed by falling debris in a launch accident except in China. Six Chinese died when a January, 1995, Long March launch went awry. The Feb. 14 failure of a Long March 3B killed another four people 1.5 km. down range (AW&ST Feb. 19, p. 25). China Great Wall Industry Corp. seemed almost nonchalant about the casualties. ``There has been no damage to the launch facilities,'' it said. ``However, the living facilities and the nearby residential houses suffered damages to varying degrees. There were a few casualties.''
A FOURTH EMBRAER EMB-145 AIRCRAFT--the first configured for passengers--will join the 1,300-hr. flight test program next month. A third aircraft began flight tests earlier this month with the maiden flight of preseries aircraft 002 at Sao Jose dos Campos airport in Brazil. The aircraft joined a prototype and preseries aircraft 001, which have accumulated more than 150 flight hours. Static tests of the inboard and outboard flaps have been completed, and static tests of the aileron and rudder have begun.
Antonio Luiz Pizarro Manso has been named executive vice president/chief financial officer of Embraer, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. He was a financial and administrative director in the Odebrecht Organization.
Willard F. Barnett has been named senior vice president-sales and marketing and Nancy E. H. Miracle vice president-operations of Intelect Inc., Richardson, Tex. Barnett was a vice president of Northern Telecom Inc., and Miracle was vice president-operations of Networth.
Gerald P. FitzGerald has been promoted to director of aviation for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from deputy director/chief operating officer.
Daniel S. Goldin is the most controversial administrator in NASA history, both professionally and personally. One accusation never leveled against him, though, is that of pulling his rhetorical punches. At a recent Space Transportation Assn. breakfast in Washington, he told U.S. aerospace executives of his disappointment in American rocketry.
ITT NIGHT VISION WILL PROVIDE ALL OF THE U.S. ARMY'S next procurement for image intensification night vision devices. Under the $239-million contract, ITT is to deliver 95,000 tubes--three versions of the AN/AVS-6 ANVIS aviators' goggles, PVS-7D infantry goggles, a new monocular device, and high performance Generation 3 image intensifier tubes in 18 mm. and 25 mm. formats. The previous buy was split 60-40 between ITT and Litton Electron Devices.
A NEWLY DISCOVERED pulsing object near the center of the universe may show a star near death. The ``bursting pulsar,'' which emits X-ray and gamma-ray radiation in regular and erratic pulses, was spotted in December by the orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Astronomers describe it as the last gasp of a dying, low-mass X-ray binary star system.
Photograph: Photograph: The MiG-29SE's flight control system has been modified with a refueling damper mode for optimum handling. MAPO-MiG completed two months of testing at the end of January to develop an in-flight refueling system for the export version of the MiG-29SE fighter and will now start installation on Malaysian aircraft. Development of the system is a logical step in the company's long-term strategy to expand the functional capabilities of the MiG-29 family through new modifications.
Shifting demographics, the lure of low-cost airlines and airport access are spurring record growth in domestic and international traffic at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Total traffic escalated at the airport last year to more than 13.1 million people, a 3% increase compared with 1994. That number exceeded the 1.4% overall growth rate of U.S. airline traffic reported by the Air Transport Assn.
A debate between the House and Senate over whether to begin building a new generation of small reconnaissance satellites held up last year's intelligence authorization bill for months. Now a U.S. Air Force advisory board has weighed in, saying today's vaunted but expensive fleet of U.S. intelligence and military satellites should ultimately be replaced by distributed systems made up of many small satellites.
AN EFFICIENT AND WIDE-RANGING new method for continuous detection of composite material damage will be proposed this week by researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The technique uses small, strategically-located electrical sensors to continuously monitor the electrical resistivity of carbon fibers used in many composite materials. Upon damage, some fibers break, irreversibly increasing electrical resistivity, according to Deborah Chung, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Wall Street is urging investors to begin focusing on the major suppliers to commercial aircraft manufacturers, if they are not doing so already--particularly those with dominant shares in their markets. Stock prices of these companies are expected to increase significantly in coming months as the new order cycle picks up speed. The parts manufacturers have completed most of their product development for aircraft that will be most in demand. This means the vendors now are in position to harvest the returns from their considerable investments.
Newly established Aero International Regional, which plans to progressively combine the regional aircraft businesses of three European manufacturers, is pondering additional derivatives and all-new products. AIR was formed on Jan. 1 by Aerospatiale, Alenia and two British Aerospace subsidiaries, Avro International Aerospace and Jetstream Aircraft (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 20). The partners' combined sales in the regional market last year were valued at about $1.4 billion.
A RUSSIAN CYCLONE-3 booster launched six new low-altitude communications satellites from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome Feb. 19. The satellites were placed in 1,400-km. (761-naut.-mi.) orbits inclined 82.5 deg. Three spacecraft will be used for military data relay, and three are for the new Gonets commercial system. Gonets is designed for medical and other civil data relay. It is expected to grow to 36 satellites.
Photograph: Photograph: JAL has taken delivery of its first PW4084-powered 777s and will use them on domestic routes. When Japan starts domestic airline fare competition this June, it will come in small doses. Japan Airlines (JAL) has set prices about 500 yen below those of All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Air System (JAS) on some routes where it is the underdog. But 500 yen is only $4.75--not enough to drop the flag on a taxi meter in Tokyo. Discounts should have a more substantial impact, but they too are being introduced cautiously.
TIME SIGNALS FROM GPS, THOUGH LESS OBVIOUS than navigation data, are increasingly being used to synchronize fixed and mobile communication systems. The Internet uses GPS to manage the flow of information packets. One protocol, called ``Slow Start,'' delays packets anywhere from milliseconds to a second when Internet congestion appears imminent. AT&T uses GPS to maintain time synchronization throughout its long-distance telephone system. An international digital telecommunications system that uses a GPS-based timing system began operating in Moscow in 1991.
The first spacecraft sent to orbit an asteroid was well on its way late last week toward the optional flyby of another asteroid in 1997 before reaching Eros in 1999. The Feb. 17 launch of NASA's Near, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft, placed the probe on a trajectory leaving Earth that was deviating less than 1% from what had been hoped for, according to the mission manager, Robert W. Farquhar of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
General Electric and the U.S. Air Force are testing an increased-life version of the F110-129 powerplant and plan to qualify it for production in 1998. The powerplant maintains the configuration of the current F110-129 but incorporates a wide-chord, three-stage blisk (integrally bladed disk) fan based on the unit in the B-2's F118 engine. Since tests started in November, a refanned test engine has accumulated over 120 full test hours. The tests have been run in an altitude facility at GE's Evendale, Ohio, headquarters.
THE DEBUT OF SATELLITE SERVICES that will allow people to talk to each other worldwide via hand-held phones is still a few years off. But Comsat Mobile Communications hopes to improve on its briefcase-sized Inmarsat-M terminals with the new Planet 1 system. Scheduled to go on sale in the third quarter of 1996, the portable, notebook-size Planet 1 terminals are designed to integrate voice, date and fax capabilities in one unit. They will access four new Inmarsat-3 satellites that are scheduled to be orbited between Apr. 1 and mid-1997.
