Sharon Heuer has been appointed executive director of the International Aerobatic Club divsion of the Experimental Aircraft Assn., Oshkosh, Wis. She was executive secretary and succeeds Iris Birdsong. Karen Diamond is now editor of club's Sport Aerobatics magazine.
U.S. MILITARY INTELLIGENCE leadership will soon shift with proposed changes at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minihan has been nominated to take over as director of NSA and chief of the Central Security Service. He will replace Vice Adm. John McConnell, who is scheduled to retire this week. McConnell has been credited by senior commanders during Desert Storm with almost single-handedly preventing an intelligence fiasco during the war.
AEROSPATIALE AND HELLENIC Aerospace Industry late last week concluded a wide-ranging partnership agreement. The two companies are scheduled to establish business links involving Airbus Industrie commercial transports, tactical missiles, space programs and Eurocopter's helicopters, Aerospatiale Senior Vice President Claude Terrazzoni said.
Ken K. Munechika has been promoted to director of Moffett Federal Airfield, Mountain View, Calif., from director of NASA's Ames Research Center. Tony Fortnam has been named vice president-government and industry affairs of British Airways, based in Washington. He was counselor for transport and the environment at the British Embassy in Washington. Fortnam succeeds Mark Dunkerly, who has become the airline's country manager for the Czech Republic and Slovakia in Prague.
Eurocopter plans to streamline production facilities to improve the company's overall efficiency in a weak market. In 1995, Eurocopter, an Aerospatiale/Daimler-Benz Aerospace joint subsidiary, booked orders for 111 helicopters valued at $1.44 billion. In addition, the company sold 53 used helicopters.
Peter Hartman has been appointed vice president-engineering and maintenance of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. He succeeds Rolf van Groenewoud, who is leaving the company. Cees van Woudenberg succeeds Hartman as vice president-personnel and organization. And, Cees Gresnigt, senior vice president-flight operations, also will be acting executive vice president-flight services.
Aircraft leasing company General Electric Capital Aviation Services placed a larger-than-expected order with Boeing last week potentially worth over $4-billion. The deal caps a momentous two months for Boeing, during which it ended a 10-week machinists' strike and closed key orders with Malaysian and Singapore Airlines. The Malaysian and Singapore sale is for a combined 102 transports worth over $16.6 billion if all options are taken.
AN ON-BOARD SOFTWARE problem has caused Japan's space agency to postpone its first J-1 launch from Tanegashima Space Center. The J-1 is to carry the hypersonic flight experiment (Hyflex), a lifting body that is part of Japan's shuttle development program. The software affects Hyflex's elevon controls. The launch is now to be Feb. 7 instead of Feb. 1.
THE WORLDWIDE PUSH TO BAN IN-FLIGHT SMOKING is not without its downside, warns a report by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Strongly addicted smokers will continue to try to smoke surreptitiously, the report concluded, with the hasty disposal of lighted materials possibly causing fires. Other safety risks include passenger misbehavior or flight crew performance deterioration caused and aggravated by nicotine withdrawal.
C.T. (Tom) Burbage (see photo) has been named vice president/general manager of the F-22 program at Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems, Marietta, Ga. He was vice president/general manager of Navy programs.
A preliminary plan drawn up by NASA and the Russian Space Agency envisions using the space shuttle to deliver Russian hardware to the international space station and resupply the orbiting Mir station. A ``protocol'' drafted in Houston last week by NASA and RSA managers seeks to ensure on-time delivery of key Russian components to the international station while accommodating Moscow's demand to utilize Mir beyond its originally scheduled shutdown in November, 1997.
Orbital Sciences Corp. is among the most frequently mentioned acquisition targets for 1996. That comes as no surprise, given its technology base, its pioneering work in the development of low-cost satellites and launch vehicles, and its Orbcomm global messaging and mobile data communications system. The latter is now under development and appears to have considerable promise.
Joseph Mormando has been named vice president-marketing and sales and Robert F. Stanford director of aircraft sales for Jet Support Systems, White Plains, N.Y. Both were sales directors with Learjet Inc.
Vincent Marafino, executive vice president of the Lockheed Martin Corp., has been named to the board of directors of Rohr, Chula Vista, Calif. Robin Phelps has been appointed vice president-software sales for the Harris Computer Systems Corp., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. She was a sales team manager for Wind River Systems.
Kelli Nicholas has been appointed marketing and communications coordinator for the Springfield (Mo.)/Branson Regional Airport. She was public relations and membership manager of the Ontario (Calif.) Visitors and Convention Bureau.
John D. Anderson, special assistant for aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland and author of books on aerospace and engineering, will receive the 1995 Pendray Aerospace Literature Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Aerodynamics.
FIRST DELIVERIES OF THE ISRAELI-BUILT Astra Jet SPX will be made to operators in Germany and Canada by the end of March. With a base price of less than $10 million, the midsized Astra SPX has a range of more than 3,000 naut. mi. at a Mach 0.75 cruise with instrument weather fuel reserves and four passengers on board. Or operators can choose to fly 2,400 naut. mi. at Mach 0.82. Powered by two new AlliedSignal Engines' TFE731-40 powerplants, the seven-passenger Astra SPX won FAA certification on Jan. 8. The prototype has accumulated more than 350 hr.
INSTANT REPLAY OF INCOMING AUDIO communications now is possible for pilots. Flightcom's portable AiRepeater 2 is designed to quickly plug into cockpit intercom headset lines. The 5-oz. unit records all tower, air traffic control and related communications, including intercom messages. ``Dead air'' automatically is eliminated. Messages being played back are separated by 5-sec. intervals and distinguished by a soft beeping tone, according to Barbara Keepes, sales and marketing manager for Portland, Ore.,-based Flightcom. The closed-loop recording system has a 45-60 sec.
A COMBINED VIRTUAL REALITY AND ARTIFICIAL intelligence system is being explored for use in scenario-based training. If perfected and fielded, applications of the highly interactive technology include teaching airport security personnel how to react in developing crises, such as terrorism, within the confines of a virtual airport. Paramedic training is another possibility, according to George Lugar, computer science and psychology professor at the University of New Mexico.
THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION'S LONG-AWAITED space policy review, which most recently was scheduled for release in January, is on indefinite hold pending the resolution of the federal budget battle. White House officials say they won't release the review, a comprehensive update of the Bush Administration's classified and unclassified space policies, until there are some clear Fiscal 1996 budget numbers for NASA. ``It doesn't make sense talking about the future if you don't know what the numbers are going to be,'' says one Clintonite.
RUSSIANS ARRIVING HERE LATE LAST WEEK to hash out a new commercial space launch agreement with the U.S. did not have the benefit of a copy of the U.S.-Ukrainian launch agreement. They want to use it as a model, but the text still had not been released, even though it was inked before Christmas. A spokeswoman at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office blames the holdup on State Dept. translators who were furloughed during the government shutdown. The Russians, however, seemed a bit skeptical of that explanation.
LITTON'S AMECOM DIV. was awarded a $3.3-million NASA contract to codevelop and produce 27 space radio communications sets to significantly improve the quality of space communications. The units will be designed for astronauts assembling and maintaining the international space station. Delivery is slated to begin in 1997.
THE THIRD HEAVY MAINTENANCE CENTER for airlines that is jointly owned by Chinese and foreign investors is expected to begin overhaul of a Cathay Pacific Airways Boeing 747 in Xiamen next month. Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Co. (Taeco) owns a two-bay facility with Cathay's maintenance partner, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co. (Haeco), the Xiamen government, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and Cathay, Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines as partners. Planning began three years ago for the $63-million facility.
AMERICAN AIRLINES EXPECTS UNIT COSTS to rise 1-2% this year--1% if Congress reinstates the airline industry's fuel-tax exemption--and probably closer to 2% if it does not. The 4.3-cents-per-gallon tax is forecast to cost the airline $80 million in 1996. Expiration of the exemption at the end of September reduced the company's fourth-quarter pretax earnings by $22 million. American expects traffic to grow by 1.5% with little change in capacity because it has few new aircraft deliveries scheduled.
