SINGAPORE AEROSPACE HAS ASSURED an offshore business base for its maintenance and overhaul facility that supports 29 Singapore air force Siai-Marchetti S211 light jet trainers. The company has signed a 50-50 joint venture with Aviation International Engineering Service to form Aerospace Engineering Services. The new company will support RAAF S211s at the Royal Australian Air Force's Pearce AFB at Perth. Work is expected to total $13.3 million annually.
Horst A. Bergmann, chairman/president/chief executive officer of Jeppesen, has been elected chairman of the board of the General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. for 1996. He succeeds David L. Burner, executive vice president of BFGoodrich/president of BFGoodrich Aerospace, who received GAMA's Distinguished Service Award. Fred A. Breidenbach, president/chief operating officer of the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., will be vice chairman. New board members will be: Bing T.
Jonathan P. Emery has been appointed vice president/controller and Nicholas A. Gentile manager of flight crew training for the Douglas Aircraft Co., Long Beach, Calif. Emery was director of business management for production operations, and Gentile was a captain with Delta Air Lines.
Finance Minister Takemura Masayoshi has succeeded in reducing the Japanese Defense Agency's budget to $246.6 billion, or $6 billion below the JDA's request, but the new five-year plan will still offer 6.6% growth above current spending levels. The 1996-2000 procurement plan will include nearly $42 billion for major weapon systems, but that is $1.57 billion less than the five-year plan just ending. The cutbacks include a reduction in the total purchase of FS-X fighters from the 141 recently sought by the air force to the 130 originally planned.
MESA, ARIZ., IS TACKLING ITS BASE-CLOSING head-on with an international marketing campaign. Delegations have trooped to recent Farnborough and Paris air shows and were at the Dec. 5-10 LIMA '95 exhibition in Malaysia, talking up Mesa's dry climate and uncrowded airspace. The former Williams AFB was closed in 1993 and now is being marketed as the Williams Gateway Airport with nearly 1.8 million sq. ft. of floorspace available for commercial and military aerospace manufacturers, maintenance and overhaul operations and flight test programs.
KLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLINES PLANS TO ACQUIRE a 26% stake in state-owned Kenya Airways. The Kenyan government in mid-December approved the planned agreement, which is scheduled to be implemented during the next few weeks. The two carriers are initially planning to coordinate flight schedules, paving the way for ``a farther-reaching business collaboration,'' KLM officials said. Kenyan Airways, which restored profitability in 1994, is scheduled to be privatized at an as yet unspecified date.
A cooling system developed by Fairchild Controls using refrigerant and an unusual compressor design is gaining applications to cool military avionics that require high output and low weight.
Scott W. Beckwith, president of the Beckwith Technology Group, Murray, Utah, will receive the 1996 J.H. Hall Composites Manufacturing Award of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, for contributions to technology transfer and the evaluation and fabrication of composites.
A classified conference here last month outlined for U.S. theater command staffs how joint and service space commands would allocate orbital assets and provide space support if peacetime operations ``ramp up'' to a combat footing. Some discussions are believed to have addressed scenarios that might arise during the current Bosnian peacekeeping effort, and how military space assets could be used by U.S. forces. Military officials would not comment on particulars of the meeting, however.
Mitsubishi's new IR-G600 high-resolution thermal imager is designed for aircraft/unmanned aerial vehicles. The 15-lb. unit has a built-in Stirling cycle cooler, measures 7 X 8 X 8 in., has a mean time between failure (MTBF) of over 8,000 hr., and sells for about $90,000. The 512 X 512 element platinum silicide focal plane array, sensitive to changes of 0.08C, operates in the 1.2-5.9 micron band.
Anders Annerfalk (see photo) has been named director of corporate communications and public affairs for Saab Aircraft AB, Linkoping, Sweden, effective Feb. 1. He is public relations manager of FFV Aerotech, Arboga, Sweden.
Richard J. Goldstein, Regents professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota, has been elected president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, effective in June.
America West Airlines has decided to have Tramco in Everett, Wash., perform its heavy C and D-check maintenance, instead of continuing the work at the carrier's Phoenix base. About 500 America West employees will lose their jobs as a result. The company expects to save $35 million over the five-year Tramco contract, including a $10.5-million one-time charge for the shift. The airline said about 470 employees will be retained for line maintenance at Phoenix. The maintenance employees are nonunion.
The Milstar satellite system has made its first cross-link communication by transmitting a message from one Milstar spacecraft to another without the use of a ground relay facility. The cross-link capability supports the existing Milstar low data rate payload and the planned medium data rate system being developed for Block 2 Milstars.
A Sikorsky S-76B helicopter operated by the fire- and disaster-response aviation unit of Japan's Niigata Prefecture performs training exercises in the mountains surrounding the Lichinokura Reservoir. These include rappelling (photo, below left), rescue (photo, lower right) and precision forest fire water drops with a 240-gal. external bucket (photo, upper right).
The U.S. Air Force and Rockwell International have successfully tested a new infrared seeker on the precision-guided, rocket-propelled AGM-130 that can be launched at a target from more than 40 mi. away.
GLOBALSTAR HAS SECURED $250 million in new bank financing, bringing the Loral-led venture to within $600 million of the $2 billion needed to build, orbit and operate its system of 56 low-Earth orbit communications satellites. The financing comes in place of a $400-million private offering of debt securities that Globalstar had originally planned to offer but withdrew. TRW officials say they plan to announce financing plans early this year for their competing Odyssey system.
Wong Po-yan, chairman of a committee that consults with Chinese leaders on the new Hong Kong airport, has been named chairman of the authority that will run Chek Lap Kok airport.
Ben E. Waide, 3rd, has been named chairman/chief executive officer/director of Atlantic Aviation, Wilmington, Del. He succeeds Stockton N. Smith, who has resigned. Waide was a chief operating officer for the DuPont Co.
AFTER EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY development for reusable launch vehicles, a National Research Council panel gives NASA and the industry teams on the X-33 demonstrator program generally favorable marks.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems has delayed first flight of the C-130J by about a month to complete functional testing and debugging of the new, software-laden transport's systems. Program managers had expected to have run C-130J No. 1's Allison AE2100D3 engines, with their six-bladed Dowty Aerospace R391 propellers, by mid-December. While the aircraft had been fueled, the engines had not been run by Dec. 21.
The government of Malaysia is considering a proposal from Bombardier for several CL-415s for coastal patrol and aerial fire-fighting. The CL-415s would be equipped with a radar, Flir and searchlights, but they also could be configured to perform their traditional fire-fighting role. The aircraft can scoop 6,100 liters (1,600 gal.) in 12 sec. from a lake or ocean, drop the water on a fire and then repeat the process. The aircraft also can convert the water to foam by injecting chemicals into it.
U.S. airlines hired more than 9,000 pilots in 1995 and should exceed that number in 1996 as both major and regional carriers expand capacity to meet growing demand. Major carriers added 2,300 new cockpit crewmembers to their rosters, or about 1,000 more pilots than in 1994 and at least four times more than in 1993. That year, only 466 new pilots landed jobs with airlines, according to AIR Inc., an Atlanta-based company specializing in airline career development.
THE ON-AGAIN, OFF-AGAIN RELATIONSHIP between Japan's airlines and India is on again. Both Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) plan services this year. JAL stopped services to New Delhi and Bombay a couple of years ago because of empty seats, but the carrier thinks it's time for another try. It intends to provide services to New Delhi and Bombay from Osaka, but it might opt for a joint service with Thai Airways International via Bangkok. ANA plans a triangle route from Tokyo or Kansai to Singapore and on to Bombay.
