Alaska's rough terrain, adverse weather and isolated, often crude airfields pose serious aviation safety risks that can be minimized through a series of fundamental improvements, according to a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board report. The chief safety issues identified by the NTSB's extensive review of Alaskan aviation included weather reports and observations, airport conditions, flight and duty rest times, and heavy reliance on visual flight rules (VFR) by most commuter, air taxi and general aviation pilots.
Texas Instruments' aerospace and defense business is considered by many industry observers a prime candidate for the auction block, but that's not the view from Dallas. The operation is not for sale, and top management are adamant in their commitment to hold onto it. Speculation about the business' future has been rekindled with the recent announcement by Westinghouse Electric Corp. that it will sell its Electronics Systems unit.
A VARIATION IN PASSENGER ``BRACE'' POSITION can have a significant effect on the magnitude and type of injuries sustained during aircraft landing accidents, especially as new 16g seats come on-line. Extensive research following the January, 1989, Boeing 737-400 accident in Kegworth, England, found fewer ``leg flail'' injuries occur when passengers in the brace position place their lower legs slightly aft of the vertical, or knee-joints, with feet flat on the floor.
3M HAS A NEW, NONCORRODING RECLOSABLE FASTENER it claims is superior to current hook-and-loop types commonly known as Velcro. Potential aircraft use includes securing aircraft interior access panels and storage bin covers. The Dual Lock Reclosable Fastening System uses two plastic strips with hundreds of mushroom-shaped stems that interlock when pressed together, according to William Hillier, 3M technical service specialist, St. Paul, Minn. Different stem densities provide a range of holding strengths.
The NTSB is investigating why a Miami-bound Tower Air 747 departing New York's JFK International Airport skidded off Runway 4L at 11:36 a.m. Dec. 20, the second day of a heavy East Coast winter storm.
McDonnell Douglas has delivered an MD-90 to Japan Air System--the first receipt of the new derivative by a customer outside the U.S. JAS plans to use the aircraft, and nine other MD-90s it has on order, in domestic service, which is scheduled to begin in April. The JAS MD-90s, configured in an all-economy arrangement with 166 seats, feature a passenger entertainment and information system that includes 7-in. Matsushita liquid crystal display color monitors. The system displays airspeed, distance to destination, outside temperature and distance traveled.
A HIGH-AVERAGE POWER, SOLID-STATE LASER developed by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Calif., will be used by the U.S. Navy to identify and track satellites. The frequency-doubled, green beam is one of the brightest lasers available. It can be precisely pointed yet diverges to a beam just a few yards across after traveling hundreds of miles, according to Lloyd Hackel, associate program leader for commercial lasers. A version of the laser also quickly removes paint from aircraft and ships without harming the substrate.
John E. Koehler has resigned as executive vice president/chief operating officer/director of the Titan Corp. to form a telecommunications consulting company.
SURREY SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY LTD. (SSTL), Guildford, England, is set to begin a $4.7- million, 18-month long technology transfer training program with Thai Microsatellite Co. The project is focused on the construction and launch in 1998 of TMSAT. The 50-kg. microsatellite, to carry Earth imaging cameras and communications payloads, will be built at the University of Surrey by a team of Thai engineers and SSTL staff.
A PROTOTYPE OPEN-ARCHITECTURE MACHINE tool controller is being tested in trials at major U.S. corporations. Boeing plans to become a factory-floor testbed soon. Developed by the Commerce Dept.'s National Institute of Standards and Technology, the enhanced machine controller (EMC) allows screen displays to be tailored to the operator's preference or previous experience and simplifies modifications and upgrades.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident in which an American Airlines MD-83 made an emergency landing after striking the tops of trees on a ridge as it was making a non-precision approach to Bradley International Airport. Only one person was slightly injured during the evacuation following an emergency landing, but the aircraft incurred damage to its wings and landing gear. The aircraft carried a crew of five and 72 passengers as it landed shortly before 1 a.m. at Bradley at Windsor Locks, Conn., on Nov. 12.
Lawrence J. Rytter (see photo) has been appointed president of the Telephonics Corp.'s Command Systems, Farmingdale, N.Y. He was president of AAI Systems Management, Cockeysville, Md.
A hefty order from Hughes and a key regulatory go-ahead from the U.S. government has allowed Boeing to move full speed ahead with a unique international partnership to launch payloads from a sea-based platform. The Sea Launch venture between Boeing, Russia's RSC Energia, Ukraine's NPO Yuzhnoye and Kvaerner Group, a Norwegian ship builder, was first made public last April (AW&ST Apr. 17, 1995, p. 25).
John Cashman and Ken Higgins, the Boeing flight-test pilots who flew the 777 on its first flight in June, 1994, have received aerospace industry awards for their contributions to aviation and flight testing. Cashman, the 777 chief pilot, received the Society of Experimental Test Pilots' Iven C. Kincheloe Award and Higgins the National Aviation Club's Cliff Henderson Award for Achievement.
Pilatus Britten-Norman has been granted a full type certificate from the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority for its new BN2T-4S Defender 4000, which recently completed a 150-hr. flight test program. Designed for long-endurance maritime surveillance missions, the Defender 4000 is a larger version of the BN2T and can carry twice the payload. Powered by two Allison 250-B17F engines, the Defender 4000 has an extended fuselage, longer wing span and an enlarged tailplane.
Boeing will increase production by four transports a month to 24 by early 1997 to accommodate increased sales and help recover from a 10-week machinists' strike. This will be the first production rate increase for Boeing in three years. The shift signals the long-awaited upswing of the international commercial transport market. Boeing's deliveries during the strike fell behind by about 30 aircraft.
SWITZERLAND'S DEFENSE AGENCY will procure four ADS 95 Ranger unmanned aerial vehicle systems from Oerlikon-Contraves. The system is based on the Ranger UAV developed by Israel Aircraft Industries, which is a major subcontractor on the program worth approximately $200 million. The first system is slated for delivery in mid-1998. Each system includes seven air vehicles, two ground control stations, two communication terminals, two launchers and two mobile receiving units.
Trans World Airlines Inc., while still no picture of health, appears to be on the path to a recovery scarcely imagined a year ago. Here's why: -- Entering the industry's traditional January-March slow period, TWA has a cash cushion of more than $300 million. That is nearly triple the amount the company had in reserve in January.
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE'S 185-SEAT A321 twinjet transport obtained FAA certification late last month. The certification covers two versions equipped with CFM International CFM56-5B or International Aero Engines V2530 turbofans. The International Lease Finance Corp. concluded orders for 38 A321s and GATX/CL AIR ordered four aircraft.
Boeing's special ``rolls team'' is completing its probe into uncommanded rolls involving 737-series aircraft as company engineers analyze new wake turbulence data pertinent to the crash of a USAir 737-300 in September, 1994. Between April and August, 1995, Boeing received reports of 20 incidents from U.S. airlines involving unexpected rolls in the 737. Most of the incidents could not be explained by equipment faults or failures associated with autopilot or yaw damper systems, Jean A. McGrew, 737 chief project engineer, said.
THE ECHOSTAR-I direct broadcast satellite was successfully placed in geosynchronous transfer orbit Dec. 28 by a Chinese Long March 2E booster. The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Astro Space, is scheduled to begin beaming programming to subscribers in the U.S. next month. EchoStar will compete with Hughes' DirecTV DBS service.
The U.S. E-8 Joint-STARS, NATO's major aerial platform for spying on Bosnian military ground and helicopter traffic, will face much more daunting terrain than it did in its 1991 operational debut in Operation Desert Storm.
A MONTAGE OF 12 IMAGES from the Soft X-ray Telescope on Japan's Yohkoh satellite (below) has been created to show the Sun's corona from a peak and through the waning phase of one 11-year activity cycle. Lockheed Martin Palo Alto Research Laboratories built the telescope in collaboration with Japanese scientists. Direct observation of the corona is difficult because it is much fainter than the star's surface. However, at 2 million K, the corona is hot enough to emit X-rays, while the 6,000 K surface does not.
THE $112-MILLION NEAR EARTH Asteroid Rendezvous (Near) spacecraft has been shipped to its launch site at Cape Canaveral to be prepared for launch Feb. 16 on a Delta 2. Near is scheduled to rendezvous in early 1999 with 433 Eros, a large near-Earth asteroid. Near's year-long mission in orbit around the 40-km. (25-mi.) long Eros is slated to be the first long-term, close-up look at an asteroid. Designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, the 1,782-lb.
