MILITARY STAFFS FROM FRANCE, GERMANY and the United Kingdom are completing their assessment of counterbattery radar tests using the new Cobra radar system. Developed by a consortium involving Thomson-CSF, Lockheed Martin, Siemens and Racal, the system locates the source of incoming heavy gun, rocket and mortar fire to enable accurate targeting by tactical aircraft or artillery. Tests of the new system at the French Canjuers range will be followed by field trials in all three countries.
Speculation is that the McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Boeing Co. are exploring a possible merger, but don't hold your breath waiting to hear wedding bells.
India's indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) was scheduled for rollout at Bangalore late last week, according to Ministry of Defense officials. Although the LCA rollout, originally planned for February, 1995, was postponed to Oct. 30 and again to Nov. 17, defense officials said the LCA ``would still meet its first-flight target of June, 1996.'' ESTIMATED TO COST $20 million per aircraft, the ``lowest'' price in its category, the LCA would be ``substantially lighter'' than competitive fighters.
Union solidarity will be put to the test in coming months when the Assn. of Flight Attendants (AFA) and employee-owned United Airlines begin a new round of contract negotiations. The flight attendants' group is asking for job protection equal to that obtained by the Air Line Pilots Assn. (ALPA) and the International Assn. of Machinists (IAM) in labor contracts agreed to as part of the 1994 employee buyout.
DAVID M. NORTH, AVIATION WEEK&SPACE TECHNOLOGY 's new editor-in-chief and a former U.S. Navy and commercial airline pilot, will take questions about the new direction of the magazine and about the 100-plus aircraft types that he has flown during an on-line conference in the CompuServe Convention Center on Nov. 20 at 9 p.m. EST. To join the conference, GO CONVENTION.
A PROTOTYPE FIBERGLASS POLYMER, short-span highway bridge designed by Lockheed Martin has successfully held a 32.5-ton personnel carrier. The growing need for cost-effective bridges to replace aging U.S. highway infrastructure could supercharge the composites industry, significantly lowering raw materials prices for other users. Composite bridges are corrosion resistant and easier to site owing to their light weight. Portable versions also have potential military and disaster-relief markets.
AN AEROJET-LED TEAM will support enhancements to the U.S. Air Force's Attack and Launch Early Reporting to Theater (ALERT) system and Talon Shield program under a new five-year contract. Awarded by the service's Space and Missile Systems Center, the potential value is $80 million. ALERT processes Defense Support Program satellite data for improved theater missile defense, and Talon Shield is an associated R&D program aimed at further improvements of ALERT.
David Walter Thissell, founder of the Northeast Aircraft Maintenance Corp., and Evelyn A. Carlson of Sunrise Aviation have won the annual General Aviation Maintenance Technician and Flight Instructor of the Year awards, respectively. They were honored under the General Aviation Industry Awards Program, which is sponsored by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn. Air Safety Foundation, FAA, General Aviation Manufacturer's Assn., National Air Transportation Assn., National Business Aircraft Assn., National Assn.
Samual Kyehung Lee has been named director of business development for the Pacific Rim for IFR Systems Inc., Wichita, Kan. He has been a staff scientist for IFR. Anthony W. Sutton has been appointed director of sales. He was a sales manager for Schlumberger Technologies Inc.
British Airways last week enthusiastically reaffirmed its support for the carrier's strategic alliance with USAir Group Inc. ``USAir is now delivering profit and achieving improved levels of performance,'' British Airways Chairman Sir Colin Marshall said. ``It is an alliance we remain wholly committed to.''
The French carrier Aeropostale is scheduled to operate Cat. 3b Boeing 737-300 transports on its mail route system. Sextant Avionique's Head-Up Flight Display System (HFDS) late last month obtained DGAC French civil aviation authority certification. The system is scheduled to be installed in the next few weeks on 10 of Aeropostale's 20-aircraft 737 fleet. Alitalia recently selected the HFDS for its McDonnell Douglas MD-82 fleet.
Ron Hodges has been appointed BFGoodrich Aerospace group general manager for Rosemount Aerospace, Burnsville, Minn. He was group general manager for BFG's Aircraft Integrated Systems, Vergennes, Vt. Cal Purdin has become group general manager of Aircraft Integrated Systems. He was general manager of Aircraft Evacuation Systems in Phoenix.
UAL Corp.'s rejection of USAir as an acquisition candidate may turn out to be just the impetus the ailing carrier needs to lower its unacceptably high cost structure. ``Maybe the discussions with UAL [parent company of United Airlines] turned the light on for USAir's employee groups,'' Chairman and CEO Seth Schofield said. ``My sense is there's a changed mood.''
UKRAINE'S NEWEST AIRCRAFT CARRIER, the Varyag, is rusting in the Nikolayev South shipyards only 80% completed and with no new work underway, according to Pentagon officials. With the possibility of selling the ship to a foreign military virtually dead, Ukraine is now looking for a customer that will buy the aircraft carrier for scrap, they said. China and India had been touted as possible buyers for the carrier, but both have decided against the Tbilisi-class ship.
Harry Seward has been appointed senior vice president-corporate business development of the Galaxy Scientific Corp., Egg Harbor Township, N.J. He was vice president-systems software and applications/intermetrics.
The MicroSafe safety light curtain features transmitter and receiver heads that measure 1 in. wide and 1.26 in. deep. Its small size allows the device to be quickly integrated with framing for guard applications on industrial machines. The transmitter and receiver units, made of aircraft-grade aluminum, are hermetically sealed. The light curtain uses pulsed infrared light to establish precise guard zones around a work cell. The unit has a range of 29.5 ft. Scientific Technologies Inc., 31069 Genstar Road, Hayward, Calif. 94544-7831.
In a winner-take-all contest worth a potential $12.7 billion, Singapore Airlines named the Boeing 777 as its new twinjet for Asia over the Airbus A330. The announcement last week constituted the year's largest single aircraft order.
IRRITATED AND PERPLEXED BY SELF-APPOINTED ``experts'' claiming to know why USAir Flight 427 crashed near Pittsburgh last year, National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jim Hall last week challenged anyone who thinks he has found a ``golden nugget'' to first tell the NTSB about it, not the media. Hall openly expressed his displeasure with a recent Newsweek story in which a prominent aviation attorney charged that the safety board already knows the rudder caused the accident, but refuses to make it public.
Hugo B. Poza has been named executive vice president of Sanders, Nashua, N.H., another Lockheed Martin company. He is vice president/general manager. Poza will succeed Richard A. Reed, who is retiring Dec. 31. Ehtisham U.A. Siddiqui will succeed Poza. Siddiqui is director of business development for the Lockheed Martin Control Systems Co., Binghamton, N.Y. Joseph A. Giacoponello has been appointed vice president-business development of Sanders. He is vice president/general manager of Sanders' Defense Systems Div.
Leaders of the Continental Airlines pilots' union want to join with the Air Line Pilots Assn. to better protect their 4,500 members from job cuts and lost seniority if the airline is sold. Directors of the Independent Assn. of Continental Pilots (IACP) voted unanimously to join ALPA, the U.S.' largest pilots union. IACP represents 3,800 pilots at Continental and about 700 at Continental Express. ALPA represents more than 45,000 pilots at 36 airlines.
The 1560 Black Stack Thermometer allows a wide variety of sensor inputs for temperature calibration from up to eight sources. Sensors can be read separately, or their data may be integrated or stacked. The menu-driven liquid crystal display guides the user through probe setups to achieve a basic accuracy of +/-0.005C with a resolution of 0.001C. Temperature data can be transmitted to a personal computer through a built-in RS-232 or IEEE port. Hart Scientific Inc., 220 N. 1300 West, Pleasant Grove, Utah 84062.
NASA MUST CUT AT LEAST 30% of its workforce by 1999 if it is to remain viable, says Samuel Venneri, director of the agency's spacecraft systems division. NASA's future lies in microelectronics, which will significantly reduce the size and cost of future space missions, he told the Maryland Space Business Roundtable. But mission operations ``are killing us,'' he said. ``We have 300 or 400 people sitting there for one mission. We have to get people out of the loop.''
British aerospace companies are seeing a slow tailing off of the workforce reductions that began in earnest in 1990 but are not betting on a major upturn despite forecasts for a turnaround in the airline industry.
The Orion Internet Firewall System is a turn-key system for protecting your system from cyberspace intruders. It offers a single control point that restricts the flow of information between the Internet and a local area network. A graphical user interface allows configuration and logging changes without programming expertise. The unit also can function as an Internet router. The Orion runs on a 486-based computer equipped with floppy, hard and CD-ROM drives. Zebu Systems L.L.C., P.O. Box 65057, Seattle, Wash. 98155.
THE FAA HAS APPROVED A 50% REDUCTION in takeoff visibility minimums for Boeing 737-300 transports fitted with Flight Dynamics' Head-Up Guidance Systems (HGS). The operational approval, for takeoffs in visibility as low as 300 ft. runway visual range (RVR), is restricted to Categories 2 and 3 runways. The system also has won FAA approval for display of Traffic Alert/Collision Avoidance System resolution advisories on the 737-300's head-up display. Certification for HGS-equipped 737-300s to land with 300 ft. RVR is expected next year.
