THE SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION Committee has approved an FAA reform bill sponsored by John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and Wendell H. Ford (D.-Ky.) for action by the full Senate. The measure would keep the FAA within the Transportation Dept. and free it from cumbersome rules governing procurement and personnel. The administrator would be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term. The FAA would also charge fees for licensing aircraft, inspections and air traffic control services.
British Airways, which posted record profits for the past six months, has been approached by several U.S. airlines to forge an alliance if the carrier is forced to sell its 25% stake in USAir.
Russia is preparing to launch three new unmanned space missions involving five spacecraft important to future commercial and international cooperative operations. But the country's overall unmanned space effort remains in decline, hobbled by budget problems and a shrinking industrial base, U.S. and European analysts said. The new missions set for launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome by late December are:
John E. McDonagh has been named vice president/general manager of European sales and marketing, based in Frankfurt, for World Airways. He was vice president-sales and marketing of Martinair Holland.
HUGHES' DIRECTV, which offers 175 channels of direct-to-home satellite broadcasting across 49 U.S. states, announced the signup of its one millionth customer on Nov. 2. Receivers for direct broadcast satellites are said to be the fastest growing consumer electronics product in U.S. history.
ANALYTICAL GRAPHICS plans next month to ship a version of its satellite analysis and planning software that can run on a personal computer. The currently available Satellite Tool Kit software requires a workstation with a Unix operating system. The King of Prussia, Pa., company says STK/PC requires a 486 or Pentium processor, Windows 95 or Windows NT, 8 MB of RAM and 30 MB of hard disk space. The PC software sells for $9,500 to businesses and $7,790 to government.
Los Alamos and Livermore national laboratories are developing an airborne lidar system to detect biological warfare agents on a battlefield at ranges up to 100 km. Under a U.S. Army-sponsored 21-month technology development effort, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) will build and deliver two fully ruggedized prototypes that can be flown on a standard UH-60 Black Hawk. The Livermore lab is developing a 1.5-micron eye-safe laser specifically for the system.
NASA's decision to drop an industry competition on its space shuttle fleet and instead award the job to a Rockwell/Lockheed Martin joint venture was motivated by concerns that no other company could meet its safety and schedule requirements. The agreement the space agency plans to negotiate with United Space Alliance could top $2 billion annually after a phased transition of shuttle operations, making it one of the U.S. government's largest contracts.
Pakistan International Airlines is studying the expansion of its two-year-old mountain ``air safari'' flight schedule to meet increased demand for the unusual sightseeing service. Included in the 1.45-hr.-long aerial panorama are five of the 14 peaks in the world higher than 8,000 meters (26,247 ft.), massive glaciers and high-altitude lakes, according to Mamoon A. Sheik, PIA manager of promotions. Pakistan has more than 100 peaks in excess of 7,000 meters (22,966 ft.), many of which are viewed during the trip over northern Pakistan.
Bhoja Air is expanding its fleet of four Russian-built Yak-42D transports while reconfiguring the interiors to near business class seat-pitch and amenities. The Karachi-based carrier now flies two daily round trips to Islamabad and three to Lahore. The 727-like trijets seat 108 in a single class. Operations began in June.
Northwest Airlines Corp. will take a fourth-quarter charge of $9 million, or 8 cents a share, but this is one ``hit'' investors almost certainly will welcome. Management plans to pay off the final $837 million owed for a 1989 leveraged buyout, and the $9 million will cover in effect the penalty associated with retiring the debt early. The move will free up $5-6 billion of assets pledged as collateral and save more than $30 million annually in interest and bank fees.
Tom Schick has been appointed executive vice president/deputy to the president of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. Schick had been senior vice president-airplane support. Dan Heidt has been named senior vice president-airplane components. He was vice president/general manager of the Wichita Div. Succeeding Heidt is Jeff Turner, who was division director of finance. Gary Scott will become vice president/general manager of 737/757 programs upon the retirement early next year of Bill Selby. Scott is director of finance and business resources in the Renton Div.
CATHAY PACIFIC AIRWAYS' MAINTENANCE AFFILIATE, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co. (Haeco), will convert 10 Boeing 747-200 Combis to full freighters for Atlas Air Inc. during the next two years. Given a depressed maintenance market, Haeco sees freighter conversions as an important business, but such contracts are stiffly contested. The Atlas Air work represents one of Haeco's largest third-party contracts to date. Flight Structures Inc. of Seattle will perform design engineering for Haeco and manufacture the modification kit.
Shorts Missile Systems will provide additional laser-guided Starstreak missiles, which just entered service with the British army in Germany, under a new 38-million-pound ($61-million) contract with the U.K. Ministry of Defense. Shorts Missile Systems, a joint venture between the Shorts Group of Bombardier and Thomson-CSF, will produce the missiles over the next two years. The Starstreak high-velocity missile system is mounted on an Alvis Stormer tracked armored vehicle and features a passive infrared alerting device developed by Pilkington Thorn Optronics.
American Airlines and Canadian Airlines International are seeking U.S. Transportation Dept. approval to begin weaving their individual operations into a single, integrated route system. The carriers asked Transportation Dept. officials for immunity from prosecution under antitrust laws. This would allow them to further integrate their individual route and regional-airline feeder systems and increase links between their U.S. and Canadian hubs.
JAPAN'S NATIONAL SPACE Development Agency has signed a letter of intent to participate in the expansion of the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite program beyond India's borders. The Japanese space agency will use a ground station at Hatoyama to receive, process and archive IRS data. The data include panchromatic pictures with resolution better than 6 meters, and multispectral imagery as fine as 23 meters and, in 800-km. swathes, 188 meters.
Two-year-old Aero Asia has grown to a fleet of six BAC-111 transports and one Boeing 707 since its first revenue flights in May, 1993. Key to Aero Asia's growth--and future expansion--is its policy of self-reliance, according to Ashfaq A. Jan, airline chief executive. The carrier has progressively converted its BAC-111 wet leases to self-operated dry leases and acquired its own computer reservation system. Its in-house ground-handling agency not only services Aero Asia but other airlines as well (AW&ST Apr. 12, 1993, p. 36).
Sikorsky is battling to smooth and prolong UH-60 Black Hawk production with a plan to interweave the needs of all military services and establish a long-term output of 36 helicopters per year.
ROCKWELL'S COLLINS AVIONICS&COMMUNICATIONS Div. will upgrade the avionics of the U.S. Air Force's C/KC-135 fleet under an initial $35-million contract to design, prototype (in 6 aircraft ) and test the Pacer Crag (compass, radar and GPS) upgrade. The modification will add the Collins FMS-800 flight management system, EFIS with AMLCD flight displays, and WXR-700 forward looking wind shear weather radar. The WXR-700 is believed to be the first commercial weather radar to be added to the Air Force fleet--more than 6,000 of the radars are flying commercially.
FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT not have understood, Indonesia has made it clear that acquiring aircraft produced by the state-owned IPTN factories is a political must for local airlines, regardless of costs. Under direction of the transport ministry, Garuda International fired Ridwan Fataruddin as president-director of its PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines subsidiary after he refused to lease 16 CN-235 turboprops made by IPTN.
Construction is underway on an advanced human powered aircraft, called the Raven, designed to set class and overall time aloft and distance traveled records beginning in late 1996. First flight is scheduled for August. It will be followed by a 3 hr., 50 mi. endurance attempt over California's Mojave Desert in December, 1996, using a female pilot. The current record for female powered flight stands at 9.6 mi. and 37.5 min. over a closed circuit.
Hughes is proceeding with work on a $1.4-billion contract to build a mobile satellite system for a commercial spinoff by Inmarsat--despite rumblings from TRW that the medium-Earth orbit constellation may violate two U.S. patents it received for a competing system. ICO Global Communications, formerly Inmarsat-P, scoffs at TRW's claim that the patents for its Odyssey system essentially block commercially viable competitors from placing their satellites in medium-Earth orbit (Meo), which TRW defines as altitudes of roughly 10,000-18,000 km.
THE U.S. AND THAILAND have agreed to begin formal discussions aimed at forging a new bilateral aviation agreement. In Bangkok last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena said negotiations will focus on new passenger service as well as cargo and charter flights. Pena and President Bill Clinton are to meet with Asian government leaders this week in Osaka, Japan, to discuss creation of a free trade zone in the Pacific region.
