Also, Ron Ostrowski will become vice president/general manager of the 777 program upon the retirement of Dale Hougardy early next year. Ostrowski is director of engineering of the 777 Div. Chuck Kahler has been appointed vice president-Wing Responsibility Center. He was vice president-Propulsion Systems Div. Kahler will be succeeded by Carolyn Corvi, who has been director of quality assurance in the Fabrication Div.
Dan A. Colussy has assumed the posts of president and chief operating officer of UNC, Annapolis, Md., from Gerald Czarnecki, who has resigned. Colussy will continue as chairman/chief executive officer.
Russell Laughead has been appointed director of marketing for Latin America and Kay Ardalan regional sales manager for the Astra Jet Corp., Princeton, N.J. Laughead was a sales manager for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., and Ardalan was a technical representative.
COMAIR, THE CINCINNATI-BASED Delta Connection carrier, has increased its firm orders for Canadair Regional Jets to 45 aircraft from 35 previously. In addition to the 26 already delivered to its Comair fleet, the North American launch customer for the 50-passenger Canadair Jet now has 19 firm orders on backlog and 25 options for a fleet potentially totaling 70 Canadair Jets. All of Comair's firm orders are planned for delivery by the end of 1996.
U.S. AIR FORCE RESEARCHERS are considering using Boeing 747s fitted with a classified new radar developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency to find targets for its proposed fleet of airborne laser aircraft. Quizzed about the concept, Gen. Joe Ralston, head of Air Combat Command, agreed that ABL needs some kind of cuing, but much of the data could be provided by satellite-mounted sensors, he said. However, ``I wouldn't rule [airborne platforms] out, but neither would I say that it's a requirement,'' he said.
Karachi-based Shaheen Air International already has started cross-border flights and so far is the only Pakistani private carrier exclusively operating Western-built transports. Regularly scheduled service began in December, 1993, using two Boeing 737-200s dry-leased from Thai Airways International (AW&ST Aug. 10, 1992, p. 44). Initial destinations included daily flights to Lahore and Islamabad from Shaheen's Karachi base.
The Bombardier flight test center here is gearing up to sustain a heavy workload as the Challenger 604 program is followed by the Learjet 45, the Global Express, the Dash 8 Series 400 and possibly a stretched Regional Jet. Peter Reynolds, director of flight test operations for Bombardier Aerospace Group-North America, said there will be some overlap between the Learjet 45 and Global Express programs and a similar situation as Global Express winds down and the Dash 8 Series 400 starts up.
Sharon Keillor has been named executive vice president/director of CTA Commercial Systems, Rockville, Md. She was vice president-engineering infrastructure for the Digital Equipment Corp. Software Business Group.
The House and Senate Intelligence committees are at an impasse over a House plan to order the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to begin construction of a small satellite to demonstrate emerging technologies. The issue pits those who believe the NRO should follow NASA's example of moving toward smaller and cheaper satellites against the intelligence community and its traditional suppliers, who want to take several more years to prove smallsat technologies.
JAPANESE RESEARCHERS AT NAGOYA UNIVERSITY are studying the development of a fuel-rich, combined cycle turbine to achieve a better than 50% increase in thermal efficiency and significantly lower NOx emissions. The proposed powerplant, named the chemical gas turbine system, would utilize the chemical energy of the hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the exhaust of a novel, fuel-rich gas turbine to power a second, fuel-lean gas turbine.
All three of NASA's X-33 industry partners say the single-stage-to-orbit technology will be risky with only one copy of the experimental vehicle and no funding reserves for mistakes or delays. But they say a far more important issue to resolve--if X-33 is to eventually lead to an operational, reusable launch vehicle (RLV)--is the extent to which the government would be involved financially.
Titan 4 team members here performed an unprecedented 24-hr. turnaround from a scrubbed launch to successfully orbit the Pentagon's newest, $1-billion secure communications satellite last week. Faced with persistent poor weather, U.S. Air Force officials abandoned their first attempt to launch a Titan 4 carrying the second Milstar high-priority communications satellite at 12:27 a.m. Nov. 5.
Jim Van Osdol has been appointed president/chief executive officer of IDD Aerospace Corp. of Seattle, a subsidiary of France's Groupe Intertechnique. He was general manager of Bell Industries' Illuminated Displays Div.
Hypervelocity tests were recently completed in a U.S. ground facility that duplicated flight conditions at speeds up to Mach 15 on a full-scale model of a missile seeker.
A NOVEL CARBON FOAM MATERIAL has been developed by Ultramet Inc., Pacoima, Calif. Potential aerospace applications include insulation, re-entry protection and high-temperature filters as well as certain engine components such as heat exchangers and catalytic igniters. The lightweight foam can be infiltrated with metal or ceramic materials to optimize strength, stiffness, permeability, conductivity and other characteristics, according to Robert Tuffias, company general manager.
ALMOST 97% OF PILOTS HIRED BY MAJOR U.S. CARRIERS in 1995 have had air transport pilot ratings and nearly 80% had four-year college degrees, according to statistics compiled by Air Inc., an Atlanta pilot career services firm. Average flight time was 5,100 hr., and average age was slightly over 33. About one-third of the recruits have had military flight experience, and 11% were female. However, only one hire in 10 was over 40.
The orbiter Columbia landed here at the end of the second longest space shuttle mission to date, freeing space agency managers to focus on the next mission and on preserving their launch schedule for the next year. Commander Kenneth D. Bowersox flew Columbia to a smooth landing on Runway 33 at the Shuttle Landing Facility here at 6:46 a.m. EST on Nov. 5, bringing an end to 16 days of microgravity research on orbit.
Tom Nelson has been promoted to senior vice president-field services from vice president of Airborne Express. Other promotions are: Mike Heilman to vice president-quality and business analysis from director; and Charles Ogle to general manager of ocean services from director.
MITSUBISHI RESEARCHERS BELIEVE they have found a way to overcome a problem in making smaller memory capacitor cells--the difficulty of storing enough electrical charge in the capacitor for reliable operation. A new technology using ``BST'' material--(BaSr)TiO3--as the dielectric, and Ruthinium as the storage node will be described at the International Electron Devices Meeting in Washington next month. The company uses chemical vapor deposition procedures to make one gigabit DRAMS of BST. NEC also plans to report stacked capacitor technology for gigabit DRAMS using BST.
SEXTANT AVIONIQUE'S FULL HOLOGRAPHIC HUD, which will be on the Bombardier Global Express, is introducing an integral Flir capability to business aircraft. It provides a virtual image that correlates one-to-one with the ``real world,'' according to company officials. Similar Sextant Avionique systems have flown for years on military and other civil aircraft.
Robert J. Cleland has been appointed vice president-marketing and service for the Enstrom Helicopter Corp., Menominee, Mich. He was manager of international marketing for Reflectone Inc.
A NEW 1.8-TERAFLOPS-CAPABLE SUPERCOMPUTER is scheduled to be brought on-line by late 1996 by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M. As probably the world's fastest massively parallel processing computer, it will have peak performance of up to 1.8-trillion floating point operations per second. Primary use will be to simulate nuclear weapons tests. It also will be available for more peaceful studies such as understanding global climatic change and developing advanced materials. Sandia and partner Intel Corp.
THE PENTAGON'S SHORT-RANGE and low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs are in disarray and stalled. In an attempt to start anew, Pentagon Acquisition chief Paul Kaminski is to be briefed Nov. 22 on the renamed Tactical UAV program. Kaminski may dub the program an advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD), clearing the way to build and field a small number of the UAVs for operational evaluation and use. Key members of the successful, long-endurance Predator UAV program will take on responsibility for the Tactical project.
