Fred E. Arnold has been appointed chief operations officer of IFR Systems Inc., Wichita, Kan. He was president/chief executive officer of Dorne and Margolin/CHU Technology.
George D. Bagley has been named president/chief executive officer of Horizon Air Industries Inc. of Seattle. He succeeds Kathleen Iskra, who has resigned. Bagley was senior vice president-operations.
THE X-33 IS HEADED INTO TURBULENCE. The still-young industry/NASA project is being buffeted by conflicting demands that it be a classic X-plane program that tests risky new single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) technology, or that it be tied directly to development of a commercial reusable launch vehicle. The House space and aeronautics subcommittee plans a hearing on the X-33 effort this week. To make matters worse, the panel's chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
Helen Davis Delaney has been named standards officer at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. She was director of global affairs for the American Society of Testing and Materials.
The tape recorder on the Galileo spacecraft has been revived after a tape slippage anomaly, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers are devising techniques to avoid repeating that problem and another one found on the ground. Though recorder prospects look good, important parts of the science observations in the days and hours before the Dec. 7 Jupiter closest approach will be lost. This is because the top priority is to capture data from the Jupiter atmospheric probe, and project officials fear acquiring the earlier data might harm the recorder.
Richard Case, managing director of Britain's Westland Helicopters Ltd. has received the Cavaliere dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana from the president of Italy. The award was in recognition of Case's contribution to the collaboration between Westland and Italian manufacturer Agusta in the development of the EH-101 medium-lift helicopter.
EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY astronaut Thomas Reiter, a German, became the first ESA astronaut to perform a spacewalk when he worked outside the Mir space station Oct. 20 for 5 hr. with Russian cosmonaut Sergi Avdeev. The two crewmen installed astrophysics and space environment hardware on Mir's Spektr module. Russia and ESA last week also approved a second Reiter spacewalk for early February and a 45-day EuroMir flight extension to Feb. 29, 1996. The extension is dictated by a delay in booster funding for the EuroMir replacement crew.
Hughes engineers are verifying the health of the UHF Follow-On F6 spacecraft following the U.S. Navy communications satellite's Oct. 22 launch here. Working from the U.S. Air Force Consolidated Space Operations Center at Falcon Air Station, Colo., the engineers last week supervised a series of maneuvers by the 6,652-lb. spacecraft to raise the apogee and perigee of its 14,940 X 155-naut.-mi. intermediate transfer orbit. The satellite's UHF and EHF receive antennas and two three-panel solar arrays were to have been deployed late last week.
A NASA SR-71 MADE a precautionary landing at Nellis AFB, Nev., on Oct. 25 when the test crew was unable to transfer fuel trapped in an aft tank. About 7,500 lb. of fuel was considered possibly unusable, which made a safe return to Palmdale, Calif., questionable. The crew elected to recover at Nellis, the first time a NASA/Dryden aircraft has had to ``land out'' in many years, according to SR-71 program officials.
Despite the breakdown of the latest round of negotiations between the U.S. and U.K., European airlines are skeptical of a European Union proposal to replace bilateral air traffic accords with an overall pact between the EU and U.S.
HANDLING OF FLIGHTS OVER RUSSIA'S FAR EAST is improving. UND Aerospace of Grand Forks, N.D., is preparing for its seventh class of Russian air traffic controllers, due to start in January. The program, which began in the fall of 1993, with Air Transport Assn. funding, already has led to improved ATC and English skills for about 120 Russian ATC supervisors and controllers from the lightly inhabited region. Russia now pays for the training through fees collected on new routes opened under the 1993 U.S.-Russia bilateral.
The FAA is using new computer simulation tools to help budding controllers visualize the complex airspace in the U.S. Color-coded three-dimensional animation is being used to help students understand the complex interactions and rules of airspace. No place is this more difficult than in the high-density areas where control zones, arrival and departure corridors and terminal control areas come together.
TAIWAN HAS GROUNDED ITS FLEET of about 40 Ching-Kuo fighters, also known as the Indigenous Defensive Fighter, for fuel system modifications. Production of the Ching-Kuo also will stop for about six months to retool to accommodate the changes, which are aimed at eliminating fuel system problems. Modification of existing aircraft should be completed by about mid-November. The fault was involved in the loss of an IDF earlier this year.
The Ultra Measure Master is a dimensional and units conversion calculator for engineers that provides more than 400 Imperial to metric conversion combinations. It allows linear, area, dry and liquid volume, weight, linear velocity, flow rate, pressure, bending moment and temperature conversions. It also allows users to add, subtract, multiply and divide different units within the same convention. The calculator is designed to meet the 1996 federal metrification mandate. The liquid crystal diode screen displays the units being measured as well as the numerals.
Jeffrey N. Shane is counsel to the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering and a former U.S. assistant Transportation secretary. Shane chairs the International Chamber of Commerce's Commission on Air Transport. Following are excerpts of his remarks delivered at a recent conference in Washington on transatlantic aviation.
McDonnell Douglas added slightly to the design length of the MD-95 fuselage as part of an effort to sell the aircraft to launch customer ValuJet Airlines, which has placed a firm order for 50. ValuJet and Douglas Aircraft Co. officials said Oct. 19 they have agreed on a 50-aircraft order for the MD-95 program valued at more than $1 billion (AW&ST Oct. 23, p. 29). The agreement includes options for 50 additional MD-95s.
Researchers are eyeing unmanned helicopters and tethered balloons as two, relatively low-cost methods for extending the ability of a proposed international air defense system to detect stealthy low-flying cruise missiles. The program involves the U.S., Germany, France and Italy.
Rising infrastructure charges and difficulty in gaining and keeping access to important airports threaten the growth and health of European regional airlines, according to carrier officials.
USAF'S WRIGHT LABORATORY CONTINUES to advance vapor phase lubrication technology, which could allow hotter running, more efficient aircraft gas turbine engines. Vapor phase lubrication uses a hot air stream to vaporize a lubricant and transport it to a desired bearing surface. Vapor would condense to provide liquid lubrication at bearing temperatures below lubricant boiling point. At higher temperatures, the vapor would react with the bearing surface to produce a polymeric lubricating film.
The RF-5022R/T(E) is an enhanced version of Harris' Falcon-series high-frequency transceiver. The new version includes robust digital squelch technology that provides reliable traffic detection even with signal-to-noise ratios as low as -2 dB. Other features include night-vision goggle compatibility and external programming for field upgrades. The unit meets Mil Std 810E. The RF-5022R/T(E) uses digital signal processing techniques to provide upper sideband, lower sideband, continuous wave and amplitude modulation equivalent operation over the 1.6-30 MHz. range.
Photograph: TWO DISTANT GRAVITATIONAL LENSES have been discovered in sifting through images made by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2. The finding is reported by Kavan Ratnatunga of Johns Hopkins University in the Nov. 1 edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters. Gravitational lenses, which were predicted by Einstein, are produced by an object so massive its gravitational field bends light. If an object behind such a ``lens'' is in the right position relative to Earth, it is magnified, brightened and distorted.
A freak October snowstorm that disrupted operations at Denver International Airport also uncovered holes in the new facility's bad-weather procedures and, possibly, ground-movement radar coverage.
George H. Palmer has been appointed vice president-sales for Analytical Graphics Inc., King of Prussia, Pa. He was a sales and marketing consultant. Col. Michael P. Wiedemer (see photo) has assumed command of the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center at Arnold AFB, Tenn. He was system program director for the Navstar Global Positioning System at Los Angeles AFB.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will build Dash 8 Series 400 fuselages and tail sections as well as Global Express wings and center fuselage sections for Bombardier Aerospace at the same plant in Nagoya, Japan. However, the selection of Mitsubishi as a risk-sharing partner on the 70-seat Dash 8 Series 400 earlier this month does not signify any broad strategic alliance between the two companies, even though they already have a partnership on the Global Express business jet.
