THE SECOND $250,000 Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Aerospace Prize, awarded semi-annually, has been given to honor the Apollo space program. The 1995 prize money will go to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for a scholarship program, most likely for students intending to pursue master's degrees. The prize is named in honor of the late son of a wealthy Swiss family, a pilot who died in a helicopter crash. The 1993 prize went to William H. Pickering for his work on unmanned spacecraft.
John Barrett has returned to British Caledonian Flight Training Ltd., West Sussex, England, as a sales executive. He was communications manager of sister company Hughes Rediffusion Simulation.
HONG KONG'S NEW AIRPORT AT CHEK LAP KOK is unlikely to open before late 1998, according to a senior management official. Construction is proceeding well, but politics is blocking future progress. When an essential agreement was signed last November that set a 3:1 ratio of equity to debt, the Provisional Airport Authority thought it might still meet its self-imposed deadline of July 1, 1997, to complete the airport. That is when British rule in Hong Kong ends and China takes over.
Dassault Aviation's eight-seat Falcon 900EX long-range business jet will obtain certification in April, 1996. The glass cockpit 900EX, a 900B derivative, made its first flight last month at the company's Bordeaux-Merignac, France, flight test center. The 900EX has three 5,000-lb.-thrust AlliedSignal TFE731-60 turbofan engines. Maximum cruise speed of the enhanced model is Mach 0.84 at 39,000-47,000 ft.
Members of the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have won NASA's 1995 Outstanding Leadership Medal. They are: Edward Caro, chief engineer; Diane Evans, project scientist; and Michael Sander, project manager during the 1994 missions and now deputy director of the JPL Space and Earth Science Programs Directorate.
Howmet Corp.'s Thermatech Coatings Div. could serve as a model for lower-tier aerospace suppliers seeking a competitive edge in an increasingly demanding marketplace, where success is dictated by ``faster, better, cheaper.'' The Whitehall, Mich.-based company has pursued a strategy of combining innovative technology with continuous business-process improvements throughout the organization, otherwise known as synchronous manufacturing.
Aerospatiale and Fokker are planning to develop rival regional twinjets scheduled to enter service in the early 2000s, but the programs threaten to be duplicative in a crowded field. Aerospatiale is exploring two versions of a 90-120-seat twinjet concept, dubbed AS100 and AS125. Fokker, a Daimler-Benz Aerospace affiliate, envisions a 120-seat aircraft provisionally called FA-X.
THE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY has a new director, Pentagon advanced technology chief Larry Lynn. Lynn pioneered the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration scheme of accelerating the development of new technology and putting it quickly into limited operational use. His most visible success was the $3.2-million Tier 2 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle. Lynn will retain responsibility for the ACTD program until planning for 1996 initiatives is complete.
AN AUTOMATED PATTERN design system can reduce by up to 80% the time needed to generate complex foundry sand casting patterns. The memory-driven Rapid Foundry Tooling System, developed with the help of USAF's Wright Laboratory's Materials Directorate, near Dayton, Ohio, accelerates pattern design time and improves part quality while lowering part cost. A prototype RFTS is designing patterns for a wide range of cast aluminum parts at USAF's San Antonio (Tex.) Air Logistics Center.
AUSTRALIA'S CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY will use an Astra 1125 business jet and a turboprop Beech Super King Air B-200 to replace two Fokker F28s and a Gulfstream Aerocommander, to inspect navigation aids and air traffic facilities in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea and on other South Pacific islands. The aircraft will be equipped with DM10 million ($7.1 million) worth of calibration equipment from Germany's Aerodata Flugmesstechnik GmbH. Installation will be completed during the next year. $end 15
DESPITE THE STRONG opposition of ground worker and pilot unions, in 1996 the Air France group will combine its European Div. and Air Inter, a domestic-regional subsidiary, to form a new carrier, currently expected to be called Air France Europe. The new carrier, based at Paris-Orly airport, is scheduled to operate a low-fare city-pair route system, while Air France International will maintain a conventional hub-and-spoke system, also including European points, centered at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.
General Electric has successfully completed static tests of a new GE90 fan platform design and will conduct preliminary dynamic tests of the component next week. If the dynamic tests are successful, the data will be presented to Boeing with a recommendation to resume test flights of GE90-powered 777 transports. Boeing alone, however, will have the authority to make that decision. The GE90 was grounded in late May by General Electric and Boeing after ground tests uncovered a fan imbalance problem.
BMW Rolls-Royce has committed to building and testing a full-scale, 19,000-lb.-thrust-class prototype engine for future 100-seat commercial transports. The powerplant, designated the BR 715 engine, is expected to force a reevaluation of the competitive strategies of companies bent on developing a low-cost, low-maintenance replacement powerplant for the venerable Pratt&Whitney JT8D.
REJECTING U.S. AIR FORCE arguments, the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission calls for closing two of the service's five aircraft maintenance depots. In its first recommendations to the White House on more than 175 military bases and installations being considered for closure or consolidation, the independent panel voted 6-2 last week to close the air logistics centers at Kelly AFB, Tex., and McClellan AFB, Calif., which employ some 25,000 workers. Work would be transferred to the three remaining depots.
The passenger poaching battle between Qantas and Cathay Pacific turned bitter last week when the Australian Ministry of Transport said it might knock 60% of Cathay's seats out on the busy Hong Kong-Sydney route.
ALLISON EXPECTS TO DELIVER two AE 3007 powerplants next spring to support upcoming demonstration flights of Teledyne Ryan's Tier 2+ unmanned aerial vehicle at Edwards AFB. The powerplant, which has been extensively tested at the Naval Air Warfare Center near Trenton, N.J., is a ``vanilla'' AE 3007 that has a cut-back chord in the first-stage turbine vane for increased core flow.
BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON and the Romanian government have agreed to jointly produce 96 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters. Under a formal letter of intent outlining the cooperative program, the aircraft will be produced in Romania with Bell providing technology, production tooling and training support. Deliveries to the Romanian armed forces would begin in 1999 and run through 2005. Financial details are yet to be negotiated. The AH-1F is an improved version of the AH-1S Cobra being flown by the U.S. Army.
FINNAIR PLANS TO LEASE all four of its McDonnell Douglas DC-10s for five years to French carrier Air Liberte, which in turn will use Finnair for maintenance of the aircraft. The transaction will provide Finnair with revenues of about FIM140 million ($32.6 million) a year. Air Liberte, which will use the DC-10s for flights to the Caribbean and to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, already has one of the aircraft and will take delivery of two more this year and one in June, 1996.
Southwest Airlines is exploiting the information superhighway in its relentless drive to further reduce operating costs. By the end of 1995, the carrier expects to make ticketless travel throughout its route system accessible via the Internet--a collection of millions of interconnected computers.
A SOUTH AFRICAN AEROSPACE COMPANY, Kentron, is negotiating to sell H-2 and H-3 air-launched standoff weapons to Pakistan, according to a U.S. government official. The company also is reportedly working on a stealthy, powered standoff weapon reputed to be even more sophisticated than the H-2 glide bomb and the H-2 rocket-powered weapon. Various U.S. agencies have been predicting that South Africa would carve out a niche for itself in several technologies brought to prominence by Desert Storm.
In mid-summer 1997, possibly on July 4, a 35-lb. wheeled robot is scheduled to begin poking around on an ancient Martian plain, broadcasting images of rocks and soil washed down from the highlands when water ran free on the red planet's surface.
THE FIRST F-15S BUILT by McDonnell Douglas for Saudi Arabia made its maiden flight last week. The first of 72 F-15S aircraft ordered, it will now be painted with Royal Saudi Air Force markings in preparation for a formal rollout on Sept. 12.
INNOVATIVE DYNAMICS INC., Ithaca, N.Y., is seeking to commercialize a lightweight, abrasion-resistant shape memory alloy it developed to deice rotating airfoils. When electrically stimulated by a low-power source, the 1.5-mm.-thick nickel-titanium alloy sheet changes shape slightly, causing ice buildup to debond. The ice then sheds into the airstream, assisted by helicopter blade or propeller centrifugal force and vibration.
NEW AIR QUALITY RULES being formulated by U.S. federal, state and regional agencies will pressure many large airports to reduce single-passenger vehicle access. According to other findings by the Institute of Transportation Studies, conveniently located off-airport terminals offering efficient transportation services would constitute one solution. However, any mode that causes additional vehicle ``cold starts'' offsets the reduction in vehicle miles traveled, owing to high cold start emissions.
