LAST WEDNESDAY WAS A BAD DAY FOR THE FAA. At Senate hearings about the effects of unapproved aircraft parts on safety, FAA Administrator David R. Hinson came under fire from three sides--a feisty Sen. Bill Cohen (R.-Maine), the Transportation Dept.'s aggressive inspector general A. Mary Schiavo, and America's top cops, the FBI. Cohen, who chairs the Governmental Affairs Oversight subcommittee, accused the FAA of doing too little to stop the use of bogus parts, and Schiavo accused the agency of investigative sloth.
BOEING WILL REDUCE its workforce by approximately 12,000 this year, 5,000 more than previously estimated. The additional job losses are the result of increasing competitive pressures, according to Boeing Chairman Frank Shrontz. They primarily will occur at Boeing facilities in the Seattle area. Most of the additional 5,000 departures will result from an early retirement plan Boeing offered in April. About 6,000 of the 13,000 senior workers eligible for early retirement accepted.
IRVINE SENSORS IS WORKING to commercialize the production of infrared sensor components under a 15-month, $88,000 subcontract from Northrop Grumman. The effort is part of an Advanced Research Projects Agency flexible manufacturing industry initiative. The goal is to use the same commercial semiconductor technologies used to produce Irvine Sensors' Memory Short Stacks to build both IR signal processing chips and computer memory stacks.
David James Anderson has been named director of marketing for the Pan Am International Flight Academy of Miami. He was director of marketing and corporate communications for Airline Crew Training.
NASA is promising a sweeping reorganization of field centers and new relations with science and industry. But the agency's broadest effort yet toward ``re-inventing'' itself would not get anywhere near the $10 billion savings Congress wants to help balance the federal budget by 2002. If successful--and even NASA admits to considerable doubt about the numbers--the changes will save only $4.4-5.0 billion through 2000. They will also cost the aerospace industry another 25,000 jobs, perhaps more.
French and German aerospace/defense companies are struggling to improve upon their dismal 1994 financial performance, while U.K. firms are rapidly positioning themselves for sustained sales and earnings growth. Frustrations are running high in France, Germany and Italy. There the weak U.S. dollar is being blamed for 1994's massive red ink and the possibility that companies could do as poorly this year.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the sixth and last section of the English translation of the French Commission of Investigation preliminary report of the June 30, 1994, crash of an Airbus A330 at Toulouse-Blagnac airport. The airport is the site of Airbus Industrie's flight test center. The aircraft, as part of Category 3 certification testing, was performing an engine-out go-around with autopilot when lateral control was lost. The A330 was at too low an altitude at the time the crew regained recovery.
The Assn. of Flight Attendants has agreed to surrender $53 million in wages and boost the productivity of its cabin attendants as part of a tentative pact forged with USAir management. Under terms of the agreement, AFA members will forego a 4% pay raise scheduled for January, 1995, and will concede a 5.95% reduction in salary that could become effective as early as September. The AFA concessions would provide USAir with about $375 million of the $500 million in annual labor cost reductions it deems essential for survival.
THANKS TO PRESIDENT CLINTON, airline chiefs may get what they want from Congress: a repeal of the 4.3 cents/gal. tax on jet fuel scheduled to take effect this October. Airlines strongly oppose the fee, claiming it could cost the industry an extra $500 million this year if imposed. Despite a hard, pro-tax stance taken by Treasury and Transportation Dept. officials, the airline lobby insists the tax is unnecessary and counterproductive. In what must have been an embarrassment to the White House, the Air Transport Assn.
A LOW, LIFE-CYCLE cost medium-lift helicopter for the U.S. Navy has been added back to the Pentagon's list of 12 new advanced concept technology demonstration projects for Fiscal 1996.
THE FAA IS EXPECTED to certify the Boeing 777-200 transport for full, 180-min. Extended Range Twin-engine Operations this week. The authorization allows pilots to fly routes up to 180 min. from a suitable alternate airport.
Joseph Kania, senior director of quality and safety in maintenance operations at USAir, has received the annual Nuts and Bolts Award from the Air Transport Assn.'s Engineering Maintenance and Materiel Council. He was honored for developing on-condition engine monitoring, the carrier's CFM56 engine maintenance program and his work in human factors.
LOOK FOR HORIZONS TECHNOLOGY of San Diego to use its $1.5-million mission support contract for the Royal Malaysian Air Force's new F/A-18s to expand its role in military and commercial aviation programs in Malaysia. Horizons has formed a joint venture with Zetro Corp. of Kuala Lumpur to provide integrated aviation and avionics hardware and software systems for the F/A-18s and other aircraft in the RMAF. Zetro Chairman Mohd. Zamri Hj. Muda, whose company owns 60% of the new partnership's stock, said the agreement will help its expansion in Malaysian aerospace.
GE Aircraft Engines has delivered the first two F414 powerplants for the Navy/McDonnell Douglas F/A-18E/F. F414 development is now more than 70% complete, and seven test engines have accumulated more than 4,300 ground test hours. More than 6,000 test hours are scheduled to be completed before first flight of the F/A-18E, now planned for December. Flight test of the aircraft is scheduled to run through 1998. GE expects to gain preliminary flight qualification for the 22,000 lb.- thrust engine this summer.
Facing an 11-count indictment accusing it of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Customs Service, Wag-Aero, Inc., owners Richard H. Wagner and Roberta L. Wagner, and general manager Roger Basterash are scheduled to stand trial June 26 in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee. LYONS, WIS.-BASED WAG-AERO sells parts and accessories for general aviation aircraft. The indictment alleges that Wag-Aero imported 990 Japanese-made VHF transceivers in 1991 and 1992, falsely claiming they were FAA-approved to avoid paying $41,382 in customs duties.
UNITED AIRLINES EXPECTS TO DECIDE THIS FALL on the next orders in the carrier's plan to buy 50 aircraft beyond the 34 Boeing 777s and 23 Airbus A320s remaining on order. United's focus is more on replacement than growth--by the year 2000, its fleet will only increase by 19 aircraft, rather than the 40-50 envisaged by prior management. United's average fleet age is 10 years, but 8% of the aircraft are at least 25 years old, and it is cost-effective to replace them with new models, according to company chairman and CEO Gerald Greenwald.
A plan engineered by Republican ``hawks'' in the House that would boost U.S. defense spending by more than $9.5 billion could result in a fratricidal battle in the upcoming budget conference between House and Senate negotiators already at odds over the issue of tax cuts.
HOLLANDSE SIGNAALAPPARATEN B.V. is developing a multi-channel radar receiver that uses a fiber-optic data link. The company believes the link can be used in a low-cost receiver for multi-channel digital beam-forming radars. The design moves the analog-to-digital converter and digital pre-processing into the receiver modules. The company has tested six receiver modules that show the shielding avoids cross-talk between analog and digital circuits.
Jim Meier has been promoted to manager of international sales for specialty lubricants for Huls America, Piscataway, N.J. He was Western regional manager.
U.S. AEROSPACE MANUFACTURERS laid off 80,000 workers last year, or 8.8% of the total workforce, and expect to cut another 48,000 jobs in 1995, a decline of 5.8%. Overall, the industry has eliminated more than a half a million jobs since its peak of 1.331 million in 1989, according to an Aerospace Industries Assn. survey. The biggest reductions this year will come in the military aircraft sector, which will eliminate 21,000 jobs, a 9.3% decline versus an 8.9% drop in 1994.
THERMOPHOTOVOLTAIC CO-GENERATION is being refined for military and civil use by JX Crystals of Issaquah, Wash. The company's prototype 30-w. Midnight Sun generator converts heat radiated by a natural gas-fired ceramic emitter to electricity using gallium antimonide cells in a process similar to that of solar cells. The portable, quiet generator has few moving parts and is virtually emission free. Long-term uses could include unmanned aerial vehicles.
