AIRBORNE SECURITY and aviation support for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta will involve 23 helicopters. An Air Security Operations Center and forward staging area will be established at Dobbins AFB, just north of Atlanta, and operate around-the-clock for an estimated 35-day period overlapping the Olympics. About 75 air operations support staff will be required, including flight crews. A two-year planning effort included several state and local police departments, the FAA, Army National Guard, FBI and U.S. Coast Guard.
Gail Hoffman (see photo) has been named manager of quality assurance of the Burle Industries Security Div., Lancaster, Pa. She was a total quality management specialist at Bell Atlantic.
KOREAN AIR'S AEROSPACE DIV. in Pusan is the second Asian manufacturer to become a supplier for the Boeing 737-600/700/800. It agreed last week to supply flap support fairings for the -700. The Japanese previously have agreed to work on the -600 program.
Helicopter life extension programs and replacements are the major aircraft improvement programs for the Australian navy and army over the next decade. Up to 30 helicopters will be needed to support new Royal Australian Navy's new fighting ships and 24-50 helicopters as replacements for the Royal Australian Army's Bell 206B (OH-58) Kiowa.
McDonnell Douglas Aerospace has developed an electromagnetic dent removal process for the repair of aluminum aircraft structures. During the repair process, electromagnetic fields are conducted across the outer and inner surfaces of the damaged areas. The dents are removed, without access to the rear surface of the damaged area, when pressure from the field on the inner-surface presses outward as the field on the outer surface is reduced. The system, under development at McDonnell Douglas for nine years, has been used to repair aircraft during production.
Richard A. Kaminsky has been appointed treasurer of Greenwich Air Services of Miami. He was vice president/treasurer of the Wackenhut Corp. Guillermo Navarro has been promoted to vice president/corporate controller from controller. And, Scott G. Campbell has been promoted to vice president-purchasing from director of inventory accounting.
The Pentagon has endorsed an independent study that concludes procuring additional precision munitions and pursuing conventional upgrades to existing bombers will be more cost effective than buying 20 more Northrop Grumman B-2s. Results of the six-month study by the Institute for Defense Analysis also bolster the case for tactical aircraft, including carrier-based aircraft, which have been pitted against Air Force long-range bombers in the debate over roles and missions.
A fifty-two-ft.-long wing top panel for the second Gulfstream 5 business jet undergoes autoriveting at Northrop Grumman's Commercial Aircraft Div. factory in Dallas. Northrop Grumman, a risk-sharing partner on the G-5 program, has begun final assembly of G-5 wings and will deliver the first unit to Gulfstream's Savannah, Ga., factory this summer. Northrop Grumman designed and is building and integrating the complete wing assembly for the G-5.
Analysts are in agreement that Northrop Grumman will remain a stable investment, but not about the upside potential as the product of last year's merger downsizes and its revenues fall during the next few years.
LONDON GATWICK AIRPORT will open 50 additional check-in desks in an extension of the busy South Terminal in time for this summer's peak travel period. The 4,000-sq.-meter (43,000-sq. ft.) extension of the check-in concourse is part of a 100-million pound ($160-million) program of improvements for the airport's two terminals. More than 17 million pounds ($27 million) have been spent on a new, redesigned departure lounge for the 37-year-old South Terminal.
Michael J. Ball has been named director of air traffic management systems for the Rockwell International Communication Systems Div., Richardson, Tex. He was acting director of the Traffic Flow Management Integrated Product Team for the FAA.
Lockheed delivered its 86% scale vertical takeoff model for the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program to NASA's Ames Research Center on May 1, and plans to start hover-testing it in June. The model is powered by a unique Pratt&Whitney F100-PW-220+ engine that provides both conventional thrust as well as shaft power to drive a lift fan (AW&ST Mar. 6, p. 48). After the outdoor tests using a rigid frame, the model is to be installed in Ames' 80 X 120-ft. wind tunnel this fall for study of powered transition at speeds up to about 200 kt.
McDonnell Douglas has conducted low-speed wind tunnel tests of the planned MD-95 transport using a 9% scale model in St. Louis. The tests evaluated the configuration of the BR715 engines, which BMW Rolls-Royce is developing.
John K. Bulman has been appointed vice president-sales and G. Kenneth Herb director of marketing technology of GaSonics International, San Jose, Calif. Bulman was vice president-sales of GenRad, and Herb was a plasma technologist at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
AMR Combs and Bombardier are joining forces to offer fractional ownership in business jets in a venture scheduled to begin operations later this month. Business JetSolutions will sell shares in Learjet 31As and 60s and Canadair Challengers, which are made by Bombardier units. The program, called FlexJets, will constitute the first serious competition to Executive Jet International's NetJets, which pioneered the concept of providing a fleet of shared ownership business jets.
A five-month FAA study of the design of the Boeing 737 flight control systemhas failed to reveal any design flaws that could be the probable cause for accidents near Pittsburgh and Colorado Springs.
ISRAEL AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIES' HERON UAV, now undergoing testing, recently completed a 51-hr., 21-min. flight. The 1,210-lb. long-endurance UAV carried 1,320 lb. of payload and fuel for a total takeoff weight of 2,530 lb. Designed for reconnaissance, surveillance, data relay and electronic warfare missions, the Heron has a wing span of 54.4 ft. and a flight ceiling of 35,000 ft.
EUROPEAN ATTEMPTS TO MOVE to a continental-scale market will not solve the problem that defense companies face from shrinking budgets, according to Robin Beard, NATO assistant secretary general for defense support. He says such a market is still too small and criticized those who favor a fortress Europe--or for that matter a fortress America--approach to weapons development. Robert Bauerlein, the U.S. Air Force's deputy undersecretary for international affairs, warns that such extremes could have ``drastic consequences'' for the domestic defense industry and the Pentagon.
QANTAS AIRWAYS HAS PLACED orders for a Boeing 747-400, three 737- 400s and two 767-300ERs, and says it will convert two 747-200 Combis to pure passenger use. The order is valued at ``more than $300 million'' and is the airline's first since mid-1992. First delivery of the 737s will be in December with the other deliveries through November, 1996. The 767s are to arrive next March and June. Qantas took an option on another 737-400 and two 767- 300ERs.
Fuselage sections for the first 767 freighter for United Parcel Service are joined at Boeing's wide-body factory in Everett, Wash. UPS has 30 of the specially configured freighters on order and another 30 on option.
THE U.S. HAS SUCCESSFULLY demonstrated a surface acoustic wave chemical agent detection system on a Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Six test flights were conducted late last month during which the system detected, identified and quantified simulated chemical agents in real time and down-linked the data to a ground station. The tests simulated atmospheric detonations of chemical agents delivered by Scud-type missiles. It marked the first test of a measurements and signatures intelligence sensor on board a UAV.
In early 1990, Hughes Communications, Inc., was part of a team of heavy-hitters that announced plans to establish a pioneer direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service. Known as Sky Cable, the $1-billion venture included media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., NBC and Cablevision Systems Corp. But within a year Sky Cable was dead, a victim of a recession-racked economy and jittery financial markets that would not finance the project.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board plans to begin special flight tests this summer to determine if wake vortices contributed to the crash of a USAir 737-300 near Pittsburgh last September.
William C. Craig has been appointed director of business development for Titan Linkabit, San Diego, Calif. He was head of the Satellite Communications Software Support Activity Div. at the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, also in San Diego.
