Following the lead of airframe companies, the Advanced Research Projects Agency will explore how missile manufacturers can cut costs by building a variety of weapons on a single assembly line. ARPA will spend $130 million on the Affordable Multi-Missile Manufacturing Program (AM3), with an initial $32 million going to four aerospace industry teams headed by Loral Vought Systems, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Texas Instruments.
The International Civil Aviation Organization has moved to rescind its mandate that all international airports be outfitted with Microwave Landing Systems (MLS) by Jan. 1, 1998, to replace current instrument landing systems. The new flexible policy, widely endorsed here at ICAO's Special Communications/Operations Divisional Meeting, recognizes the prospect of shifting to use of global navigation satellite systems, such as the U.S. Navstar Global Positioning System and Russia's Glonass, as soon as the year 2000 for Category 1 service.
Gerald W. Tobey (see photo) has been named managing director of Texas Instruments, Ltd. U.K. He remains director of defense systems and Electronics Group international business development.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third 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 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 aircraft impacted the ground, killing the test crew of three and four observers. Other sections of the report will be published in coming weeks.
Following are excerpts from a report of the U.S.-Japan Study Group on creation of an East Asia security forum (AW&ST Feb. 28, 1994, p. 24). The report was cosponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and International House of Japan. It focused on preempting tensions between Japan and China, and Japan and Russia.
The Air Force's only B-2 bomber wing is about nine months ahead of its schedule to become fully operational, spurred by a growing fleet of reliable aircraft and hand-picked, highly motivated personnel.
Thomas J. Maxwell has been named director of marketing at GDE Systems, Inc., San Diego, Calif. He was mid-Atlantic regional director of business development for Tracor Aerospace, Inc.
Thomas H. Jacobsen has been elected to the board of directors of Trans World Airlines. He succeeds Donald F. Craib, Jr. Jacobsen is chairman/chief executive officer of Mercantile Bancorporations, Inc.
On Mar. 22, AVIATION WEEK&SPACE TECHNOLOGY Managing Editor David M. North became the 61st person to fly the USAF/Northrop Grumman B-2. Of all who have flown the bomber since its maiden flight on July 17, 1989, North was the first who was not a Northrop or U.S. Air Force pilot, or a Defense Dept. official. U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, Air Force Secretary Sheila E. Widnall and Under Secretary of Defense Paul Kaminski had recent flights in the B-2 at Whiteman AFB.
WESTINGHOUSE HAS received a $5-million contract from the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program office to demonstrate precision targeting techniques for time-critical, mobile targets. The company will employ both the simultaneous moving target indicator and synthetic aperture radar mapping modes on the Westinghouse Norden AN/APG-76 radar on a testbed aircraft. Northrop Grumman has been awarded a separate $3.5-million contract to develop and demonstrate a target detection and weapons delivery system.
DELTA AIR LINES IS SAVING A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT of money--and solving an inventory problem--by leasing its aircraft tires instead of buying them. Under its cost-saving ``Leadership 7.5'' program, the airline has begun to lease the tires, which it recaps about 10 times and then returns to Air Treads, Inc., and Michelin Aircraft Tire Corp. for recycling. Previously, the airline had trouble disposing of tire carcasses. The tires are recapped every 28 days to four months, depending on aircraft type and usage.
RIPPLES OF PROMOTIONS are moving through senior leadership at the Pentagon. The White House has nominated Gen. Dennis J. Reimer as the new Army chief of staff to replace Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan. Reimer was deputy chief of staff for operations during Desert Storm. Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Ralston was named to head the Air Force's Air Combat Command, as the successor to Gen. Mike Loh. Maj. Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart has been nominated for a third star and promotion to replace Ralston as deputy chief of staff for plans and operations. Lt. Gen. James A.
Arnold Levine has been named vice president-finance/chief financial officer of General Microwave Corp., Amityville, N.Y. He was vice president/CFO at EMS Development Corp.
A bitter legal battle has erupted between the world's largest aerospace corporation and the world's biggest telecommunications company over the failure of a state-of-the-art satellite minutes after it was placed in orbit last fall.
Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. has started final assembly of the first C-130J transport at its Marietta, Ga., plant. The aircraft is a stretched C-130J-30 for the Royal Air Force. The plug that is part of the 30-ft. stretch is in the middle. The C-130J has more powerful propulsion than previous models and new avionics and structural materials. First flight is set this year; deliveries are to start in 1996.
Michael G. Stolarik has been appointed president/chief executive officer of Space Applications Corp., Santa Ana, Calif. He was corporate vice president-communications and information systems at BDM International.
NEW SOFTWARE FROM THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE of Standards and Technology (NIST) significantly improves the accuracy of mathematical models of low-temperature air properties and related gas mixtures. The software, called Airprops 5.0, originally was developed for the National Aero-Space Plane project, but has other aerospace applications including computational fluid dynamics modeling. Airprops 5.0 covers a wide temperature range and is available for either mainframe or desktop computers from NIST's Boulder, Colo.,-based Thermodynamics Div.
The Romanian team investigating the probable cause of the Mar. 31 crash of a Tarom A310 transport is focusing on the combination of an engine autothrottle system failure that generated asymmetrical power settings and on the pilots' apparent failure to react quickly to the developing emergency. The A310-300 twinjet crashed about 3 min. after takeoff from Bucharest Otopeni airport (AW&ST Apr. 10, p. 30).
AMERICAN AIRLINES HAS AGREED to sell at least 12 of its MD-11s to FedEx and take over heavy maintenance of that express-delivery cargo airline's fleet of 158 727s. The pact will remove a troublesome aircraft from American's fleet and save one of its major lines at its Tulsa, Okla., maintenance base from extinction. The move also would bolster a fleet of 19 of the McDonnell Douglas aircraft that is a key tool in FedEx's drive to expand its share of the package delivery market in Asia.
John F. Gulick has been promoted to corporate director of federal public relations of Computer Science Corp., Falls Church, Va. He worked in public relations for Comsat and Fairchild Republic Co.
Gerard A. Lasecki has been named sales manager of the Security Products Div. of Access Control Hardware, Dearborn, Mich. He was vice president of DC Cable, Inc., Hartland, Mich.
Gary Trimm has been named senior vice president of CLI, San Jose, Calif., and president of the company's broadcast group. He was president of the North American Div. of Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
