U.S. AIR FORCE HAS ORDERED the inspection of more than 400 General Electric F110-GE-100 engines in F-16s being flown by the service and other air forces. The inspection of the second-stage fan disc is to be completed by Mar. 9, following the finding of a crack in a disc at Andrews AFB. The engines to be inspected are those with 3,000-4,500 cycles.
The Defectomat EX Eddy-Current Testing Instrument can be used with a variety of test coil systems to provide highly accurate detection of surface defects in ferrous and nonferrous bar, wire and tubing, mass-produced parts with simple or complex geometries, and in-service structures and equipment. It can be installed directly in a production line for real-time surface quality testing. Data may be uploaded to a personal computer for analysis. Foerster Instruments, Inc., 140 Industry Drive, RIDC Park, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15275.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif., has named C. Bruce Tarter director. He had been acting director. Bob Barker, currently assistant to the director, has been named acting head of the laboratory's Defense Programs Dept.
The Forever Light is designed to have a shelf life of at least 25 years without ever checking the batteries. The flashlight is good for one-time use only and is activated by pouring almost any water-based solution into the unit's case, although it works best with salt water or urine. The light can be stored under extreme temperatures. It produces a highly focused beam for signaling, making repairs or reading. Its stay-put pedestal helps position and direct the light. Once activated, it has an operating life of 5 continuous hours or 12 hr. of intermittent use.
The Raychem Cable Designer allows customers to oversee design wire and cable on a Windows-based personal computer. Designers can do trade-off studies with more than 30 cables to determine the optimum size, weight and performance of a wiring harness. Users click on icons to design conventional spiral-bundled or parallel film-bonded cables. Help files offer design tips and product data in selecting component wire, cable, wraps, braids, shields, jackets, color schemes, fillers and film types. Raychem Corp., 300 Constitution Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94025-1164.
HONEYWELL AND PELORUS NAVIGATION SYSTEMS have agreed to team to develop and produce a new local-area system to transmit differential Global Positioning System signals to aircraft for precision landings. Honeywell will provide the GPS-related avionics and Pelorus will supply the ground station transmitter/receiver with its power supply and monitoring equipment. The team expects to certify its first production units for Category 1 landings in the third quarter.
The Series 10000 two, three, four and six-component balances are individually compensated for thermal effects and cross-coupling forces so that nonlinearities and interactions between orthogonal force components are typically less than 0.5%. They are precision assembled and calibrated on an individual basis. The balances are designed for aerospace, military and industrial clients. They are designed and manufactured by the Engineering Research and Development Foundation of the Technion Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
The U.S. Army's Fiscal 1996 $59.5-billion budget proposal contains a request for a final 60 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, but also makes official the cancellation of RAH-66 Comanche production.
SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES System said it will report a profit in 1994 for the first time in five years. The profit, estimated at 1.5 billion kronor ($201 million), compares with a pretax loss of 492 million kronor ($66 million) in 1993. The turnaround is the result of an austere cost-cutting program and improved airline performance, coupled with the sale of noncore assets to reduce debt.
IBM'S PARALLEL VISUAL EXPLORER (PVE) gives researchers a new software tool for graphically analyzing data. The software runs on AIX for the RS/6000 or PowerPC platforms and lets users view complex data with thousands of data points and hundreds of variables, looking at as many as 30 variables at a time. The technique uses parallel coordinates to get the benefits of more than three dimensions, without using animation or projections. IBM's Toronto plant used the process to improve circuit board fabrication, cutting test and inspection time by 25%.
CARNS HAS A RESUME FILLED to bursting--200-plus combat missions in Vietnam, director of the Joint Staff during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and his final post before retirement, Air Force vice chief of staff. Recounting this, President Clinton, a Yale alumnus, quipped, ``And somewhere along the line he even found time to get an MBA from Harvard--something for which I have already forgiven him.''
The Model 9362 digital oscilloscope can capture single shot events at a rate of 10 billion samples/sec. and has a 1.5-GHz. bandwidth on repetitive events in random interleaved sampling mode. In single shot data capture, it has a 750 MHz. bandwidth. The instrument can capture a single signal with 1,000 samples at 10 gigasamples/sec. with a 100-nanosec. time window, two signals with 500 samples at 5 gigasamples/sec. or look at long pulse trains on both channels with 25,000 point memory at 100 megasamples/sec.
Micro-Coax AlumiLine coaxial microwave transmission line with diameters of 0.86 and 0.141 in. has been added to the Defense Logistics Agency's Qualified Products List. A seamless aluminum outer conductor gives the cable flexibility without sacrificing low signal loss qualities of semi-rigid cable. The cable can be easily formed by hand into different shapes. The cable is tin plated for easy soldering. Micro-Coax, P.O. Box 993, Collegeville, Pa. 19426-0993.
The CPU-601 is a VMEbus card designed around the Power PC reduced instruction set computer chip. It offers performance of more than 60 integer specmarks when operating at 66 MHz. By incorporating both the 64-bit VMEbus interface standard and a VSB interface, the designer has additional flexibility for mixing processors and input/output devices. The two-bus architecture also helps to minimize bottlenecks.
The Air Force will recoat the leading edges of all operational B-2 bombers after finding that light rain eroded a special protective paint more than expected. The aircraft's leading edge coatings are designed to protect the sensitive surfaces from rain, but the paint was ``incorrectly applied,'' an investigation discovered. Air Force officials said all operational aircraft are affected, but no redesign is necessary. Painting processes at Northrop Grumman's Palmdale, Calif., plant are being revised to prevent future problems.
A STUDY COVERING six years of accidents involving U.S.-based, single-engine helicopters found 20% involved tail rotor mishaps. Of these, 68% could have been avoided with the McDonnell Douglas No-Tail Rotor (Notar) system, according to an independent study by Advanced Aviation Concepts of Palm Bay, Fla. If the whole U.S. civil helicopter fleet used Notar tailbooms, more than $20 million in costs related to injuries and hull damage could be avoided each year, the study concluded.
PEREGRINE FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL has concluded that horizontal stabilizer flutter caused the crash of its BD-10 test aircraft on Dec. 30, 1994. A joint-agency investigation determined that inflight breakup was triggered by flutter in the left horizontal stabilizer, causing the stabilizer to fail in a leading-edge-down position. An instantaneous pitch-up and left roll created more than 20g vertical accelerations, which led to catastrophic airframe failure. The aircraft was flying at 380 kt. on the third envelope-expansion flight of the day.
FlightSafety International and the U.S. Coast Guard's Aviation Training Center have added upset training modules to their light jet simulator training courses. The Coast Guard's program, for its Dassault HU-25 ``Guardian,'' began last month and is believed to be the first dedicated training of its kind for crews of passenger-carrying jet aircraft.
PBS Fast-Mapper can nondestructively map subsurface defects in unpatterned semiconductor wafers. The system measures scattering of light from a helium-neon laser beam to find defects up to 3 microns deep in silicon and 0.4 microns in gallium arsenide. The worst damage in this 75-mm. Ga-As wafer is shown in red with yellow and green areas having less severe damage. Normal regions would appear in blue. The system is controlled by proprietary Windows software. VTI, Inc., 4200 Colonel Glenn Highway, Suite 800, Dayton, Ohio 45431.
A bogus parts investigation that started at the Defense General Supply Center, Richmond, Va., has resulted in a stiff sentence and large fine for a California parts broker who specialized in landing gear sales. Two machine shop owners received lesser penalties, and a second California parts broker is awaiting sentencing. The charges are related to falsely documenting replacement parts for U.S. civil and military aircraft, according to the FBI.
Dalic electroplating activating solution eliminates the noxious emissions of chlorinated solutions. The preparatory solution, Code 1027, No. 1 activating, is used in the final activation step when preparing to plate on stainless steels, high-temperature nickel alloy and nickel. It also can be used for reactivation of nickel deposits. Sifco Selective Plating, 5708 Schaaf Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44131-1394.
USAfrica Airways has suspended flights and filed for bankruptcy after short-term financing failed to sustain operations. The airline was forced to file for protection under Chapter 11 Feb. 8 after temporary financing was withdrawn, Gregory S. Lewis, president and chief executive officer, said. Much of the short-term money used to finance the airline came from mutual funds that ``took a beating'' in 1994, he said.
Republicans are rejecting the Clinton Administration's six-year defense spending plan submitted to Congress with the Fiscal 1996 budget as inadequate, but are still groping to define a viable alternative that fits their party's overarching goal of deficit reduction.
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED for the U.S. Army's Optical Adjunct range asset, which provides real-time pointing and tracking information when multiple submunitions are deployed, is being adapted to help fight rush-hour traffic jams. In 14 months, a prototype Traffic Flow Visualization and Control (TFVC) system will be phased in on roads near New York's Long Island Expressway under a $3.5-million contract.
