ERICSSON MICROWAVE SYSTEMS AB IS THE NEW NAME for Ericsson Radar Electronics. The name is being changed to reflect the company's work in both telecommunications and defense electronics, following takeover of the Defense Communications Div. The company has one site at Molndal, near Stockholm, and at Kista and Boras.
BAGGAGE-HANDLING PROBLEMS at the new Denver International Airport have led to a scramble for gates in concourses close to the terminal. Under original contracts with the city, Continental Airlines secured the closest, Concourse A, United claimed B, and the remaining carriers agreed to share C. The automated system that was to whisk passenger baggage to waiting aircraft in a few minutes, however, will not be available to all three concourses when DIA opens later this month.
Rosemount Aerospace, Burnsville, Minn., has appointed Zhixiang Wei head of its representative office in Beijing. He was a senior engineer with the China Aero-Information Center.
The United Kingdom envisions wider cooperation among European nations in the field of defense but will never agree to transfer responsibility for the ``defense of its citizens'' to the European Union or any other European political entity, British Defense Secretary Malcolm Rifkind said last week.
GREATER-THAN-EXPECTED DAMAGE FROM THE KOBE EARTHQUAKE has prompted Japan's Ministry of Transport to name a team of 12 seismologists and other specialists to reexamine airport structures. All Japanese airports have been designed and built to a national standard covering general buildings, bridges, highways and harbors. Although the new Kansai airport in Osaka Bay and the old Itami Airport in Osaka suffered only minor quake damage, the ministry wants a thorough examination.
JAPANESE INDUSTRIAL CREDIT programs have been helpful to targeted industries but probably would not work well in the U.S. and Europe, according to a World Bank study. Researchers found the deliberative, consultative and broad-based Japanese fund-allocating process promoted research and development while efficiently consolidating target industries.
The design of composite parts for commercial aircraft is shifting from a focus on reducing weight for maximum performance to a more balanced approach in which durability and repairability have a higher priority. This shift comes in the wake of complaints about delaminated advanced composite parts due to moisture ingression, as well as problems airlines are having with composite repairs.
LOCKHEED CORP. HAS PLEADED guilty to a single count of conspiracy to violate the bribery provisions of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as part of a plea agreement and will pay a fine of $24.8 million. Lockheed and two of the company's former executives were indicted last June by a federal grand jury in Atlanta for allegedly paying $1 million to a member of the Egyptian parliament to help secure a $79-million contract for Egypt's purchase of three C-130 transports in 1989. The aircraft subsequently were delivered.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. Office of Commercial Space Transportation has named Patti Smith associate managing director. She sat on the executive committee of the Federal Communications Commission Auctions Implementation Team.
VLSI HAS DEVELOPED WHAT IT BELIEVES to be the first commercially available Tape Ball Grid Array (TBGA) packages for high-performance silicon chips with up to 672 pins. The TBGA packages can provide twice as many connections for a given area of printed circuit board as quad flat-pack packages, and at a lower cost than plastic pin grid array packages, according to the company. VLSI worked with IBM, which has used similar technology with ceramic grid arrays for its own products, to develop the TBGA technology for commercial production.
A.J. Goldman, director of international aviation of the U.K. Transport Dept., has become president of the European Air Traffic Control Harmonization and Integration Program. He succeeds V.K.H. Eggers, director-general of civil aviation in Denmark, who has become president of the European Civil Aviation Conference.
Messier-Bugatti has named Jean-Christophe Corde head of its Brakes Div. AAR Corp., Elk Grove Village, Ill., has named Lee Haines public relations and advertising manager. He was public relations manager at AlliedSignal Commercial Avionics Systems.
The nine agencies that fund Japan's space program will receive a $2.29-billion budget for the fiscal year that begins Apr. 1, 5.1% more than current appropriations but not enough to cover rising costs, some managers complain. Of the total, the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) is to receive $1.77 billion, including funding that assumes Japan's Hope minishuttle demonstrator will fly on an H-2 booster in 1999.
This is the second installment in a two-part report on pilot-computer interface problems in automated aircraft. The first part appeared Jan. 30. This report was prepared by a team of editors including David Hughes in Boston, Michael A. Dornheim in Los Angeles, Managing Editor David M. North, Edward H. Phillips and Bruce D. Nordwall in Washington, Pierre Sparaco in Paris and William B. Scott in Colorado Springs. Six of the editors are pilots and one is a former flight test engineer.
Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., of Ft. Worth has appointed George Metzger (see photo) vice president-human resources. He succeeds P.D. Shabay, who has been promoted to senior vice president-operations.
IF TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY Federico Pena has his way, the FAA will become one of only three federal agencies within his department, after consolidating seven others. The FAA would keep responsibility for aviation safety, regulation and certification, but shed air traffic control, which would become an independent agency. The triad's other two legs would comprise the Coast Guard and a new Intermodal Transportation Administration (ITA). The Guard would have authority over maritime navigation and safety, the ITA over highways and rail.
THE U.S. TRANSPORTATION Dept. has finally approved a marketing agreement between Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic which will allow Delta to offer its U.S.-originating passengers access to popular London Heathrow. Under the code-sharing, blocked-space agreement, Delta will purchase seats on Virgin flights from seven U.S. airports to Heathrow and price, market and sell the tickets independently.
Macgregor S. Reid, technical executive assistant to the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has been elected a member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. and Honeywell began providing a vertical profile view on G4 cockpit displays in the late 1980s, while large transport manufacturers decided against using similar presentations.
Commercial pilots and airline management are focusing on training as the key element in equipping flight crews to fly the newer, highly automated transports more efficiently and safely. Although a higher level of training is seen as the means of better acquainting cockpit crews with the level of automation being introduced in the newer Airbus Industrie, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and other transports, improvements in displays is being pushed by airline pilots to improve the situational awareness of flight crews.
Delta Air Lines is reorganizing its hubs, refocusing operations on long-haul, high-yield flights and shifting short-haul service to its regional partners in an attempt to improve its performance by at least $40 million a year. With the summer schedule that goes into effect May 1, the Atlanta-based carrier will cut the number of daily domestic flights to 2,650 from 2,715. The changes will result in the repositioning of the equivalent of nearly 8% of its 517-aircraft fleet.
