With new stealth aircraft development largely on hold for the next decade, Pentagon war planners are turning more and more to a new generation of precision standoff weapons with unjammable sensors to strike heavily protected targets.
Engine manufacturers Pratt&Whitney, Rolls-Royce and General Electric have made significant strides in readying their respective powerplants for service on the Boeing 777 transport.
Lower experience among military pilots and the requirement to fly more complicated missions have led to significant differences in cockpit design philosophies between military and civil aircraft in the U.S., even among transport types.
Cessna Aircraft Co., Wichita, Kan., has named David G. Assard and Gary W. Hay executive vice presidents. Assard was president of Textron Lycoming's turbine engine operations. Hay was Cessna's senior vice president-marketing and product support.
Amaret Sila-on (see photo) has been named chairman of Thai Airways International. He also is chairman of Thailand's International Trade Information Co.
THE FULL CONSTELLATION of 24 Russian Glonass navigation satellites should be in operation by the end of the year, according to a satellite navigation expert. Currently there are 15 active Glonass satellites, with one being maneuvered into position and scheduled to become active this month. A launch is expected each quarter of 1995, with three Glonass satellites per launch.
Any uncertainty about the Long March booster after last month's Apstar-2 loss did not prevent government negotiators from initialing a new space launch agreement that could expand the commercial Long March business for U.S. users. Under an agreement reached Jan. 30, China may conduct up to 11 launches of geosynchronous satellites for international customers through Dec. 31, 2001. The old agreement, which expired last year, was for nine launches over the previous six years.
Selection of a contractor to build the U.S. Air Force and Navy's long-delayed, new primary training aircraft has been slipped another six months, and the entire program stretched an additional eight years to cut short-term expenses. A primary goal of the program's reorganization, Pentagon officials believe, is to buy the Air Force short-term savings. One official said Fiscal 1996 funding for the program is being reduced.
HARRIS RF COMMUNICATIONS AND GTE ARE TEAMING to develop information security technologies that will permit the U.S. government to transmit classified documents, voice conversations and video teleconferences over the National Information Infrastructure. The effort, called Fastlane, will be performed under a multimillion-dollar Defense Dept. contract. Harris will be responsible for developing and manufacturing the Key Management module, which will establish secure links between asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) devices around the world.
DUAL BILLS TO EXEMPT domestic airlines from paying the 4.3 cent/gal. aviation fuel tax were introduced last week in the Senate and the House. Sens. Slade Gorton (R.-Wash.) and Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) cosponsored the Senate bill. Boeing Commercial Airplane Group is one of the largest employers in Washington state. The House version was introduced by Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R.-Wash.). Airlines, which must begin paying the tax in October when a two-year exemption expires, estimate it will cost them at least $527 million annually.
CHINA EXPECTS TO STRENGTHEN its aerospace ties with Japan by qualifying for $100 million in annual loans through the end of the decade to buy Japanese aviation products. Since the mid-1980s, China has bought about $700 million in Japanese software, equipment and parts and Japan previously has loaned China about $24 million for aviation-related work. China also will seek export credits from the U.S.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON has approved naming two new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers after two of his predecessors. CVN-75, now under construction at Newport News, Va., and scheduled to be commissioned in 1998, will be named after Harry S. Truman. CVN-76, to begin construction later this year at Newport News with a 2002 commissioning date, will bear the name USS Ronald Reagan. The Truman, estimated to cost $3.2 billion, will replace the Independence, while the $4.5-billion Reagan will replace the Kitty Hawk.
FOGLEMAN ALSO UNVEILED AN INITIATIVE to improve the Air Force's relationship with industry. It is three-pronged: eliminating milspecs in favor of proven commercial standards, moving to a paperless procurement process and reducing oversight. Fogleman wants to reduce the number of government ``visitors'' to industry facilities who are piled on top of inspectors already in place. One company said it had 12,000 such visitors at one of its plants in a single year. ``I want you to snitch on these guys,'' he told his contractor audience.
Ground controllers are deploying the solar arrays and antennas of the U.S. Navy's fourth UHF Follow-On satellite following the spacecraft's Jan. 29 launch on an Atlas 2. Over the next two months, engineers will check out the health of the $188-million Hughes Space and Communications Co. spacecraft. Navy controllers at Pt. Mugu, Calif., will verify the performance of the satellite's UHF communications systems, while controllers in San Diego will check out the spacecraft's extremely high frequency (EHF) communications package.
Ronson Corp., Somerset, N.J., has named Erle Martin, 3rd, vice president/general manager of its Ronson Aviation subsidiary. He was vice president/ general manager of McIntyre Aviation.
NASA has appointed Larry DeLucas acting senior scientist for the space station. He was director of macromolecular crystallography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a space shuttle payload specialist.
French navy Vice Adm. Joel Bodard (retired) has been appointed chairman of Navfco, a subsidiary of the Defense Con- seil International Group. He was navy inspector of nuclear armaments.
THREE ``BIG LEO'' mobile satellite systems have been granted licenses by the FCC. Motorola's Iridium, TRW's Odyssey and Loral/Qualcomm's Globalstar low-Earth orbiting systems won the first approvals to operate in the frequencies allocated by the World Administrative Radio Conference in 1992 for high-data-rate applications, such as voice, paging, messaging and data relay. Two other companies did not win operating licenses when the FCC met Jan.
By late next year, FlightSafety International of New York expects to have a $30-million flight academy operating in Kunming, China, to train pilots for Boeing 737, 757 and 767 operations. The company signed a joint venture agreement Jan. 26 with the Yunnan Tobacco Group to establish the Kunming FlightSafety Aviation Training Co., Ltd., in Kunming, 1,200 mi. west of Shanghai.
United Airlines has revised its pilot training philosophy to a consistent, mission-oriented approach that tends to be more compatible with highly automated aircraft. However, it de-emphasizes the need for in-depth knowledge of basic aircraft systems operation. The switch can be attributed primarily to an industry-wide move towards Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) pilot training, which integrates crew resource management and measures pilot performance throughout the learning cycle (AW&ST Jan. 16, p. 27).
LOOK FOR RESULTS OF TESTING NOW UNDERWAY on a new class of polybenzoxazines, which may make aircraft cabin side panels, roofs, overhead bins and cabin dividers more fire-resistant. The material, which has a char-yield of up to 85%, also can reduce manufacturing costs and hazardous chemical use and has a potentially lower production defect rate than that for currently used phenolic laminates. Basic research was performed by Prof. Hatsuo Ishida of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
The Joint Advanced Strike Technology program is converging on a family of next-generation aircraft based on a single-seat, single-engine aircraft design with varying degrees of stealth and a relatively small internal weapons bay. Maj. Gen. George Muellner, head of the JAST program, said while the emphasis will be on a single-seat aircraft, a twin-seat option will be preserved. ``We will, from the very beginning, design the mold line to have growth to a two-seat configuration'' for a trainer and any future special-mission aircraft.
TELEDYNE HAS AGREED to pay fines totaling $13 million in connection with two federal indictments charging the company made illegal sales of zirconium that ultimately ended up in Iraq for use in cluster bombs and military warheads. Justice Dept. officials in Miami said Teledyne has entered a guilty plea to charges that the company illegally exported the zirconium for use by Iraq during its war with Iran in the 1980s.
After more than a decade of missteps, congressional criticism and program restructuring, a $1.7-billion upgrade to NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain missile warning, space control and air defense complex is approximately 88% complete.
