FOGLEMAN HAS JUST APPROVED the requirements document for a non-developmental airlift aircraft, an off-the-shelf commercial transport to supplement the Air Force's C-17 fleet. Numbers were not addressed, but 30 is a reasonable estimate.
AIR INDIA HAS CONVERTED options for two Boeing 747-400 transports in a deal worth $350 million including spares and training. The transports will join Air India's long-haul fleet of four 747-400s and 11 earlier model 747-200s and 747-300s. The carrier has three more 747-400s on option.
Sky Warriors is attempting to expand its flight operations to include lead-in fighter training for smaller air forces, unusual attitude training for the airlines and formation flying for pilots. Sky Warriors, based here at Fulton County Airport, plans to use its operational and pilot expertise in providing air combat maneuvering training to increase its roles and missions over the next few years.
Sundstrand Corp., Rockford, Ill., has named Berger G. Wallin executive vice president-special projects and member of its board of directors. He was executive vice president/chief operating officer of Sundstrand's industrial business segment. Wallin is succeeded by Patrick L. Thomas, who was president of Milton Roy Co., a wholly owned Sundstrand subsidiary.
The flight crews of two Sikorsky MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters operated by the New York Air National Guard's 106th Rescue Group, based at Westhampton Beach, for the daring Dec. 10 rescue of a Ukrainian sailor from a sunken freighter 740 mi. off Nova Scotia. During the 14.5-hr. mission (4 hr. longer than the previous record for MH-60Gs), each helicopter had to undergo 10 aerial refuelings from a Lockheed C-130P in 60-mph. winds and driving snow, including two after dark with night-vision equipment.
Alexander W. Riedy, arms control analyst, National Security Program Office, Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Oak Ridge, Tenn. On Nov. 21, 1994, two U.S. Air Force C-5s landed at Dover AFB, Del., marking the successful conclusion of a landmark event in post-Cold War counter-proliferation efforts.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif., has appointed Jeff Kass leader of the Surplus Fissile Material Control and Disposition Program.
After months of negotiations, NASA and Boeing have signed a $5.63-billion space station contract--one of the largest and most novel pacts in the history of the U.S. space agency. The agreement, which brings U.S. station development costs down from the $6.2-billion cap Boeing and NASA had announced last August, includes an involved set of incentives and penalties.
Patrick J. Healy, Project Orbis operations director who led the refurbishment team for Orbis International's DC-10-10ER flying eye hospital. They have created a fully capable hospital in which doctors can perform delicate eye surgery and teach in remote locations. Healy led a team that included assists from Runge Industries, Schwartz Engineering and Avionics Engineering.
Raytheon Co., Lexington, Mass., has named Frank Kendall (see photo) vice president-engineering. He was vice president/ deputy manager of the National Security Strategies and Systems Group at the Science Applications International Corp.
WILCOX WILL SUPPLY VOR/DME systems at seven sites in Colombia, and a CAT 2, Mark 10 ILS/DME at El Dorado Airport in Bogota. The turnkey ICAO contracts are worth more than $3.5 million.
Spacecraft health monitoring may be made easier, and the number of mission controllers reduced, by a new graphic tool that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory plans to start testing during the next month. The Cyberspace Data Monitoring System presents a 3-D view of how telemetered spacecraft parameters are moving beyond normal ranges. JPL currently uses software to detect such out-of-range parameters, but the results are listed in a table of numbers with little high-level visibility, according to Robert Angelino, the lead software engineer for the project.
HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO. has received authorization from Binariang Sdn. Bhd. of Kuala Lumpur to begin building the second Malaysia East Asia Satellite (Measat-2). The HS-376 spacecraft, to be built in El Segundo, Calif., will provide multiple direct-to-user commercial communications services in South Asia.
Richard DeMary, USAir Flight Attendant Richard DeMary, a USAir flight attendant, probably never expected to be recognized for heroism. However, when the DC-9 he was flying on crashed last year, he began rescuing people without regard to his own personal safety.
SEP, THE FRENCH rocket propulsion company, is checking to make sure its new Vulcain oxygen/hydrogen first-stage engine for the Ariane 5 is not susceptible to the same contamination problems a review board believes caused the malfunction of an Ariane 4 SEP third-stage engine in December. Vulcain contamination control and filter systems are being reviewed. SEP is prime contractor for the Vulcain and its associated test activities, such as the Vulcain ``battleship'' engine/cryogenic stage test facility at Kourou, French Guiana.
Charles H. Kaman, chairman and CEO of Kaman Corp., and the entire K-Max development team Always open to opportunities, Charles Kaman found in 1990 that there was a growing need in the helicopter services industry for a purpose-built utility aircraft, in essence an ``aerial truck.'' With no funding from the military--purely as a private venture--Kaman convinced his board to launch development of the K-Max helicopter.
First of four Atlas Air 747-200 Combis is retrofitted to full freighter configuration at Boeing's Wichita, Kan., modification center. Work will involve the removal of seat tracks and replacement of floor beams and panels. A powered cargo-handling system also will be installed. Delivery to Denver-headquartered Atlas Air will be in April.
Col. Pedro L. Rustan, Jr., BMDO Clementine program manager, and Paul Regeon, NRL Clementine program manager In 1972, anyone watching the crew of Apollo 17 splash down would have found it hard to take seriously a prophecy that more than two decades would pass before the U.S. would fly another spacecraft to the Moon. Harder still to believe would have been that that spacecraft would be a small, 1,000-lb. probe, built and flown on the cheap, and that a Pentagon missile defense program would pick up the tab.
U.S. satellite manufacturers have used their technical prowess to dominate commercial markets worldwide, with one very notable exception. They have yet to win a single new satellite contract from China, due in large part to political and trade frictions between the U.S. and Beijing. But they are not quitting.
American Superconductor Corp., Westborough, Mass., has appointed Ramesh L. Ratan executive vice president-corporate development/chief financial officer. He was senior vice president-administration/chief financial officer/corporate secretary at Repligen Corp.
NEW CARRIER AIR BELFAST will begin service with five round-trip flights weekdays between Belfast International Airport and London Stansted on Mar. 1, initially using British Aerospace BAC 1-11 aircraft. The carrier was created by the Air Bristol Group to take advantage of the peace initiative in Northern Ireland. Air Belfast plans to offer only two fares: a 69-pound ($107.64) one-way fare and a 70-pound ($109.20) fixed round-trip fare. The carrier, which will operate 104-seat aircraft in a single class layout with 32-in.
Executive Jet Aviation, Inc.'s agreement to purchase up to 20 Gulfstream Aerospace 4-SPs reflects greater-than-expected demand for international service among its NetJets fractional ownership program customers and opens the way for the company to enter European and Latin American markets.
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES CLAIMS the world speed record for supercomputing, using two of the largest Intel Paragon supercomputers linked together. The system achieved a performance of 281gigaflops on the Linpack benchmark. Linking the two computers produced a system with 2,256 compute nodes, each with three processors, or a total of 6,768 parallel processors. The new record did not use Intel's new Turbo software. The previous record of 170.4 gigaflops was set by the Japanese Fujitsu numerical wind tunnel computer last summer, according to Sandia.
