Japan's new support fighter, which was once mired in bitter controversy as a ``give-away'' of U.S. technology, is now praised as a model of international cooperation. But a question mark hangs over the program: how many of the F-16C derivatives will Japan produce, given its shrinking defense budgets and the lowered threat its leaders perceive in a post-Cold War Asia?
Aerospatiale's recovery plan will suffer because of icing problems with the ATR regional transports and Airbus Industrie's eroded backlog. U.S. limitations on flying the ATR 42/72 regional aircraft in icing conditions and unfavorable publicity about an October ATR 72 crash have hurt sales, according to top Aerospatiale officials. The costs of installing modified deicers on the aircraft also will affect both consortium partners' financial results. Aerospatiale and Italy's Alenia are equal partners in Avions de Transport Regional.
Hughes Europe, based in Brussels, has appointed Louis H. Kurkjian chairman. He was vice president of Hughes Aircraft Co. Allan E. Cook, previously managing director of Hughes Microelectronics Europa, Ltd., has been named managing director of Hughes Europe. Robert E. Apple, who was director of Hughes business in Spain, has been promoted to vice president-southern Europe and Africa.
A REAL-TIME, ON-LINE and inexpensive technique to analyze industrial processes has been developed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines' Salt Lake City Research Center. The simple, laptop computer-driven system could help improve manufacturing efficiency, reduce costs and allow integration of ``neural network'' and other advanced control methods where homogeneous, color-specific material streams are present. The video photometer functions using a video camera with true red-green-blue sensing that digitizes ``peak'' colors with a resolution potential exceeding 23 billion hues.
McDonnell Douglas has narrowed its concepts for a replacement to the F-16, AV-8B and F/A-18 to a two-family, five-configuration range of designs. The company's effort is thought to be representative of the broad directions the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program is taking. McDonnell Douglas is teamed with Northrop Grumman and British Aerospace to produce an overall weapon systems concept.
All composite airframe for the Grob Strato-2C long-endurance aircraft nears completion at the company's plant near Munich. The 185-ft.-wingspan aircraft was funded by the German Ministry of Research and Technology. It will offer its four-man crew a shirt-sleeve environment for extended observations, for example, to help predict the effects of high-speed transport aircraft on the upper atmosphere or to better understand polar and tropical weather processes.
DESPITE LAST WEEK'S EARTHQUAKE, business was picking up at Japan's first 24-hour international airport, at Kansai, which serves the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto region in the country's mid-section. The airport received a lukewarm reception from international carriers when it opened last September because of high landing fees. But by December, it was handling 388 international flights a week, twice as many as Osaka's Itami Airport when it accommodated overseas passengers.
Continental Airlines and America West will expand their joint marketing activities as each carrier endeavors to bolster their performance and competitive positions. Next month, the airlines will increase by 30 the number of airports served by joint flights conducted under a code-sharing agreement the pair launched on Oct. 1. The additions will bring to 92 the number of nonstop markets served by code-sharing flights. The carriers also will consolidate ground-handling and customer- service functions at airports in the code-sharing markets.
Airbus Industrie has set a goal of securing a 50% share of the world's market for large commercial transport aircraft. The consortium also will develop within the next three years derivatives to expand its current seven-aircraft product line. And this year it likely will form a military subsidiary to manage the European Future Large Aircraft, which is now in the feasibility phase.
Ecuador is expected to move ahead next month with the sale of its grounded flag carrier, Ecuatoriana de Aviacion. The South American nation plans to sell a 25% share of the airline on domestic stock markets by Mar. 1. Government and airline officials also are completing plans for a U.S. consortium to sell a 50.1% share to a strategic operating partner, according to individuals involved in the effort.
SENATE ARMED SERVICES Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.) called for freezing the Defense budget at the Fiscal 1995 level with adjustments for inflation. In a letter to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R.-N.M.), Thurmond and the 10 other Republicans on the panel proposed setting budget authority for Fiscal 1996 military spending at $270 billion and outlays at $273 billion. Those figures represent $13 billion and $10 billion more, respectively, than the Clinton Administration has planned for.
FUTURE METHODS TO MONITOR pilot, air traffic controller and military radar operator performance could include real-time measuring of brain electrical activity and eye ``blink rate.'' Computer analysis of such data would help managers determine when a safety-critical employee was fatigued, overly busy, emotionally upset or physically impaired.
McDonnell Douglas officials and a U.S. Air Force team are reviewing hundreds of proposals aimed at reducing the overall cost of the service's C-17 program. Don Kozlowski, McDonnell Douglas senior vice president and C-17 program manager, said affordability remains one of the last big hurdles for the transport program, which achieved initial operational capability (IOC) last week.
Walter A. Poggi, president of Retlif Testing Laboratories, Ronkonkoma, N.Y., has won the Roger W. Truesdail Award for Outstanding Service from the American Council of Independent Test Laboratories.
MICRON TECHNOLOGIES AND a number of suppliers of memory chips will offer an improvement to 16-megabit Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips to give a lower cost alternative to other high speed memories. The new memories, called Burst extended data-out (EDO) DRAMS, improve the already enhanced standard EDO, which increased clock rates from 25 MHz. to 50 MHz. Burst EDO offers an increase to 66 MHz., without the need for new bus architecture, packages or dedicated test and production equipment needed for the even higher speed and more expensive synchronous DRAMS.
TO NO ONE'S SURPRISE ON CAPITOL HILL, Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) has been tapped as Top Gun of the influential Senate aviation subcommittee. As chairman, McCain is likely to have it out with the minority Democrats on a series of vexing issues. Three of them are taking the aviation trust fund off budget, privatizing the nation's air traffic control system and severing the Federal Aviation Administration from the Transportation Dept. McCain is known for his pro-aviation and hawkish defense views.
Manfred Fuchs, managing director/owner of OHB System Gmbh., Bremen, Germany, has been named honorary professor of mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bremen.
Gerard Garnier and his team of 70 ONERA French aeronautics agency engineers and technicians, who have developed new radar concepts and signal processing technology despite a tight budget. Their work in 1994 included new wavelength capabilities for aircraft and space-based surveillance and guidance, new countermeasure and ``counter-counter measure'' technology, and efforts on specific programs such as the RIAS Synthetic Impulse and Aperture Radar.
Transport Ministry officials are hoping 1995 will bring a breakthrough in their long-standing complaint that U.S. carriers abuse their fifth-freedom rights, but the U.S. says the Japanese are out of step with market forces. As a result, the long-standing disagreement is unlikely to be settled soon, officials from both countries agreed.
A software innovation by Intel Corporation's Scalable Systems Div. increases the speed at which its Paragon supercomputers can solve large systems of equations by more than an order of magnitude, which will be a significant help for aerospace designers.
Rose E. Gottemoeller, White House National Security Council director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs, and chairwoman of the interagency working group on security issues for those countries. She led the design and negotiation of the 1994 Trilateral Accord among the U.S., Ukraine and Russia, a breakthrough in nuclear nonproliferation. The accord mandates the removal of 1,800 warheads from Ukraine under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start-1).
McDonnell Douglas has completed assembly of the forward fuselage structure of the U.S. Navy's first F/A-18E/F strike fighter. It is to be mated with the center/aft fuselage being built by principal subcontractor Northrop Grumman in May after the electrical wiring and hydraulic tubing are installed. First flight is scheduled for December. The aircraft is 1,000 lb. under its contractual weight specification, according to the company.
The flight, ground and science crews of space shuttle Missions 59 and 68, who together proved the utility of a spaceborne, civil multi-frequency, multi-polarization radar as a unique and powerful tool for monitoring geological, hydrological and environmental changes on Earth.
ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL and Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG, formerly DASA, have established a joint venture company to pursue future development and marketing of satellite-based flight guidance systems and advanced avionics products. The new company also will pursue business opportunities in the the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe. Product development and manufacturing will remain with the two parent companies in the U.S. and Germany. Each company will own 50% of the new enterprise, which will be based in Ulm, Germany.
