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Este documento fornece uma cronologia da computação na Universidade de Columbia, o melhor que posso juntar, escrito principalmente em janeiro-fevereiro de 2001, atualizado periodicamente desde então (hora da última atualização listada acima). Não aspira a ser uma história geral ou um museu de informática, mas, de certa forma, não está longe de ser um. As correções, informações adicionais e mais fotos são sempre bem-vindas. Se você veio aqui procurando o histórico do protocolo Kermit, o software Kermit ou o Projeto Kermit, você pode encontrar alguns deles abaixo no período de 1980-82, e um pouco mais AQUI. Além de algumas transcrições de história oral de 2012 no Museu de História do Computador AQUI e AQUI Quem sou eu e por que eu escrevi este povo apareceu no meu escritório o tempo todo para perguntar quando isso aconteceu com o primeiro e-mail, o primeiro Composição, a primeira rede, o primeiro laboratório de PC, o primeiro hacker quebrou, etc. - desde que eu estava lá pela maior parte. Então tomei algum tempo e escrevi, e, assim, fiquei fascinado com a história anterior. Eu era um usuário do Columbia Computer Center de 1967 até 1977 em meus vários trabalhos e como um estudante da Columbia, e eu estava na equipe de 1974 até 2011. Breve biografia: depois de alguma experiência de programação precoce no Exército (meados da década de 1960) A Faculdade de Engenharia e Departamento de Física (final dos anos 1960, início dos anos 70) e Mount Sinai Hospital (início dos anos 70), vim trabalhar no Computer Center Systems Group em 1974, contratado pelo gerente Howard Eskin fora de suas aulas de informática. Após um ano de programação do OS360, eu era gerente do PDP-1150 e do DEC-20 (primeiro e-mail, rede inicial, o primeiro timesharing acadêmico no campus), então gerente de Integração de Sistemas (primeiros microcomputadores, PCs, Kermit) Investigador principal do projeto de pesquisa de computação distribuída de Hermit, então gerente de Planejamento de Rede para a Universidade e presidente do Grupo de Planejamento de Rede da Universidade, antes de se retirar para o Projeto Kermit. Que teve menos (bem, zero) reuniões e muito mais divertido. Fui demitido da Columbia em 2011, mas ainda tenho acesso a este site. (Nota: o site do Projeto Columbia Kermit foi cancelado e seu site congelado em 1º de julho de 2011, o novo site do Projeto Open Source Kermit está AQUI.) Resumo da Capsule A computação automática na Columbia University teve um início sério na década de 1920 na instalação Das grandes máquinas de contabilidade e cálculo da IBM nos departamentos de Estatística e Astronomia e uma estreita relação que se desenvolveu com a IBM que duraria 50 anos. A Columbia logo desenvolveu uma reputação mundial de inovação em computação científica. À medida que a Segunda Guerra Mundial se aproximava, o professor de astronomia do Columbia, Wallace Eckert, foi recrutado pelo Observatório Naval dos EUA para aplicar as técnicas que desenvolveu em Columbia para a produção dos almanaques que guiaram a navegação aérea e marítima durante toda a guerra. No final da guerra, Eckert voltou à Colômbia como fundador e diretor do IBM Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory na 116th Street, a primeira instalação de pesquisa pura da IBM, que também serviu como centro de computação Columbias e criou o primeiro currículo de Ciências da Computação do mundo. Em 1963, Columbia abriu seu próprio Centro de Informática no campus abaixo da Escola de Negócios. De 1963 a 1975, toda a computação foi feita em grandes mainframes centrais da IBM. Com um punhado de computadores menores nos departamentos. Os trabalhos foram codificados em cartões perfurados e executados por operadores na sala de máquinas do Computer Center. Em 1973, uma área pública de atendimento automático de entrada (SSIO) foi aberta com socos de chaves, leitores de cartões e impressoras onde os usuários podiam enviar tarefas e recuperar os resultados. A partir de 1975, o intercâmbio de tempo interativo foi introduzido com base em computadores centrais da Digital Equipment Corporation com terminais de impressão e vídeo públicos instalados na área SSIO e no edifício Engenharia. Outras salas de terminais foram adicionadas ao longo do tempo, principalmente nos dormitórios. Durante 1977-80, desenvolveu-se uma animada comunidade on-line, com e-mail, quadros de avisos e compartilhamento de arquivos, e os cursos exigiram cada vez mais o uso dos computadores centrais, ou os aproveitaram de outras formas. Na década de 1980, os terminais públicos foram gradualmente substituídos por microcomputadores, PCs e estações de trabalho conectadas aos computadores centrais através de suas portas seriais, como terminais. A Columbia se juntou ao ARPANET (mais tarde para se tornar a Internet) em 1984. A rede do terminal foi substituída em etapas pela Ethernet, que também foi estendida a dormitórios, escritórios e até mesmo apartamentos. Cerca de 1995, a combinação do Windows 95 e da World Wide Web levou à migração generalizada do compartilhamento de tempo centralizado para a computação de desktop distribuída, com fio e, em seguida, cada vez mais sem fio. Os alunos começaram a chegar com seus próprios computadores, laptops, tablets e dispositivos móveis, a necessidade de laboratórios PC públicos diminuíram. Em 2005 ou assim, o Computer Center apenas forneceu a infra-estrutura, principalmente a rede, e-salas de aula e e-mail. Agora, mesmo o e-mail está sendo terceirizado. Descartáveis ​​Obviamente, isso é escrito da minha perspectiva, outros podem ter lembranças ou pontos de vista diferentes. Em particular, pelo menos após 1963, isso resulta ser mais uma história de computação acadêmica centralizada, em vez de toda a computação, em Columbia, dando pouca atenção aos departamentos, informática administrativa, bibliotecas e os campus periféricos, um histórico mais completo Também precisa dessas perspectivas. Eu fiz todas as tentativas de verificar os fatos, os erros restantes são meus - sinta-se livre para apontá-los. Os computadores são ferramentas neutras em termos de valor que podem ser usadas para o bem ou para o mal, e é claro que, desde o início, foram usadas para ambos. Este documento não pretende exaltar as virtudes dos computadores em geral, nem de qualquer empresa particular que os faça, mas apenas para cronica seu uso na Universidade de Columbia. Laboratório de Computação Científica da Watson na Universidade de Columbia (com datas de Watson Lab) Herb Grosch (1945-51), Eric Hankam (1945-59), Ellie (Krawitz) Kolchin (1947-58), John H. (Jack) Palmer (1949- 57) 4, James U. (Jim) Lemke (1948-50), Daniel (Dan) Robbins (1949-53), John Backus (1950-52), Ken Schreiner (1951-60), Seymour Koenig (1952-70 Diretor 1967-70), Harry F. Smith (1956-1967), Joe Traub (Watson Fellow 1956-59), Ken King (Watson Fellow 1955-56, funcionários técnicos, 1957-62), Jessica (Hellwig) Gordon (1957- 58), Mike Radow (High School Science Honors Program, final da década de 1950), Peter Capek (High School Science Honors Program, início dos anos 1960), Steve Bellovin (estudante de Columbia e funcionário do Watson Lab, 1968-69). Ex-Diretores do Centro de Computadores de Columbia Ken King (1963-71), Jessica Gordon (1971-73), Bruce Gilchrist (1973-85), Howard Eskin (1985-86), Vax00e7e Kundakcx0131 (1989-2005). Columbia Computer Center (acadêmico, atual e antigo) Bob Resnikoff. Walter Bourne, Maurice Matiz, Joe Brennan. Rob Cartolano. Joel Rosenblatt. George Giraldi, Christine Gianone, Terry Thompson, Kristine Kavanaugh, Peter Kaiser (1967-69), Mike Radow (1960), Elliott Frank (1968-70), Andy Koenig (1960-1970), Janet Asteroff (1980), Steve Jensen (1980s), Tom De Bellis (1980). Columbia Computer Center (AdministrativeOperations, atual e anterior) Nuala Hallinan, Stew Feuerstein, Joe Sulsona (1957-2001), Raphael Ramirez (1968-199), Alan Rice (1960), Peter Humanik, Ben Garciacutea. Faculdade de Columbia Joe Traub (fundador do Departamento de Ciência da Computação e anteriormente Presidente), Steve Bellovin (Departamento de Ciência da Computação, anteriormente da Bell Labs), Andrew Dolkart (Escola de Arquitetura, Preservação do Planejamento), Bob McCaughey (Barnard College History Department). Muitos dos técnicos da Watson Lab e os diretores do Computer Center também estavam na faculdade de Columbia. AGRADECIMENTOS PESSOAIS ao Professor Emérito Leon J. Lidofsky (Física Aplicada e Engenharia Nuclear) por me fazer engajar na programação e me dar o funcionamento de seu laboratório de informática da década de 1960 sem esse impulso. Provavelmente, ainda seja um motorista de taxis excessivo US Naval Observatory Kenneth Seidelman (Ex-Diretor de Astronomia), George Kaplan (ex-chefe interino, Gabinete de Almanaque Náutico), Brenda G. Corbin (Bibliotecária). IBM Paul Lasewicz e Dawn Stanford (IBM Archive), Peter Capek (UC 1965-69, agora no IBM Watson Laboratory), Gary Eheman, Keith Williams. O Parnassus Club Nuala Hallinan, mais os ex-residentes Barbara L. Bryan e Rosalinde Weiman, mais vários outros que desejam permanecer anônimos. E. Simon Rackham para o filme de computador de 1968, Ruth Dayhoff (Diretora de Medical Digital Imaging, Departamento de Assuntos de Veteranos dos EUA), Ed Reinhart (anteriormente RAND Corp, JPL e Comsat), Mary Louise McKee (programadora da NORC, US Naval Proving Ground Dahlgren VA), George Trimble (Aberdeen Proving Ground, IBM), John C Alrich (BurroughsElectroData), Loren Wilton (BurroughsUnisys), Ellen Alers (Smithsonian Institution), Garry Tee (Departamento de Matemática, Universidade de Auckland NZ), Allan Olley (Universidade De Toronto), Charlotte Moseley (anteriormente Centro de Processamento de Dados do Condado de San Diego), Pnina Stern (anteriormente Pnina Grinberg da BASR), Annette Lopes (Secretária Associada da CU, então Diretora Associada de Serviços para Estudantes, agora Diretora Executiva de 2011, Recursos Humanos , Finanças e Administração) Jocelyn Wilk, Steve Urgola e Mae Pan (Columbia University Archives e Columbiana) Bill Santini (CU Student Services). Fui inspirado pelo artigo de Bruce Gilchrists Quarenta Anos de Computação de 1981 3 (de modo que faz sessenta e setenta e 75 anos) Agradecimentos especiais a Bruce Gilchrist e Nuala Hallinan, cada um dos quais contribuiu com material de arquivo valioso e tempo, esforço e milhas consideráveis ​​para isso Projetar para Herb Grosch por seu livro incrível, bem como toneladas de novas informações, correções, insights, anedotas e artefatos para Eric Hankam para o empréstimo de seu arquivo pessoal de fotos e materiais, sua autobiografia e uma grande quantidade de lembranças do Watson Lab para Charlotte Moseley por preservar e contribuir com um grande número de manuais IBM antigos e com Bob Resnikoff, que descobriu seu cache perdido das 1980 máquinas e fotos do MSS. A Herb, em particular, esteve envolvida neste projeto diariamente desde que ele ocorreu pela primeira vez em maio de 2003 até pouco antes de sua morte em 91 em janeiro de 2010. Herb lembrou-se de tudo. E graças aos editores dos IEEE Annals of the History of Computing para um anúncio e resumo deste site em sua edição de abril-junho de 2002 e para anunciar a versão on-line do livro Herb Groschs na edição de julho a setembro de 2003. Informe qualquer link quebrado diretamente ao autor. No início do novo Millenium, computadores e a rede são onipresentes, não podemos viver sem eles. Não era sempre assim. Como chegamos aqui Uma série de inovações tecnológicas, incluindo Pascals adder (Pascaline, 1600), Leibnitzs multiplicador (The Stepped Reckoner, cerca de 1700), o telar jacquard (1804), Babbage Analytical and Difference Engines (1820s-30s), Eletricidade e eletromagnetismo, o telégrafo, a máquina de tabulação Hollerith (1890), o relé, o tubo de vácuo, a memória do núcleo, o transistor, o laser, o circuito integrado e assim por diante, resultaram em produtos que estimularam aplicações, que em Estimularam a demanda por mais e melhores produtos, e antes de longos computadores entraram na economia e na cultura popular. Pode-se concluir que a indústria de computadores começou seu início na Universidade de Columbia no final da década de 1920 e no início da década de 1930, quando Professores Wood e Eckert, para avançar suas respectivas ciências, começaram a enviar projetos e especificações para máquinas de computação para a IBM Corporation, que até então Tinha sido fabricante de máquinas de tabulação com cartão perfurado para o mercado de negócios. Daqueles dias até a década de 1980, a relação de Columbia com empresas como a IBM era simbiótica e frutífera (e continua em uma escala menor até hoje, principalmente no departamento de Física com a construção de supercomputadores massivamente paralelos - quem mais saberia como Conecte 512 processadores em uma malha de 6 dimensões com a topologia de um toro) A própria IBM Corporation era filha do colombiano Herman Hollerith. Os primeiros dias de invenção e inovação são passados. Computadores e redes estão agora bem estabelecidos na vida cotidiana de um grande número de pessoas em muitas nações, e certamente na Universidade de Columbia. Os computadores de hoje são aparelhos de consumo de mercado em grande escala, o que talvez seja inevitável e, sem dúvida, seja bom em alguns aspectos. Como isso ocorreu é uma história contada em outro lugar, mas como você verá abaixo, algumas partes importantes disso aconteceram aqui. A história da computação em Columbia é apresentada cronologicamente. A maioria dos links são para documentos locais e, portanto, funcionará enquanto todos os arquivos que acompanham este documento sejam mantidos juntos. Existem também alguns links externos relativamente sem importância, que são obrigados a entrar mal, mais cedo ou mais tarde, como é a Web. 1754-1897: a Universidade de Columbia foi estabelecida pelo rei George II da Inglaterra em 1754, no centro de Manhattan, perto do que é agora a Câmara Municipal. O campus mudou-se para a rua 49 e Madison Avenue em 1857, e de lá para o site atual na 116th Street e Broadway em 1897 (HUMOR). 1879-1924: Em 1879, Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) recebeu seu diploma de Engenharia de Minas (EM) da Columbia University School of Mines 48. Após a formatura, ele permaneceu como assistente de um de seus professores, W. P. Trowbridge, que mais tarde foi para o que seria se tornar o US Census Bureau e levou Hollerith com ele. Isso levou ao desenvolvimento Holleriths do cartão de perfuração padrão moderno e da máquina de tabulação e classificador que foram usados ​​para processar o Censo de 1890 40. Hollerith escreveu sua invenção e enviou-a à Columbia School of Mines, que lhe concedeu um doutorado em 1890 48. O nome de Holleriths é sinônimo do advento da computação automática até cerca de 1940, calculadoras de cartões perfurados, tabuladores e assim por diante eram comumente chamados de máquinas Hollerith, mesmo quando eram feitas por outras empresas. 1896: Herman Hollerith funda a Tabulating Machine Company. Que se tornaria (através de várias fusões e renomeações) a empresa International Business Machines, a IBM. 1900-1920: O Prof. Harold Jacoby, Presidente do Departamento de Astronomia, em um memorando datado de 4 de dezembro de 1909, refere-se a Miss Harpham (nosso principal computador) 28. O computador era um título de trabalho real naqueles dias, referindo-se a alguém cujo trabalho era calcular - geralmente tabelas de fórmulas - à mão ou usando uma calculadora mecânica (mais sobre isso em Herb Groschs Computer, Bit Slices of a Life. Eg on Página 4). O Boletim da Universidade Columbia de 1917-18, Divisão de Ciências Matemáticas e Físicas, na seção Equipamentos, lista cinco máquinas de computação sem mais detalhes (você pode encontrar uma lista de possíveis candidatos no Museu de Computação da Universidade de Amsterdã). A propósito de nada, o professor Jacoby foi formado pela classe Columbia de 1885 e organizou um presente dessa classe para a Universidade: a bola de granito de Vermont que foi montada no Sundial na 116th Street (agora College Walk) de 1914 a 1946, E agora fica no meio de um campo em Michigan 54. Jacoby morreu em 1932 Wallace Eckert (sobre quem muito mais abaixo) escreveu seu obituário em Astronomia Popular. 1906: Hollerith traz seu Tabulador Tipo I para o mercado, o primeiro com alimentação automática de cartões e o primeiro dispositivo que é programável através de um plug-ins. 16 de junho de 1911: A Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, CTR, é fundada pela fusão da Holleriths Tabulating Machine Company com vários outros. Esta empresa mudou seu nome para a International Business Machines Company (IBM) em 1924. A IBM celebrou seu 100º aniversário em 16 de junho de 2011. Top 1924-26: O Laboratório de Estatística da Universidade de Columbia (localização desconhecida) inclui a tabela de Hollerith. Socos. E máquinas de classificação, máquinas de adição de Burroughs, calculadoras Brunsviga e Millionaire (o último foi o primeiro dispositivo a realizar multiplicação direta), além de trabalhos de referência, como matemática e tabelas estatísticas. O Prof. Robert E. Chaddock (Departamento de Estatística) estava no comando. O departamento de Astronomia (Prof. H. Jacoby) ainda possui as cinco máquinas de computação 5. CLIQUE AQUI para uma galeria de máquinas de informática da década de 1920. CLIQUE AQUI para uma visão aérea de 1926 da Columbia University. CLIQUE AQUI para um mapa da Universidade Columbia de 1925. 1926: Wallace Eckert (1902-1971) junta-se à faculdade de astronomia Columbias, especializada em mecânica celestial e principalmente a lua. Na busca desses interesses, Eckert deve se tornar um verdadeiro pioneiro na computação. 1928: Benjamin Wood (1894-1986), chefe do Bureau Universitário de Pesquisa Educacional Colegiada 5, propõe a Thomas J. Watson, presidente sênior da IBM, um método para pontuação automatizada de documentos de exame em programas de teste em larga escala (que anteriormente Envolvido acres de meninas tentando tabular. Resultados do teste 45). Após alguma discussão, a Watson enviou três caminhões de tabulação, cartão-perfuração, triagem e equipamentos acessórios para o porão do Hamilton Hall 9, 40. 1928: Enquanto isso, na Inglaterra, L. J. Comrie (1893-1950), Superintendente de H. M. Escritório de Almanaque Náutico, inicia um projeto para calcular futuras posições da lua usando cartões perfurados, um classificador, um tabulador e um soco de duplicação, no que é provavelmente o primeiro uso dessas máquinas para o cálculo científico 72. Este trabalho inspiraria em breve Columbias Wallace Eckert a dar o próximo passo histórico: automatizando esses cálculos. Como veremos, grande parte do impulso para computação científica automatizada (e, portanto, computadores modernos) veio de astrônomos, e sua principal aplicação foi na navegação. O mesmo ímpeto nos trouxe relógios precisos e portáteis no século anterior. 1928: a faculdade de medicina de Columbias, faculdade de médicos e cirurgiões, passa da 10ª Avenida e das ruas 55 a 60 para Washington Heights entre Broadway e Fort Washington Avenue, 165th-168th Streets, o antigo site de Hilltop Park (1903-1912), o Estádio de baseball dos New York Yankees (conhecido como New York Highlanders até 1912). Junho de 1929: a operação do Prof. Woods tornou-se o Columbia Statistical Bureau (PHOTOS). Além de tabular os resultados dos testes, serviu como um centro de informática para outros departamentos acadêmicos, em particular o Departamento de Astronomia, que utilizou o equipamento para interpolação de tabelas astronômicas 9, 40. 1930-31: Anteriormente, o professor Wood convencera Watson a criar Tabuladores Diferentes especiais. Que a IBM chamou de máquinas Columbia e entregue em 1930-31. Essas máquinas poderiam processar 150 cartões por minuto e eram únicas em sua capacidade de acumular rapidamente somas de produtos ou quadrados 9. O Bureau de Estatística logo se tornou um provedor de serviços para organizações externas, como Rockefeller e Carnegie Foundations, Yale, Harvard e Princeton 9. (Então, quanto cobramos :-) 1931: Walter S. Lemmon, graduado em Engenharia Elétrica da Universidade de Columbia e presidente da Radio Industries Corporation, demonstrou a primeira máquina Radiotype em funcionamento. Uma máquina de escrever elétrica acoplada a aparelhos de transmissão e recepção de rádio. Os contatos de Thomas J. Watsons em Columbia o colocaram em contato com Lemmon e a IBM o contrataram. O Radiotype, originalmente destinado a aplicativos de negócios, é adotado pelo US Army Signal Corps para uso em tempo de guerra, permitindo transmissões de rádio sem transcrição manual de e para o código Morse. Antes que a guerra terminasse, as máquinas Radiotype tinham sido equipadas com equipamentos de criptografia para fornecer transmissão quase instantânea e recebimento de mensagens seguras 40. 1933: Reconhecendo seu interesse na Universidade de Columbia e suas grandes doações de equipamentos, o presidente da IBM, Thomas J. Watson, é nomeado administrador da Columbia. Em contrapartida, o presidente da Columbia Nicholas Murray Butler é nomeado para o Conselho de Administração da IBM 90. 1933-34: Prof. Wallace J. Eckert (FOTOS E BIOGRAFIA) do Departamento de Astronomia, um usuário do Bureau de Estatística, propôs modificações a máquinas IBM para cálculos astronômicos avançados, e dentro de algumas semanas as máquinas, incluindo uma IBM 601 Multiplying Punch (modificado para as especificações da Eckerts sob a supervisão da IBM GW Baehne 82 e apelidado de Calculadora Astronômica 81) foram entregues ao Observatório de Rutherford no sótão de Pupin Hall. Até 1937 (qv), esta facilidade era conhecida como o Laboratório Rutherford, o Laboratório Astronômico e o Escritório de Informática Hollerith (os minutos da 61ª reunião da American Astronomical Society, de 29 a 30 de dezembro de 1938, referem-se a uma visita ao Hollerith Bureau de Computação, onde projetos vascos de computação estão sendo realizados sob a Direção do Dr. Eckert). Foi a primeira instalação IBM permanente no mundo a fazer trabalhos científicos (a configuração da Comries Greenwich não foi permanente). Para o seu trabalho, a Eckert projetou um sistema de controle baseado em fichas e tambores rotativos para interligar o novo equipamento, incorporando, eventualmente, métodos para resolver equações diferenciais por integração numérica 9. O Laboratório Astronômico foi o primeiro a realizar cálculos científicos gerais automaticamente 30. No final de 1933, Eckert apresentou um documento sobre este trabalho à American Astronomical Society. Mais tarde, a IBM diria: entre as suas realizações científicas, a Columbia pode se vangloriar de ter sido pioneira. O uso de máquinas de computação automáticas para trabalhos de pesquisa 37. Um aspecto aparentemente mundano mas significativo deste trabalho foi a nova capacidade de alimentar o resultado de uma computação para o próximo e imprimir os resultados desses cálculos diretamente, eliminando os erros de transcrição que eram comuns nas mesas astronômicas e lunares 17. Para ilustrar com uma citação de 1946 de Kay Antonelli, da Universidade da Pensilvânia, referindo-se ao seu trabalho de guerra 34, tivemos calculadoras de mesa na época, mecânicas e movidas a motores elétricos, que poderiam fazer aritmética simples. Você fez uma multiplicação e, quando a resposta apareceu, você precisou gravá-la para inseri-la na máquina para fazer o próximo cálculo. Estávamos preparando uma mesa de fogo para cada arma, com talvez 1.800 trajetórias simples. Para calcular manualmente, apenas uma dessas trajetórias levou 30 ou 40 horas de sessão em uma mesa com papel e uma calculadora. Imagine o efeito de um erro de transcrição no início do procedimento de 30-40 horas. 1934-37: Ben Wood e sua Oficina de Estatística trabalham com a IBM para desenvolver tecnologia de senso de marca para melhorar a eficiência do processamento de testes padronizados 9. O resultado foi a IBM 805 International Test Scoring Machine. Comercializado em 1937 38. Dr. Wood é lembrado em Columbia através das bolsas de graduação Ben D. Wood em Learning Technologies. E no Serviço de Teste Educacional. Que dedicou seu maior edifício a ele em 1965. 1935: Aplicações práticas do método do cartão perfurado em faculdades e universidades. Editado por George W. Baehne da IBM, publicado pela Columbia University Press hardbound, 442 páginas, 257 figuras. Contém artigos de Ben Wood e Wallace Eckert, entre muitos outros. A maioria dos aplicativos descritos são operações de contabilização e contabilidade diretas. Eckerts é a exceção. CLIQUE AQUI para uma discussão mais detalhada sobre este livro. 1936: Wallace Eckert contrata Lillian Feinstein Hausman como gerente de laboratório de computação, colocando-a em ou muito perto da cabeça da classe de Mulheres Pioneiras de Computação 100. No Eckerts Lab, ela programou e realizou cálculos científicos no 601. 285. e outras máquinas. Ela ficou com Eckert até 1948, emprestada por um tempo ao Observatório Naval dos EUA 88, e depois a partir de 1945 na equipe técnica do Watson Lab. Nos dias iniciais do Watson Lab, ela (e outros, como Eric Hankam), treinaram novatos informáticos como John Backus e Ted Codd. Do equipamento de laboratório astronômico precoce, ela seguiu para o 602 (e 602-A), 604. as calculadoras de relé Aberdeen. E o SSEC. E quando Columbia começou a realizar cursos de computação acadêmica em 1946, ela dirigiu as sessões de laboratório de Métodos Numéricos de Groschs Engineering 281. Muito mais sobre Lillian no livro de Herb Grosch, COMPUTADOR 88 (em que Herb se refere a ela como o especialista em cartão de perfuração cientifica sénior em tempo integral em todo o mundo em 1946). Outras mulheres Pioneers of Computing em Columbia incluem membros do Watson Lab da década de 1940, Marjorie Severy Herrick, Rebecca Jones. E Eleanor Krawitz Kolchin. Grace Hopper. Embora não seja um colombiano, esteve presente no encontro inaugural da Associação de Máquinas de Computação (ACM), realizada em Columbia em 1947. A lista de funcionários técnicos do Watson Lab (1945-70) está listada em Brennan 88. Dos 207 funcionários profissionais, 35 são definitivamente mulheres. Muitos são listados com apenas iniciais alguns outros por nome chinês romanizado (que geralmente não indica gênero). Mas pelo menos 17 da equipe técnica eram mulheres, o que não é ruim para os anos do pós-guerra, em que as mulheres ficaram desanimadas de trabalhar (ou pior, demitidas de seus empregos em guerra). 1937: O laboratório astronômico do professor Eckerts no Observatório Pupin Halls Rutherford torna-se o Gabinete de Computação Astronômica Thomas J. Watson (PHOTO), patrocinado conjuntamente pela IBM, a American Astronomical Society e o Columbia Department of Astronomy 3, 9, 86, para servir como Recurso para toda a comunidade astronômica do mundo 38, tornando-se o primeiro centro do mundo para o cálculo científico 84. O equipamento inicial do Bureau é o que utilizou o Departamento de Astronomia da Universidade de Columbia nos últimos anos. Modificados para torná-los mais eficientes para o trabalho científico. Tabulador de subtração com soco de cartão de resumo, soco de multiplicação, intérprete, classificador, reprodutor de alta velocidade, socos de chaves e verificador. Algumas possibilidades das máquinas podem ser obtidas a partir do programa em andamento. Isto consiste principalmente em (1) integração numérica das equações do movimento planetário (2) verificação completa da teoria lunar (3) computação de precessão e coordenadas retangulares para os Catálogos da Zona da Universidade de Yale (4) o programa fotométrico do Rutherford Observatório e (5) problemas de estatísticas estelares. 86. Os usuários da Mesa foram encarregados apenas de mão-de-obra e materiais (uma barganha tremenda, uma vez que o equipamento foi doado). O Bureau de Computação Astronômica servirá de modelo para muitos dos centros de computação em tempo de guerra, como os de Los Alamos, o Observatório Naval e o Aberdeen Proving Grounds 30,90. 1938-40: Em 1938, o astrônomo soviético Boris Numerov visita o laboratório Eckerts para saber como o equipamento de cartão perfurado poderia ser aplicado a pesquisas estelares em seu próprio laboratório na Universidade de São Petersburgo, em Moscou. Numerov, Boris Vasilyevich. O site do Museu de História e Tradição Local de Tosno (Região de Leningrado) diz (a partir de 12 de setembro de 2003) Uma seção de exibição é dedicada a Boris Numerov (1891-1941) - um proeminente astrônomo, agrimensor e geofísico, um criador de Vários instrumentos astronômicos e meios de exploração de minerais. Sua família viveu na cidade de Lyuban, não muito longe de Tosno desde 1922. Nos tempos das repressões stalinistas, Boris Numerov foi preso e executado em 1941. Em 1957, ele foi reabilitado. Numerov é conhecido hoje pelos vários algoritmos e métodos que carregam seu nome. Em junho de 1940, chega uma carta para Eckert da V. N. Riazankin em nome do Instituto Astronômico da Academia das Ciências da URSS, pedindo para visitar o laboratório de Eckerts. Jan Schilt. Agora responsável pelo laboratório, o envia para Eckert em Washington. Em agosto de 1940, I. S. Stepanov da Amtorg Trading Company escreve a Eckert perguntando por que ele não respondeu a carta de Riazinkins. Seu último parágrafo da resposta de Eckerts (ccd para Schilt): Posso aproveitar a oportunidade para afirmar que um de seus cientistas eminentes, o falecido Dr. Numerov, correspondeu comigo há vários anos sobre este problema de construção de mesas astronômicas para navegação . Era sua intenção garantir uma instalação similar, e tinha uma em operação. Espero sinceramente que seu interesse em minhas máquinas não seja interpretado por seu governo como uma traição, e que o Sr. Riazankin não encontrará o mesmo destino que o Dr. Numerov. 88. Schilt escreve para Eckert da Columbia em 9 de agosto: quanto à carta do Sr. Stepanov, estou tremendo um pouco. Sua resposta para ele é extremamente forte e clara, tanto assim que não ficaria surpreso se eu não entendesse nada deles, e, francamente, eu apenas não o faria. Se houver algum perigo de que a sala das máquinas possa provar uma armadilha da morte para cientistas russos, acho que sou a favor de não falar com essas pessoas. 88. (Nota: a correspondência coloca a morte de Numerov antes de 1941.) De acordo com David Alan Grier 46, a Amtorg Trading Company era uma agência de espiões, a visita proposta de Riazinkin, que nunca ocorreu, foi considerada uma tentativa de primeiro caso de Espionagem de computador 45. Na verdade, Amtorg não era apenas uma frente que tratava a maior parte do comércio soviético-americano por muitos anos, mas também era um local ideal para a colocação de espiões. Riazankin era um espião. Bem, nunca sabe. Em qualquer caso, ele nunca mais foi ouvido de novo. Herb Grosch relata que os astrônomos soviéticos continuaram a fazer visitas ocasionais ao Watson Lab após a guerra, p. Ex. Em conexão com a tomada a cargo da lista anual Kleine Planeten de posições de asteróides da Watson Lab, que fez o trabalho em 1946 depois que o Astronomisches Rechen-Institut alemão foi destruído na Guerra. Outono de 1938: Howard Aiken. Um estudante de pós-graduação de Harvard que estava trabalhando em planos para uma máquina para resolver equações diferenciais como parte de sua tese, visita o professor Eckerts Lab O engenheiro da IBM Clair D. Lake (que construiu a caixa de troca Eckerts) também está presente. Eckert demonstra as capacidades de sua configuração e sugere que ele tente interessar a IBM no projeto 9. Um ano depois, a IBM concordou em desenvolver e construir a máquina, um dispositivo eletromecânico chamado Calculadora Automática de Seqüência Controlada, ASCC (PHOTO), o primeiro computador automatizado de uso geral (mas não eletrônico ou de programa armazenado). O ASCC foi construído pelo Lake e seus funcionários na instalação da IBM Endicott NY e apresentado em 1944 para Harvard, onde realizou trabalhos de guerra e, eventualmente, tornou-se conhecido como Harvard Mark 1 9. O Mark 1 foi logo superado pela IBMs Aberdeen Relay Calculator (também construído pelo Lake) e, mais tarde, o US Armys ENIAC. O primeiro computador eletrônico automático de uso geral (mas ainda não armazenado). Jan 1939: Enrico Fermi. Leo Szilard. Walter Zinn. Herbert Anderson. E outros começam a trabalhar na fissão nuclear em Columbias Pupin Hall. Dentro de alguns meses, este trabalho se tornaria o Projeto Manhattan. Financiado pelo presidente Roosevelt (Columbia Law, 1905-07) em resposta à advertência de Albert Einsteins sobre pesquisas nazistas nessa área. Depois de Pearl Harbor, o projeto mudou-se para a Universidade de Chicago (supostamente tornando-o menos vulnerável ao ataque alemão) e se espalhou para a Universidade da Califórnia, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Hanford e outros locais. O Laboratório Fermis estava no mesmo edifício que o Escritório de Computação Astronômica do Professor Eckerts. I dont know to what degree, if any, Eckerts computing machines were employed in the early Manhattan Project, but as noted below they played a key role in 1945 in the final preparations for the first A-bombs 57 . A number of other Columbia scientists worked on the project, including I. I. Rabi. Edward Teller. John Dunning (who identified U-235 as the fissionable uranium isotope using the Pupin cyclotron in Feb 1940), Harold Urey (who later left the project on moral grounds), and George Pegram (who assembled the original Manhattan Project team), as well as junior faculty who would later become well-known physicists, such as C. S. Wu and Bill Havens (both of whom I worked for in my student days), James Rainwater. Eugene Booth, and Richard Present. The following is taken from a narrative, Evolving from Calculators to Computers on the Los Alamos National Laboratory History website (May 2003): Calculations at Los Alamos were originally done on manually operated mechanical calculators, which was not only laborious and time-consuming, but the machines broke down frequently under heavy use. The only one who could fix them promptly was Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965), which some thought was not the best use of his time. Dana Mitchell, whom Laboratory Director J. Robert Oppenheimer had recruited from Columbia University to oversee procurement for Los Alamos, recognized that the calculators were not adequate for the heavy computational chores and suggested the use of IBM punched-card machines. He had seen them used successfully by Wallace Eckert at Columbia to calculate the orbits of planets and persuaded Stanley Frankel and Eldred Nelson to order a complement of them. The new IBM punched-card machines were devoted to calculations to simulate implosion, and Metropolis and Feynman organized a race between them and the hand-computing group. We set up a room with girls in it. Each one had a Marchant. But one was the multiplier, and another was the adder, and this one cubed, and all she did was cube this number and send it to the next one, said Feynmann. For one day, the hand computers kept up: The only difference was that the IBM machines didnt get tired and could work three shifts. But the girls got tired after a while. May 1939: Columbia Universitys Baker Field (at 215th Street in upper Manhattan) was the site of the nations first televised sports event . a baseball game between Columbia and Princeton universities, May 17, 1939, broadcast by NBC. (The first televised sports event in the world was the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.) Top 1940: Prof. Eckert publishes Punched Card Methods in Scientific Calculation 50 , the first computer book . The book . covers nearly a decade of work by W. J. Eckert on astronomical calculations by machine processes. Based on firsthand experience, it describes a gamut of large calculations that could best be carried out by machines able to process numbers in machine-readable form. These calculations include the construction of mathematical tables, the numerical integration of differential equations, numerical harmonic analysis and synthesis, and the solution of simultaneous equations. Often known as the Orange Book on account of the vividly colored covers of its original printing, Eckerts book was the bible of many workers engaged in punched card computing at the IBM Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University and elsewhere. The process of carrying out the integration of the differential equations is explained in detail. It involves the use of the multiplier, tabulator, and summary punch in concert, guided by the setting of a calculation control switch, which acts as a master controller advancing automatically. through twelve positions (Figure 2 ). This control switch. was a precursor of sequential control in electronic computers 78 . Some of the better-known builders of the early computers, like Vannevar Bush at MIT, J. Presper Eckert of the ENIAC. and Howard Aiken at Harvard, got their first introduction in the famous orange book 90 . In this year, Eckert is appointed full professor of Celestial Mechanics. March 1940: Eckert leaves Columbia for an assignment with the US Naval Observatory. which he rapidly computerizes to create accurate air and sea navigation tables for the US Air Corps and Navy using the techniques he devised at Columbia 17 , which allowed design and production of the Air Almanac in record time (the first issue of the Air Almanac appeared December 1st, 1940, produced entirely by machine methods). The Astronomical Computing Bureau in Pupin, now directed by Jan Schilt (but with Eckert still running the show from Washington), was assigned to tasks for the looming war, such as ballistic firing tables, and trajectory calculations, and later, design calculations for the B-29 sighting station 57,59 mdash Mathematics Goes to War 9 . Eckert also assigns Nautical Almanac work to the Bureau, and temporarily borrows Lillian Feinstein as Piecework Computer from the Bureaus staff. The Bureau existed until 1951, but by 1948 most of its work had migrated to Watson Lab 88 . IBM played a large part in the Allied war effort, supplying all of its products to the US government at 1 over cost, and taking on new jobs as well, including manufacture of nearly six percent of all M1 rifles see pictures and story another one here or search Google (other non-weapons companies made M1s too, including National Postal Meter Company, General Motors, Underwood typewriters, and Rock-Ola, a maker of juke boxes). IBM also evacuated the families of employees in England to Toronto 85 and assisted the families of US employees who had gone off to war and held jobs open for all its returning veterans 57 . According to allegations in 2001 48 (having nothing to do with Columbia), IBM might also have played a part in Germanys war effort. in which widespread use was made of punched-card technology manufactured by IBMs German subsidiary, Dehomag 120 , which had been taken over by the Nazi government in 1940. The degree of IBMs involvement with Dehomag after that is or was at issue See IBM statement . 1940: The Bureau of Radio Research (founded at Princeton University in 1937), headed by Paul Lazarsfeld, moves to Columbia University, with quarters at 15 Amsterdam Avenue. In 1949 it would move to 427 West 117th Street, and about 1953 to 605 West 115th Street, the other half of the former Parnassus Club. across from the present Watson Laboratory. Its name would change to the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) in 1944, and it would live on until 1977, when it was replaced by the Center for Social Sciences (later, the Lazarsfeld Center for Social Sciences, and still later the Institute for Social and Economic Theory and Research ). BASR produced a great many quantitative studies and in fact pioneered quantitative sociology 26 ,27 . From its inception in 1940, the Bureau was in possession of IBM tabulating equipment. IBM machines and tabulating charges as well as IBM supplies appear on each annual budget 28 ). The BASRs 1954-56 budgets show 6000 per month for IBM equipment rental, which suggests a rather massive capacity (compare with the Registrar Proposal of 1957). The BASR Report on the Year 1957-58 says The Bureau also maintains its own IBM data processing laboratory in University Hall, and other IBM equipment for use by students in Fayerweather Hall. The machine facilities of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory are available for certain highly technical problems not readily solved by the Bureaus own equipment 28 . Pnina Stern, who worked at the Bureau until its demise, says When I got there in 1966 BASR had at 605 W 115th Street IBM 024 card punches. an 085 Collator. an 082 Sorter. and a 403 Accounting Machine that could be wired to produce cross tabulations and other good stuff. Fred Meier was a whiz at wiring up this machine. You had to wire it for each thing you wanted to do. It printed out cross tabulations and maybe even some other statistics. Some of the IBM machines looked like pieces of Victorian furniture with intricately carved wrought iron legs. Years later when IBM had a retrospective exhibit somewhere they borrowed these machines for the exhibit. Maybe Fred M. owned them at that time. As for computing, someone at Columbia -- possibly at BASR -- wrote the very first computer cross tabulation program. I believe it was written in IBM 7090 machine language and you had to give it numerical coded instructions. It was not very user friendly. I think it may have been written by Peter Graham. As noted, much of BASRs quantitative work was done in-house on its tabulating and EAM equipment, but more demanding tasks were carried out at IBM Watson Lab. By 1961, BASR was (with Physics and Chemistry) one of Columbias leading users of computing, and one of the reasons the Columbia Computer Center was created 29 . After 1963, BASR was a major user of the Computer Center mainframes, sending work-study students with massive decks of cards to the SSIO Area on campus on a regular basis to run jobs. We always duplicated the cards before we sent them over because we had visions of the students dropping the IBM card boxes and the cards floating across Broadway. In the 1970s, HP terminals were installed for interactive access to mainframe applications like SAS and SPSS. The Directors of BASR were Paul Lazarsfeld (1940-1951), Charles Glock (1951-1957), David Sills (1957-1960), Bernard Berelson (1960-61), and Allen Barton (1962-1977). 20 December 1944: Since the 1930s, Columbia had been IBMs main contact with scientific computing and the academic community 38 , and to carry forward this relationship, Thomas J Watson. a Columbia Trustee since 1933, wrote to Columbia Provost (and Acting President 1945-47) Frank Diehl Fackenthal 28 agreeing to establish a computing research laboratory at Columbia University as soon as space can be secured: I am confident that this laboratory will be another major forward step in the long and productive cooperation between the sic IBM and Columbia University. 1945: The US Naval Observatory produces the 1946 edition of the Air Almanac in what is arguably the first instance of computer-driven typesetting, using the newly delivered programmable card-driven table printer that had been specified by Professor Eckert in 1941, but whose production was delayed by the War. 6 February 1945: To give all possible aid to the war effort and to promote peace through scientific development, a computing laboratory has been established at Columbia University by International Business Machines Corporation. The new laboratory, to be known as the Thomas J. Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University . will serve as a world center for the treatment of problems in the various fields of science, whose solution depends on the effective use of applied mathematics and mechanical calculations 23 . Columbia Professor Wallace J. Eckert. now head of IBMs new Pure Research Department, is appointed to head the laboratory. Temporarily housed on the tenth floor of Pupin Hall, staffed and paid for by IBM, with the staff holding faculty appointments and teaching credit courses in math, physics, astronomy, and other fields. The new lab attracted attention all over the scientific world visitors included John von Neumann. Hans Bethe. and Richard Feynman 3 ,4 ,9. 57 . The lab was named for IBMs Thomas J. Watson (Senior), a Columbia Trustee (it is said that Watson is the one who nominated Eisenhower as Columbia President in 1948, but he meant Milton 17 ). Within a year, Watson Lab would become the third most powerful computing facility in the world, after the US Armys Aberdeen Proving Ground and Harvard University. and would remain so for some years. Mar 1945 . The Manhattan Project (from here through Aug 1945) . It turns out that the presence of Bethe, Feynman, and von Neumann was not entirely coincidental. Herb Grosch writes that in May 1945, calculations at Los Alamos were falling behind. As Dr. Eckert (who had just hired him to work at the new Watson Lab) explained, They came to IBM for help. Mr. Watson and John McPherson IBM engineering director. thought immediately of the Astronomical Bureau at Columbia, but it is heavily engaged in fairly high priority work for another part of the Army, and really has no room for physical expansion anyhow. It has only two 601s and an old 285 fixed-plugboard tabulator. and there is hardly any room to move. New space was needed, and found, for Watson Labs first task: solution of temperature-pressure equations for completion of the A-bombs at Los Alamos 57 (more about this HERE and much more in Chapter 03 of Dr. Groschs book) Now that Germanys defeat was imminent, Leo Szilard mdash who, with Enrico Fermi, had initiated the Manhattan Project at Columbia in 1939 mdash did not believe the A-bomb should be used on Japan. He obtained a letter of introduction to President Roosevelt from Albert Einstein so he could present his case against dropping the bomb. A preliminary meeting with Eleanor Roosevelt was set up for May 8th, but the President died on April 12th and Szilard was blocked from contacting President Truman. The Army work referred to was for the Army Air Force: test data reduction for a GE aerial fire control system that later went into production for the B-29 bomber 57 . 8 May 1945: VE Day, Germany surrenders, the war in Europe ends. Jul 1945: Szilard wrote and circulated a petition among his fellow scientists at the University of Chicago against the use of atomic weapons and asking President Truman not to use them on Japan. He also sent copies to Oak Ridge and Los Alamos for circulation (the Los Alamos copy was buried by Groves and Oppenheimer). Szilards petition went through several drafts the first one (July 3rd) included the following text: Atomic bombs are primarily a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities. Once they were introduced as an instrument of war it would be difficult to resist for long the temptation of putting them to such use. The last few years show a marked tendency toward increasing ruthlessness. At present our Air Forces, striking at the Japanese cities, are using the same methods of warfare which were condemned by American public opinion only a few years ago when applied by the Germans to the cities of England. Our use of atomic bombs in this war would carry the world a long way further on this path of ruthlessness. Subsequent drafts were toned down a bit but made the same recommendations. The Oak Ridge petition urged that before this weapon be used without restriction in the present conflict, its powers should be adequately described and demonstrated, and the Japanese nation should be given the opportunity to consider the consequences of further refusal to surrender. Watson Lab staff who were performing calculations for Los Alamos were unaware of the petitions or, indeed (with only two exceptions, Eckert and Grosch, the only ones with security clearances), that the calculations were for a bomb 59 . In any event, the petitions never reached the President. 6 Aug 1945: Hiroshima . Now we knew what we had been working on 57 . A second A-bomb was dropped on Nagasaki August 9th. More than 200,000 people died from the two blasts. Was the atomic bomb needed to end the war with Japan The US Strategic Bombing Survey 94 says, Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Surveys opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945 the earliest possible date for an invasion, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war in the East, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. It was known by the Allies 95 that since May 1945, Japan had been making peace overtures to the Soviet Union, both in Tokyo and Moscow. This was done at the direction of the Emperor, who had told his envoy, Prince Konoye, to secure peace at any price, notwithstanding its severity 93 . All indications (e. g. in Henry L. Stimsons diaries ) are that the US deliberately prolonged the war, first by delaying the Potsdam Conference and then by striking the Emperor can stay clause from the Potsdam Declaration, until the bombs could be dropped, and that this was done to intimidate the Soviet Union. Former President, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, and Supreme Commander of NATO Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir, Mandate for Change . (Doubleday 1963), ldquoThe incident took place in 1945 when Secretary of War Stimson visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. But the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of face. rdquo FDRs and Trumans Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and of the Combined US and British Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy wrote in his book I Was There (Whittlesey House, 1950), ldquoIt is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. rdquo Note: The link to the Stimson diaries seems to go stale from time to time, and the selection of entries seems to change as of mid-August 2005, some independent copies can be found HERE and HERE. For further detail and analysis see: Hiroshima: Historians Reassess by Gar Alperovitz, Foreign Policy (Summer 1995) No. 99: 15-34, esp. Part 4, The Preferred Option . 14 Aug 1945: 7:18PM EWT (Eastern War Time): VJ Day, Japan surrenders . the war ends. The formal surrender was signed September 2. (The US and many other countries were on permanent daylight savings time throughout the war in the US this was called War Time -- Eastern War Time, Central War Time, etc.) Oct 1945: Watson Laboratory establishes itself as the cataloger of mathematical tables on punched cards, meaning that any scientist who needed to obtain machine-readable tables of mathematical functions such as sin, cos, tan, log, squares, cubes, inverses, roots, Bessel functions, Lagrangean interpolation coefficients, spheroid functions, grid coordinates, and so forth, could find out from Watson Lab where to get them 28 . Of course Watson Lab itself was a major producer of such tables. As these card decks were freely shared, they might be regarded as an early form of freeware . Nov 1945: Watson Laboratory moves from Pupin Hall (where it had been since February 1945 ) into 612 West 116th Street (PHOTO ) (MAP ), a former fraternity house vacated by the War, purchased by IBM and renovated as a laboratory (PHOTOS ) with offices and teaching facility 4 ,9 . A simple bronze plaque was affixed to the building reading WATSON SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING LABORATORY at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 28 (WHERE IS THE PLAQUE NOW). Watson Labs early equipment included two experimental one-of-a-kind relay calculators, two Aberdeen relay calculators. plus conventional calculators and tabulators inherited from the Astronomy Lab, and within a couple years would grow to include a IBM 602 and the first IBM 604. Read more about renovation and equipping of this building in Chapter 09 of the Grosch book. This building is now Casa Hispanica, home of Columbias Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Herb Grosch confirms that Chock Full O Nuts was open for business on the southwest corner of 116th and Broadway in 1945, where it remained a fixture for decades. Chock Full O Nuts sightings go back as far as 1944. When did it close Mid-1980s I think. A few other establishments that were here in 1945 are still open in 2004: The West End (1915), Toms Restaurant (1936), Columbia Hardware (1939), and Mondels Chocolates (1943). Aug 1946: Eckert describes Watson Lab to an IBM Research Forum 89 . It is the intention of the Laboratory to make these facilities available to any scientist from any place in this country or abroad . regardless of whether he is connected with a university or a laboratory. This is our fundamental principle: problems will be accepted because of scientific interest and not for any other considerations. Scientific interest can be of two kinds: the problem may interest us because of the complexity of the calculation, or it may be considered on the basis of scientific merit of the result rather than the means. While routine computation is not the aim of the Laboratory, a considerable amount of it will be done on worthy causes. Later he describes some experimental machines: Among the digital machines which have been developed over the years, there are several based on the relay network we now have two of these at the Laboratory note: he is not referring to the Aberdeens. which had not yet been delivered . The first one was developed with the idea of seeing how few relays it is possible to use to produce a calculating machine. This machine is built on the standard IBM key punch. The control is very convenient. a combination of control panel and master card or program card. Thus, instead of having twenty control panels for a complicated job, you can set it up to use one control panel and twenty master cards. This might very well be the birth of software . The control panel, which stays in place for the duration of the job, defines the instructions of the machine, in a sense its microprogram. The sequence of operations (invoking instructions from the control panel) is on a deck of cards. It is a PROGRAM. A few years later, IBM would build a Card Programmed Calculator. and from there it is a short step to the first general-purpose stored-program computer, which, arguably, was IBMs SSEC. built under Eckerts direction (in fact the SSEC was completed before the CPC). The significance of card programming cant be overstated. A deck of control cards (along with the specifications for the corresponding control-panel wiring, at least in these early days) documents the program. It can be printed, read, modified, duplicated, mailed, kept for future use, and run again on different data sets. Much of this might be said of plugboards too, provided you dont have to recycle them, thus destroying the program. But most important, a program deck can be any length at all, thus allowing extremely complex problems to be run -- problems that might have required a thousand plugboards. (Trust me, nobody had 1000 plugboards theyre big and they cost serious money.) 1946: Watson Lab produces Ephemerides of 783 Minor Planets for 1947 (formerly Kleine Planeten ), the annual asteroid listing for the year 1947, about 100 pages of tables showing the position of each body at 8-day intervals, calculated on the Watson Lab Aberdeen Relay Calculators. the worlds fastest computing devices at the time. 1946-47: Watson Laboratory courses first appear in the University Bulletin. These are graduate-level credit courses. Among them are courses in computing machinery and numerical analysis taught by Wallace Eckert and Herb Grosch believed to be the first computer science courses offered by any university 40 or, more precisely, the first such courses in the world fully integrated into a university curriculum and continuing year after year 59 . Eckert taught Machine Methods of Scientific Calculation (Astronomy 111-112) Grosch taught Numerical Methods (Engineering 281. a graduate course I took some 30 years later. The next year L. H. Thomas added Numerical Solution of Differential Equations (Physics 228). By 1951, the curriculum also included EE 275 (Electrical and Electronic Components of Digital Computers, taught by Watson Labs Robert M. Walker) and Physics 255 (Separation of Variables in Mathematical Physics, L. H. Thomas). Most of these courses included hands-on laboratory sessions with the Watson Lab machines or (later) the SSEC downtown. Graduate-level hard-science courses used the Watson Lab machines too, including some taught by regular Columbia faculty such as George Kimball (Chemistry), among whose students were Margaret Oakley Dayhoff (Columbia Ph. D. 1948, the founder of computational biochemistry), Isaac Asimov (Columbia B. Sc 1939, M. A. 1941, Ph. D. 1948), and Maurice Ewing (Oceanography), the founder of Lamont-Dohert y Earth Observatory. whose students included Frank Press (Columbia M. A. 1946, Ph. D. 1949), who went on to become President of the US National Academy of Sciences and Chairman of the National Research Council. More about these courses in the 1951 entry. 1946-47: It was also during this period that Watson Laboratory began to provide computer time to Columbia researchers at no charge. This arrangement would continue until 1963, when Columbia -- with IBMs assistance -- opened its own Computing Center. Perhaps the first non-Watson-Lab Columbia researcher to use the Watson Lab machines was Martin Schwarzschild. who used the Aberdeen Relay Calculators for astronomical calculations 57 . 1947: Nevis Laboratory. the Columbia Physics departments primary center for study of high-energy and nuclear physics, founded in Irvington, New York. There is a long history of computing here too, which needs to be told, including the many and varied connection methods to Columbias Morningside Heights campus. Sep 1947: The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is born at a meeting of sixty computer enthusiasts at Columbia Universitys Havemeyer Hall 57 . Originally calling itself the Eastern Association for Computing Machinery, attendees of its first meeting included Columbia Professor Wallace Eckert (who arranged the space), Professor Hilleth Thomas (Thomas-Fermi Model), Byron Havens of Watson Lab (chief engineer, NORC ), John Lentz of Watson Lab (designer of the first personal computer ), Watson Labs Herb Grosch. and everybodys favorite computer person, Grace Hopper. The meeting was convened by computer pioneer and antiwar activist Edmund Berkeley. (CLICK HERE to view documents from the first ACM meeting.) Nov 1947: The Watson Laboratory Three-Week Course on Computing , taught by Eric Hankam, the first hands-on computer course (PHOTOS AND DETAILS ), in which scientists from all over the world learned how to apply computing machines to problems in their disciplines. The course was given here eleven times a year until 1957 -- by which time it had been attended by 1600 people from 20 countries -- when it was moved to IBM education centers around the world 9 . 24 Dec 1947: First successful test of the transistor. Jan 1948: The IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) (PHOTOS AND DETAILS ) was designed and built by IBM in 1946-47 under the direction of Columbia Professsor Wallace Eckert and then installed in IBM HQ at 590 Madison Ave in January 1948. This is one of the first large-scale electronic computers, and the first machine to combine electronic computation with a stored program and capable of operating on its own instructions as data . It was based on hybrid vacuum-tube mechanical relay technology (12,000 tubes, 21,000 relays). Fully assembled, it was 140 feet long (60 20 60 U-shape) (some sources cite different dimensions) and was used initially for calculating lunar coordinates. Reporters called it a Robot Brain. Its massive size and configuration established the public image of computers for decades to come (as in this 1961 New Yorker cover by Charles Addams). Aside from solving important scientific problems, it was used by students of Columbias pioneering Machine Methods graduate course -- part of the worlds first computer science curriculum, initiated here in 1946. Popular descriptions of computers as brains and analogies with the human nervous system were so rampant in the late 1940s and early 50s, that George Stibitz. developer of the wartime Bell Relay Calculators. was prompted to write an article cautioning against such wild tales as the one in the Feb 18, 1950, Saturday Evening Post, which said that computers were subject to psychopathic states which engineers cure by shock treatments consisting of the application of excessively large voltages 79 . The SSEC was programmed from Watson Lab on standard IBM cards converted to input tapes on a special punch called the Prancing Stallion 57 . Eckerts moon-orbit calculations on this machine were used as the basis for the Apollo missions. It was dismantled in 1952. One of the SSECs programmers was John Backus (PHOTO AND DETAILS ), who had two Columbia degrees and was at Watson Lab in 1950-52 9 , and who went on to design FORTRAN, the first high-level machine-independent programming language . and Algol. the first block-structured language, and is also known for Backus Normal Form (BNF), a meta-language for describing computer languages. Before FORTRAN, almost every computer program was written in machine or assembly language, and therefore was not portable to any other kind of machine. The idea of a high-level programming language was the second step on the road to user friendliness. The first step was the assembler. Such notions were not without controversy. John von Neumann, when he first heard about FORTRAN in 1954, was unimpressed and asked why would you want more than machine language One of von Neumanns students at Princeton recalled that graduate students were being used to hand assemble programs into binary for their early machine. This student took time out to build an assembler, but when von Neumann found out about it he was very angry, saying that it was a waste of a valuable scientific computing instrument to use it to do clerical work. (These anecdotes from a biographical sketch of von Neumann by John A. N. Lee. Dept of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnical Institute.) Another SSEC programmer was Edgar F. Codd . originator of the relational database model 40 ( Communications of the ACM. Vol. 13, No. 6, June 1970, pp.377-387), who was at Watson Lab from 1949 to 1952 9 and died April 18, 2003. 1948-54: The IBM Personal Automatic Calculator was designed by John Lentz and built between 1948 and 1954 on the top floor of Watson Lab. Among its innovations was a magnetic drum for auxilliary storage, automatic positioning of the decimal point, and the first video terminal. When it was finally announced in 1956 as the IBM 610 Autopoint Computer. it was the first personal computer . 4 ,9 ,17 1949: Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. Columbias earth science facility, founded in Palisades, New York, by Professor Maurice Ewing, a user of the Watson Lab equipment. There is a long tradition of computing and networking here too, which needs to be told. See 39 for an excellent history (albeit with nothing on computing) of what is now called the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. 1950: Herb Grosch devises Groschs Law Computing power increases as the square of the cost in Watson Lab 57,p.131 . Dr. Grosch leaves Watson in 1951 to start an IBM bureau in Washington DC. May 1950: Edmund Berkeley (who had founded the ACM at Columbia University in 1947, and who had written the first book about computers for a general audience 62 in 1949), William Porter (a West Medford MA mechanic), and two Columbia graduate students, Robert Jensen and Andrew Vall, build Simon 63 , a simple model electronic brain (PHOTO ), costing about 600 to construct. Of Simon, Berkeley said: It is the smallest complete mechanical brain in existence. It knows not more than four numbers it can express only the number 0, 1, 2 and 3. It is guaranteed to make every member of an audience feel superior to it. It is a mechanical brain that has cost less than 1,000. It can be carried around in one hand (and the power supply in the other hand). It can be completely understood by one man. It is an excellent device for teaching, lecturing and explaining. 1951: CLICK HERE to view some 1951 Watson Lab Astronomy, Engineering, and Physics course listings from the 1951 Columbia Catalog. Herb Grosch recalls 57 : . a little about the courses we gave - that is, at Columbia. These were all part of the regular university curriculum, listed in the appropriate catalogs - we had our own special one also - and open to any student with the prerequisites and the money. We did however encourage our own juniors on 116th Street and at the SSEC to attend as auditors if they did not want to sign up for credit. Most of our offerings were unusual. Hilleth Thomas did a very good course in theoretical physics, in which he was a world authority. I did a celestial mechanics course one year it was really a mlange of spherical trig, practical and theoretical astronomy (meaning time and position determination, and orbit computing), and brief mentions of planetary and satellite mechanics. None of my subtopics were taught anywhere else at Columbia the astronomy department was solid astrophysics. And they were what was needed for astronomy calculations. Most of our value as teachers, however, came from the computing courses . Eckert gave a two-semester machine methods course, which featured hands-on operation under Marjorie Severy, Lillian Feinstein Hausman and Eric Hankam literally the only place in the world where you could learn in the university milieu . I did numerical methods - classical interpolation and matrix arithmetic and integration of differential equations. Most of my examples, and assigned exercises, were at desk calculator level, but I lectured from the point of view of machine operation. This was one semester, once a year, and Hilleth did an advanced course featuring partial differential equation solutions and error propagation, every other year. My classes were small this was a very esoteric discipline indeed in the Forties. But I had interesting students. like Stan Rothman and Bill McClelland and John Backus and Don Quarles. So it was my side of the house that carried the teaching. It went on into the Fifties, always as part - but a small part - of the Columbia offerings. The hands-on side of the Machine Methods course was unique, not just because of the equipment but because real use-em-every-day men and women were running it. 1952-3: Watson Lab 2. When construction of the NORC (see Dec 1954 entry) exhausted available space in the petite 116th street building (and because still more space was required by Watson Labs new physics program), IBM purchased the building at 612 West 115th Street (PHOTO ) (MAP ), formerly a womens residence club, gutted and renovated it, equipped it with physics laboratories, and relocated to it. The new Watson Lab was occupied in September 1953 . A time clock was installed (you can still see its mounting today) but nobody on the professional staff used it (as a corporation, IBM was obsessed with efficiency but the Watson Lab scientists were notorious noncomformists). The time clock and all wall clocks were controlled centrally and set automatically by an IBM master clock (like the one in the first Watson Lab ) the IBM wall clocks in Watson Lab kept on ticking until about 1999. The Penthouse was outfitted as a lunchroom with a small kitchen, where coffee and tea could be made and soup or beans heated up it had the atmosphere of a World War II canteen, and was the favorite place for people in different groups or floors to talk and thesis advisors to meet with their students 17 . Some space was retained in the 116th Street building: offices for PhD students, classroom space, and a machine room 4 ,9 ,17 ,66 . The former womens residence on 115th Street was in fact the Parnassus Club . a boarding house for young women -- students at the Julliard School of Music. which was then only a couple blocks away on the current Manhattan School of Music site (MAP ) or at Barnard College. a block north (MAP ), for semi-professional performers. It operated from 1921 to 1955. CLICK HERE for stories and photos. The North-facing building was gutted by IBM in 1953 to create Watson Laboratory. According to a resident, we all had to move out because some official body at Columbia had decided the neighborhood had become too dangerous for us at least that was the reason given in a letter we all received that spring (this refers to the second Parnassus Club building, which remained in operation until 1955). (Miss Macmillans 1965 obituary states, however, that the Club was closed due to her poor health.) The exterior of 612 West 115th Street retains its original look but the inside contains no trace of the Parnassus Club. In July 2003, a resident from 1950 appeared on the doorstep with her daughter and grandson she was showing them where she used live. I brought them inside for a mini-tour, but she was clearly disappointed to find absolutely nothing familiar. The original Watson Lab at 612 West 116th Street was designed by Thomas Nash and built in 1906 as the Delta Phi fraternity house. The current Watson building at 612 West 115th Street was originally an apartment building called Duncan Hall, designed in 1905 by the prolific firm of Neville Bagge, originally built and owned by a Frank Woytisek. The building across the street, No. 605, was also an apartment building by Neville Bagge, called the Bellemore, built in 1903 and originally owned by Moses Crystal 12 . It was home to the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR ) from 1955() until it was demolished about 1970. 1954: 200th anniversary of Columbia University. 1954: Invention of the cursor: As part of his work on the first personal computer (the IBM 610 ), Watson Labs John Lentz designs a small video terminal -- keyboard and tiny screen -- for control and data entry. in which the current position was indicated visually by what came to be known as a cursor . Lentz applied for a patent on this concept the patent was finally granted in the early 1970s. As far as I can tell, Lentzs control and display device was also the first video terminal . Dec 1954: The Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) (PHOTOS AND DETAILS ), the first supercomputer and the most powerful computer in existence at the time (and for the next ten years), becomes operational. It was designed here beginning in 1950 and built in Watson Lab 2, 612 West 115th Street. NORC had 200,000 electronic components: 3600 words of main memory (originally vacuum tubes. later magnetic cores ), eight magnetic tape drives, 15,000 complete operations per second, decimal (not binary) arithmetic, swappable components. Since this was such a big job, additional space was rented at 2929 Broadway, above a restaurant (Prexys Home of the Educated Hamburger) for building some of the parts, which were brought to Watson Lab for assembly and eventual startup and operation. John von Neumann was a team member and gave the inaugural address on December 2, 1954. NORC was moved to the Naval Proving Ground, Dahlgren, Virginia, in 1955 and remained operational until 1968 4,12,17 . 30 Aug 1955: The first of two IBM 650 computers is installed in the first-floor machine room of the original Watson Lab building on 116th Street. The 650 was a vacuum-tube-logic decimal computer with 2000 words of ten decimal digits each plus sign 31 stored on drum memory. Each had a 511 card reader and a 403 printer. They ran for two shifts a day, eventually supporting over 200 Columbia research projects 29 . A 17 Nov 1955 memo from Dr. Eckert to J. C. McPherson states that the 650 was installed on August 30 and much of the work of the computing group has been concerned with its incorporation into the Laboratory program of research and instruction. The 650s were soon used in a series of intensive courses on computing, with 31 as a text these courses later resulted in a book: Joachim Jeenel, Programming for Digital Computers. McGraw-Hill, 1959 64 . Initally, all programming was in assembly language punched on cards eventually languages such as FORTRAN were available. The legendary SOAP assembler for the 650 was written at Watson Lab by Stan Poley. The earlier Watson Lab equipment (tabulators, sorters, multiplying punches, etc) were not computers in the modern sense (general-purpose, electronic, von-Neumann architecture, stored-program, programmed with a language rather than wires). NORC had been the first such computer at Columbia but, although it was used in one Columbia PhD dissertation 65 , it was not open to the Columbia community for general use 61 . Thus the IBM 650 was the first computer available to Columbia researchers and we have a 50th anniversary on August 30, 2005. Eric Hankam points out 66 that this was not as dramatic a turning point as it might seem, since the same types of problems had been solved on non-stored-program calculators at Columbia over the preceding two or three decades at the time, the 650 was seen as just another incremental step in calculator design. However, the 650s power, flexibility, and ease of use relative to the wire - and card-programmed machines (601. Aberdeen. 602. 604. CPC. 607 ) attracted a flood of Columbia research projects. By 1961, 650s were also installed at Nevis Lab, Hudson Lab, and ERL. As demand oustripped capacity, it became increasingly clear that Columbia would need a computing facility of its own, big enough to serve the entire university. Sep 1956: Watson Lab begins to award fellowships to Columbia graduate students 9 , including Ken King, who would become the first Director of the Columbia Computer Center, and Joe Traub, who, after obtaining his Columbia PhD in 1959, and a distinguished career at Bell Labs and heading the Carnegie-Mellon CS Department, would become first Chair of Columbias Computer Science Department 9. 21 (prior to that, computer science courses were in the Electrical Engineering department). Watson Fellows had their own offices at 612 West 116th Street. that were appointed with fireplaces and leather sofas, a good stipend, and unlimited computing time 38 . Approximately 15 percent of Columbia physics graduate students in the 1950s did their thesis work at Watson Lab 38 . 1956-70: Watson Lab concentrates on solid state physics. This not-insignificant period, resulting in many publications, patents, and a Nobel Prize, is described at length in 4 and 9 . (Richard L. Garwin of Watson Lab conducted experiments with Leon Lederman of the CU Physics Department confirming the suggestion by C. N. Yang of Princeton and T. D. Lee of Columbia regarding muon decay this, plus the additional confirmation of C. S. Wu in the CU Physics Department, resulted in the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for Lee and Yang.) Also in this period, Seymour Koenigs research on low-temperature breakdown of germanium and its application to semiconductors Triebwassers research on microscopic and thermodynamic properties of ferroelectric crystals Tuckers research on semiconductors at liquid helium temperatures with application to biomedical instrumentation 38 . 1957: A proposal was submitted by Columbia University to the National Science Foundation to install an IBM 701 in Watson Laboratory, since many of Columbias research projects now demanded more power than was offered by the 650s (the sub-microsecond circuits used in the 701 were designed at Watson Lab 37 ). While the proposal was under consideration the 701 was superseded by the Model 704. so the proposal was changed to ask for a 704. 145,000 was awarded, but it turned out the 704 was larger than the 701 originally proposed and would not fit in Watson Lab, so the money had to be returned unused 28 and IBM Watson Lab continued to cater to all of Columbias academic computing needs at its own expense. Projects that couldnt be accommodated by Watson Labs Model 650s were allowed to use the more powerful IBM 700-series computers downtown at IBM headquarters 36 . Oct 1957: IBM proposes the following arrangement to Charles Hurd, University Registrar, for student statistics, course registration, permanent records, and fee accounting: Less 20 educational discount, plus supplies of cards, coding sheets, control (plugboard) panels, trays, and brackets totalling another 1810.25. Note: the links for some of these items are to later (but similar) models. Required personnel are one supervisorprogrammer, two machine operators, and three key punch operators. Source: AIS archives. This arrangement characterizes the nature of administrative data processing at the time. There is no true computer, only unit record equipment and tabulating machines capable of rudimentary statistics (sums) and report generation. According to letters of Charles Hurd, 1957-1960 28 , the funding was found from the expected decline in enrollment of Public Law 550 Korean War veterans (Veterans Readjustment Act of 1952) in his proposal to Provost John Krout (29 Oct 1957), Hurd says I am sure that you are aware that IBM equipment has been used in the Registrars Offices in colleges and universities. large and small, public and private, for many years and has proven to be a most valuable and efficient tool. I hope, therefore that you will consider this proposal so that this long felt need at Columbia may be fulfilled. In other words, registration was still completely manual in 1957. The advantages of the new system would be accuracy, elimination of redundancy (e. g. each student writing the same information on many different forms, up to 23 of them) and transcription errors, and the ability to generate reports, including class lists, plus ID cards and mailing labels, not to mention keeping up with the Joneses, e. g. NYU, where punch-card registration had been in use since at least 1933. The new equipment was installed in 307 University Hall and the new system phased in from 1959 to 1961 (with an IBM 407 installed rather than a 403 at an extra 250month). Computerized registration was seen by some as a step towards dehumanization of students and turning universities into factories, a major factor in the rise of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley, which set the stage for campus activism, protest, and rebellion throughout the 1960s, including Columbia in 1968. There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you cant take part and youve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and youve got to make it stop. According to Steven Lubar of the Smithsonian Institution, this sentiment, although directed primarily at the economy and war machinery, extended to the punched-card equipment in the registrars office: Berkeley protestors used punch cards as metaphor, both as a symbol of the system--first the registration system and then bureaucratic systems more generally--and as a symbol of alienation. I am a UC student. Please dont bend, fold, spindle or mutilate me. 1958: The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (CPEMC) is founded by Professors Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. It is the first center for electroacoustic music in the USA and has a long association with Columbia computing. Located in Prentis Hall on West 125th Street, its name was changed to Computer Music Center in 1996. Some tales have been collected and contributed by Peter Mauzey of Bell Labs, a Columbia graduate and former faculty member with a long association with the Electronic Music Center CLICK HERE to read them. Sep 1958: The equipment of Columbia University IBM Watson Scientific Computing laboratory is listed 21 as: Standard punched card equipment A comprehensive selection of basic punched card machines, with many special devices. The equipment includes keypunch, sorter, reproducer, and printer. Wired-program calculators The group of electro-mechanical and electronic calculators include the Type 602-A Calculating Punch. the Type 607 Electronic Calculating Punch. and the Card-Programmed Electronic Calculator. The 607 is an automatic electronic calculator with pluggable program control and 146-digit storage capacity, capable of performing most programs at the rate of 100 cards per minute. Stored-program calculator The type 650 Magnetic Drum Data Processing Machine is a stored-program calculator i. e. computer which can store 2000 ten-digit words, read 200 cards a minute, punch 100 cards a minute, and perform approximately 100 multiplications a second. The memory capacity can be used interchangeably for numerical data and operating instructions, which permits complete flexibility in the elaboration of instructions by the machine itself. Plus special-purpose devices such as a card-driven lithography printer, a card-controlled astronomical photograph analyzer, as well as a machine shop and physics and chemistry laboratories, a highly specialized library, and access to the big IBM 700 series computers downtown. Although FORTRAN -- the first high-level, machine-independent programming language -- marked a great leap forward in user friendliness, and was probably available for the 650 by this time, its worth remembering how one ran a FORTRAN job in the early days. First you punched your FORTRAN program on a key punch machine. along with any data and control cards. But since the 650 had no disk, the FORTRAN compiler was not resident. So to compile your program, you fed the FORTRAN compiler deck into the card reader, followed by your FORTRAN source program as data. After some time, the machine would punch the resulting object deck. Then you fed the FORTRAN run-time library object deck and your programs object deck into the card reader, followed by any data cards for your program. Your program would run and results would be punched onto yet another deck of cards. To see the results, you would feed the result deck into another machine, such as an IBM 407. to have it printed on paper. The computer itself had no printer. By the early 60s a certain division of labor had become the rule, in which system analysts would make a flow chart, programmers would translate it to code, which was written by hand on coding forms that were given to key punch operators to be punched on cards. The coding forms and card decks were passed on to verifiers who repunched the source code to catch and correct any mistakes, signed off on the job, sent the deck to the operator to await its turn at the computer. Hours later the results would be delivered to the programmer in the form of a printout and the cycle would continue. 1959: Programming for Digital Computers. by Watson Labs Joachim Jeenel, is published by McGraw-Hill. From the Preface: The contents of this book were developed from material presented to courses on programming for stored-programming calculators held at Columbia University. Prof. W. J. Eckert, Director of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University, initiated the writing of the book and suggested the scope of the text. Jeenel also taught Columbia graduate courses such as Astronomy 111-112: Machine Methods of Scientific Calculation (with Eric Hankam). 1959: An IBM 1620 is installed in Watson Lab to supplement the 650s, and is used in Columbia research projects. 1959: The Provosts office commissions a study to develop a plan for the future of computing at Columbia. In view of the failure in 1957 to produce the space needed for a state-of-the art computer that NSF was willing to pay for. the study concluded that a new computer center building was needed 28 . The central administration concurs and begins to seek sources of funding. Dean Ralph S. Halford, a Chemistry professor, Dean of Graduate Faculties, and (perhaps most to the point) Vice Provost for Projects and Grants is in charge. Dean Halford and the University Committee on Cooperation with Watson Laboratory, which then included Professors Wallace Eckert (Astronomy and Watson Lab), Samuel Eilenberg (Mathematics), Richard Garwin (Physics and Watson Lab), and Polykarp Kusch (Physics, Nobel Prize 1955), plan the future Computer Center. 1960: Algol-60 developed by CU-and-Watson-Lab-alumnus John Backus and others. This was to be the most influential computer language of all time, the parent of all other block-structured languages, including (among many others) Java, C, C, Pascal, PLI, and Ada, but not including such lovable mavericks as LISP, APL, Snobol, and Forth. 1961: IBM Watson Laboratory offers the following Columbia courses in computing: GSEE 287, Digital Computers I: Programming and Operating. Astronomy 111-112: The use of High-Speed Digital Computers for Scientific Calculation. Engineering 281. Numerical Analysis for Research Students in Science and Engineering. Physics 288: Numerical Solution of Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations. Management Games (Industrial Engineering): Market simulations. Plus short courses in IBM 650 and Fortran programming and the Share Operating System (SOS) 29 ,31 . Besides the Watson Lab courses, the Electrical Engineering Department offers: EE 104: Electric Circuits IV: Digital Circuits and Computing Systems. GSEE 267: Digital Systems and Automata. GSEE 269: Information Theory. GSEE 274: Electrical Analogue Computers. GSEE 275-276: Logical Design of Digital Circuits. GSEE 288-289: Digital Computers II and III: System Analysis and Synthesis. EE 277-278-279: Pulse and Digital Circuits. May 1961: Dean Halford writes a Proposal to the National Science Foundation for Support of a Computing Center to be Established at Columbia University 29 , and shortly afterwards the NSF approves 200,000 over the first two years 121 . IBM pledges 125,000 for fellowships, and another 500,000 is obtained from an anonymous donor 30 (who might have been Thomas J Watson Sr or another Columbia Trustee). Two IBM 7090 mainframe computers are to be acquired at an education discount, which requires Columbia to devote at least 88 hours per month for purposes of instruction and unsponsored academic research. With funding lined up, Dean Halford proposes the new Computer Center to the University Committee on Finance. The need for a Computer Center was clear. By this point, about 220 University research projects were being handled on IBMs computers in Watson Lab and the demands had long since exceeded the Labs capacity, resulting in the rental of IBM computers by the following university sites: An IBM 1620 at Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory. An IBM 650 at the Nevis Cyclotron Laboratory. An IBM 650 at Hudson Lab. An IBM 650 at the Electronics Research Lab of the Engineering School. The primary needs were in high-energy physics (then accounting about 200 hours of IBM 650 time per month), sociology (50 hoursmonth), geophysics (100 hours of IBM 709 time per month), biochemistry, and chemistry. A school of computer science will evolve gradually at the Computing Center, with an independent line of administration as an educational organ of the University. The IBM Watson Lab courses would be taken over by the Computing Center. The initial staff was to be 15 persons covering two shifts, including a branch librarian 29 . The Computing Center was to serve those whose research is sponsored and those whose research is not. It has been created with the aim of serving all of the needs of both groups without preference toward either one, with the expectation that its cost would have to be met in substantial part by the University 36 . Sep 1961: The Columbia Committee on Finance approves Dean Halfords proposal to create a Computer Center, based on funding pledges from IBM and NSF 28 . 1961-63: Construction of the Computer Center building. Total cost: 800,000 30 (PHOTOS, STORIES NEEDED). 2 Jan 1963: Columbia University Computer Center (CUCC) opens. Dr. Kenneth M. King, who received his Columbia Ph. D. in Physics as a Watson Fellow under Prof. L. H. Thomas 17 and had managed Watson Labs computing facility 20 , was the first Director, with a joint appointment to the faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science V53. The original location was 612 W 116th Street (the first Watson Lab), which still housed the IBM teaching facility as well as Casa Hispanica, but the new underground Computer Center building between Havemeyer and Uris halls was soon ready with machine rooms for equipment and offices for staff (more space than well ever need). The Computer Center initially housed the following equipment 10 : IBM 7090 (PHOTOS AND STORIES ) with 32768 (32K) 36-bit words of magnetic core storage. This was the first commercial computer based on transistor, rather than vacuum tube. logic (a vacuum-tube 709 was originally planned 29 , but the 7090 appeared just in time). It is in the direct line of descent from Watson Labs NORC. The price was 1,205,000.00 after 60 IBM educational allowance, amortized over 5 years (Letter of John A. Krout, VP of the University, 4 Oct 1961, AcIS archives). Included: Two data channels. Two IBM 1301 Model 2 disks, total capacity: 9320000 36-bit words. Six IBM 729VI 7-track tape drives. an IBM 1402-2 80-column Card ReaderPunch. reads 800 cardsminute, punches 250. Two IBM 1403 chain printers, 132 colsline, 1100 linesminute 3 secspage. 7040 Console Typewriter. 1014 Remote Inquiry Unit. Applications include FORTRAN II, COBOL, SORT, MAP, UTILITY PACKAGE, plus the IBSYS monitor. IBM 1401 with: 4000 characters of memory. Two 729V tape drives. One 600 LPM printer. Advanced Programming Package Access to computing was batch only. Users brought decks or boxes of punch cards to the operators and came back the next day to retrieve their cards and the resulting listings from the output bins. Jobs were paid for out of grants or funny money. There were no user terminals and there was no user access to the machine room. which was staffed around the clock by operators and a shift supervisor. During the first six months of the Centers operation, the 7090 logged 907.55 hours on 158 projects for 101 members of our academic staff. Downtime ran to thirty hours or so monthly during the first two months, as expected in a new installation, but fell to acceptable levels for the remainder of the period. About forty-five percent of the time used was furnished to projects sponsored by government contracts. 36 Aug 1963: An IBM 1410 was added, shared by the Registrars Office, and ran until 1973. Nov 1963: The IBM 7090 was replaced by an IBM 7094-I. 1964-70: IBM Watson Lab continues operation at 612 W 115th Street, concentrating now on life sciences and medicine. Among many results from this period was improved analysis of Pap smears, and there was an alliance with the Urban League Street Academy program, educating community kids in science. 1965: Photo gallery of the Columbia Computer Center in 1965: The IBM 70947040 Coupled System, the Hough-Powell Device (HPD), Tape Library, Key Punch EAM room. In 1965 the Computer Center had 25 employees, all housed in the Computer Center building: the director (Ken King), 8 operators, a librarian, and 15 technical people. Besides the IBM 70947040 system there was also an IBM 1401 and a 1410 computer in the machine room, as well as the unit record equipment listed in the January 1963 entry. 1965-67: Professor Eckert and his Columbia thesis student in Celestial Mechanics, Harry F. Smith (who was also on the Watson Lab technical staff as lab manager in the 116th Street building. helping students (often of Eric Hankam ) debug their IBM 650 programs, assisting students in other ways with other computers in the building, and responsible for closing up the lab at 11pm each evening) refine the theory of the moon -- the equations that describe and predict its motion -- to unheard-of accuracy, improving upon the calculations performed by Eckert in 1948-52 on the SSEC 78 by adding additional terms: 10,000 equations in 10,000 unknowns, 100,000,000 possible coefficients. The calculations were programmed in assembly language by Smith, who devised efficient methods for solving these sparse equations with so many small-divisor terms that were a potential source of instability, and run on the Computer Centers IBM 7094 over a period of three years 65 ,87 , resulting in 220 pages of lunar position tables published in Astronomical Papers of the American Ephemeris. plus several papers in astronomical journals (see Eckerts bibliography ). This was the culmination of Eckerts lifes work. Smith is now on the Computer Science faculty at University of North Carolina. 1965: (Month) The Administrative Data Processing Center (ADPC) was established. The newly established Computer Center was primarily for academic computing (in those days, research and very little instruction). Administrative computing was done independently by individual departments such as the Registrars Office and the Controllers Office. The new, separate ADPC drew programmers from the Registrars and Conrollers offices as well as the Computer Center, including York Wong, previously the Computer Center programming supervisor, who became director of the new administrative group. The equipment (IBM 1401s and IBM 1410s ) was in the Controllers office in Hogan Hall on Broadway and in Prentis Hall. 632 West 125th Street, with applications written in AUTOCODER 20 . (The story of administrative computing prior to 1965 is still largely a mystery. Dorothy Marshall, VP for ADP, upon her retirement in 1988, wrote a reminiscence in the ADP Newsletter 11 , where she recalls that ADP actually originated in the Controllers Office, the first administrative department to use a punch-card system. The first large system ADP acquired is still with us -- the Alumni Records and Gift Information System (ARGIS) -- and I recall very clearly the accusations that we were using all the tape drives and all the system resources at the expense of the University researchers. (This was to be a recurring theme.) Unfortunately Dorothy did not mention dates or places.) (Coincidentally, some clue was provided on the front page of the Columbia University website, 18 Jan 2001, and subsequent University Record article 18 announcing the retirement of Joe Sulsona. shift supervisor of the Computer Center machine room, after 42 years: Sulsona, a New York City native, went from high school directly to the military. When he returned from Korea in 1957 at the age of 23, he studied the latest in computing, gaining experience as a board programmer, which involved the manipulation of wires and plugs on a computer board. much like the original telephone operating systems. He was hired at Columbias alumni faculty records office as a machine operator and spent his time punching out data cards using a small keypunch machine.) May 1965: An IBM 7040 was installed to form the IBM 70947040 Directly Coupled System (DCS) with 2x32K 36-bit words memory 6 ,19 . The 7040 freed the 7090 from mundane inputoutput and scheduling tasks so its power could be focussed on computation. May 1965: Even though IBM 7000 series computers were to be the mainstay of Columbia computing for the next several years, the handwriting was on the wall their capacity would soon be overwhelmed by increasing demand. IBM proposes the new System360 architecture for the Computer Center on May 21. This was to be the basis for IBMs mainframe line into the next millenium. Unlike previous IBM mainframes, the 360 was available in a range of compatible models, from small slow machines such as the Model 20 (suitable mainly for printing decks of cards ) to the Model 92 supercomputer that they proposed to Columbia, with many in between (IBMs proposal was for a coupled Model 92 and Model 75). Each model could use the same peripherals, and 360-series computers could also be connected to each other in various ways and even share main memory. The 36092 that IBM proposed, with its thin-film memory technology, turned out to be too expensive. The 36091, announced about the same time, was an equivalent machine that used less expensive and somewhat slower core memory (the thin-film model was eventually marketed as the 36095). To achieve supercomputer speeds, the 3609x models pioneered new concepts such as instruction pipelining and lookahead, branch prediction, cache memory, overlap, and parallelism. The 3609x series is optimized for scientific calculation and lacks a hardware decimal arithmetic capability (which is simulated in software). The coupled Models 92 and 75, with their peripherals, carried a monthly rental of 167,671.00 (after a 36 educational discount), which works out to over two million dollars a year, and about 22 million over what would be the 11-year lifetime of the system. 32 Nov 1965: The blackout of 1965 . The lights went out for about 12 hours in Manhattan, most of the US northeast, and large parts of Canada. Interestingly, I cant unearth any stories about the blackouts impact on computing at Columbia. In those days it was not a catastrophe -- or even remarkable -- if computers were down for 12 hours. 1965-69: Of the Columbia University Teachers College IBM 1130. Peter Kaiser recalls, The Teachers College computing center had what may have been the worlds most over-configured 1130. It had not only a 2250 but also the additional hardware to make an 1130 into a 1500, the special version designed for interactive instruction and therefore it could also drive multiple 2260 - like terminals. The then director of the TCCC had ambitions use the 11301500 for research to improve on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory by timing the responses to the test administered through one of these terminals. When I left to take a real-world job in 1969 that project was in abeyance. 1966-67: Ken King offers a course in computer appreciation. Demand was high and half of the 60 students who tried to enroll had to be turned away. Popular computer courses are also offered this year in Engineering, Mathematics, and Sociology 38 . 1966: Watson Lab gets one of the first APL terminals (an IBM 1050), hooked to the M4444X system in Yorktown, which is a 7044 computer coupled with a 7055 computer that controls a number of terminals. This system is used to simulate a number of 44X computers, including one per 1050 terminal the 44X is the computer seen and programmed by the user operating from a 1050 terminal. It is primarily for users of FORTRAN IV but the 1050 can also be used to run APL (Iverson Language) programs on Yorktowns 36050 (Iverson worked at the Yorktown facility) 88 . APL soon becomes quite popular, both at Watson Lab and CUCCA. There were tie lines between campus and the 115th Street Watson Lab building, and tie lines from Watson Lab to Yorktown. The Watson receptionist (Annie Hall) could, upon request, connect the two, allowing campus 2741 data terminals to access APL at Yorktown 106 . Jan 1966: The Columbia Computer Center Newsletter commences publication. It would continue in one form or another until November 1994. Oct 1966: ADPC staff moves to Casa Hispanica at 612 West 116th Street (around the corner from Chock Full O Nuts and a couple doors west of Campus Deli), sharing the small building with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese 20 and the IBM teaching facility 17 . Staff from the academic Computer Center also begin to move into this tiny building. Soon it is crammed beyond capacity and offices spill over into neighboring apartment buildings (520 W 114th Street plus a long-gone building on West 117th Street, itself (the street) also just a memory). 1967: Dr. Seymour H. Koenig (PHOTO ), who received his Ph. D. in Physics from Columbia in 1952 (and his BS in 1949) and joined Watson Lab the same year, is appointed its Director 9 . By this time Watson laboratory has RJE access to the big IBM 360s in Yorktown, but when then the link is down they use the CUCCA facilities 9 . 1967: Library automation begins about here. I remember some form of automation starting in the 1966-68 timeframe when I was a student assistant in Butler -- there was already a Library Systems Office on the Mezzanine then I used to schlepp decks of cards and listings back and forth to the Computer Center for them. By 1967, circulation was already computerized in Central Circulation and Burgess-Carpenter (where I worked at the time), and a collaboration was underway with Stanford and the University of Chicago regarding cataloging and acquisitions 24 perhaps this was the origin of RLIN. CLICK HERE for more about library automation. AND HERE. Mar 1967: In response to IBMs May 1965 proposal, and after lining up sources of funding for it, the Computer Center announces its plan to upgrade and modernize its equipment and to unify academic and administrative computing in a Computer Center Newsletter article written by (of all people) President Grayson Kirk V22-3. In the first stage . October 1967, an IBM 36050 was rented 19. 20. 24 , to allow the 7090-to-360 conversion to begin. Aug 1967: Second stage: An IBM 36075 was purchased and linked to the 36050. In the ensuing months, staff learned OS360, JCL, and some new programming languages like PLI and SNOBOL, as well as new versions of old ones like WATFOR (the University of Waterloo version of Fortran), and then quickly began to modify the operating system for purposes of accounting and resource limitation, and also to add support for IBM 2741 and other terminals that were not supported yet and then to create a conversational monitor called CLEO to allow job submission and retrieval from terminals 24 . Aug 1967: The US government mandates a chargeback scheme for computer time, launching the Computer Center on a neverending series of increasingly baroque charging schemes involving hard currency and funny money. The first such scheme was a simple 150 per hour of CPU time (which, in those days, was the same thing as elapsed time), with some grandfathering of existing unsupported projects (Letter of Warren Goodell, 1 Aug 1967, AcIS archives). 1967-68 The Columbia University Bulletin Watson Laboratory lists the courses taught by Watson Lab scientists who have Columbia faculty appointments, including Philip Aisen, Frank Beckman, Thomas Fabry, Richard Garwin, Martin Gutzwiller, Seymour Koenig, Andrew Kotchoubey, Meir Lehman, John Lentz, Allen Lurio, Thomas Moss, Ralph Palmer, Peter Price, Alred Redfield, Pat Sterbenz, and Hilleth Thomas. After the Computer Center opened in 1963, Watson Lab is no longer the focus of computing its course offerings concentrate on biology, mathematics, and physics, but several computing courses are still listed, including EE E6827x-E6828y Digial Computer Design (Prof. Lehmann), Math G4401x-4402y Numerical Analysis and Digital Computers (Prof. Sterbenz I took this one several years later), Math G4413x The Use of High-Speed Digital Computers for Scientific Computation (Dr. Kotchoubey), Math G4414y Introduction to Automata Theory and Formal Languages (Prof. Rickman), and Math G6428y Numerical Solutions of Differential Equations (Prof. Thomas). 1968: The Department of Electrical Engineering becomes the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This was to be the locus for computer science instruction and research until the establishment of a separate Computer Science Department in 1979. Jan 1968: Raphael Ramirez starts work as an operator in the machine room. CLICK HERE to read his reminiscences of the early days. Feb 1968: The IBM 7040 was removed 19 . CLEO, an interactive terminal monitor developed here, was released and announced 24 . Apr-May 1968: The Columbia student uprising of 1968 . Computer Center management and some of the staff feared the worst -- invasion, occupation, wreckage -- but nothing happened to the Computer Center at all. Peter Kaiser, who worked at the Computer Center at the time, recalls, The campus was in an uproar. So was much of America, and the political powers that be were frightened and acting ugly I have vivid memories of the NYC police lined up ready to do violence to the students who had occupied the administration building, which they eventually did by invading the building and beating up everyone in sight. Before the police stormed the building, though, the computer centers administration feared that the center itself would be occupied, so there were worried talks about what to do if that ever happened. In the event it didnt happen, but the uproar delayed the delivery of the 360. Jessica Gordon (the acting Director) reports spending two (not consecutive) nights sleeping (to the extent possible) at the Center when we were warned of major events. One day I was standing on College Walk with a group of others including Raphael Ramirez watching the special Tactical Police Force. jack-booted thugs, marching onto campus. As they passed, one of them turned to us and said Hi there, sports fans. As a participant, I have no recollection of the Computer Center ever being considered as a target for occupation or attack, nor does the Computer Centers Annual report for 1967-68 make any mention of it 24 . However, there might have been a picket line afterwards, since picket lines went up in front of most academic buildings. Jul 1968: ADPC joins the Computer Center with its new director (yet to be chosen after York Wong resigned to resume his studies, but who would be Jon Turner) reporting to Ken King. Now there is One Computer Center. Conversion of ADP applications from IBM 14011410 to IBM 360 architecture begins this would take until 1973 20 . Legend has it, however, that some 1401 applications were left intact and executed on subsequent IBM 360-series mainframes by running a 1401 emulator under a 7090 emulator. Warren Goodells 14 June 1968 letter announcing the change stresses that even more important than the consolidation of all applications on the new equipment is the prospect of increased freedom for interchange of ideas and techniques of programming and systems analysis between staffs now separated by artifical organization boundaries (AcIS archive). Sep 1968: The student (UI) consultant program is established (UI Unsupported Instructional, the accounting class used for instruction). This program is still active today. Students with knowledge of Columbias computer systems and applications are hired part-time to help users in the public areas. Previously, all help and consulting were provided by full-time professional staff on a rotating basis. Afterwards, full-timers continued to take their turns, but now could devote more time to systems and applications development and support. For more about the origins of the student consulting system, READ THIS. Dec 1968: The IBM 7094, 1401, and 36050 are removed. The 1401 is moved to the Controllers Office 19 . IBM 360 equipment at the end of 1968 consisted of 24 : Model 75 CPU 2075 with 2.5 million bytes of memory. Two processor storage units 2365 (512K total) Selector Channel 2860-II Drum storage control 2820 Drum storage unit 2301 (fixed-head cylindrical disk for swapping) Direct-access storage facility 2314 with 2844 2-channel control unit Two storage control units 2841 Data cell drive 2321 Eight disk storage drives 2311 Multiplexor channel 2780 Console typewriter 1052-7 Two card readerprinter controls 2821 Four printers 1403 with 1416 print train Two card readerpunches 2540 Two typewriter terminals 2740 Forty typewriter terminals 2741 Two communications adapters 2701 Display control 2848-I Ten display stations 2260-2 Two tape control units 2803 Two magnetic tape units 2402-2 (4 drives) Magnetic tape unit 2402-5 (2 drives) Two magnetic tape tape units 2402-6 (4 drives) On-Line CRT display Stromberg-Datagraphics 4060 With the exception of the last item, all model numbers are IBM. Dec 1968: One of the last gasps of the 70907094 system was an early example of computer-generated film by a participant in the 1968 student uprising. Denys George Irving . Here (for as long as the link lasts) is his film ldquo69rdquo, and here is a list of other works of his. Mar 1969: The IBM 36091 supercomputer (PHOTOS ), one of the first third generation computers and the biggest, fastest (and probably most expensive) computer on earth at the time, is installed and coupled with the 36075 19 . Thus for the second time in 15 years, Columbia is home to the worlds fastest computer. Only fifteen 36091s were made and four of them were retained by IBM for their internal use (other 3609x sites included Princeton University and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on West 112th Street, just a few blocks away) the giant computer took every inch of space in the Computer Center machine room. extensive renovations had to made to accommodate its sprawling dimensions 20 (this is an understatement in fact the Computer Center entrance had to be demolished just to get it in the door and most interior walls removed to make space for it V26). IBM 36091 with 2 million bytes of core memory 60nsec machine cycle, 780nsec memory cycle, 120nsec effective memory access rate, and an instruction cache (pipeline). An additional drum. All of the peripherals and equipment listed above for the 36075. Two full-time IBM technicians on site (Hans und Fritz) The 36075 became the Attached Support Processor (ASP) for the 91, essentially a job scheduler and inputoutput controller, freeing the 91 for intensive computation. I dont have a photo of our own Model 75, but HERE is one from IBM. Rather than rent the coupled 3607591 system as IBM proposed, the University purchased it outright for seven million dollars 19 , to be amortized over seven or eight years (whether seven or eight was a point of much contention, as it affected the chargeback rates levied upon research grants in fact it was in operation for more than eleven years thus the decision to purchase saved about fifteen million dollars). Of the total cost, three million dollars was for the 36091 CPU, memory, and second drum this was only half the list price due to the educational allowance that was negotiated. The rest was for the 36075 and its peripherals. My own (perhaps inflated ) recollection is that the 36091 covered about an acre of floor space, most of which was devoted to full-size cabinets each containing 16K of core memory, for a total of 2MB at about 8 square feet of floorspace (and about 48 cubic feet) per 16K, plus surrounding floorspace for access, times 300. Each memory cabinet had a glass door so you could look in and see each bit. All the disks, tapes. printers. Teletypes and everything else were in there too, plus a vast tape library and specialized test equipment such as the BOM (Byte Oriented Memory) tester. All this was powered through a gigantic cast-iron motor generator weighing who-knows-how-many tons (just the flywheel probably weighed a ton) putting out 400-some Volts 3-phase power, and cooled by distilled water trucked in by Deer Park in big glass bottles in wooden crates. There was a control room in the basement full of pipes, valves, gauges, pumps, and water jugs and a mammoth cooling tower upstairs, venting half a million BTUs per hour into the atmosphere (Alan Rice, a physics PhD student who was also a night-shift operator, recalls an incident in which a heat alarm summoned the fire department, who were ready to chop the machine up with axes until he talked them out of it) . But the most impressive feature of the 36091 was its control panel (PHOTO ). The operators used to turn off the room lights and stare it at all night, waiting for the yellow loop mode light came on (executing a loop in the pipeline without accessing core memory) this was the sign of a well-crafted program. (For more about loop mode, READ THIS ). There was an ongoing bubble chamber experiment in the machine room, which began in the 7094 days. Stereo photographs of bubble chamber events were digitized using the High-Energy Particle Detector (HPD) Flying Spot Scanner (HPD might also stand for Hough-Powell Device), channel-attached to the 36091, as was a very large IBM 2250 video display with light pen (this terminal alone was said to have cost 100,000), to allow scientists to interactively select interesting events for analysis. This kind of work required physicists to take the computer standalone for hours at a time, which became problematic in later years when it was in demand by the general academic and administrative computing population around the clock, and eventually the experiment was discontinued: the science for which the computer was originally acquired, and which provided much of the funding for it, was squeezed out by the mundane requirements of instruction and administration. The Stromberg-Carlson on-line CRT display (NEED PHOTO) was in fact a kind of graphics plotter, about the size of a panel truck, originally in the machine room but later parked outside in the hallway where it couldnt hurt the other machines. Users created graphics images on the mainframe using a package called IGS, wrote them to 7-track magtape, and had the operators feed the magtape to the plotter. The images were projected on a screen inside the box a 35mm camera -- no kidding -- would take a picture of the screen, and then somehow disgorge its film, which would be developed in chemical baths, washed, and mounted as a slide that would eventually pop out of the little output slot if all went well, which rarely was the case -- more often the machine leaked acid andor caught fire. Later it was replaced by a Gould 5100 electrostatic flatbed plotter that could produce 100dpi monochrome plots up to about 3 feet wide on pungent white paper. Various plotting packages (including one that Howard Eskin and I wrote that fitted lines, curves, and splines to data points) were available for it on the mainframe only. Apr 1969: The Columbia Computer Center develops, funds, and conducts a 6-month training course in computer skills for 23 students from the local Black and Latino communities: key punching and COBOL programming, with highly successful (96) post-graduation job placement and followup. (V420). 1 Oct 1969: The first ARPANET transmission took place between the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Shortly thereafter connections were made to the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. The ARPANET expanded to thirteen sites by January 1971, 23 sites by April 1972, and eventually grew into todays wordlwide Internet. Membership was limited to US Department of Defense research grantees until the early 1980s, at which time Columbia University would join. Dec 1969: The IBM 1130 at Lamont Geological (now Earth) Observatory in Palisades NY is connected to the Computer Centers IBM 36091 by leased line for remote job entry (see Glossary ), partially replacing the previous messenger service. This was a first in long-haul networking at Columbia University (V423). (Peter Kaiser reports that Columbia Teachers College also had an IBM 1130, and it was connected as an RJE station in the same way prior to 1969, but since TC is just across 120th Street, its not exactly long haul networking.) 1970: Read an excellent summary of the state of data communications in 1970: The IBM Data Communications Primer (PDF). Sep 1970: The IBM Watson Research Laboratory at Columbia University closes after 25 years of operation and a remarkable record of discovery and achievement. The idea of corporate-sponsored multidisciplinary pure research pioneered here had proven so successful that IBM built a new and much larger facility in 1961 in Yorktown Heights. NY, with others soon to follow in San Joseacute, Zuumlrich, and elsewhere, but its research headquarters remained at Columbia, IBMs first research laboratory. until 1970. The IBM T. J. Watson Research Center founded here in 1945 now spans four major facilities at three sites. The Columbia Computer Center offices and the Columbia Purchasing Department move to the Watson Lab building on 612 West 115th Street. The IBM-Columbia relationship continues for some time afterward mainly in the form of faculty appointments (in 1976 I took a graduate-level numerical analysis course in the Engineering School from one such professor, Pat Sterbenz, author of the book Floating-Point Computation ). IBM left behind a machine room with raised floor (back of 7th floor, where they had their 1620 ), a fully equipped classroom (back of 1), and lots of furniture including my 1940s-vintage Steelcase desk with metal Physics Dept ID plate attached (dating from World War II when IBM moved into Pupin). During its residence at Columbia University, IBM Watson Laboratory staff had been granted 67 patents and published 359 articles in recognized scientific journals 9 . Dorothy Marshall 11 writes, The third floor of 612 West 115th Street was entirely without inner walls and contained large milling machines and other noisy tooling machines, as well as pipes, hoses, and exhaust ducts but the staff at Casa Hispanica felt they were extraordinarily crowded so were glad for the additional space. Nola Johnson writes in the same issue, I remember when we were packed like sardines in Casa Hispanica. There would be three or four of us in one tiny room, complete with keypunch and fireplace. Until about the mid-1970s, CUCC staff submitted jobs from Watson (as they had done from Casa Hispanica), and messengers went back and forth delivering decks of cards and rolled-up printouts. In fact, rolled-up printouts still arrived each day from a daily batch job that was submitted decades ago and ran faithfully until 2004 when the Academic IBM mainframe was retired nobody knew exactly what the batch job did or how to cancel it. 31 Jan 1971: Professor Wallace Eckert. founder of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, attends the Apollo 14 launch. The lunar orbit calculations upon which the Apollo missions were based were done by Eckert at Watson Laboratory and on the SSEC computer 42,92 , designed at Watson Laboratory under Eckerts direction in the late 1940s, and later improved on the Labs NORC. IBM 650. and 1620 computers, and still later on the Computer Centers IBM 7094. Eckert died six months later. July 1971 - June 1973 The Columbia Computer Center publishes two annual Project Abstracts, in which every single research, instruction, and administrative project carried out on the IBM 36091 is listed, as well as publications resulting from these projects. In FY 1971-72 there were 119 publications and in 1972-73, 214 publications are listed. Each abstract is about 250 pages long the first one was generated by a SNOBOL program and printed on the 1403 printer the second one was typeset somehow using programs written by Computer Center technical staff. I would call this the Golden Age of the Computer Center . reflecting an unparalleled degree of collaboration between the faculty and the Computer Center and the accomplishment of much work that might well have had an impact on the real world mdash medicine, social research, physical sciences, engineering, every field was represented. Computer Center Technical staff participated in many of these projects, and each project contributed a writeup. The projects themselves are fascinating, about 100 pages of project description in each volume, about 5 projects per page. Aug 3-5, 1971: At the second annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) computer chess championship at ACM 71 in Chicago, the Columbia Computer Chess Program (CCCP) came in tied for 3-6 in a field of 8. CCCP was written by Columbia student (and now CS faculty member) Steve Bellovin and CUCCAs Aron Eisenpress, Ben Yalow, and Andrew Koenig. For more about the development of CCCP, READ THIS. Aug 1971: Stanford Universitys Wylbur 49 is installed on the 36075, replacing a previous system called CRBE. Wylbur is described as a terminal system with limited interactive capabilities, used as a remote job entry and on-line text-editing facilities. Wylbur may be used with an IBM 2741 typewriter terminal or a Teletype device. At present CUCCs Wylbur does not support IBM 2260 terminals (early video terminals in the 2nd floor Computer Center terminal room) the Jan 1972 Newsletter announces their replacement with a similar CRT device, the Hazeltine 2000 (four of them) V67. The IBM 2741 was a Selectric typewriter embedded in a small-desk-size cabinet crammed with electronics and wires, which communicated at 134.5 bits per second, half duplex (when it was the computers turn to transmit, it physically locked the typewriter keyboard). There was also limited dialup access in those days this was at 110 to 300 bits per second by acoustically coupled modems. More about Wylbur below. Oct 1971: Ken King resigns as Computer Center Director and moves to CUNY as Dean of Computer Systems. Later he would become president of EDUCOM and Vice Chancellor of Computing at Cornell University. Dr. Warren F. Goodell, VP for Administration, Kens boss, assumes Acting Director position (V66), but since he was not on site, Jessica Hellwig (Gordon), who had previously been on the IBM Watson Lab computing staff 21 had day-to-day responsibility. (Newsletters of the early 70s were devoted mainly to JCL hints and tips, announcements of meetings and conferences, announcements of OS360 upgrades, explanations of cost accounting, and lists of unclaimed tapes in the tape library -- up to 6 pages of numeric tape IDs on one occasion (in the Earth Week issue no less: V65, 15 Apr 1971) -- plus the annual April Fools Issue, usually featuring parodies of cost accounting. Prior to 1971, they also contained abstracts or reports of research projects, e. g. Motivating Learning in Interracial Situations (V52) French Business Elite Study, Jonathan Cole et al Transport and Fluid Mechanics in Artificial Organs, Ed Leonard et al (V513) as well as Computer Science Colloquia.) Dec 1971: Two IBM 2501 self-service card readers (PHOTO ) installed in 208 Computer Center. The use of self-service card readers affords CUCC users much greater security for their decks at both the submission and the retrieval points of running a job. Users will be able to read in their own decks and keep them while the job is running -- thereby eliminating the risk of loss or mishandling of the deck by the Center. Also, since input decks no longer need be left in the output bins, the exposure of users JOB cards -- and therefore their project numbers -- to anauthorized persons some things never change will be significantly reduced. In addition to this increased security, the 2501s will also provide greater efficiency since the user will be able to discover and correct immediately such problems as off-punched cards hanging and pregnant chad were evidently not an issue in 1971 . rather than having to wait for the job to be processed by the Center. (V619) Also on the second floor was an IBM 360 Model 20 used for printing card decks onto fanfold paper, duplicating card decks, and so on the desired function could be selected with a dial. There was (and had been for some time) a key punch room on the first floor. Later the Model 20 was moved to the key punch room. Apr 1972: TPMON installed, allows terminal lines to be switched among different applications such as Wylbur ( and what else ) rather than dedicated to a specific one. Sep 1972: IBM OS360 21.0 installed (V633). 1973: The following was posted by Arthur T. Murray on alt. folkloreputers . 22 May 2003: There is a tenuous etiological link between Columbia and the founding of Microsoft Corporation . Here in Seattle WA USA, a Columbia Ph. D. grad in astronomy, Dr. James R. Naiden -- now in his late eighties -- around 1973 was teaching Latin at The Lakeside School. Doc Naiden observed that the students were eager to get into computers, so he asked (Naiden was always starting things, e. g. he hired Vilem Sokol to run the Seattle Youth Symphony for many years he also started a history-of-literature or some such group, still allegedly running at the University of Washington) the Lakeside Mothers Club to donate some money from their annual Lakeside Rummage Sale to buying some computer time-share for the kids -- back then there were no personal computers. The Mothers put up one thousand dollars, which Bill Gates and Paul Allen ran through in a matter of weeks. Upshot: Columbia gtgt Doc Naiden gtgt Lakeside School gtgt Microsoft Corp. Jan 1973: V646 mentions twenty-five IBM 2741 terminals being replaced by (presumably compatible) Anderson-Jacobson 841 terminals, which were cheaper to rent (88 versus 100 per month). Feb 1973: The Self-Service InputOutput (SSIO) Area (PHOTO GALLERY ) is opened on the first floor of the Computer Center building. Equipment included two card readers. two IBM 1403 printers, one online card punch (NEED PHOTO), a sorter. a collator. an interpreter. a duplicator. four Hazeltine 2000 user terminals, and one job inquiry console -- all self service -- plus a large number of IBM 029 key punches. and a resident Insultant whom I remember well from my student days. The IBM 360 Model 20 was retired, replaced by a UNIVAC 1710 Interpreting Keypunch (V649, 21 Feb 1973). Now, for the first time, users could not only submit their own jobs but also get the results themselves as soon as the job had run. Sometimes, standing in line at the card readers, were social scientists with data sets spanning 4 or 5 boxes of cards (2000 cards per box) submitting jobs of this size rarely proceeded without incident (jams, dropped decks). The normal student Open Batch job deck was a quarter inch thick and generally went through the system quickly. A Hazeltine 2000 ASP Job Inquiry station let you watch your job rise through the queue so you could elbow your way through the crowd to the printer when your job output started. Every night from 7 to 9pm was System Time, meaning the Systems Group from Watson Lab had the 36091 to themselves and the readers and printers were shut down. The SSIO area was a miserable place during those two hours. More about SSIO HERE. More about self-service computing just below in the entry for Sep 1973. 22 May 1973: Birth of Ethernet (a local area networking technology that would reach Columbia in the early 1980s and persist for decades), developed by Bob Metcalfe of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which also gave us the graphical user interface and desktop metaphor. May 1973: Resignation of Joe Gianotti (Assistant Director), Ira Fuchs (systems programmer, who would go on to direct the CUNY facility and to found BITNET. become President of CREN. etc.), Aron Eisenpress, Ben Yalow, and other members of the Systems group, to join Ken King at CUNY, which was acquiring brand-new then-leading-edge IBM 370168 hardware (V654). Soon more would follow. May 1973: Dr. Bruce Gilchrist is appointed the new Director of the Columbia University Computer Center (he would assume full-time duties in July). He also receives an appointment to the faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Bruce was a co-inventor of the fast adder while at the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study (1955), then Director of Computing at the University of Syracuse (mid-to-late 1950s), joined IBM in 1959 and became manager of IBMs Service Bureau and Data Processing divisions (1963-68). While at IBM Bruce was Secretary and then Vice President of the Association for Computing Machinery. ACM (1960-64), and afterwards was President and Executive Director of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, AFIPS (1968-73). His final project at Columbia was the installation of the 20-million-dollar IBMRolm Computerized Branch Exchange, not just the Universitys first digital telephone system, but also the way that almost every single room (inclusing in dormitories) on the Morningside campus got high-speed data access. Sep 1973: Bruce introduced the Open Batch system (V660), opening up The Computer to the masses for the first time, and renamed CUCC (Columbia University Computer Center) to CUCCA (Columbia University Center for Computing Activities), in recognition that computing was beginning to take place outside the machine room. SSIO soon became unbelievably crowded. 1974: Snapshot: When I came to the CUCCA Systems Group in 1974, Dr. Howard Eskin was manager of Systems (197-1984), with joint appointment to the EECS faculty, where he taught the Data Structures and Compiler courses. The big languages for systems programming then were 360 assembler, APL, PLI and SPITBOL (a SNOBOL dialect). CUCCA included both academic and administrative computing under a single director, all in the Watson building at 612 W 115th Street. Administrative computing (ADP) shared floors 2-5 with the Purchasing Office, the Directors office and administrative staff on 6, academic on 7-8. Offices had chalkboards for scribbling ideas and diagrams. People used Hazeltine terminals at 1200 bps, connected to a multiplexer in the back of 7 that was connected by leased telephone line to the 3705 in the machine room, and that always conked out on rainy days. There was no e-mail. The Penthouse was a kind of cafeteria, with tables and chairs (I remember checkered tablecloths and gingham curtains) and a working, if rarely-used, kitchen. The back of the first floor was a large classroom (now divided into the network and mail rooms) across from the elevator was a big Xerox copying room (Joe Iglesias), and there was a grand lobby and reception area, approximately where the art gallery is now, plus some administrative offices (Helen Ransower). There was a shower in the basement (later converted to a darkroom by Andy Koenig. and later to a weight-lifting room by Lloyd, the messengerfront-desk guy, an Olympic hopeful). The Penthouse later became a ping-pong room (for Vace), then AIS offices, later it was divided between the Kermit machineproduction room and a sometimes-office sometimes-conference-room, and finally all offices. The back of the 7th floor was an IBM machine room dating from the 1950s, complete with raised floor, space phone floor-tile pullers, and communication cables radiating out to all the offices. The famous 1957 book about IBM, Think 8 , speaks of teak paneling and cozy fireplaces, but those were in the first Watson Lab. not this one. In those days, the Computer Center had a certain academic standing not only through faculty appointments, but also for its RampD activities and library. The non-circulating research library (not to be confused with the Thomas J Watson Library of the Business School) in room 209 of the Computer Center Building was a full-fledged branch of the Columbia Library, complete with card catalog and librarian (the original librarians were Julia Jann and Hugh Seidman Nuala Hallinan 20 was librarian from 1966 to 1973, succeeded by Evelyn Gorham). The holdings, cataloged in Butler Library, included computer science books and journals as well as computer manuals and Computer Center handouts 25 . New acquisitions continued until at least 1973. Eventually (about 1980) the collection was transferred to the Engineering Library. Several technical staff members performed pure RampD . for example Richard Siegler who worked half-time on an AI medical diagnosis assistant in SPITBOL with Dr. Rifkin at the Medical Center. An annual catalog, the Columbia University Bulletin, Computing Activities 7 was published, as well as a Technical Abstract of each years research projects. CUCCA was co-sponsor (with EECS) of the University Colloquium in Computer Science . There was an alliance with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on 112th Street, which had one of the four existing IBM 36095s. The academic user community was quite small. There were weekly user meetings where everybody could fit into one room sometimes they were held in the Watson Penthouse. 1974-78: Heyday of Wylbur . and the age of the Hazeltine 2000 video terminal mainly on Olympus (aside from four Hazeltines available to users in 208 Computer Center: V622). Wylbur was an interactive linemode editor that could be used from a hardcopy or video terminal. It was far more than an editor, however it was the equivalent of the latter-day shell users lived in Wylbur all day, writing Wylbur execs (like shell scripts), programs, and JCL submitting jobs, querying jobs, sending screen messages (but not e-mail) to each other, and so on. Wylbur originally came from Stanford but was improved beyond recognition by Dave Marcus and later Vace Kundakci, who also converted it to TSO and later to VMCMS. Its still used today on our IBM mainframes, but unfortunately we could never export it due to licensing issues. Eventually Wylbur terminals -- hardwired to the 3705 -- were available to departments sometimes these were video terminals, sometimes IBM 2741 (IBM hardcopy terminals made from Selectric typewriters). When developing software on the mainframe, writing in assembler, Fortran, PLI, etc (compiled, not interpreted, languages), programs would often dump core because of faulty instructions (bugs, mistakes). In those days, a core dump meant a literal dump of literal core memory to the printer, in hex, sometimes several feet thick. To find the fault, programmers would have to decode the core dump from the listing by hand, separating instructions, addresses, and data -- a lost art (and good riddance) When the DEC-20s arrived on the scene, it became possible to analyze and debug core images (and even running programs) interactively and symbolically with a tool called (what else) DDT, and debugging tasks that once took days or weeks became quick and even fun. DDT-like tools live on today in Unix as adb and gdb. May 1974: Snapshot: Wylbur has 500 users. CALL360 has 50-100 users. There are 2000 batch users. 50 of each programmers time is spent helping users. ADP submits 10 of the batch jobs but uses 50 of the machine. Because of their EAM backgrounds, the Registrars and Controllers Offices consider the 36091 a large sorter. 90 of billing is for funny money. Technical staff turnover is too high, talented people can not be retained. 33 1974-75: First proof of concept home computers introduced (Mark-8, Altair). 1975: IBM 3705 communications front end replaced by an NCR COMTEN (which lasted until August 1998), after a two-week training course in the Watson Lab classroom in the back of the 1st floor. Jul 1975: A DEC PDP-1150 minicomputer (PHOTOS ) was installed, running the RSTSE timesharing system (we considered UNIX, but it was not nearly ready for large-scale production use in a hostile environment). This was the first true general-purpose public-access timesharing system (not counting APL and CALLOS (aka CALL360), which were both OS360 subsystems (essentially batch jobs, each of which controlled a number of terminals simultaneously) the latter was only for the Business School and APL, though open to the public, required special terminals which were not to be found in abundance, and was not exactly user friendly). RSTSE was to be a small pilot project to absorb the CALLOS users and attract new ones. 32 people could use it at a time (because it had 32 terminals). Accounts were free. Within a few months of installation, it was already logging nearly ten times the usage that CALLOS had at its peak 19 . (From Bandit, 6 July 2010) CALL360 was written for Buck Rogers of IBM by seven guys who had worked together at GE in Phoenix, then moved to the San Jose Bay Area. They wrote CALL360 for a fixed-price, 10 month contract. I cannot remember everybody, but included Sherbie Gangwere (my father), Charlie Winter, Jim Bell, George Fraine, Don Fry, Dick Hoelnle (sp) and. (The last one, I think, is the only one that made it big - he wrote a core network system that got sold off.) Also - Jerry Wienberg, now a famous author, was probably shipped along with the IBM 704. He was sent with the first 10 machines, and taught many how to program it. The primary programming language (like in CALLOS) was BASIC (another reason why RSTS was chosen over UNIX, which didnt have BASIC), but Fortran and Macro-11 were also available. As I recall, the PDP-1150 cost about 150,000. It occupied a fairly large room (208) in the Computer Center down the hall from the IBM machine room, and was comprised of four full-width cabinets (CPU, tape drive, communications, I forget what else) and a 92MB RP04 3330-type disk drive, plus a 2K fixed-head drive for swapping (RS04). I took care of it myself (backups and all) for maybe a year, then Ben Beecher joined me and later also some part-timers. Ben and I sat in the room with it full-time for a couple years. Our terminals were DECwriters (later VT05. VT50, VT52. and finally VT100. and at one point a GE Terminet. that worked and sounded like a bandsaw). But even without the Terminet, the room was so loud we had to wear airport ear-protectors. Ben was RSTS manager after the DEC-20s came in 1977. Eventually RSTS had a user population of 1700. It was retired in 1982. Jul 1975: The IBM 1410 in the Controllers Office is replaced by an IBM 370115 19 . Mid 1970s: Here begins the decline of centralized campus computing. Minicomputers begin to sprout in the departments, encouraged by government grants that would buy equipment but wouldnt pay for central computer time. (The same trend was evident at other universities it created the need for campus networking, and thus -- since a way was needed to interconnect all these campus networks -- the Internet.) Some of the early departmental minis I remember were the SEL 810B, Applied Physics also had an Imlac graphics processor (which never worked) and several early PDP-8 models for controlling experiments. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I worked in Applied Physics and used the departmental computers for both work and EECS projects. The SEL (Systems Engineering Laboratories, later Gould) 810B (1968) was the most advanced, since it had io devices and could be programmed in Fortran and assembly language. It had 16K of memory, 2 registers, Teletype. paper tape, card reader, drum printer, and an oscilloscope-like CRT display for graphics CLICK HERE to see a picture of the SEL 810A, which is like the 810B but without extra io devices. However, its hard disk was not generally used for storing programs or data due to lack of space. Instead, programs were read from cards or paper tape this required toggling in a bootstrap program on the console switches: a series of 16-bit words was deposited in successive memory locations and then executed to activate the Teletype as the control device, which could be used in turn to activate the card or paper tape reader to read the program. Production programs were generally punched in object format onto paper tape (since the paper tape readerpunch was much faster than the card reader). CLICK HERE to see the SEL 810B Manual. The PDP-8 computers in the same lab had no Teletype, card reader, or paper tape they were programmed directly from the console switches and io was magtape only. The Physics Department in Pupin Hall had a DEC PDP-4, several PDP-8s, a PDP-9, and a PDP-15 Electrical Engineering had a PDP-7 on the 12th floor of Mudd, that we studied down to the gate level in the 1970s EECS Computer Architecture course. (The PDP-7 is also the machine for which the UNIX operating was originally written at Bell Labs in the late 1960s.) The keypunch room was on the 2nd floor of Engineering Terrace near the back exit, connected by tunnel to the SSIO area. There were often long waits for punches. The 1976 Bulletin 7 also lists: A DEC PDP-1145 and GT40 Graphics Computer in Biology (Schermerhorn). A HP 2100 in Chemical Engineering (Prentis). A DG Nova 1220 and 3 DEC PDP-8s in Chemistry (Havemeyer). A DG Super Nova in EECS (Mudd). plus various special-purpose computers for Fourier transforms, etc, some of them possibly analog (rather than digital) on campus, as well as all sorts of computing equipment at the outlying campuses (no doubt a tale in itself). 1976: Andy Koenig s RSTS e-mail program, the first e-mail at CU. Andy was a prominent member of the CUCCA technical staff (reponsible for at least APL and PLI) who went on to Bell Labs and fame with C. His dad is Dr. Seymour H. Koenig. who was at Watson Lab from 1952 to 1970, and its director from 1967 9 ,17 . Andys frequent co-author is Barbaro Moo. also formerly of CUCCA. (Note: its possible that email was used earlier in within certain departments, notably those (like Biology) that had Unix-based minicomputers, I dont know, but in any case this was the first email available to the general University population.) Nowadays most of the University conducts its business by e-mail, and it has been an enormous productivity booster, eliminating telephone tag, enabling one-to-many messaging, and filling an ever-increasing role in instruction and research. As early as 1983 (the 9 Feb 1983 Newsletter, V152, is full of allusions to this), professors were sending assignments to their classes by e-mail and collecting results the same way, with the added benefit of questions and answers and other discussions that could not fit in the classroom schedule. Readers who were not exposed to electronic mail prior to the Internet explosion of the mid-1990s probably wont appreciate how much more useful and pleasant it was before then, even in its original text-only format. Today I typically have several hundred messages waiting for me each morning (after central filtering), of which 98 are spam, advertisements, promotions, junk mail, get-rich-quick schemes, invitations to Exclusive High-Powered Executive Webcasts and Enterprise Leadership Webinars, chain letters, be-my-friend-and-share-photos, inspirational Powerpoints, strategic partnerships, office humor, world class enterprise solutions, body-part enhancements, business best practices, claim your lottery winnings, claim your inheritance, claim your fund, Dear beloved, I am dying, I dont want you to feel sorry for me, Beloved in Christ, Dear beneficiary, Complements of the season, confidential matter, delinquent accounts, cash grant award, designer watches, investment opportunities, work-at-home opportunities, get your diploma, grow your business, increase your profitability, Dear entrepreneur, Take this five-minute survey, offers from soldiers in our many wars who found barrels full of money, I want t o place an order with your store, low-interest loans, your account is expired, Viagra, Cialis, lonely hearts, Russian beauties, update your information, bounce notifications about mail you didnt send, and deliberate attempts at implanting viruses (Windows e-mail attachments containing viruses or worms have no effect on my UNIX-based plain-text mail client ) -- or security alerts or complaints about all of these. In the 1970s and 80s, by contrast, practically every e-mail message was legitimate, worth reading, and usually only 1-2K bytes in length, and could not possibly hurt your computer (not strictly true it was possible to put an escape sequence in an email message that, if it arrived intact at certain kinds of terminals, could make them automatically transmit any desired text back to the host, but even if you had a terminal that responded to the escape sequence, this rarely could cause any serious demage because an email client would be on the receiving end, not the system command prompt) . Even when e-mail is exchanged between consenting parties, the demands posed by multimedia attachments -- Microsoft Word documents, Powerpoints, spreadsheets, images, audio and video clips, even entire music CDs or motion pictures -- have coerced the University to constantly upgrade its network and mail server capacity, and of course the costs are inevitably passed back to the consumer in the form of tuition or overhead increases andor cutbacks in other areas. 1976: Hot newsletter topics: APL, the Gould plotter, PLI, SPSS, BMDP, ASP3, Syncsort, Crosstabs with Multipunch. Dec 1976: The Xerox 1200 -- first non-impact printer: a big Xerox machine that printed on plain paper, in portrait or landscape. Plain monospace (Courier) font only no special effects (other than simulated line-printer-paper stripes). I dont remember exactly where the input came from -- either it had an IBM mainframe channel connection, or else it read from 9-track magnetic tape, but in any case it was possible to print on it from both the IBM and DEC systems. 1977: (Month) Because the IBM 36091 was more suited to scientific calculations and lacked decimal arithmetic, and because of security questions posed by the Open Batch system, which opened it up to the student population, ADP acquires a separate mainframe exclusively for administrative work, an IBM 370138 located in the Computer Center machine room and running VMCMS (later to be upgraded to 370148, 3031 (1979), 3083 (1983), 3090 (1986), etc). A new Personnel (now we would say Human Resources) system was developed for the 370 in house, and administrative applications began to migrate from punch cards and batch to interactive online systems 20 . The arrival of the IBM 370 launches an effort to convert administrative applications from batch to online, with IBM 3270 block-mode terminals allowing interactive access to administrative systems such as student records, accounts receivable, and so on. Jul 1977: The IBM 370115 in the Controllers Office is removed. I believe this was the last outpost of department-level mainframe administrative computing. Jul 1977: The blackout of 1977 . No electricity for two days (July 13-14). Howard (Eskin) and I were in Watson Lab the evening of the 13th working on the floor plan for the 272A Engineering Terrace terminal room when the lights went out. We were also in the middle of our first DEC-20 installation, a six-week process (so two lost days were not a disaster). Aug 1977: Our PDP-1150 was invaded (via modem) by a gang of prep-school kids, who had their way with it undetected for several weeks. This was the first hacker breakin to a Columbia computer from the outside, and it went to court. It cost us nearly a week of round-the-clock systems work and delayed the DEC-20 opening by a week. Later the same group invaded other RSTS systems and even (as I recall) destroyed a cement company in Quebec. The prep school in question had purchased a PDP-11 with RSTS and let the students run it without supervision thus the students had hands-on access and full privileges, with ample opportunity to probe their own system for vulnerabilities, write Trojan-horse replacements for system software, etc, in-house before attacking external sites, and indeed they did a good job: their modified LOGIN program let them in silently, with full root privileges the modified accounting programs did not list their sessions the modified DIRECTORY program did not list their directories or files the modified SYSTAT program did not show their jobs, and so on. Eventually they tipped their hand by accidentally printing a password list on a public printer, and we tracked them down using methods remarkably similar to those used by Cliff Stoll 10 years later to catch the German hackers at Berkeley 46 (see 1986-87 below), such as Y-connecting hardcopy terminals to the modems to log dialin sessions. Aug 1977: Our first DECSYSTEM-20, CU20A (PHOTOS ), was installed for large-scale timesharing. Accounts were free and available to all (or maybe there was a one-time 5.00 fee later, per-semester or per-course fees would be added). It cost 800,000 dollars 19 and was much larger than the PDP-11, a row of double-width orange cabinets about 10 feet long, plus four 178MB RP06 washing-machine-size 3350-type disk drives, but unlike the PDP-11, had little in the way of lights and switches (if you didnt count the PDP-1140 communications front end hidden inside it). It had 256K 36-bit words of main memory, two 8001600bpi TU45 tape drives (later TU77, TU78), an LP20 drum printer (mainly for backup listings), and an LA36 system console hardcopy terminal. It also had a DN20 communications processor (PDP-1134 concealed in orange full-size cabinet) for remote job entry (see Glossary ) to the IBM mainframes. CU20A was originally a model 2040, and so it had core memory and no cache later it was upgraded to a 2050 and then a 2065 the core became MOS and cache was added, memory increased to 2MB. Each user got 35KB (thats KB, not MB or GB) of disk space. The first DEC-20 marked the beginning of the online campus in which the computer was used not just for calcalation and programming, but also communication among users and (eventually) with the outside world. The DEC-20 was a member of the DECs 36-bit PDP-10 line of computers, which descended from the PDP-6, first produced in 1964, and which itself has its roots in the 36-bit IBM 700 series that goes back to 1952. PDP-10s, however, were distinct from 20s: they had a different operating system (TOPS-10 instead of TOPS-20) they came in a variety of models (KA, KI, KL, KS), whereas DEC-20s came in only KL and KS models PDP-10s were more suited to hands-on lab work, with all sorts of devices and attachments lacking from the -20s such as real-time bus-attached instruments DECtapes, paper tape, and graphics devices they could be installed in multiprocessor configurations and they were blue rather than orange. DEC-20s could run TOPS-10 applications in an emulation mode, but not vice versa, and until the very end, quite a bit of DEC-20 software was indeed native to TOPS-10 (e. g. the linker and most of the compilers). The DEC-20 pioneered all sorts of advanced concepts such as a swappable monitor (kernel), lightweight processes (threads), page mapping, shared pages with copy-on-write, hardware assisted paging, and other techniques to allow large numbers of users access to a limited resource (CLICK HERE for details). Nevertheless, our first DEC-20 was soon loaded far beyond capacity . and the ensuing years were a constant struggle to get funding for more DEC-20s: budget proposals, user meetings (for which, by now, large auditoriums were required), even outdoor campus demonstrations. But DEC-20s were expensive they demanded copious floor space and air conditioning, as well as 3-phase power with isolated ground (a 10-foot copper stake literally driven into bedrock outside the CUCCA loading dock). Annual maintenance alone was something like 100,000 per machine, and each one carried an additional 10,000 electric bill. Therefore adding DEC-20s was difficult and painful. There were all sorts of revenue-raising schemes and eventually we had 4 of them, CU20A through CU20D, serving 6000 users, up to 70 or 80 logged in simultaneously on each. Additional DEC-20s for instruction and research were installed at Teachers College and in the Computer Science department. DEC-20s were fairly reliable for their day. Unlike the IBM mainframe with its scheduled two-hour nightly System Time, the DEC-20s were kept running and available all the time except for a couple hours (usually outside of prime time) every week or two for preventive maintenance by DEC Field Service. But by todays standards they crashed frequently anyway, usually because of power glitches so often, in fact that somebody had a batch of DECSYSTEM-20 NOT RUNNING T-shirts made up (this was the dying gasp of the DEC-20 as it went down). Whenever a DEC-20 was up for more than 100 hours, people became quite excited. The record was just shy of 800 hours (about a month) MTBF was under 100 hours (4 days). By comparison, today (8 Feb 2001) I have an HP workstation in my office that has been up continuously for 883 days (thats more than 21,000 hours), despite numerous brownouts and momentary power failures, and thats without a UPS (eventually its running streak was interrupted at 900-some days when electricians needed to shut off power to the floor to replace the circuit-breaker panel). For lots more about the Columbia DEC-20s, CLICK HERE. (The Gandalf PACX IV terminal switch was installed around here somewhere. Prior to that terminals were hardwired using various forgotten technologies like 20mA Current Loop. The PACX was a speed-transparent 1000x1000 switch, driven by little blue PACX boxes on the user end, with thumbwheels to dial the desired service and an onoff switch.) 1977-78: Use of e-mail takes off. Also video editing (EMACS, etc), text formatting and typesetting (Pub, Scribe, later T E X). In April 1978, we write a bboard (bulletin board) program, a kind of precursor to netnews, where everybody on campus could sound off in public. Various bboards were available, including course-specific boards, topical boards, and a general (any topic) board, and were unmoderated and uncensored. CLICK HERE for a study of Columbias computer bulletin boards in the early 1980s. Jan 1978: The 272A Engineering Terrace terminal room opens (V102). This was the first public terminal room outside the Computer Center building. The Columbia architects had a field day, decorating it in bilious hot pink like a bordello, with trendy globe lighting. (The April Fools 1978 issue of the Newsletter (V105) presents the coveted Louis XVI Alive with the Arts award to the Department of Buildings and Grounds now Facilities Management for their exceptional work in recreating the atmosphere of an 18th century French palace. Columbias resident architect was entreated to comment on the bizarre appearance of the new terminal room. ) Notwithstanding the decor, the room was laid out according to our floorplan, divided into cubicles about 4 feet high so people would have privacy when sitting, but could stand up to chat and hand things back and forth. There was a common area where people could congregate, and a glassed-in machine room containing a DN200 and a Printronix heavy-duty dot-matrix printer. Each cubicle had a terminal and a spacious working surface for books and papers and its own reading light. Large cubicles had LA36 DECwriters (hard-copy 132-column dot-matrix printers operating at 30 cps on pin-feed green-and-white striped fanfold paper) and the smaller ones had Perkin-Elmer Fox-1100 CRTs operating at 9600 bps (this was the first affordable CRT, costing about 500, compared to most others that cost a thousand dollars and up). Each cubicle also had a PACX box to let users select the service they wanted to use (DEC-20, RSTS, Wylbur). Eventually the lab was re-architected, expanded, and. REDECORATED. Too bad if you missed it (does anybody have a color photo of the original) Mar 1978: APL conversion from IBM to DEC-20 was a big topic for many months. Special terminals (Datamedia APL with APL keyboard. later ConceptAPL ) had to be installed for APL users. To further encourage IBM to DEC migration, I wrote a mini-Wylbur (Otto) for the DEC-20 Joel and his brother worked on a real Wylbur for some time but its not done yet. Apr 1978: The CUCCA Telephone Directory and Consulting Schedule. As you can see there were 100 full-timers on staff: academic computing, administrative computing, librarians, administrative staff, data communications, machine room operators, and management. Compared to 15 in 1965 and over 300 in 2010. Note too that in those days the technical staff helped users in person in three locations (two in SSIO, one in Mudd) and at other times they answered calls from users on their own phones mdash no call processing, no screening, no trouble tickets, no hiding behind web pages, no bureacracy. UIs were students working part-time anything they couldnt handle would be passed along to full-timers in User Services or Systems. Many of the UIs listed on the schedule went on to become full timers and some even managers. (Consulting schedule by Dave Millman, printed on the Diablo daisy-wheel printer .) 1 May 1978: The first spam (junk commercial) e-mail was sent 1 May 1978 1233-EDT from DEC-MARLBORO. ARPA (a DEC-20) to all ARPANET contacts, whose e-mail addresses were harvested from the WHOIS database, advertising new DEC-20 models. More about this HERE. May 1978: OS360 21.8 (which was released by IBM in 1970) installed on the IBM 36091. Eight years in the making The ex-CUCC systems people who defected to CUNY had to come back and teach nightly classes on OS360 and what they had done to it (many things, including over 200 modifications for accounting and resource-limitation purposes) before their replacements could bring up the new release without fear of losing something vital. May 1978: Tektronix 4010 graphics a big topic in the newlsetters. (Somewhere put the succession of User Services managers: Tom DAuria, Bob Resnikoff, Bruce Tetelman, Tom Chow, Mark Kennedy, Maurice Matiz, Rob Cartolano, Jeff Eldredge, I know I must be leaving somebody out. ) and SSIO (Marianne Clarke, Lois Dorman, Chris Gianone. ) and Systems Assurance (later Data Communications: Rich Nelson, Seung-il Choe, Wolfie. ) and CUCCA business managers (Peter Bujara, Neil Sachnoff, Patty Peters, Bob Bingham, Julie Lai. ) About User Services, Maurice Matiz adds: User Services existed only up to early in my era. After Vaces appointment and my appointment (I believe the only two managerial and higher level appointments that required a trying and complete interview by the whole University occurred in late 1989) did the groups that now define AcIS get created except that User Services comprised three groups. User Services stayed until Jeff Eldreges group was spun out of my group, which had grown to over 25 people, in late 1994. (My diagramed proposal is dated 112894.) At that time we changed names. Jeffs group became the Support Center and my group was renamed Academic Technologies. Also spun out at the time was what became EDS to report to Walter Bourne. Dec 1978: First mention of UNIX by CUCCA in public (referring to the BSTJ UNIX issue 15 ). V1018. 1979: The Computer Science Department was created as a separate entity (previously it was part of the EE Dept) with Joseph Traub from CMU as Chair, and a 200,000 donation from IBM. Joe had been a Watson Fellow in Applied Mathematics in 1958-59 9 . The Computer Science Building was constructed 1981-83 12 . Before long a DECSYSTEM-20, several VAX-11750s, and numerous workstations (early Suns and others) would be installed in the new CS facility. Jan 1979: Public terminals were available in SSIO (20), 272A Engineering Terrace (14), Furnald Lobby (4), 224 Butler (4), and Hartley Lobby (4). V112. Systems Assurance staff (Bob Galanos) would make the rounds on a daily basis to fix broken terminals, usually by replacing fuses taken out by students to reserve terminals for their own use. Feb 1979: Scribe, Diablo, printwheel lore dominates the Newsletter. Big business in printwheels. The Diablo was a typewriter-like terminal with a daisy-wheel print mechanism capable of proportional spacing, superscripts and subscripts, and even boldface (by doublestriking) and italics (by swapping printwheels). The CUCCA newsletter was printed on the Diablo for some years, and Diablos were deployed in public areas for users. Scribe included a Diablo driver, which produced. POD (Prince Of Darkness) files for it, and we wrote software to spool these files to the Diablo itself, allowing pauses to change paper or printwheels. Printwheels were available in a variety of fonts and alphabets, but werent cheap (98 springs to mind). Aug 1979: COMND JSYS package written for SAIL (so we could write user-friendly programs for the DEC-20 in a high-level language). Andy Lowry and David Millman. Sep 1979: HP2621 industrial-strength video terminals installed in Mudd and elsewhere, including a new lab in Carman Hall. This was the face of CUCCA to our users many of them thought the DEC-20s were made by HP. These are monochrome text terminals with good editing capabilties (for EMACS) and solidly built. Some had built-in thermal printers. A few units are still to be found here in good working order. 1979-80: Chris Ryland and I write a 200-plus-page guide to DEC-20 assembly-language programming. We were thinking of turning it into a book but Ralph Gorin of Stanford University beat us to it. 1980: Instructional computing capacity badly needs expansion. At this point, CUCCA has three instructional systems: the IBM 36091 Open Batch system (soon to be retired), the PDP-1150 (fully saturated), and a single DECSYSTEM-20, CU20A, which is in constant demand and heavily overburdened. There is much gathering of statistics to understand usage patterns. In response to student and faculty demands, the Collery Committee (Arnold Collery was Dean of Columbia College) was appointed to make recommendations. The instructional computers were overloaded, but why Was the new usage real or frivolous A witch-hunt was launched against text processing (preparing papers on the computer, sending e-mail, etc). Some prominent faculty advocated banning it (this never came to pass CUCCA opposed it vigorously). CPU and connect-time limits were to be instituted. Fees were to be increased. Various disincentives would be established against using the computers during prime time. The tug of war between demand and resources is a persistent theme in academic computing. There has never been, and probably never will be, a clear linkage between demand and supply. Whenever resources (such as computer time, disk space, modems, network bandwidth) become scarce, as they always do, funding for expansion does not flow automatically (nor should it). First there is a demand for a precise accounting of how, for what, and by whom the current resources are being consumed, the gathering of which in turn taxes the resources still futher. Once the information is obtained, demands to flush out inappropriate use -- whose definition varies with the times (e. g. network capacity versus Napster in 2000) -- quickly follow. Of course instructional computing on the DEC-20s was true to this pattern. CU20A drove itself near to melting by accounting for itself. And then complicated limits were imposed on CPU time, connect time, and every other imaginable resource (using locally written software) until the interactive computing experience was surpassingly unpleasant for everyone: students, faculty, and staff alike. Relief was still more than a year away. One of the measures taken to alleviate the load on CU20A was to abolish the free perpetual student user IDs and replace them with class-related IDs that lasted only for the duration of each course. While this ensured that the DEC-20 was used only for legitimate purposes, it also made it impossible for students to build up a corpus of tools and information they could use throughout their Columbia experience. A series of discussions took place throughout 1980 exploring different possibilites for providing students with some form of self-service, inexpensive, removeable media. The result was Kermit . Jan 1980: CUCCA announces its intention to connect to ARPANET, V121 (but without any firm prospects of doing so, since in those days the only entree was a big Defense Department grant, which we didnt have and didnt want). In the meantime, however, staff (but not end-users) had access through our DECnet link to COLUMBIA-20.ARPA . the Computer Science DEC-20 (July 1983), and prior to that by dialup to the NYU Elf and guest accounts at Rutgers, Harvard, Stanford, CMU and elsewhere. The ARPANET was important, among other reaons, because it was how DECsystem-10 and DECSYSTEM-20 software developers could work together (by email) and share code (by FTP), and this was the beginning of the open software movement . It is important to recall that in those days we were paid to develop and share software. Nowadays most open (free) software is created by unpaid volunteers . Feb 1980: DECnet first operational (between CU20A and the DN200 in Mudd). Feb 1980: The DEC-20 MM (Mail Manager) e-mail program becomes popular (V122). This is a good example of software created by professional staff or graduate students at PDP-10 and DEC-20 sites on the ARPANET (Stanford in this case) and freely shared with other sites. Other examples of the era included the ISPELL spelling checker and corrector (also from Stanford), the EMACS text editor from MIT, the SCRIBE text formatting and typesetting system from CMU (which later became commercial) and TeX from Stanford, the Bliss-10 programming language from CMU, the SAIL programming language from Stanford, the PASCAL compiler from Rutgers, the SITGO instructional FORTRAN package from Stevens Institute of Technology, various LISP systems from different places, and KERMIT communications software from Columbia. In fact, each place contributed bits and pieces to most of these packages so most of them were truly cooperative efforts. MM was used almost universally at Columbia for E-mail from 1980 until about 1995, with usage trailing off thereafter as Windows and the Web took over from text-based computer access. When the DEC-20 line was cancelled, we wrote a new MM program in C for Unix which again, in the sharing spirit, was made available on the ARPANET (later Internet) and adopted by many other sites worldwide as they migrated from TOPS-20 to Unix. MM survives even into the 2010s (details ). Jun 1980: We were considering joining TELENET and TYMNET (commercial X.3X.25 based networks) but never did it was way too expensive 1 . These were strictly terminal-to-host networks, but would have allowed travellers to dial up with a local call from almost anywhere in the USA or Canada, and conceivably could have taken the place of in-house modem pools. Oct 1980: Second DEC-20 installed, CU20B . for use by funded researchers and staff only to be paid for out of income, since the budget request for a second instructional DEC-20 had been denied, again, even though the first one was seriously overloaded, and despite vocal support from students and faculty (and us of course). CU20B removed considerable load from CU20A and bought us some time until we finally were able to expand the instructional resources a year later with CU20C. (In fact, for a short period, we were able to put some students on CU20B, in their own partition, isolated from the paying users.) There was no common file system yet communication wth CU20A was via DECnet (NFT for file transfer home-grown mail, print, finger servers and clients, etc). Nov 1980: The IBM 3609175 is retired . replaced by two IBM 4331s (PHOTO ), CUVMA and CUVMB. These are featureless boxes that are (as you might expect) more compact and cheaper to run than the 36091 (and lower too, so you can use them as coffee tables), and they had a new operating system, VMCMS, which allowed Virtual Machines (VM) to run other operating systems on the same machine, thus keeping our old applications afloat. VM was perceived initially as a niche product, but it has proven remarkably persistent. The 36091 was so big it had to be cut up with chainsaws to get it out of the building. The Gordian knot of cabling under the floor was unceremoniously disposed of with giant cable snippers the size of posthole diggers. The computer chunks were trucked away and thrown into acid baths to extract the gold. Only the 36091 console was spared. We had it moved to the lobby of Watson Laboratory and arranged to donate it to the now-defunct Computer Museum in Massachusetts, but it took a year and a half for them to pick it up. In the interim, bits and pieces were removed by passersby as souvenirs. (More about this in the June 1982 entry.) 1981-82 ADP takes over the remaining pockets of decentralized administrative computing: the student systems in Philosophy Hall and the financial and payroll systems in Hogan Hall, and to some extent also the Health Sciences campus. Jan 1981: Superbrains arrive. The Intertec Superbrain had been chosen as the first microcomputer we would deploy publicly, despite its embarrassing name, because its solid single-piece construction made it virtually user-proof, and it did indeed stand up to years of (ab)use. It ran CPM 2.2, an 8-bit (64K) operating system. Apr 1981: Bill Catchings and I design the basic Kermit protocol. The first Kermit protocol transfer took place on April 29th on a loopback connection between two serial ports on CU20B. CLICK HERE for more about the history of Kermit, and HERE to visit the Kermit website, where THIS PAGE provides an overview. Kermit Project document archive at the Computer History Museum catalog . Kermit Project Oral History Transcripts at the Computer History Museum HERE and HERE. May 1981: I talk J. Ray Scott of Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, PA, into installing a leased line between Columbia and CMU and joining our two campuses by DECnet (at least thats how I remember it). CU and CMU informally but effectively merge their DEC-20 systems staffs and run common customized applications and subsystems (esp. the GALAXY spooling system, which we modified to allow printer sharing among multiple DEC-20s and spooling to the Xerox 9700). Soon the network, called CCNET . expanded to several other universities, notably Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, which played an important role in the development of Kermit protocol and software until 1987, and produced Kermit programs for DECs VMS, TOPS-10, and POS operating systems. Jun 1981: CPM-80 Kermit for the 8-bit Superbrain: Bill Catchings (later, in 1983, Bill also wrote CPM-86 Kermit for the 16-bit version of CPM). Shortly after this, the Superbrain was deployed in Mudd. It had no applications to speak of besides Kermit, which was used by students to archive their DEC-20 files onto floppy disks (the purpose for which was Kermit developed). Floppy disks (the then-modern 5.25 ones, not the frisbee-sized ones used on other CPM micros) for the Superbrain were sold in SSIO, 6.00 each (). Later, but before 16-bit micros like the IBM PC appeared, we set up (in Watson Lab) a network of Superbrains sharing a hard disk, with an EMACS-like editor called MINCE and a Scribe-like text formatter called Sribble. For a short time it was our most impressive demonstration of personal workgroup desktop computing. (MINCE later became Epsilon and was popular for some years on DOS PCs.) 12 Aug 1981: The 16-bit IBM PC was announced the Columbia Computer Center orders 20 of them on Day One, sight unseen. The IBM logo makes all the difference. About half of them go to high-profile faculty (who immediately want them to be able to communicate with our central IBM and DEC mainframes hence MS-DOS Kermit ). The original PC had a monochrome monitor (color optional), one or two 160K floppy disks, a small amount of memory (anywhere from 16K to 256K), two RS-232 serial interfaces, no hard disk, no networking. It ran at 4.77MHz, had BASIC built into its ROM (which could be used without an OS or disk), and ran DOS 1.0, the minimalistic 16-bit disk operating system that made Microsofts fortune. Within a short amount of time, it had become the computer that would dominate the rest of the century and beyond, and spread over the campus like wildfire. But it still took some years for the PC to wipe out the VAXes and PDP-11s in the departments. Up through the early 90s there were still dozens of VAXVMS installations entire departments and schools (such as Columbia College) ran on them, with VT100 terminals or DEC word processors (PDP-8 based DECmates ) on their desktops. The PC has been a mixed blessing. Untold numbers of people-hours have been lost forever to tinkering -- this slot, that bus expanded memory, enhanced memory, extended memory. Blue Screens Of Death, rebooting, reinstalling the operating system, searching for adapters, hunting for drivers, installing OS and driver upgrades, resolving interrupt conflicts, partitioning disks, backing up disks, adding new devices, configuring networks, fighting application and OS bugs, hunting for patches, fighting viruses, and on and on. Previously this kind of thing was done by a small central full-time professional staff but now it is done by everybody, all the time, at incalculable cost to productivity and progress. Plus how many PC users really back up their hard disks Not many in my experience, and it is not uncommon for important un-backed-up files to be lost in a disk crash or similar disaster, thus negating weeks, months, or years of work. ON THE PLUS SIDE, however. (. ) My personal theory is that IBM never expected the PC to be so successful. It was thrown together in a rush by a small group (not at Watson Laboratory) from off-the-shelf components in an effort to get a foothold in the fast-growing microcomputer market. This was not IBMs first personal computer. Besides the 1956 Auto-Point Computer (personal but by no means desktop), IBM had also tried and failed with the 5100 and the CS-9000 in the 1970s and early 80s, both personal desktop models (we had some 5100s here the CS-9000 was targeted at chemical engineering applications as I recall, and had a special control panel and interfaces for instruments, but included a 32-bit CPU and modern programming languages like Pascal, and could easily have been the high-end workstation of the early 1980s). According to a reliable source, IBM originally wanted the PC to have a Motorola 68000 CPU (which had a simple, flat 32-bit address space) like the CS-9000, but could not get such a product to market in time, so settled for the Intel 8088, a 16-bit segmented architecture with 8-bit data paths. Worse, it had a primitive 16-line interrupt controller, which severely limited the number of devices that could be on the bus. The rest is history. I believe that if IBM had known that the PC would dominate the next two, three, four, or more decades, it would have invested more time, money, and thought in the original design. (Obviously the situation is better in the 21st Century. Most of the early kinks have been ironed out. PCs are cheap and reliable. Any quirks of the architecture are well-hidden from end users, and USB makes life immeasurably better when devices need to be attached. With Windows the dominant operating system, the main problems now are performance ndash bloated OS and applications ndash and security. And stability.) Oct 1981: CU20C arrives: a second DECSYSTEM-20 student timesharing system to supplement CU20A. Still no common file system each DEC-20 was a relatively separate world, but at least they were connected by DECnet. If you had a student user ID, it was on one or the other, not both. Dec 1981: HP plotter supplies (personal ink cartridges, etc) were a hot topic in the newsletter. The HP pen plotters installed in Mudd (and SSIO) came in 4- and 8-color models, and there was a wide variety of software for them, including DISSPLATEL-A-GRAF on the DEC-20s and SASGRAPH and SPSS on the IBM mainframes that could make 3D plots with hidden-line elimination, fancy fonts, etc. They were totally mechanical: pen and ink on paper, and could produce beautiful line drawings. Jan 1982: J. Ray Scott, Director of the Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center, writes an article in the CUCCA Newsletter (V141) describing the CCNET connection between Columbia and CMU, and CMUs facilities (including an ARPANET gateeway and various compilers and applications that had not been licensed at Columbia). In the first example of network-based inter-university resource sharing at Columbia, CU users were invited to apply for user IDs on the CMU systems. Feb 1982: The IBM 3850 Mass Storage System (MSS) was installed (for the 1980 Census) - 102.2 GB. The MSS was gigantic in every sense, covering most of the South wall of the machine room. Essentially it was a big honeycomb, each cell holding a cartridge (PHOTO ) that resembles an M-79 rifle grenade (sorry, it does ) containing a winding of 2.7-inch-wide magtape with a capacity of 50MB. A mechanical hand comes and extracts the cartridge and carries it to a reader, which removes the shell, and unwinds the tape and copies it to one of four staging disks then the tape is re-wound, the shell replaced, and the cartridge returned to its cell. All this was transparent to the user the MSS looked like a 3330 disk drive to user-mode software. The disks acted as a cache, so if your file was already on the disk, the little mechanical man didnt need to go get the cartridge. (Before the MSS, we had an IBM 2321 Data Cell Drive. which worked in a similar way, except instead of cartridges, it used flat strips of tape that were much harder for the little men to handle, so the tape strips were easily mangled.) Like the 36091, there were only a few MSS devices in the world. The MSS cost about a million dollars, but Columbia got its MSS in an IBM grant. In return, Columbia would add support for it to IBMs VM operating system (in particular, it would add windowing and lookahead features to reduce cylinder faults and redundant cartridge fetches, and thus speed up sequential access this was done by Bob Resnikoff of the Computer Center and Ates Dagli of the Center for Social Sciences (CSS)). CSS was responsible for loading the census data (which came on endless reels of 9-track magtape ) and for arranging access to it from within Columbia and from outside (V1416). When the grant expired, Columbia was able to purchase the MSS at a steep discount. Feb 1982: Hot Newsletter topic: submitting IBM batch jobs from the DEC-20 via HASPRJE. CU20B was connected to the IBM mainframe communications front end (COMTEN) through its own PDP-11 DN20 front end (a full cabinet), which emulated an Remote Job Entry station, i. e. a card reader for sending data to the mainframe in form of card images, and a line printer for receiving data from the mainframe in the form of print jobs, but using DEC-20 disk files instead of cards and paper. The CUCCA systems group developed user-friendly programs for submitting batch jobs to the VM systems from the DEC-20 and retrieving the results. These were later to form the basis of the DEC-20BITNET mail gateway. Mar 1982: RSTSE retired RSTS users migrated to DEC-20s, V141. The PDP-1150 was traded for another badly needed RP06 disk drive for our DEC-20s 1 . The PDP-11 with RSTSE was our first experiment in campuswide public timesharing and it was an unqualified success. Apr 1982: BITNET announced (Vace, V145). This was a network of IBM mainframes based on RSCS (basically, card reader line printer simulation) protocols, originating with Ira Fuchs at CUNY. formerly of Watson Lab, and rapidly spreading to universities all over the world, lasting through the late 1990s, now remembered mainly for LISTSERV (a distributed automated mailing-list management system). Early members included CUNY, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Princeton, the U of Maine, Penn State, the NJ Educational Network, Boston U, and Cornell University (DIAGRAM ). Columbia got the CU prefix (CUVMA, CUVMB), much to the chagrin of C ornell U niversity (CORNELLA. ) Would this be the first instance of domain name hijacking . :-) (Twenty years later, the Cornell and Columbia teaching hospitals would merge to form New York Presbyterian Hospital evidently Cornell and Columbia were omitted from the name so that neither one would have to follow the other.) Apr 1982: IBM Mainframe VMCMS Kermit (Daphne Tzoar). This passed through a number a hands since the initial release, some of which prefer to remain anonymous, and has been cared for by Dr. John Chandler at the HarvardSmithsonian Astronomical Observatory since about 1990 John made it portable to the other important IBM mainframe OSs: MVSTSO, CICS, and MUSIC, and added support for conversion between the many IBM EBCDIC Country Extended Code Pages and ISO standard character sets, allowing cross-platform transfer of text in many languages. May 1982: Support was added to our e-mail client and server software to take advantage of our new CCNET and BITNET connections, and the first inter-campus e-mail began to flow, limited at first to just a handful of universities, but growing rapidly as CCNET and BITNET nodes are added, and gateways from them to ARPANET, CSNET, and other networks. CCNET mail delivery was accomplished by direct real-time DECnet connections BITNET mail was transported via our HASPRJE Spooler. Our three DEC-20s used their DECnet connections for mail amongst themselves, as well as with other campus machines and the wider CCNET. CU20A and CU20C and other campus DECnet nodes sent BITNET mail by relaying it over DECnet to CU20Bs RJE system. In those days, e-mail addresses had to include a top-level domain that indicated the network, e. g. USERHOST. ARPA . USERHOST. BITNET . USERHOST. CCNET . etc. Even trickier was the source routing used in Usenet (in those days, a network of UNIX machines that dialed each other up with UUCP periodically to exchange files and mail) and some others, andor to mail to somebody who was on a network that your host wasnt on, through a relay that was on both nets. In such cases you had to know the entire route and the syntax tricks to traverse each branch of it, and often multiple relays. Here are some examples from the 1980s Kermit mailing list archive: The last one is broken into two lines for readability its really one line. To get a good feel for the proliferation of networks and the tricks of navigating amongst them in the days before the Internet swept all else away, see John Quartermans book, The Matrix 55 Jun 1982: CU20D . our third and final instructional DEC-20, was installed. Jun 1982: Our by-now vandalized IBM 36091 console goes to the Computer Museum at DECs MR-01 (or MR-02) building in Marlboro, Massachusetts, after awaiting pickup for 18 months. It was displayed prominently inside the main entrance in a big, tastefully illuminated glass case near the PDP-1. Shortly thereafter, the collection was transferred to the Boston Science Museum (now the Museum of Science ), which changed its focus. Most of the computing artifacts went to the Computer History Museum. temporarily located at Moffett Field, California (an Air Force base, where the 36091 console sat in deep storage for many years before being transferred in about 2001 to deep storage at the Computer History Museums new site in Mountain View, California). Jul 1982: An Imagen laser printer was installed in Watson our first laser printer and our first printer capable of true typesetting . Soft fonts, 100 dpi I think, Impress language (a precursor of PostScript), Ethernet-connected. It was only for internal CUCCA use (production of Newsletter and handouts, etc). Aug 1982: The Xerox 9700 (PHOTO ) announced by Xerox in 1977 arrived, replacing the Xerox 1200 after some overlap (V151). The 9700 offered the first typesetting to the Columbia community at large, as well as high-volume, high-speed plain-text printing. This room-sized 300dpi Xerographic laser printer was installed in the back of the first floor of Watson Lab (the present mail and network rooms) due to lack of space in the Computer Center, and it definitely needed the space. It printed 2 pages per second, could handle duplex, portraitlandscape, 2-up, 4-up, etc, had Courier (fixed) and Helvetica and Times Roman (proportional) fonts, with italic and bold styles and selectable sizes. Formatting was done by Scribe and other packages and spooled to 9-track magnetic tapes that were delivered to Watson every evening and printed overnight. Xerox 9700 printing was available to all users (students, faculty, staff, outside paid accounts) on all the DEC-20s and IBM mainframe systems. The DEC-20 Xerox 9700 spooling software (PRINT UNIT:X9700) was developed jointly by the combined CUCCA-CMU Systems Groups over CCNET. Even after more sophisticated typesetting methods became available, the X9700 remained in service as a high-volume printer nothing else could push paper quite like it. To this day, I think Controllers and Rolmphone statements are still printed on a 9700 at a service bureau.) Sep 1982: VMM announced (e-mail for the IBM mainframe: MM for VM, Joel and then Vace). Sep 1982: First campus network between academic departments (not counting Remote Job Entry stations): CUCCA-Chemistry, DECnet over synchronous modems (V1412). By this time Chemistry had a VAX-11780 and some smaller VAXes. Sep 1982: TOPS-20 V5 installed on the CUCCA DEC-20s, featuring extended addressing (32 256KW sections 36MB, instead of only one section), a new multiforking Exec (what we would now call job control), and a programming language for the Exec (CMUs PCL, what we would now call shell scripts. see example ). Oct 1982: About here we were looking into getting the AP Newswire online. Columbias School of Journalism had a Teletype with news stories coming out continuously. The plan was to feed this into one of our DEC-20s and make a BBoard out of it, with a rather rapid expiration of articles given the limited disk storage. But there were licensing and bureaucratic impediments so it never came to pass. About 1990, Columbia bought a subscription to ClariNews (in which the various news services are funneled to Usenet newsgroups). This lasted until 2003, by which time the Web had long since rendered it redundant. Nov 1982: The CUCCA Terminal and Plotter User Manual 14 was published, full of photos and detailed instructions on using the equipment in our public areas. CLICK HERE to see a sampling of video terminals note the accompanying PACX boxes. NOW ON LINE in searchable PDF format. This was printed on our new Xerox 9700, one of the first laser printers capable of typesetting it had two fonts, Helvetica and Courier. The manual itself should interesting to those who harbor a burning curiosity over every minute detail in the life of President Obama . since the equipment described here is what he must have used when he was a Columbia student 1981-83, because there wasnt anything else. Check, for example, this article he wrote in Sundial Magazine, March 10, 1983. I suspect he composed it on the DEC-20, perhaps in EMACS, seated at one of the terminals in our terminal rooms for example, the HP-2621s in Carman Hall. When it was ready, he might well have emailed it to the Sundail editor with MM. Just a guess Nov 1982: DECSYSTEM-20 Pocket Guide (click for PDF of the whole thing). The DEC-20 was an enormously powerful and useful computing system, yet it was simple enought that we could publish an accordion-fold pocket guide to just about all that it had to offer. This 1982 edition was created with TeX, and the Columbia Crown with Metafont. The master was printed on our new Imagen Laser Printer and the printing and folding done at the Columbia print shop. It was given out free to all comers (thousands of them). Dec 1982: The Teachers College DEC-20 connects to the campus DECnet. 1983-1986: Every Newsletter issue announces new BITNET and DECnet nodes. Jan 1983 20th Anniversary of the Computer Center . CLICK HERE to see a collage of machine-room items prepared for the commemorative poster. The commemorative frisbee is at Computer History Museum 1 Jan 1983: The ARPANET switches from its original protocol, NCP, to TCPIP. Prior to TCPIP, the ARPANET was a private club with membership restricted defense contractors. The fact that some of the defense contractors were also some of the top engineering and computer science universities (MIT, Stanford, CMU, etc) led to a lot of pressure from the non-military segment for more open access, and to a new design for the network itself. TCPIP (Transport Control Protocol Internet Protocol) was the result. Where ARPANET was a network of computers, TCPIP provided for a network of networks that is, an Internet. Thus when the cutover took place, all the computers at a given university (say, MIT), could be on the net, not just the ones used for defense research. In this way the network was opened up, and the requirement for a defense contract for membership no longer made sense. Numerous networks such CSNET, NSFNET, and SPAN, were connected. Columbia University as a whole got on the net in 1984 by virtue of its connection with NSF and over the next 15 years, the network grew to cover the entire planet and membership was open to all. Jan 1983 The Purchasing Office moves out of the Watson building and the space is occupied by ADP now, 13 years after IBM left it, the Watson Lab building is 100 Computer Center and would remain that way until 1991. ADP begins to offer office automation services, including PC and LAN installations for administrative use. Jan 1983: IBM PC Kermit. Originally by Daphne Tzoar, adapted from Bill Catchings CPM-80 Kermit (actually, if I recall correctly, Bill did the original translation from 8080 MASM to 8088 Microsoft assembler in a single EMACS session, and then Daphne made it work and added features). Later it passed to Jeff Damens. We did versions 1.00 to 2.28 here, with various pieces contributed from elsewhere. Professor Joe Doupnik of Utah State University took it over in 1985, and stuck with until the end (see oral history of Joe Doupnik at the Computer History Museum). We were actually ordered to write this program because several prominent professors (Herb Goldstein, Bob Pollack, and Jonathan Gross ) were using their new PCs to write a book, The Scientific Experience. that would be used in a new course, Science C1001-1002, Theory and Practice of Science. in Columbias Contemporary Civilization (the jewel in the crown of the Columbia College Core Curriculum ) and wanted to be able to collaborate by uploading chapters to CU20B, where they could be shared. And they did. MS-DOS Kermit was a fixture on the Columbia computing landscape until the Web took over in 1994-95, and popular all over the world. Its still remarkably popular today, providing VT320, Wyse, DG, ANSI, and Tektronix terminal emulation for Linux under dosemu . as well as data transfer for many DOS-based embedded and experimental devices, such as THIS ONE in the International Space Station. CLICK HERE to visit the MS-DOS Kermit website. Jan 1983: Amdahl UTS installed on the IBM mainframe as a virtual machine under VM (Alan) this was the first UNIX on the central systems. But CS, Biology, and P38S had been running other forms of UNIX for some time on departmental minicomputers such as PDP-11s and VAX-11750s. (9-track magnetic tapes were big in these days, but every kind of computer used a different format: ANSI, DUMPER, BACKUP, MAGSAV, IBM OS SL, tar, cpio, etc, so writing tape importexportconversion utilities was a regular cottage industry.) Mar 1983: CCNET included CU, CMU, CWRU, CS, TC. Mar 1983: All but two key punches removed due to lack of use (V154). The SSIO area is now a mainly a public terminal area, CUCCA business office, and consulting facility. Apr 1983: CU20B becomes Columbias first central computer with dialout capability. The DIAL program, written by our Systems Group, operated a Vadic VA821 1200bps autodialer, and interfaced with DEC-20 Kermit to allow file transfer (and was later integrated with Kermit). 18 May 1983: DECSYSTEM-20 (and DECsystem-10) 36-bit computer line canceled by DEC due to their failed attempts to produce a faster and cheaper followon product (Jupiter). This was a huge blow to Columbia and most other US universities, which until this point were like a big (but increasingly anxious) DEC-1020 club. The ARPANET had been built mainly on DEC-10s and -20s, and most computer science research and tools ran there. Big changes would come. Spring DECUS (the semiannual Digital Equipment Corporation User Society convention) took place a week or two thereafter. At the June 2001 DECWORLD event at the Computer Museum History Center. Roseanne Giordano, DECs LCG DEC-10 and DEC-20 product line manager at the time of the cancellation, recalled that DECUS organizers, fearing violence from the crowd, installed plainclothes police in the front row to protect the speakers. Jun 1983: Snapshot: Public terminal, printer, and graphics equipment. Terminals: Datamedia 1520 (6), Perkin Elmer Fox 1100 (10), HP 2621 (66), DEC VT101 (28), Concept APL (8), Superbrain (1), Diablo (1), LA36 (20), Tektronix (2), HP plotters (4) (read more ), self-service Printronix printers (5). Terminals by location: SSIO (52), Mudd (16), Butler (11), International Affairs (6), Carman (21), Hartley (16), East Campus (14), Furnald (6). The Superbrain is still the only desktop computer in a public area it remained in service until at least 1986. Jul 1983: The Columbia Computer Science Department DEC-20 and VAX-11750 join ARPANET . The CS DEC-20 is connected to CU20B with DECnet, thus providing the first ARPANET access from CUCCA machines (staff only). Nov 1983: We attend nondisclosure presentations of the Macintosh, which as to be the first mass-market personal computer with a graphical user interface, modeled on that of the Xerox Alto and the Xerox Star (the Star was commercially available in 1981 but it was too expensive for the popular market). I recommend early adoption of the Macintosh by CU this was done and Columbia became one of the first members of the Apple University Consortium, buying them in bulk and reselling them to students. Nov 1983: We (I) take on responsibility of approving campus microcomputer purchases, since in those days there were countless different incompatible ones. Every requisition had to come across my desk if it was for something weird Id call the person who ordered it and talk about communications and compatibility, either changing their mind or rubber stamping it after they swore they didnt care and never would. 1983-84: It is in approximately this time frame that Alan Crosswell becomes Lead Unix Systems Programmer and also assumes management responsibility for the DEC-20s, as I move on to something called Systems Integration, meaning finding ways of hooking Columbias many disparate micro-, mini-, and mainframe computers together. Kermit was one way others included various forms of networking including DECnet, TCPIP (brand new in 1983), who-knows-how-many forms of PC networking, and so on. Alan is formally appointed Systems Manager in 1990. 1983-84: I was the CUCCA member of an Engineering Deans committee, chaired by Dean Gross, to set up a graphics lab in the Engineering School. Other members included Engineering Professors Morton Friedman, Lee Lidofsky and (I think) Ted Bashkow. Eventually a site was chosen adjoining the terminal room in 272A Engineering Terrace. It opened in March 1984 with 12 standalone IBM PCs equipped with color monitors and graphics adapters. This was almost certainly Columbias first PC lab . The graphics lab was turned over to CUCCA in October 1989, combined with the original lab in room 272A, and renamed Gussman Lab. Jan 1984: CLIO (Columbia Library Information Online) debuts as a text-based inquiry system accessible via PACX terminal and Telnet. It is based on BLIS software from Bibliotechniques (a spinoff of the University of Washington), and runs on our IBM 3083 mainframe. Feb 1984: Hermit (clustered PC project): a 3-million-dollar equipment grant from DEC, proposed by us (me and Howard Eskin) in March 1983, to build a distributed environment of Macs, PCs, and UNIX workstations clustered around MicroVAX hubs which, in turn, were connected to the central DEC-20 mainframes for file identity e-mail service. Included were dozens of Rainbow PCs and Pro-380 (PDP-11) workstations, several MicroVAX-IIs, a VAX 11730, a VAX 11750, a VAXstation, an LN03 laser printer, Ethernet, and the Common File System (shared disk) hardware for our DEC-20s including a then-massive amount of central storage. This was to be a stunning example of systems integration the primary objective was to provide users transparent native-mode access to their central files and identities from all different kinds of desktop workstations (PC, Mac, UNIX). I was the PI, my boss was Howard Eskin, the programmers were (at various times) Bill Catchings, Bill Schilit. Melissa Metz, Jeff Damens, Andy Lowry, Delores Ng, Howie Kaye, Fuat Baran. (V162, V166, V182 Columbia Daily Spectator . 23 Apr 1984). Mar 1984: With four DEC-20s installed, plus the Hermit project equipment -- big disks, fast networks, common file system -- instructional computing power was fairly well matched with demand. Now access was the bottleneck. A study by the Academic Advisory Committee of the Engineering Advisory Council, Computers in Columbia Engineering Education. March 1984, complained of the Sleeping Bag Syndrome: students should not be forced to line up for terminal time at graveyard shift hours. Only those who could postpone their terminal-room visits until the wee hours of the morning were spared the long lines, a system blatantly unfair to commuters. Obtaining space for terminal rooms (or anything else) on the Columbia campus was (and is) even more difficult than obtaining the money to build them. Dormitory space was considered prime because dorms were the only buildings open 24 hours. Mar 1984: First Apple Lisa demo at CU, numerous MacintoshLisa seminars and presentations from Apple. Apr 1984: IBM Portable PC announced by CUCCA for resale. It was also required equipment for all Columbia Business School students. Apr-May 1984: Macintosh mania. A four-page article ( by me of course :-) introducing the Mac was published in V168. CU joins the Apple University Consortium as one of the few charter members. AUC membership required us to buy Macs in bulk for resale on campus. 2000 were ordered right away. Within a short while, we had written the first version of Macintosh Kermit for it (Bill Catchings, Bill Schilit, and me). Mac (and PC) sales continue in one form or another until turned over to JampR, which opened a Columbia-only branch in the basement of Philosophy Hall in the late 1990s but then jumped ship about 2001. May 1984: Floor plan of DEC-20 machine room by Bill Schilit of the Systems Group, showing the size and placement of the various components (3 DEC-20s, their disk drives, and communications front ends are shown not shown is the fourth DEC-20, the tape drives, or the system consoles). OK, this is not really the floor plan. Its a template for making floor plans. The idea was to gather up all the discarded copies of the newsletter that had this diagram on the cover, cut out the pieces, and then make a real floor plan out of them (Tom De Bellis points out this diagram was made before all the Hermit grant stuff had arrived, thus was used to lay out how to make everything fit). Also see THIS DEC-20 MACHINE ROOM PHOTO. Jun-Jul 1984: The first Kermit article. by me and Bill Catchings, published (in two parts) in BYTE Magazine. See Kermit Bibliography for more Kermit-related publications. 3 Aug 1984: CU20B joins ARPANET (now called the Internet). Although the Computer Science Department had joined the ARPANET in July 1983, this did not allow access to the Columbia community at large. Putting CU20B on the ARPANET was the first step in this direction (researchers from all schools and departments and CUCCA staff only, not students). CU20Bs ARPANET hostname was COLUMBIA. ARPA. No other Columbia computers (except the ones in the CS department) were on the ARPANET, but of course CU20B had network connections to the other DEC-20s, some internal CUCCA machines, the campus DECnet and the external DECnet-based CCNET, and to BITNET. Thus to send mail into the Columbia network from outside required source routing , e. g. user CU20ACOLUMBIA. ARPA. For some years, CU20B was to serve as a mail gateway among these networks, using locally written software. Over the next year or two, CUCCA would purchase a VAX-11750, called the Gateway VAX, and install it in the CS department, where it was connected to the CS ARPANET IMP and back to the CUCCA hosts via Ethernet. The Gateway VAX ran 4.2BSD UNIX and it made Internet e-mail available to the whole Columbia community, including students, for the first time. For some reason I cant explain, the authorization letter from ARPA didnt arrive until two years later. Aug 1984: IBM PCAT announced, the first IBM PC with memory protection. Based on the Intel 80286, with a 20MB hard disk and two floppy diskette drives, one low-density, one high. Battery powered BIOS configuration memory and clock. Up to 16MB memory. This was the first in the IBM PC line fully capable of running multitasking operating systems, and soon was host to a number of them (some companies had managed to produce Unix variants such as Xenix for the original IBM PC or XT on 8086 but these were not sustainable.) Of course this machine was of great interest to the Columbia Computer Center, which was looking for ways to deploy desktop networked UNIX workstations for academic use, and we had some internally running different UNIX versions such as SCO Xenix286. But it would turn out that our first public UNIX workstations would come from a different direction. Sep 1984: Three HP-150 MS-DOS microcomputers and one Macintosh were installed in the 272A Engineering Terrace terminal room. They were not on any kind of network and had to be reserved by sign-up sheet. The HP-150s were an equipment grant from HP, along with some color pen plotters that were attached to them. They had touch-screens and integrated thermal printers. A version of Kermit was written to allow them to communicate with the central computers through PACX lines and transfer files to and from their 3.5-inch diskettes (the HP-150 was one of the first, if not the first PC to use the 3.5-inch rigid diskette). Graphic images where generated by software on the mainframes (such as DISSPLATELEGRAF on the DEC-20s and SASGRAPH on the IBMs), downloaded with Kermit, and sent to the plotters. 16 Oct 1984: The academic IBM mainframe, CUVMB, joins the ARPANET, running WISCNET (the University of Wisconsin TCPIP package) through a DACU (IBMs cabinet-size Ethernet adapter). This machine was for researchers and staff only, so there is still no ARPANET access for students. Nov 1984: Project Aurora . a 6.5-million dollar IBM grant administered by CUCCA, a campus-wide move in information and instruction toward the electronic university. Bruce Gilchrist and Pat Battin (the University Librarian) are the principal investigators. Aurora paid for an IBM 3083 mainframe to support the Columbia Libraries Information Online (CLIO) system, and also funded some 30 research projects in the schools and departments. Im not too clear about this but I believe the SSIO area got a facelift around this time. See these photos. 1985: Low-cost Apple Laserwriter PostScript printers proliferate and suddenly typesetting becomes commonplace as LaserWriters are set up as spooled printers so they can be controlled not only by Macintoshes but also DEC-20 and UNIX systems with Scribe and T E X. 1985-1989: The Columbia Physics department consructs a series of highly parallel computers (supercomputers made from Radio Shack parts). 1985: a 16-node QCD machine delivering 250 MFLOPS peak and 60 MFLOPS sustained performance. 1987: A second-generation QCD machine containing 64 nodes, delivering 1 GFLOPS peak and 300 MFLOPS sustained performance. 1989: A third-generation QCD machine containing 256 nodes delivering 16 GFLOPS peak and 6.4 GFLOPS sustained performance 43 . This work would continue into the 1990s and beyond. Jan 1985: CUVMA (IBM VMCMS academic mainframe) gets Ethernet (DACU) and TCPIP (WISCNET) (Vace). Jan 1985: Internet Domain Name registration begins. Some of the first registered domains are: symbolics, cmu. edu, bbn, ucla. edu, mit. edu, mitre. org, dec, stanford. edu, sri, sun, ibm, att, nsf. net, apple, cisco. Feb 1985: First version of C-Kermit (4.0) released. (Previous versions were called UNIX Kermit C-Kermit was modularized to allow easy adaptation to other platforms, and eventually was ported to over 700 of them, across 10 major operating system families.) Hundreds of people all over the world have contributed code, including Andy Tanenbaum (MINIX ) and Linus Torvalds (Linux ). C-Kermit was part of Hewlett-Packards UNIX operating system HP-UX (by contract) from 1996 until 2011 (when Columbia U canceled the Kermit Project), and has since been incorporated into many of the free Open Source operating systems distributions. CLICK HERE to visit the C-Kermit website. CLICK HERE to see a very early version C-Kermit. Speaking of Andy Tanenbaum and MINIX, CLICK HERE to read Andys 2016 article, Lessons Learned from 30 Years of MINIX 121 (complete with video) May 1985: Watson Lab Ethernet connection to Computer Center Steve Jensens 115th Street trench and Broadway crossing with cement-encased conduits containing fat yellow coax, the difficult Western and final leg of Columbias first Ethernet backbone (PHOTO GALLERY ). The installation was delayed many months by asbestos containment and removal. Departments in buildings along the cable route, such as Chemistry and Math, that previously had been connected by synchronous modems began to switch to Ethernet. Sep 1985: The COLUMBIA. EDU Internet domain becomes operational. Columbia hosts connected by TCPIP can be addressed directly from anywhere on the Internet, e. g. by email addresses like user CU20D. COLUMBIA. EDU or user CHEMVAX. CHEM. COLUMBIA. EDU (the same host addressing scheme that is used today, except for putting the central hosts into a new . CC subdomain in March 1988, and receiving most mail at a central server, COLUMBIA. EDU, rather than by individual computer host name). For the first time, students have access to the Internet but for all practical purposes, it is limited to email and anonymous FTP, since the World Wide Web does not yet exist and netnews will not become generally available at Columbia until 1988. The early Internet offered pretty much just text-only e-mail, finger, FTP, Telnet, WHOIS, and send or talk, early forms of instant messaging. What else could you want Dec 1985: Bruce Gilchrist resigns his Director post but stays on in an advisory capacity through 1989 (PHOTO ). Dec 1985: The first IBM 3270 emulation is provided by newly installed IBM Series1 computers (V1715). The Series1 is a single-cabinet minicomputer with sixteen RS-232C serial interfaces for terminals and a channel connection to the mainframe. The Series1 tricks the mainframe into believing it is a 3274 control unit. Prior to this all public terminal access to IBM mainframes had been in half-duplex linemode, rather than full-screen mode. Now ordinary ASCII terminals (and emulators of them) could conduct full-screen 3270 sessions on the IBM VMCMS mainframe, and they could do it without reconfiguration (as was necessary for linemode connections). The Series1 converted between full and half duplex, block mode and character mode, and IBM 3270 data streams and the escape sequences and character sets used by many different types of terminals (even APL terminals), plus it provided flow control and buffering. The Series1 computers were later replaced by IBM 7171s, 4994s, and tn3270 software in terminal servers and on UNIX hosts. (Around here, large departmental PC labs began to appear, for example in the Business School and in the Learning Center.) 1986-1987 West German hackers use Columbias Kermit software to break into dozens of US military computers and capture information for the KGB . as described by Cliff Stoll in his 1989 book, The Cuckoos Egg 46 . At one point, while Cliff watched on a jury-rigged T-connected terminal, the hackers were using Kermit to download a copy of the Telnet source code so they could implant a password logger, upload the result, recompile it, and install it: Line by line, I watched Kermit shovel the program over to the hacker. But I couldnt just kill Kermit. Hed notice that right away. Now that I was closing in on him, I especially didnt want to tip my hand. I found my key chain and reached over to the wires connected to the hackers line. Jangling the keys across the connector, I shorted out his circuit for an instant. This added just enough noise to confuse the computer, but not enough to kill the connection. It worked like a charm. Id jangle my keys, hed see the noise, and his computer would ask for a replay of the last line. This slowed the transfer down so much that the hacker eventually lost patience and gave up -- but it didnt stop Kermit As long as the connection stays up, no matter how awful, Kermit pushes the file through. Cliff also measured the delay between Kermit packet and acknowledgment to estimate the hackers distance from California (6000 miles, a fairly accurate estimate of the distance to Hannover). 1 Jan 1986: CUCCA and Libraries merge. Information is information, right (V182). CUCCA now reports to the University Librarian, Pat Battin. (In fact, it seems that CUCCA and Libraries merge periodically in some sense, CUCCA has always reported to the University Librarian in another sense the real merger came only later, under Elaine Sloan.) The administrative half of CUCCA, ADP (now AIS, Administrative Information Services), is severed and reports to Low Library, and eventually (1991) moves from Watson Lab to Thorndike Hall at Teachers College. Jan 1986: Columbias first networked PC lab opens in 251 Engineering Terrace, populated with the UNIX (Pro380), MS-DOS (Rainbow ) and VAX workstations from the Hermit grant. plus eight 512K (fat) Macintoshes and two MacXLs, a LaserWriter printing station, an IBM PC, and the original Kermit Superbrain (V182). The Pro380 was a workstation made by DEC with a PDP-11 inside. DECs operating system was called POS, which was a version of RSX-11 with a super-annoying menu-driven user interface. We adapted 2.8BSD UNIX to the machine for use in the lab, so these were the first public Unix workstations deployed at Columbia. Furthermore, unlike the Rainbows, Macs, and the PC (which communicated only through their serial ports with Kermit), they were on Ethernet, and therefore on the Internet. Jan 1986: Kermit Project founded. Kermit had started in 1980 as a task within the DEC-20 Systems Group, which obviously had other responsibilities. By the mid-80s, Kermit had become popular all over the world, and we were receiving hundreds of requests for it every week from sites that were not on the network. Meanwhile, other sites were sending in new Kermit implementations of their own. Fulfilling these requests and maintaining the Kermit software archive (and mailing list, etc) had become a full-time job, so a full-time Kermit group, led by Christine Gianone (formerly the business manager in SSIO ), was created to manage and distribute the software and take over the online archive, the mailing lists, tech support, and so on. The programming was still done by members of the Systems group and external volunteers. Software distribution charges were instituted to cover costs. The old raised-floor machine room in the back of the 7th floor of Watson Lab (added in 1959 for the IBM 1620) became the Kermit room. containing the Kermit Project computers and media production equipment. May 1986: The height of CCNET . which now includes Columbia, CMU, CWRU, NYU, Stevens, Vassar, and Oberlin (V185). An October 1986 listing shows about 200 nodes on the network with DEC operating systems including TOPS-10, TOPS-20, VMS, Ultrix, RSX-11M, and POS. Columbia departments included CUCCA, Computer Science, Chemistry, Math Stat, Teachers College, numerous PampS departments, Nevis Lab (in Irvington NY), Psychology, Civil Engineering, and the Business School. Other universities (mainly in Ohio) would join later, but in a few more years the Internet would make CCNET obsolete. May 1986: First public description of Columbias Ethernet backbone network, and enunciation of policy for departmental connections to it (V185), which was accomplished by us writing a letter for the Provost to sign. 16 Jul 1986: Columbia University as a whole (as opposed to only the Computer Science Department) receives approval from the Defense Projects Research Agency to join the ARPANET (which would soon become the Internet) SEE LETTER . Aug 1986: Mathematics joins Ethernet backbone. 1986: (month) Richard Sacks takes over as acting CUCCA Director. (Howard leaves somewhere in here. ) Sep 1986: The Scholarly Information Center (SIC) is proclaimed by Pat Battin, University Librarian. Sep 1986: More about the campus backbone: A bright yellow half-inch coaxial cable runs through the steam tunnels up and across the west and north edges of the Morningside campus. This cable is the campus Ethernet backbone, a large part of which was installed as part of an external research grant from Digital Equipment Corporation the Hermit Project . (Alan Crosswell, Networks at Columbia. SIC Journal V11, Sep 1986). The backbone ran from Watson Lab to Mathematics to Chemistry to the Computer Center to Computer Science to Mudd (DIAGRAM ). At the time coax-based IBM PCNET and Token Ring PC networks were commonplace networking methods for PCs. Oct 1986: Kermit, A File Transfer Protocol (Frank) published by Digital Press, with a Foreword by Donald Knuth. It remained in print for 14 years. Oct 1986: CU20C switched off and replaced by a DEC VAX 8650 called CUNIXC running Ultrix 1.1, DECs brand of UNIX . a 4.2BSD derivative. A pilot project assigned some CS courses to CUNIXC in Fall 1986. This was our first step in phasing out the DEC-20s after the line was discontinued by DEC in 1983. This stung so severely that we would never run a proprietary operating system again (except on the IBM mainframes, of course). The attraction of UNIX was that it was available -- with relatively minor variations -- on all kinds of computers, great and small. The 8650 was approximately equal to the DEC-20 in size, weight, and cost it was chosen because we could recycle many of the DEC-20 peripherals, and because (unlike other UNIXes) it supported DECnet, which we still used for departmental connections. Lots more HERE about the conversion from TOPS-20 to Unix. (About UNIX. There is much that appeals about UNIX. Its well-known original attributes (simplicity, terseness, consistent building-block tools) were spelled out in the seminal BSTJ issue 15 . In addition, it is platform independent, so sites like ours are not tied to a particular vendor. Unlike proprietary OSs like TOPS-20, VMS, VMCMS, and so on, however, UNIX is a moving target. Ever since control of UNIX left Bell Labs, every implementation (Ultrix, OSF1, AIX, HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, Linux, FreeBSD, etc etc) is different in sometimes subtle but always aggravating ways, and (with a few notable exceptions such as OpenBSD) every new release of every varation tends to break existing applications (whereas programs written for TOPS-20, VMS, MVSTSO, or VMCMS decades ago still work, without even recompiling). Any program more complicated than hello world is rarely portable from one UNIX to another without some porting work at the source-code level. To compound matters, documentation is increasingly scant. In the 1970s and 80s, every operating system (even UNIX) came with a wall of printed manuals that documented everything in excruciating detail. But now documentation is considered a waste of time and effort, since everything will change anyway. In modern UNIX, the only reliable documentation is the source code, and even that decays over time.) Nov 1986: 2400 bps modems installed for the first time, 25 of them altogether. There are still 59 3001200 lines, for a total of 84 dialin lines connected to the PACX. Dec 1986: First IBM RT PCs received at Watson Lab (V1812). This was IBMs first RISC Technology (RT) UNIX workstation, the precursor to the RS6000, which was in wide use at Columbia and elsewhere into the 2000s. IBMs brand of UNIX is called AIX. Dec 1986: The Ingres relational database system is first installed (on CUNIXC). This would become the basis for CUs ID and authentication systems and other UNIX-based databases. 1987: Snapshot: The 1987 edition of the CUCCA Guide to Research and Instructional Facilities lists four DEC-2065s (but only three remain), the IBM mainframe with VMCMS, a DEC VAX 8700 running Ultrix, 150 public terminals (HP2621s and DEC VT101s ) plus DEC Rainbows and Apple Macintoshes in public labs, 80 dialup lines at 300, 1200, and 2400 bps. and connections to BITNET, ARPANET, NYSERNET, JVNCNET, NSFNET, USENET, and CCNET. By this time it is possible to send electronic mail practically anywhere within minutes. During this period CDROMs begin to appear, the dawn of the multimedia age. CLIO goes online to PACX users. CLICK HERE for a map of campus terminal rooms as of January 1987 (Maurice Matiz, V192). 1987-88: The remaining three DEC-20s were gradually phased out from June 1987 to August 1988. 1987-88: The Kermit Project gives presentations at international conferences in the USA, Switzerland, France, and Japan. In Japan we learned the problems of Japanese text entry, coding, display, and interchange that would influence future directions in Kermit protocol and software. Jan 1987: Morningside campus is connected to the John von Neumann Supercomputer Center in Princeton and to JVNCNET via a 56Kb leased line. And to NYSERNET via 56Kb leased line to Cornell. The Big Snowball Fight. Feb 1987: Biology joins Ethernet backbone. Feb 1987: CUCCA (Frank) commissions Sparc SPITBOL due to imminent demise of DEC-20s (indicating we had already decided on Sun for future expansion SPITBOL (SNOBOL), which some of us still used heavily, was one of the few DEC-20 applications that had not been adapted to UNIX in general or the Sparc in particular). Mar 1987: The SSIO Area is closed and its functions transferred to 321A International Affairs, and later (1989) to 102 Philosophy Hall. The SSIO terminal rooms are replaced by public labs in the International Affairs building (and later in other locations) in which microcomputers, PCs, Macintoshes, and other kinds of workstations are installed rather than terminals. Apr 1987: Hermit project canceled. Although we had achieved many of its goals (transparent central file access from DOS, Mac, and UNIX shared printing, including graphics even e-mail), it was overtaken by cheap Ethernet, NFS, and commodity LANsinternetworking in general. Most of the equipment (Pro380s, Rainbows. MicroVAXes) had gone into 251 Engineering Terrace, Columbias first networked PC lab. The Pro-380s were our first public UNIX workstations (running 2.9BSD, adapted locally to the Pro-380), and CCMD (DEC-20 COMND JSYS simulation in C for UNIX) and the UNIX version of MM (mail client) came out of it (more info on MM HERE ). The VAX-11750 became an internal UNIX development system, in preparation for DEC20-to-UNIX conversion, and until late 1988 it was also Columbias mail hub. May 1987: The Engineering School Ethernet (Muddnet) is installed and connected to the campus Ethernet backbone. Muddnet came from an ATampT grant to the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), which also included an ATampT 3B20 minicomputer in the Computer Science department and a large number of 3B2 desktop workstations, all running ATampT UNIX System V R3. The 3Bxs fell into disuse after after a short while, but the Ethernet taps were recycled and used to provide connectivity for years. Jul 1987: VAX 8700 up as CUNIXC, replacing the VAX 8650. Sep 1987: U of Toledo (Ohio) joins CCNET. Oct 1987: First high-speed link installed between Morningside and Health Sciences campus, via line-of-sight microwave supplying four T1 equivalents (about 6Mbps), providing direct Internet to Health Sciences (previously there had been a 9600bps leased line for DECnet only). This works because the Morningside and Health Sciences campus are both on Manhattan high points (see the old aerial photo ). Nov 1987: The Physics Department joins the Ethernet backbone. Nov 1987: Columbia Appletalk Package (CAP) and Appletalk UNIX File Server (AUFS) released, written by Bill Schilit and Charlie Kim of Watson Lab, provides Appleshare file and print service to Macintoshes from UNIX, speaking Appletalk over Ethernet (V199). CAP and AUFS quickly became popular all over the world and Charlie went on to work at Apple. 1987-1993: Network Planning Group (NPG): University-wide planning sessions setting networking direction and policy for CU as a whole (Morningside and Health Sciences, Administrative and Academic), chaired by me. Met weekly until 1993. Began by planning for Rolm installation (wiring plant, PACXRolm data migration), eventually moved on to local-area, campus-wide, and wide-area networking in general. Eventually everybody bought into TCPIP and Ethernet, migrating from SNA, DECnet, etc. See the NPG final report (PDF). 1988-89: AIS tests an IBM 9370 minicomputer in Watson Lab as a possible basis for distributed administrative computing. Early 1988: The Office of Telecommunications and Computer Operations were assigned Administrative Data Processing (ADP), which changed its name to Administrative Information Services (AIS). AIS was removed from CUCCA, and now reported to the Universitys central administration, rather than to the University Librarian, thus ending the 17-year CUCCA name and era. The academic and administrative staff, however, continued to work together in Watson Lab 20 . The Office of Telecommunications has overall responsibility for the Rolm phone system including the Rolm cable plant. The split complicates the networking of the University, since some aspects (wiring and distribution frames) are done by Telecomm, whereas others (backbone network, hubs, routers, and configuration) are done by the Academic portion of ex-CUCCA (soon to be AcIS), and the two sides do not report anywhere in common short of the President. Working around this structural anomoly was the primary reason for NPG. Meanwhile, the central academic computing systems remain in the machine room but now AIS is the service provider (of operations support) and AcIS the client. Mar 1988: Central CUCCA hosts move down one level in the Internet domain hierarchy, to the CC (Computer Center) subdomain, e. g. CU20B. COLUMBIA. EDU becomes CU20B. CC. COLUMBIA. EDU. The older names remain in effect until the first of June. Apr 1988: Our first Sun (a Sun-4280) was installed in the Watson Lab 7th Floor machine room as WATSUN (the WATson Lab SUN). Watsun (later upgraded to Sparc-10 and then Sparc-20), which ran SunOS 4.0 and 4.1 (4.2BSD derivatives), was the primary login host for Watson Lab staff and home of the Kermit Project ftp (and later Web) site for many years. Later (when) it would move to the Watson Penthouse as the need for office space becomes increasingly urgent, and the old IBM raised-floor machine room would be gutted and divided into four offices for 6-8 people. Watsun was retired in 2003. May 1988: CU20D switched off. All instruction moved from DEC-20s to VAX UNIX . CU20B (research and staff) runs until. Aug 1988: CU20B (Columbias last DEC-20) was switched off. For more about the legacy of the DECSYSTEM-20, CLICK HERE. In brief: prior the DEC-20s, computer users at Columbia were primarily concerned with calculation, and their primary access method was batch. After the DEC-20 (and because of it) they were hooked on e-mail, bulletin boards, talk (interactive real-time chatting), text editing and typesetting, and the Internet -- just as they are today. The nature of computing had changed completely and forever. All that remained was to put a pretty face on it. Aug 1988: Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory connected to Morningside campus via Ethernet over T1. Aug 1988: Ethernet backbone extended to East Campus. Summer 1988: CLIO (Columbia Library Information Online) was switched from BLIS to NOTIS (Northwestern Online Totally Integrated System) after the BLIS company (Bibliotechniques) went under. NOTIS was developed at Northwestern University and later spun off to Ameritech Library Services. CLIO continues to run on the IBM mainframe. Sep 1988: CUCCA reorganization. Richard Sacks officially director. Elaine Sloan is new Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian. Nov 1988: After years of planning and a year of installation, the ATampT Centrex telephone system and the Gandalf PACX were replaced by IBMRolm (later Siemens) CBX 9000 (PHOTOS ). Now instead of a PACX box and a phone, users had a phone with an RS-232 connector (if they paid extra for the data option). This was a massive project involving untold amounts of construction, tunneling, drilling, and wire-pulling, including a trench across Broadway and many trenches between the buildings on campus and across side streets. Preparation for the cutover was done using a Rolm CBX 8000 in Watson Lab. 2500 data connections were moved from the PACX to the Rolm. Columbias telephone exchange was changed from 280- to 853- and 854-. Christine and I published a series of articles in McGraw Hill Data Communications magazine on the topic and Neil Sachnoff wrote a whole book 41 . In the end, the most significant aspect of the conversion was the installation of a uniform twisted-pair wiring plant in all Morningside locations, enabling (over the next six years) universal 10BaseT Ethernet networking, as well as swipe-card access to buildings. Prior to 1988, the Columbia University ID (CUID) was paper. With the Rolm system came laminated picture IDs with magnetic strips that worked in swipe-card readers all over campus, as well as in off-campus university buildings -- anyplace reached by Rolm wiring. The same wiring system that was used for telephones, serial-port terminal connections, and twisted-pair Ethernet was also used to connect to the central access server that lets you open doors. Prior to this, PACX data installations required pulling wire from the PACX to each destination, digging trenches, drilling holes through granite, etc, and could take many months. With the CBX, it was just a matter of making some cross-connections in a distribution panel -- every phone jack was also a network jack. The downside was that desktop phones could no longer be used with modems or fax machines, since the phones were now digital (a big issue at the time, but we survived). 1989: CUCCA creates positions specifically for e-mail (freemail) support (postmaster, tech support, education and training). Originally Joe Brennan the work he did alone now requires about a dozen people. Freemail is launched January 1990. Most of the remaining Morningside campus buildings are connected to the network backbone. 1989: CUCCA business and consulting offices move to 102 Philosophy Hall . This is the same room where Prof. Edwin H. Armstrong invented FM radio. Here we have two views of Armstrongs laboratory in 102 Philosophy in the 1930s VIEW 1 VIEW 2 and one of the Armstrong Tower (from the Columbiana photo archive). The Armstrong Tower (transmitter for the first-ever FM radio station. W2XMN, 1936) is across the Hudson River in Alpine, New Jersey, but at some point Columbia sold it off. Later (early 1990s) we thought we might use it for microwave access to Lamont, since it has line-of-sight to both Columbias Morningside Heights (Manhattan) campus and to Lamont in Palisades NY, but couldnt afford the new owners rates. (Actually this idea has come up just about every 10 years since the 1960s -- I saw it first suggested in Dean Halfords 1963 letter 36 .) After the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the Armstrong tower was used again by the major networks to broadcast their signals 56 . Apr 1989: An Encore Multimax 310 UNIX mainframe (later upgraded to 510) replaces the VAX 8700, our first departure from DEC for big academic central computers since 1975. The Encores attraction was its multiple processors. It was fast. Its UNIX (UMAX) was based on 4.3BSD. This change effectively removes the Computer Center from the campus DECnet, which gradually vanished from the scene over the next 10 or 12 years. May 1989: First International Kermit Conference . Moscow, USSR (Also in the Columbia University Record . V153, 22 Sep 1989) (PHOTO ). Attended by Frank da Cruz and Christine Gianone of the Columbia Computer Center and about 70 computer specialists from Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Mongolia, Poland, and parts of the USSR ranging from Novosibirsk in central Russia to Tallinn in Estonia, this is where the details of Kermits character-set translation protocol were settled, allowing interchange of text in Cyrillic among machines using diverse incompatible encodings -- ditto for East and West European languages written with accented Roman letters, as well as Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, and other scripts. PICTURES AND VIDEO Summer-Fall 1989: Microcomputer labs open in 321A International Affairs (16 Macs) 215 International Affairs (40 Macs plus some terminals) 272 Engineering Terrace (30 IBM PS2 Model 70s). Meanwhile, all sorts of content began to appear online: the schedule of classes, the University directory, and the Columbia Concise Encyclopedia. Sep 1989: Richard Sacks resigns as director of CUCCA on September 27th. Vace Kundakci (correct spelling: Vaccedile Kundakccedil305), manager of the academic IBM mainframes and prior to that systems programmer (since 1977), takes over as acting director. Jan 1990: Using MS-DOS Kermit (Christine) published by Digital Press, with a jacket blurb by Cliff Stoll (Yow), author of The Cuckoos Egg 46 . A second edition was published in 1992. German and French translations were also published, as was another book about MS-DOS Kermit in Japanese (see the Kermit Bibliography ). May 1990: Vace Kundakci takes over as Director, renames CUCCA to AcIS (Academic Information Systems), as distinct from AIS (Administrative Information Services, formerly ADP). Mid-1990: Alan Crosswell becomes Systems Manager, responsible for all central academic computing systems (IBM and other), a post last held by Howard Eskin and vacated 5 years before. By this time the only central computers that matter are Unix-based (DEC, then Encore, then Sun, plus workstations from Sun, NeXT, and HP) mdash the academic IBM mainframe is used mainly by the Libraries and a handful of external paying users. (Somewhere around here CCNET was disbanded because of the Internet.) Jan 1991: The Senior Vice President of Columbia is bitten by the outsourcing bug and brings in a consulting firm, American Management Systems Inc (AMS), to take over and clean out administrative computing (AIS). Seventeen people are fired. Although a couple of service improvements resulted (mainly a new Student Information System, SIS), many millions of dollars were wasted on cutting edge projects that never panned out and a number of talented people were lost. Eventually AMS left the scene and equilibrium was restored. 1991: We buy a truckload of NeXT UNIX (NeXTSTEP) workstations for both staff and labs (photo ) a major commitment, and (I believe) an attempt to stem the tide of PCs and Macs, which were intrinsically unsafe and labor intensive for their users and owners (the PCs more so than Macs, which have always had a great deal of support from a large contingent of the technical staff) and for AcIS staff in its role of support-giver. The NeXTs were configured and managed centrally user logins were via network to the central University database user directories were on centrally located, managed, and backed up NFS-mounted disks. But before long NeXT was out of business. 1991: There is much expansion, renovation, and upgrading of public computer labs during 1991 (and ever since). The academic and administrative IBM mainframes (4381, 3090, and 3083) are all replaced by a single IBM ES9121, which is partitioned into separate academic and administrative virtual machines (a feature of IBMs VM operating system). Jan 1991: Three Sun-4280s (full-sized cabinets) are installed in the machine room as CUNIXA, CUNIXB, and CUNIXD running SunOS 4.1. These (and the Encore) were soon replaced by Sun pizza-box sized servers, and SunOS was replaced by Solaris. Where central computers once weighed tons, cost millions, filled acres of floor space, required massive cooling and exotic forms of power, now theyre dirt-cheap commodity items running at unheard-of speeds with seemingly limitless amounts of memory and storage, that can be carried under your arm and plugged into an ordinary wall socket at ambient room temperature. Of course, todays applications and data saturate this vast capacity just as effectively as yesterdays simpler applications overwhelmed the resources available then, and so it shall always be. (Around here, disk service begins to shift from locally attached disks to RAID file servers, and the backup system changes from the traditional manual 9-track tape operation to automated network backups to a DAT-drive juke box . All the software was locally written and included all the academic servers, Sun as well as the IBM mainframe. Later a commercial backup system, Veritas, took the place of the original homegrown one. Capacity as of Jan 2001: 400 x 40GB tapes 16000GB (16TB) to cover 1.7TB usable space on the academic file servers.) Jan 1992: Conversion of Morningside campus backbone from Ethernet coax to optical fiber begins cutover in Spring 1992. Apr 1992: AIS moves out of Watson Lab to new quarters in Thorndike Hall at Teachers College (MAP ) and in the Computer Center Building 20 . Floors 1 through 5 of Watson Lab were left vacant for a period, and then, even though the AcIS space on floors 6-9 was (and remains) severely and increasingly overcrowded, the lower five floors mdash with their rich history and key role in science and computing mdash were converted to art studios. Nov 1992: Using C-Kermit (Frank and Christine) published by Digital Press, concurrent with the release of version 5 of C-Kermit. A second edition would follow in 1997, as well as a German translation. 1992-1993: Columbias Kermit software handles the communications in the British relief mission to Bosnia. 1993: The era of the search engine begins. First there was Archie, then Hypertelnet, then Gopher, then the Web. In 1993, ColumbiaNet is hot, a million accesses per year (a figure soon to be dwarfed by the Web, see Web statistics table ). ColumbiaNet is a text-based menu-driven service (remember text). Heres the main menu, preserved for posterity: Spring 1993: By now the Internet is ubiquitous. University Technology Architecture published, setting University-wide standards for networking, a common TCPIP-based network for all computing, administrative and academic, at Columbia this was the end product of NPG (see it here as a PDF). Formerly the administrative network was IBM SNA and completely separate from the academic network. While this arrangement might have had its advantages from a security standpoint, it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage and for end users to cope with. Summer 1993: The Schapiro Residence Hall (across 115th Street from Watson Lab) is wired for Ethernet as a pilot project for campus-wide networked dormitories. Schapiro is also the first building to be served by the new fiber backbone. Dec 1993: New AcIS modem pool announced, consisting of 80 V.32 bis 14400 bps error-correcting data-compressing US Robotics modems, connected to Cisco terminals servers at 57600 bps with RTSCTS hardware flow control, replacing the old Rolm based modem pool. When the Rolm was first installed in 1988, 12002400 and 9600 bps modem pools were connected directly to it, and these provided Columbias main dialup access until 1994 (a total of 84 lines). Beginning in 1993, AcIS began to install modern error-correcting data-compressing modems of its own in Watson Lab. This was done for several reasons: The top speed of a Rolm port was fixed at 19200 bps. Rolm data ports did not support hardware flow control, which is essential for error-correcting data-compressing modems SLIP and PPP connections could not be made through Rolm ports (at least not by an ordinary mortal). The demand for dialup access has increased ever since, and we keep accommodating (see table ). The modems themselves have since been upgraded to V.34 (28800 bps) and then V.90 (56K bps). Modems were originally used for text-based shell sessions. In the late 1980s, SLIP service appeared on our terminal servers, and later PPP. Gradually, shell access gave way to Internet connections over PPP, which had the advantages of allowing multiple sessions on the same connection including Web browsers and GUI PC-based e-mail, plus end-to-end data integrity (no more line noise mdash of course the noise is still there, but its detected and corrected by retransmission automatically by the modems and the IP and TCP network layers, so you dont see it). Jan-Apr 1994: The Columbia website debuts see statistics below. A web server was first installed in Dec 1993 the first Columbia website was up in Jan 1994 (DID ANYBODY SAVE A SCREENSHOT ), and the website was announced and publicized in Apr 1994. Early original content included the Architecture digital library (1994-95), the Art History digital library (1993-95), the Oversized Geology Maps project (1994-96), and the Bartleby full-text literature project Source: Rob Cartolano . Before long, a Web front end to NOTIS-based CLIO was also available (DATE). May 1994: In AIS News V42, the Directors of AcIS (Vace Kundakci) and AIS (Mike Marinaccio) present the full range of e-mail options available to Columbia: Pine, MM, VMM, MailBook, the newly emerging PC and Macintosh based POP clients, and e-mail with MIME attachments. Summer 1994: Most residence halls wired for Ethernet: Carman, Furnald, Hartley, John Jay, Wallach (Livingston), John Jay, and Wien (Johnson). Residence Hall Networking Option (RHNO) offered to students in the Fall. The first electronic classrooms were set up. Sep 1994: The public labs are switched from NeXT to HP 9000712 UNIX (HP-UX) workstations a big attraction is their ability to run both Mac and PC (Windows) emulators as well as UNIX applications mdash perfect for the public labs but far too pricey for individual desktops. Sometime in 1994: I turn over my Network Tsar responsibilities to Bill Chen and devote full time to the Kermit Project, which I began 14 years earlier and could never quite give up. Shortly thereafter, Jeff Altman joins as a second full-time developer. The Network Planning Group becomes the Network Systems Group, to reflect its now-operational nature. Token Ring and SNA networks phased out. Oct 1994: Columbias Kermit software serves as the primary communications method in the Brazilian national election. the worlds largest election ever at the time. Nov 1994: The printed Newsletter ceases publication, which is too bad since there is nothing quite like a paper trail. Web documents are transitory mdash turn your back for a couple years (or months or weeks) and the history is lost. The newsletter was the Computer Center (or CUCC . or CUCCA ) Newsletter until November 1988, after which it suffered a series of makeovers and name changes: Columbia Computing, Computing News, Academic Computing, SIC sic Journal . etc, and then gave up the ghost. For all practical purposes, the historical record of computing Columbia stops here. There was an ASCII archive of newsletters through 1988 on the DEC-20s, but it was lost when CU20B was switched off. Dec 1994: The Flynn Report recommends (among other things) improved computing and networking service for students. 1994-95: Windows and the Web take over. The diverse, rich, idiosyncratic history of computing stops here. For the first time, computing and networking are opened up to the general public. The locus of computing and networking shifts from science and academia to the mass market. 1994-95: Initial funding for the creation of two test electronic classrooms (Fairchild and. ) for the 1994-95 year. 1994-present: AcIS is primarily occupied with the Web, Web-based services, content, labs, kiosks, Sun servers and NFS toasters, multimedia classrooms, wired dorms, mobile and wireless computing, video conferencing, webcasting, distance learning, all the while fending off attacks from within and without mdash viruses, spam, open mail relays, junk mail, denial of service attacks, worms, etc mdash that occur continuously from all corners of the globe, and constantly struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth, storage, and dial-in modems, often just to accommodate services like Napster, Kazaa, Internet Relay Chat, Instant Messaging, and people emailing cartoons, photos, and movies to each other or serving streaming video from their dorm rooms. Superficially, users rely on AcIS less than before, now that they have their own desktop computers and applications. But in fact they rely on AcIS more than ever for essential daily services like virus protection and screening, e-mail and Web access, not to mention the Sun and RAID server farms that provide these services mdash as well as safe, backed-up storage mdash and the unglamorous infrastructure of network wiring, hubs, and routers (installation, maintenance, updates, expansion, management, configuration), plus the ongoing feeds from the administrative student information, human resources, and alumni systems, allowing automated identity creation, security, web-based student services, web-based courses, and all the rest, serving virtually every student, staff, and faculty member of the University, a community of over 40,000 users (plus another 50,000 alumni with e-mail service). 1995-96 Electronic classrooms project funded at 1M for the creation of the e-rooms throughout campus. Oct 1995: Kermit 95 for Windows 95 released this (and C-Kermit ) would be the main preoccupation of the Kermit Project for the years to come, plus active involvement in IETF and Unicode standards. Kermit is a laboratory where we can learn about, experiment with, develop, and finally package, document, and deploy file transfer and management protocols, Internet clients and servers, character-set translation techniques, secure authentication and encryption methods, and algorithms of all kinds big and small, even transport-level network stacks. Even a programming language. 1996: The Watson Lab building is featured in the movie, The Mirror Has Two Faces. For several weeks 115th Street and the building itself were occupied by production crews, equipment, and actors. The final shot in the movie zooms in to a Watson window. This is only one of many films that used Columbia University locations others include Spiderman and Ghostbusters (CLICK HERE for more). The Columbia neighborhood is also a frequent setting for TV shows such as Law amp Order (where Hudson University is a fictionalized Columbia University) and New York Undercover (1994-1998). Fall 1997: The 50th anniversary of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) passed unnoticed at Columbia, even though the ACM was founded here. Jul 1999: Rolm Dataphone connections (top speed: 19200 bps) were discontinued because by now everybody had Ethernet in their Rolmphone jacks the Annex and Cisco terminal servers to which the central data modules were connected were switched off and removed. Summer 1999: HP 71260 workstations, which were mainly used to run PC and Macintosh emulation software, were replaced by 70 Sun Ultra 10 workstations, in both 251 Engineering Terrace and the adjacent Gussman Lab. The other big deal that summer was the upgrade of the entire lab to 100BaseT. Aug 2002: AcIS reclaims the 4th floor of Watson Lab. Some art studios are relocated to Prentis Hall. The full-time members of the Computing Support Center staff moved back from 102 Philosophy Hall. Walk-in services remain in 102 Philosophy but the telephone help desk is now in Watson Lab. Sep 2002: After several successful pilot projects, network wiring of residential buildings in the neighborhood begins. Initial service is 10Mbps, increased to 100 in Feb 2003. 22 Nov 2002: Today is the first day in history that Columbia is using Internet service from a company (Texas based Broadwing) which we had nothing to do with building. Until today, even though we had bought service from companies like PSI and Applied Theory, we used services which we (through Nysernet) had something to do with their creation and expansion, at least in their earlier stages. Lets now hope Broadwing stays in business. ndash Vace Kundakci (AcIS Director). Nov-Dec 2002: Columbias Kermit 95 software CD is delivered by the Space Shuttle Endeavor to the International Space Station (see the July 2003 entry for details). Jan - Feb 2003: Installation of per-host outbound bandwidth throttling to reduce the impact of peer-to-peer file sharing (Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa, etc) on network performance. Jan - May 2003: As the University drowns in spam (unwanted e-mail), AcIS prototypes filtering mechanisms. May 2003: IBM System360 nameplate. Console power switch, and about 100 lamps sent to the newly relocated Computer Museum History Center in Mountain View, California, for reattachment to our IBM 36091 Console, which we donated in 1980 with these pieces missing. 16 Jun 2003: AcIS activates its spam filters. At this point, incoming mail traffic is 500-600,000 messages per day, of which about 20 are filtered. The filtering policy, however, is conservative to avoid blocking legitimate mail, so this figure does not reflect the actual amount of spam and viruses, not to mention the fallout from them (e. g. bounce notifications resulting from forged mail). Jul 2003: On the International Space Station . a connection between Columbias MS-DOS Kermit and Kermit 95 software programs delivers the results from the CSLM-2 microgravity experiment. This experiment is to be run at different times through 2005. CLICK HERE for the full story. 7 Jul 2003: New CLIO (Columbia Library Information Online). The previous version, based on NOTIS software running on the IBM mainframe, dated from the 1980s, before the Web and the popularization of the Internet. The first CLIO system, based on Bibliotechniques BLIS software, debuted in January 1984 when Bibliotechiques folded a second version of CLIO, based on NOTIS (Northwestern Online Totally Integrated System), came up in summer 1988. NOTIS was developed at Northwestern University and later spun off, then bought by Ameritech Library Services, which was itself snapped up and evidently dissolved by a private investment group in 1999. The new Web-centric CLIO is built on Endeavor Information Systems Inc. Oracle-based Voyager software, running on AcIS-administered Sun Solaris servers, and is also used at the US Library of Congress, the US National Libraries of Medicine and Agriculture, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Penn, and elsewhere. At this point, 92 of the Universitys holdings are cataloged online, a total of 4 million records, with plans for the remainder (with exceptions like maps and rare books, plus divisions that never joined the main catalog such as the Law and TC Libraries) to be in the catalog by 2005. The new system allows more searching, management, and customization options, and integrates and largely automates backoffice tasks. Perhaps more significantly, it is designed to accommodate Unicode. potentially allowing native-script cataloging of materials in Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and most other languages. NOTIS-based CLIO was the last academic user of the IBM mainframe mdash the end of an era spanning nearly 50 years. Thursday, 14 Aug 2003: The blackout of 2003 . the biggest blackout in North American history. Electrical power failed about 4:15pm all over New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario, as well as parts of Vermont and Massachusetts, affecting 50 million people. Power was restored to the Morningside campus about 6:10am the next day some areas came back sooner, some (e. g. Chelsea) were without power as long as 30 hours. The network and hosts began to come online 10:00am-2:00pm Friday, and by 6:00pm all the essential online services (Email, Web, Cunix and related software, Courseworks, network, library, modems, etc.) were available ID management services were restored at 8:39pm Friday. Subways and trains resumed operation Saturday morning. 28 Oct 2003: Columbias central Sun servers upgraded from Solaris 2.5.1 to Solaris 9. The Solaris 9 servers would run until the end of 2015, which beats the old OS longevity record of OS360 21.0 (1972-78). 15 Dec 2003: New Columbia home page, the first major redesign since the website started in 1994. Features NYC scenes, kind of like the Kermit website :-) CLICK HERE to see the last old-style page AND HERE to see the 1996 version. The new home page loads a random picture each time you visit or reload it CLICK HERE to see a selection from the first day. 4 May 2004: 28 years after its first use at Columbia. electronic mail is declared an official medium of communication. As of 1 July 2004, all students are required to read their e-mail. By this time, nearly all students have their own computers the dorms are all wired. as are neighborhood apartment buildings computer labs are found throughout campus and wireless networking is available in key outdoor common areas and various classrooms and lounges. 25 May 2004: Columbias last academic IBM mainframe, CUVMB, was turned off at 10:10am, terminating 36 years of continuous IBM 360-architecture service to Columbias academic community (and before that, other IBM mainframe architectures going back to the 1950s, and before that IBM accounting and calculating machines reaching back to the 1940s, 30s, and 20s). Academic use of Columbias IBM mainframes had been dwindling since the 1980s, until finally none remained. Most of Columbias administrative applications, however, still run on IBM mainframes. Summer 2004: The SUN workstations were retired from the public labs and replaced by actual PCs and Macintoshes mdash emulation is never quite like the real thing, and there wasnt that much interest in UNIX any more. The PCs run Microsoft Windows. In the PC labs first incarnation, Windows had to be installed fresh for each user session over the network via a custom bootstrap ROM, so each new user did not inherit a ldquocustomizedrdquo, booby-trapped, virus-ridden PC from the previous user. 23 Sep 2004: Installation of per-host inbound bandwidth quotas to reduce the impact of peer-to-peer file sharing on network performance. This was the headline in todays Spectator. reflecting the widespread perception that the purpose of the network, if not the university itself, is to permit students to download and trade audio and video without paying for it. The initial limit is 400MB per hour. 11 Nov 2004: Columbia University decides that it was not such a great idea after all to split academic and administrative computing (early 1988 ), or to consider computing a library function (January 1986 ), and commenced a search for a new VP of Information Technology to head a recombined, reconstituted, restructured, and possibly relocated central computing organization, the details of which will not be known until after new VP arrives. CLICK HERE for the announcement. 29 Nov 2004: Spectatator picks up the story, attributing the reorganization to a series of AcIS glitches such as hacker and virus attacks Students are all too familiar of sic the shortcomings of AcIS. An anonymous SEAS junior said that AcIS is completely incompetent and doesnt know how to manage anything. In reality, it would be rather difficult to point to any site that supports a user community upwards of 60,000, mostly on their own Internet-connected Windows workstations, that knows how to manage hackers and viruses, which, after all, arrive continuously from every corner of the planet, each one exploiting an as-yet-unknown vulnerability, periodically bringing down major corporations and entire governments, sometimes the Internet itself, not mention other universities. Evidently Spectator is also unaware that AIS and AcIS were a single organization until the University divided them. Putting them back together is a simple matter of undoing an old mistake, although its not clear that the decision was made by anybody who knows that. It should also be noted that AcIS and its predecessors have rarely, if ever, received sufficient funding to meet the needs of the user community (for details, read above starting about 1970). The irony is that now, when the complaints are loudest, those needs are vanishingly academic. In the same Spectator issue, the staff editorial states that, in light of recent crackdowns on illegal downloading of copyright material (MP3s and video), Columbia now has the responsibility to help students legally download movies and music. Now we know what we are here for. 1 Jul 2005: Candace Fleming appointed Columbia Vice President of Information Technology, to preside over the once-and-future joint AcISAIS organization, yet to be (re)named. 2 Aug 2005: AIS AcIS CUIT (Columbia University Information Technology). 30 Aug 2005: 50th anniversary of Columbias first computer . an IBM 650 at Watson Lab. the first stored-program computer at Columbia that was available for general use by Columbia researchers and courses. (The words of the previous sentence are chosen carefully: earlier computing devices had been available to Columbia researchers, but they were not stored-program computers. At least one stored-program computer, NORC. had been at Columbia before 1955 but it was not generally available to the academic community. Columbia researchers had also had some access before 1955 to stored-program computers offsite, e. g. at IBM headquarters downtown these computers were not at Columbia.) For all but the handful of brave pioneers who used the earlier plugboard-programmed machines, the 650 was indeed the first computer. Within a couple years, it could be programmed in FORTRAN and other symbolic languages, and quickly became so popular that a second one was added. 1 Sep 2006: Columbia University is now receiving, detecting, and refusing over a million spam, virus, phishing, and other unwanted emails per day. Of course many still come through, but it is better to allow some spam to pass than to block legitimate mail. 28 Feb 2008: Alan Crosswell, who has been here almost as long as I have I was laid off in 2011 after 37 years at the Computer Center and 45 at Columbia, appointed Associate Vice President and Chief Technologist. 15 Jan 2009: The CUIT Helpdesk Support Center, formerly known as the Client Service Center (and before that as the SSIO Self-Service InputOutput Area, and the CUCCA Business and Consulting Office), moves from 102 Philosophy Hall (see March 1987 entry) to 202 Philosophy. 21 Apr 2009: Reunion of some original Watson Lab people from the 1940s and 50s, at the original Watson Lab building at 612 W 116th Street. CLICK HERE for a gallery. 25 Jan 2010: Herb Grosch dies at 91 years of age. An authentic computer pioneer, he worked here from 1945 to 1950 and in recent years was an energetic and colorful contributor to this history. The photo is from 1951, showing how he looked when he was working in Watson Lab on 116th Street where he came up with Groschs Law (in 1950, not 1965 as Wikipedia states see see Chapter 13 of Groschs autobiography). Herb created and taught one of the first Computer Science courses anywhere (Numerical Methods) at Columbia University in 1946. He went on to a long and contentious career at MIT, GE, IBM, Datamation, the National Bureau of Standards, Computerworld, and the ACM, and served on the faculty of numerous universities. 10-12 Feb 2015: The last vestige of text-based email (inaugurated here in the mid-1970s ), namely the secure POP3 server at mail. columbia. edu:995, was turned off. Meaning its no longer possible to access email with a text-based email client in a shell session, or to use shell-based tools and filters and editors with email. Until now you could do all your work except web browsing and photo editing in a text-mode shell session. The ldquoupgraderdquo to Google Gmail puts your email in ldquoThe Cloudrdquo where it can hacked or can be ldquominedrdquo by corporate interests or the DHS (Ive been assured that these things will never happen but. ) And where we pretty much have no control over it. No straightforward way to archive it locally. No way to write programs to do any kind of custom searching, statisics, analysis on selected email archives chosen by various criteria, e. g. date range. When sending mail, there is no precise control over the formatting, nor any way to choose an encoding other than UTF-8, nor any way to enter non-ASCII characters from a PC keyboard aside from Alt-key escapes (like Alt-0241 for ntilde), or setting your keyboard up to have dead-key combinations, or clicking on a cartoon keyboard, none of which are exactly ideal for a touch typist who can type as fast in Spanish or German, or even Russian, as in English when using a good terminal emulator . All in all, compared to MM used with a good terminal emulator, Gmail is pretty labor intensive and inflexible at best, and at worst it puts us in a situation where a profit-driven corporation owns our email, not we ourselves. We are forced to use a Web browser to access it, which opens us up to all manner of cookies, spying, marketing, and analysis of our computers and files, not to mention hostile attacks mdash not from Google, necessarily, but from the whole planet. None of that happens with text-based email. Even imputing the best of motives to the corporations, the volatility of the market could result in our cloud of email disappearing one day into a stock market vortex, or being bought up by some new company that could do anything at all with it mdash hold it for ransom, sell it to tabloids. On this topic, an old friend at another university observed a couple years ago: I have 30 years of e-mail archives, and it is absolutely mission-critical that I own all of my mail files. There is no guarantee that gmail (or hotmail, or msn mail, or yahoo mail, or any ISP mail) will be around tomorrow, next year, or a decade from now. e-mail is a critical record of institutional, governmental, and industrial work, and it needs to be owned by those who created it, not given away to an outside source who is busy mining it, and could lose or corrupt it. Furthermore the constantly evolving methods of representing emails might render our Cloud-based ldquorich textrdquo email archives useless in a future that might not be as distant as you think. Vint Cerf, ldquoFather of the Internetrdquo and Google Vice President, said recently (see below for citations ): Old formats of documents that weve created or presentations may not be readable by the latest version of the software because backwards compatibility is not always guaranteed. And so what can happen over time is that even if we accumulate vast archives of digital content, we may not actually know what it is. Plain text, on the other hand, is eternal. ASCII, which serves for English and a few other languages, was (and is) a well-defined and mature national and international standard, as are subsequent standards like ISO 8859 and ISO 10646 (Unicode) that increased the character repertoire to accommodate other languages and writing systems. Whereas presentation methods are driven by corporate interests and competition and they never stop changing. The medium swallows the message. Columbias Kermit 95 software for Windows employs a Compose-Key mechanism that lets you enter any accented Roman letter without leaving the home keys, even on a regular US-model keyboard. And a Russian keyboard mode for US keyboards, allowing Russian to be typed phonetically. It might be plain text when you enter it, but Google converts it to HTML and encodes it in Quoted-Printable notation. Thats today who knows what it will do tomorrow. Meanwhile, if you want to embed HTML in your Gmail message deliberately (for example, a table or a list). good luck Ever-changing versions of HTML that render old pages uncompliant. The supposedly immutable original version of HTML. Then XHTML, XML, HTML5. CSS, CSS2, CSS3. De facto standards present and past: Microsoft Word, WordStar, WordPerfect, WPS-8, Multimate, PostScript, MacWrite. and going back a long ways: Runoff. Troff. NLS. What the world needs and probably will never get is one single immutable inviolable universal standard for the digital representation and archiving of self-contained plain text. I would venture that we had one in the early days of email (lines of ASCII text, CRLF to separate lines, double-CRLF to separate paragraphs), which need only to be expanded to specify UTF-8 encoding rather than ASCII, so as to acommodate text in every language and writing system. 23 May 2015: Dr. Bruce Gilchrist . the second director of the Columbia Computer Center (and a major contributor to this history), dies in Richmond VA at the age of 84 obituary (the first director was Kenneth King from 1963 to 1971). Bruce, a genuine pioneer in computing from the 1950s and a prominent figure in the ACM and AFIPS (details here ), exemplified the long-forgotten academic and scientific traditions of the computer center and its predecessor, the IBM Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University. serving on the Engineering School faculty and publishing papers in scientific journals as well as several books on computers and society. Bruce led the Computer Center from 1973 to 1984, staying on in an advisory capacity until 1988. As his first act, he opened up access to what in those days was ldquothe computerrdquo (a huge IBM mainframe ) to the entire Columbia community, the first instance of open computing at Columbia, and he would continue his push for open computing throughout subsequent generations of machines, such as the DECSYSTEM-20s (1977-88), despite often severe budget pressures. Bruce was the first to put public ldquoterminal roomsrdquo in dormitories and other academic buildings. Bruce hired mainly out of the Engineering School, launching the careers of numerous women and men in computing. As a scientist with close connections to the computer industry, he was able to combine technical leadership with good humor and humane management. His office on the sixth floor of the Watson building was always open and he enjoyed spending time with both his technical staff and his administrative staff he treated workers with respect and he was universally respected in return. After relinquishing day-to-day management of the Computer Center in 1984, he concentrated his efforts on the acquisition and installation of the 20-million-dollar IBMRolm Computerized Branch Exchange. not just a new telephone system for the University, but also a wiring plant that would eventually provide high-speed data access to every building and room on the Morningside campus. Open computing fully realized. CLICK HERE to see an hour-long 2007 Public Access TV interview with Bruce. 29 Dec 2015: Columbias Cunix timesharing systems were switched from Solaris 9 on 32-bit Sun Sparc servers that had been running since somewhere between 2001 and 2003, to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 on 64-bit x8664 servers. In the intervening years, direct Unix shell use at Columbia has dwindled down to a handful of diehards, partly in the nature of the times moving on, but also because key services such as email had been removed from the shell hosts. Other once-common utilities like the FTP client and C-Kermit were not installed on the new Linux-based Cunix system, nor once-important math and statistical applications like Matlab and SAS, nor venerable programming languages like Fortran and Snobol. But at least the regular GCC development environment remains for the few who still write C code, and EMACS for those who still do their text processing the old-fashioned and efficient way rather than the new annoying and labor-intensive way. The choice of Linux is primarily market-based, not merely a matter of price or source-code availability, but of market dominance. Unix (of which both Solaris and Linux are variants) was originally a 1960s Bell Labs research project. Over time it became a proliferation of commercial products ndash ldquosolutionsrdquo ndash that ran on specific hardware ndash Solaris for Sun, HP-UX for Hewlett-Packard, AIX for IBM, etc. ndash but all these have practically vanished by now. Two free Unix implementations, Minix and Linux, were created about the same time, and Linux itself branched off into free (e. g. Debian, Slackware) and corporate (e. g. Red Hat Enterprise) versions. Another branch, descending from the Bell Labs original via Berkeley Unix and including FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and friends, remains free community-sourced software. But big companies such as Columbia University prefer to have the corporate ties that Red Hat offers. 29 Feb 2016: The central Sun Solaris-based CUNIX timesharing systems turned off after about 15 years of service, replaced by Linux servers. 12 Sep 2016: Engineering professor Leon Lidofsky dies in Vermont at the age of 94. He was one of Columbias earliest hands-on users of digital computers, establishing a computer lab on the second floor of the Engineering Terrace in the mid-1960s that included a room-sized minicomputer (SEL 810B ), a tabletop DEC PDP-8. and various specialized equipment for data collection and analysis, one of only a handful of Columbias departmental computing facilities at the time. I first met him in 1969 when I got a student job in his department. I graduated from the school of General Studies in 1970 and left the department to find a real job, and wound up driving a taxi in Bronx. After a while Lee asked me to come back and work in the department full-time as the administrator for a new program he was in charge of, dealing with the social responsibilities of engineers and ways they could be of public service. Really my job was just paper shuffling, but Lee knew that I had had ldquocomputer rdquo training in the Army and soon I was doing all the key punching for the department. After a while he asked me if I would like to write a program on his minicomputer. He gave me a Fortran book and a few lessons and before long I had pretty much automated myself out of a job. Lee suggested I take advantage of my full-time staff position to take computer science courses in the department of EEampCS (as it was known then). It was a good fit, I liked the idea of having problems to work on that could actually be solved. As a sideline, Lee was a consultant in nuclear medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital (click here for an example of his work there). When the Columbia project I was working on came to a close, he got me my first real programming job in Mt. Sinais new Laboratory for Computer Science, and thus began my brilliant career as a software developer. Along the way I wrote some books and always featured him in the acknowledgments, as in my last book ( Using C-Kermit, 2nd Ed .): ldquo. and to Lee Lidofsky, a Great Teacher, for a timely push in a good direction, a long time agordquo. Incidentally, the computers at the Mt. Sinai lab were DEC PDP-11s, my first experience with a somewhat interactive (via Teletype) computer operating system, which led to the choice of a PDP-11 for Columbias first timesharing system. which in turn led to the choice of big DECSYSTEM-20s as Columbias primary academic computing platform, 1977-1988. Anyway, thanks to Lee I had a decent job with good salary and benefits that allowed me to raise a family and put my kids through college. If not for Lee, Id probably still be driving a cab Arranging for me (who was not even one of his students) to have a good life was definitely not in his job description, but thats how he was. Im sure there are a thousand other stories just like this one. In case the link goes stale, click here for a screen shot. The first paragraph below was written a long time ago and doesnt really apply more. In the new century, computing resources are mainly private and the University happily supplies the mostly invisible infrastructure. There are no more budget battles as in the 1970s and 80s, nowadays nobody questions the importance of universal high-speed network availability and when the network needs expanding or upgrading, it happens without a struggle. Furthermore support staff is at an all-time high, by far, as is office space. But then, so is tuition, yet students get a lot less bang for the buck in terms of employment prospects after graduation, not to mention many of them being saddled with enormous debt. Sometimes I wonder if students 100 or 250 years ago didnt get a better education with just lectures, blackboards, and books. A theme that runs throughout this story is the neverending tug-of-war between supply and demand. Computers were extremely expensive in the early days, and space has always been the most valuable resource at Columbias confined urban campus. The first computers were obtained largely through grants for specific research projects, but soon other uses were found for them and the University became increasingly dependent on them. After the grants expired the computers had to be continuously maintained, upgraded, and replaced. The eternal questions have been: How to pay What to sacrifice Where to put the equipment How to get the space How to recoup the expense How to increase access How to allocate limited computing resources How to expand resources that are swamped by increasing demand Who subidizes and who is subsidized Its interesting to ponder the transformation of Columbia from a quill-pen operation in the 1700s to the wired (and, increasingly, wireless) one it is today. Computers, obtained originally for scientific work that could not be done any other way, were also turned to administrative tasks such as registration, student records, payroll, and so on. What was the cost in money, space, and personnel before and after And then later when centralized computing (based on a single multimillion dollar computer system) became fully distributed, with a PC on every desk, how did that change the overall expenditures, consumption of space and electrical power, personnel rosters, and the productivity of each person Any clear answer would take a great deal more research than was done here, but the following table is suggestive: Tuition (dollars per point) Sources: The 1925 figures come from Columbias 1924-25 Catalog 5 and from the 1924-25 Annual Report 35 the student count does not include another 12,916 summer session students the officers of administration include 38 who are also on the faculty. The 2010 figures come from the Columbia University Statistical Abstract of the Office of Planning and Institutional Research (on the Web). The growth in faculty is accounted for almost entirely by the Health Sciences campus, which did not exist in 1925. Although the role of computing in staff and tuition increases is far from clear, it is evident that Columbia University was able to offer a first-class education to about 20,000 students annually with a lot less overhead and at far less expense without computers than with them, even accounting for inflation (which averaged 3.1 per year from 1925 to 2000 or 987 over the period thus if tuition had merely kept pace with inflation, it would have risen only to 79 per point rather than 834 in 2000). Of course, one cant necessarily blame computers alone for a topheavy bureaucracy -- since the 1950s, huge amounts of additional work in the form of reports (compliance, demographic, financial, etc) mandated by government, suppliers, and contractors at every level. Anyway, as any student who registered in the old days (filling in countless forms by hand with the same information and standing in about 50 lines to turn in each form) can tell you, some of the new systems are an improvement. Columbia is also a far bigger employer than it was in 1925 and its a good thing that more people have work, even if its pointless. Or if you take a closer look, maybe its not such a good thing. When the Computer Center opened in 1963, there was one big computer for everybody to use, cared for by a small professional staff, initially just 15 people. Today, the combined full-time staff of AcIS and AIS (now CUIT) numbers well into the hundreds, and this doesnt count an unknown number of full and part-time computer people in the administrative and academic departments, nor junior faculty and graduate students shanghaied into system-administration roles, nor the fact that almost everybody at the University devotes copious time to managing and fighting with their own desktop computers into the bargain, not to mention dealing (or worse: not) with the constant onslaught of viruses, worms, and hacks from all corners of the world. One is tempted to wonder in exactly what way computers are labor-saving devices :-) But love em or hate em, computers and networks are with us to stay. They first came to Columbia for scientific and statistical work now they are used mainly for social and entertainment purposes, plus taking notes in class, preparation of papers, a certain amount of course work, and for carrying on the business of the University, including a great deal of public relations. All students and faculty are presumed to have computer, network, and Web access it is required in many courses and for numerous tasks such as looking up class schedules, room assignments, and grades, and since Fall 2001, also for registration. The benefits of the Web are well known but its dangers little discussed, at least not beyond the well-known safety hazards (credit-card theft, pedophiles, viruses) and annoyances (bugs and new features requiring constant software upgrades). Lets look at some of the more fundamental pitfalls that tend to be ignored as we rush to replace all that is old by what is new: For good or ill, the Web has largely replaced the Library for undergraduate research. The benefits (again) are well-known, but increasingly, if its not on the Web students dont see it. Furthermore, its often difficult to assess the information one finds on the Web. Published books and journal articles, at least, have some measure of quality control and some form of audit trail (you can check the primary sources yourself). At the very least, they are substantial and immutable objects that can be referenced -- when you look at a book or article that I have referenced, you see the same one I saw. Web pages are ephemeral, likely to move, change, or disappear at any moment, and in any case rarely have the authority of a refereed, printed publication. Since I wrote the previous item, the Web itself has been largely supplanted by Google and Wikipedia for research. Wikipedia is handy, to be sure, but how do you verify the accuracy of anything in it Google, on the other hand, is a massive corporation whose only goal is making more and more money, and as part of achieving that goal, it controls the content we see. Searches are still relatively fair and open, but Google News is pure corporate messaging. Nevertheless, Google can throw a switch at any moment to hide entire bodies of knowledge or opinion it deems prejudicial to its corporate health. In a new application of Greshams Law, the Web tends to drive out reliable and detailed information, replacing it with unreliable and sketchy sound bites. Libraries full of books and journals are increasingly viewed as legacy brick and mortar operations that can no longer justify their existence in the age of electronic information. But those same libraries contain all that is known of history, culture, and science. What will become of our printed record, as it takes up coveted space and decays It cant all be digitized that would be far too expensive and time-consuming. Therefore much -- probably most -- of it will be lost to posterity. And then whatever portion was digitized before the paper was discarded or crumbled will itself be subject to successive rounds of winnowing as the digital media, encoding, and formats become obsolete and require upgrading. Repeated application of this process will leave only a tiny fragment of what was available to us in, say, 1980, and there will be no going back. New information is lost too. It was relatively easy to trace the history of computing at Columbia through 1994 by the paper trail of newsletters, books, paper correspondence files, and so on. After 1994, its just a blur. If it was recorded at all, it was recorded on the Web or in e-mail, and there is no systematic archive of old Web pages and e-mails. What is new today will be old tomorrow. The Web is not eternal. Something else is bound to appear that turns the Web into a deprecated legacy concept and the vast corpus of Web files will need conversion to the next thing, and the winnowing process will continue. I wrote the previous sentence about 15 years ago. Today I see Vint Cerf, father of the Internet, saying the same thing at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Jos. To paraphrase. Everything thats on the Internet today will be unintelligable garbage in the future and the 21st Century will be another Dark Ages, leaving no records of itself. Heres a link: bbcnewsscience-environment-31450389. Heres another: telegraph. co. uknewssciencescience-news11410506Print-out-digital-photos-or-risk-losing-them-Google-boss-warns. html. But dont expect them to last. Search mdash13 February 2015 Meanwhile, as of 2014, cell phones have squeezed out desktop computers as the main Web access method, forcing website to adapt by showing less content. i. e. sound bites instead of detailed information. Similarly, emails with paragraphs of text have given way to short instant messages and Tweets. Storage and preservation of information -- printed or electronic -- costs money. Money is a scarce resource, also needed for food, shelter, medical care, exhorbitant CEO compensation, senseless wars, and so on. The legacy of humanity belongs to those with the desire and the money to preserve it, and to keep preserving it, and they are ones who will decide what is worth preserving and what to discard. CU Computing History Site in Network World How to really bury a mainframe (University of Manitoba), 17 December 2007. Columbia University 250th Anniversary (2004) CLICK HERE to visit Columbias extensive website commemorating the universitys 250th anniversary (and HERE and HERE and HERE for some computing history bits). Now Online (Oct 2005) - NEW Programming with Punched Cards by Dale Fisk of IBM (PDF). 1. Number of Dialin Modems According to Columbias Postmaster, Joe Brennan, in early 2011 Columbias central mail servers were receiving about a two million messages a day, of which about 50 are discarded as spam or attack mail. Of the remaining 50, Id estimate that at least 80 is also unwanted mail the mail filters deliberately err on the side of not discarding legitimate mail. In any case, a great deal of cycles, storage, and bandwidth are consumed by useless and often harmful or offensive junk, and this must be paid for with real money. AcIS Academic Information Systems (of Columbia University) ADP Administrative Data Processing (of Columbia University) AIS Administrative Information Services (new name of ADP) ANSI American National Standards Institute APL A Programming Language (With Its Own Character Set) ARPA (US Defense Department) Advanced Research Projects Agency ASCC Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (early IBM computer) ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASP Attached Support Processor AUC Apple University Consortium AUFS Appletalk UNIX File Server BAL Basic (IBM 360 and 370) Assemly Language BASIC Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code BASR Bureau of Applied Social Research (of Columbia University) BCD Binary Coded Decimal BCDIC Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code BITNET Because-Its-There Network (It RSCS) BNF Backus-Naur Form BPS Bits per Second CAP Columbia Appletalk Package CBX (IBMRolmSiemens) Computerized Branch Exchange CCNET Computer Center (or ColumbiaCarnegie) Network (DECnet) CE (IBM) Customer Engineer CLIO Columbia Libraries Information Online CMU Carnegie-Mellon University COBOL Common Business Oriented Language CPC Card Programmed Calculator CPM Control Program Microcomputer CPS Characters per Second CRBE Conversational Remote Batch Entry CREN Consortium for Research and Education Network CRLF ASCII characters Carriage Return and Line Feed - plaint-text line terminator CRT Cathode-Ray Tube, e. g. a video terminal CUCC Columbia University Computer Center CUCCA Columbia University Center for Computing Activities, new name of CUCC CUIT Columbia University Information Technology, new name of CUCCA CUNY City University of New York CWRU Case Western Reserve University DACU Device Attachment Control Unit (early IBM Ethernet adapter) DASD Direct Access Storage Device (IBM term for disk, pronounced dazdee) DAT Digital Audio Tape DCMUP Same as DCS (not sure what it stands for). DCS Directly Coupled System (Columbias IBM 7040 and 7094) DEC Digital Equipment Corporation DOS Disk Operating System EAM Electric Accounting Machine (using punched cards) EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code EDUCOM blah blah EMACS Editing Macros (video editor by Richard Stallman) FORTRAN Formula Translator (first high-level programming language) FE Field Engineer (DEC) FS Field Service (DEC) FSF Free Software Foundation GNU GNU is Not UNIX (recursive acronym of the FSF) GUI Graphical User Interface HASP Houston Automatic Spooling Program HP Hewlett Packard Corporation IBM International Business Machines Corporation IETF Internet Engineering Task Force JCL Job Control Language (OS360, MVS, etc) JSYS Jump to System (DEC-20 monitor call) JVNCNET John von Neumann Supercomputer Center Network KGB (Soviet) Committee for State Security LAN Local Area Network (Ethernet, Token Ring, etc) LCG (DEC) Large Computer Group LISP List Processing (language) LPM Lines per Minute (speed of line printer) MINCE MINCE Is Not Completely EMACS (EMACS semi-clone for CPM) MOS Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (memory, as opposed to magnetic cores or vacuum tubes) MSS (IBM) Mass Storage System MTBF Mean Time Between Failures MTTR Mean Time To Repair NCR National Cash Register Corporation NFS Network File System NORC Naval Ordnance Reseach Calculator (early IBM computer built at Columbia U) NPG Network Planning Group (of Columbia U) NSF National Science Foundation NSFNET National Science Foundation Network NYSERNET New York State Education and Research Network OCS Office of Communications Services (of Columbia University) OS Operating System PACX Private Access Computer eXchange PDP Programmed Data Processor PDS Partitioned Data Set PLI Programming Language One PPP Point-to-Point Protocol RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk RHNO Residence Hall Networking Option (at Columbia U) RJE Remote Job Entry RSCS Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem RSTSE Resource Sharing Time Sharing Extended (DEC PDP-11 OS) SAIL Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (or Language) SE Software Engineer (DEC) Systems Engineer (IBM) Also see: FE, CE SEL Systems Engineering Laboratories SLIP Serial Line Internet Protocol SNA (IBM) Systems Networking Architecture SNOBOL String Oriented Language (pun on COBOL) SPITBOL (pun on SNOBOL) SSIO Self-Service InputOutput (area at Columbia U) SIC Scholarly Information Center (at Columbia University) SOS Share Operating System (IBM 709) SOS Son Of Stopgap (PDP-10, DEC-20 text editor) SPOOL simultaneous peripheral operations on-line or simultaneous peripheral output on line TOPS The Operating System (for PDP-10s and DEC-20s) UUCP UNIX-to-UNIX Copy Program VT Video Terminal Also see: The IBM Glossary. Batch A way for users to run programs on shared computers. Jobs are submitted (e. g. as decks of cards) into a queue. Each job reaches the head of the queue, executes, and then the results are delivered the user (e. g. as a printout). This is a step up from the early days when users needed hands-on exclusive access to the computer in order to use it. Batch survives today on timesharing systems such as Unix (as cron jobs), VMS, and of course on IBM mainframes, but usually without the cards and printouts. Nowadays shared computers are accessed mainly through timesharing. Meanwhile, personal desktop computers have made hands-on exclusive access the norm once again. Control panel (See plugboard) Core This word is still used synonymously with memory, but in fact refers to a specific memory technology used from about 1955 to 1975, in which each bit was a ferrite core, whose charge was controlled and sensed by currents in wires passing through the cores hole. MORE HERE. CRT Cathode Ray Tube. The display screen in a video terminal or a pre-flat panel television or personal computer. More generally, any vacuum tube incorporating a mobile beam. 1950s-era computer memories were sometimes made of CRTs for example, the IBM 700-series CRT memories packed 1024 bits into a single tube (contrary to the popular image of one bit per tube). Drum Similar to a hard disk, except the recording surface is on the circumfrence, rather than on the flat end(s), and the readwrite heads are fixed rather than moving. Thus it is a spinning cylinder with a stationary head array extending from end to end, with one fixed head per track. Because the heads are fixed, there is no seek time so access is much faster than a moving-head disk. Drums were used as main memory in early computers like the IBM 650 and as swapping or paging devices in later computers such as the IBM 36091 and the DEC PDP-11. An example is the IBM 2301 drum storage. about 1960. Also: (1) Any fixed-head disk or, by extension, any swapping device (2) A Data Cell cylinder around which a tape strip is wrapped for reading and writing (3) The print mechanism used in certain kinds of line printers, such as the DEC LP20. a constantly rotating metal cylinder with all the characters on it -- to print a specific character in a specific column, the corresponding hammer strikes the drum just when the desired character is behind the paper and ink ribbon (4) the electrostatic print-transfer mechanism in Xerographic or laser printers. Electric (or Electronic) Accounting Machine (EAM) EAMs were the workhorses of the 1930s-60s for accounting, payroll, and so on, before there were real stored-program computers. They were mainly mechanical accumulating sums in gear registers. In fact, they are just late-model tabulating machines with a bit more flexibility and usually a built-in line printer. CLICK HERE to see examples. Paper Tape A long strip of heavy paper, usually an inch wide, in which holes could be punched, 5 to 9 per row. For computer use, usually 8 holes were used: 7 data bits and 1 parity bit. Paper tape was also used in telecommunications (telex) and in the printing industry as the input medium for hot-metal typesetting machines and is still used for numerical control of milling and drilling machines. Computer applications of paper tape included automated data input and output, as on the ASR33 Teletype or the IBM 1620 computer, object-module output by compilers (on computers that did not have disks -- for example, the output of a Fortran compiler), and printer control loops (see story at the end of this page ). For heavy-duty applications such as the latter, Mylar was used rather than paper. The typical recording density was 10 rows (bytes) per inch. Punching and reading speeds varied from 10 rows per second up to 2000. Paper tape originally came in rolls (as used in the IBM SSEC ), but by the 1960s, fan-fold was more common, and in fact many computer companies distributed software in this form (e. g. for the DEC PDP-8). An incorrectly punched row could be deleted by punching all the holes this is the origin of the ASCII RUB (Rubout, Delete) character, 0x7F (all 1s). Editing could also be accomplished by cutting and splicing. More at the University of Amsterdam Computing History Museum . Plugboard, Patch Board, Patch Panel, Control Panel IBM EAM equipment (accounting machines, sorters, reproducing punches, interpreters, etc) as well as some of its early calculators (computers) were programmed through control panels mdash rectangular boards with an array of holes, which are interconnected by wires to specify the desired functions, e. g. which card columns are to be sent to which accumulator, or printed to which printer columns, etc. Photos and more info: HERE HERE HERE HERE and HERE . Punched Card A stiff cardboard rectangle in which holes can be punched and then later read by various devices (see Unit Record Equipment). Punchcards date back to the 1700s, and can be found in many formats. IBM punchcards (after 1928) were 7 38 inches wide and 3 14 high, with three rounded corners and the upper left corner cut diagonally, and twelve 80-column rows for small rectangular holes. Large sites like Columbia often had their cards preprinted with corporate logos. Until the early 1970s, virtually all computing jobs at Columbia were submitted on decks of cards punched on key punch machines. Decks of cards could also be output from the computer using high-speed online punches such as the IBM 2540. Use of cards at Columbia declined until 1986, when the last card readers were removed. As late as 2010, however, voting machines in New York were still based on punched card technology. Relay An electromechanical device or switch that automatically controls the current in one circuit based on the current in another circuit, used in 1940s-era calculators and computers such as the Aberdeens. the SSEC. and the Bell relay calcalators. Remote Job Entry Or RJE. In the mainframe era, before interactive terminals, jobs were submitted on decks of cards and results obtained on a line printer or other local device. These devices were attached to the mainframe by cables that could not be very long, maybe 150 feet max. To access the mainframe from greater distances required a Remote Job Entry station: usually a card reader and line printer connected to some kind of controller, connected by (usually synchronous) modem to the central site. Typically an RJE user would put a deck of cards in the hopper, push Start, and wait an unpredictable amount of time for the results to come out of the printer. One of many examples of the widespread use of RJE was the New York City public school system in the 1970s, where each school had an RJE station connected to the big mainframe(s) at Board of Education. The IBM RJE interface was fairly well standardized, so it also came to double as a connection for other kinds of computers -- a kind of early networking, in which traffic in one direction was in 80-column card images, and traffic in the reverse direction was 132-column printer lines. Tabulating Machine A machine capable of reading punched cards and either sorting them into selected bins or adding up the numbers punched into selected columns. Tabulating machines were used from 1890 through the 1950s or 60s for statistical, financial, and even scientific applications. CLICK HERE for examples. Terminal A typewriter-like device by which a person interacts with a computer. It has a keyboard and either paper to print on or else a video screen (certain special kinds of terminals might also have Braille pads or text-to-voice interpreters). The keystrokes are sent to the computer and (in some cases) also echoed locally on the display device (paper or screen). Characters arriving from the computer are sent to the display device. Video terminals sometimes have an attached printer. Early hardcopy terminals included Teletypes and electric typewriters wired for communication, such as the IBM 2741 later ones include dot-matrix models such as the DECwriter. The best-known video terminal is the DEC VT100 video terminals were popular from the mid-1970s until about 1990 (and are still used today in certain specialized applications like data entry and transaction processing until not so long ago, every winter TV news reporters visit the NYC Heat Complaint Bureau, and every year they were still using IBM 3270 green tubes). The best-known graphics terminal is the Tektronix 4010. Although few real terminals are still in operation, terminals are widely emulated by the PC, Macintosh, and other workstation software that allows us to access our shell accounts. TTY Teletype (see Terminal) . Unit Record Equipment Usually used to refer to any equipment that reads or punches cards, such as a key punch. card reader. sorter. collator. reproducer. or interpreter. Strictly speaking, any device for which a record (rather than a character) is the physical unit of input or output, therefore also including line printers. My recollections and notes, 1965-present. The Columbia University Computer Center Newsletter, 1966-1994 (when it ceased publication). Gilchrist, Bruce, Forty Years of Computing. CUCCA Newlsetter V1316 (4 Nov 1981). Bashe, Charles J. Lyle R. Johnson John H. Palmer Emerson W. Pugh, IBMs Early Computers. MIT Press (1985). Columbia University Catalogue. 1924-1925. Columbia University Computer Center General Information Manual . Volume I (June 1965). Columbia University Bulletin: Computing Activities (1976). Rogers, William, Think a biography of the Watsons and IBM. Stein and Day, NY (1969). Brennan, Jean Ford. The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University: A History. IBM, Armonk NY (1971) (Columbiana CZI B75 Prentis Q183.5.W3 B7). Columbia Computer Center . 2 Jan 1963 (summary of facilities and procedures). Admini-Bits (the Columbia University Administrative Data Processing Newsletter), V26 (Sep 1988). Dolkart. Andrew S. Morningside Heights: A History of its Architecture and Development. Columbia University Press, 1998, and correspondence with Prof. Dolkart (Jan 2001). McCullers. Carson, and Dews C. L. Barney, Illumination and Night Glare: The Unfinished Autobiography of Carson McCullers. University of Wisconsin Press (1999). Asteroff, Janet, CUCCA Terminal and Plotter User Manual (Nov 1982). Bell System Technical Journal. Special issue devoted UNIX 7th Edition, Volume 57, Number 6, Part 2 (August 1978). Brader, Mark, A Chronology of Digital Computing, to 1952 (online). Koenig, Seymour H. Interview (22 Jan 2001). AIS Supervisor Joe Sulsona Retires After 42 Years. Columbia University Record Vol. 26, No 11 (19 Jan 2001). Gilchrist, Bruce, Report to the Committee on Instructional Computing (the Collery Committee), Columbia University (21 April 1980). Hallinan, Nuala, A History of Administrative Data Processing. Columbia University, September 1988 (produced for the Computer Centers 25th Anniversary commemoration), with 1991 update. Announcement of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory and a Program of Graduate Studies in Applied Mathematics. Columbia University Bulletin, Fifty-eighth Series, No.39, September 27, 1948. Arctander, Eric, Trig Homework Consult Watson Labs. Columbia Daily Spectator, 18 October 1948. IBM Establishes Computing Laboratory at Columbia University. News Release, Columbia University Department of Public Information, 6 February 1945. King, Kenneth M. Columbia University Computer Center Report. August 1967 to December 1968. Guide to Facilities. Columbia Computer Center, September 1972. Sills, David L. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976, A Biographical Memoir. National Academy of the Sciences, Washington DC, 1987. Barton, Judith S. ed. Guide to the Bureau of Applied Social Research. Clearwater Publishing Co. Inc, New York City, 1984. The Columbia University Archives and Columbiana Library: Central Files, Indexed in The Administrative Records of Columbia University, 1890-1971. Halford, Ralph S. Proposal to the National Science Foundation for Support of a Computing Center to be Established at Columbia University. May 1961. News Release 10,099, Columbia University News Office, 18 Jul 1963. Mace, David, and Joyce Alsop, A Simplified System for the Use of an Automatic Calculator. Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, Columbia University IBM, 1957 (COVER ). Proposal for IBM 360 Model 92 sic, to Dr. Kenneth M. King, Columbia Computer Center, IBM, 21 May 1965. University Center for Computing Activities: EDP Review for Columbia University. IBM, May 1974. Strauss, Robert, When Computers Were Born. The Times Mirror Company, 1996. Annual Report of the President and Treasurer to the Trustees with Accompanying Documents for the Year Ending June 30, 1925. Columbia University, New York, 1926. Letter of Dean Ralph S. Halford to Prof. Maurice Ewing, 19 Aug 1963 (9 pages), Columbiana Archives. Pure Scientists of Morningside, Business Machines. General Section, IBM, September 1, 1954. Aspray, William, Was Early Entry a Competitive Advantage US Universities That Entered Computing in the 1940s, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Volume 22, Number 3, July-September 2000. Lippsett, Laurence, Maurice Ewing and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Magazine. Winter 2001. Pugh, Emerson W. Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and its Technology. The MIT Press (1995). Sachnoff, Neil, Secrets of Installing a Telephone System . Telecomm Library Inc, New York (1989). Theres a Computer on the Columbia Campus, Columbia Reports . March 1971. Wilson, Gregory V. The History of the Development of Parallel Computing. University of Toronto. Austrian, Geoffrey, Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing. Columbia University Press (1982). Grier, David Alan, When Computers Were Human. Princeton University Press (2005). AND. Grier, David Alan, The First Breach of Computer Security, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Volume 23, Number 2, April-June 2001. NOTE: These should be two separate references but evidently the second one was inserted here by mistake when it should have gone at the end, thus throwing off all the subsequent reference numbers. Sorry Stoll, Clifford, The Cuckoos Egg: Tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage. Doubleday, New York (1989). Black, Edwin, IBM and the Holocaust. Crown Publishers, New York (2001). Also search for holocaust at the IBM website. Columbia University Alumni Register 1754-1931. Columbia University Committee on General Catalogue, Frank D. Fackenthal (Chairman), Columbia University Press, New York (1932). Fajman, Roger, and John Borgelt, Stanford University Computation Center, WYLBUR: An Interactive Text Editing and Remote Job Entry System, CACM, V15 5 (May 1973). Eckert, W. J. Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation. The Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau, Columbia University, Lancaster Press, Inc. Lancaster PA (January 1940). Reprinted in 1984 by the Charles Babbage Institute, MIT, and Tomash Publishers with a new introduction by J. C. McPherson. IBM Oral History Project on Computer Technology, Interview TC-1, with W. J. Eckert (11 July 1964). Mackenzie, Charles E. Coded Character Sets, History and Development. Addison-Wesley (1980). Trimble, George R. A Brief History of Computing, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Volume 23, Number 3 (July-September 2001). Applelbaum, Lauren, Student on Quest for Sundials Lost Ball, Columbia Daily Spectator. Vol. CXXV No.139 (5 Dec 2001). Quarterman, John S. The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide Digital Press (1990). Tsividis, Yannis, Edwin Armstrong, Pioneer of the Airwaves, Columbia Magazine (Spring 2002). Grosch, Herbert R. J. Computer: Bit Slices from a Life. Third Millenium Books, Novato CA (1991), ISBN 0-88733-085 3rd ed mss ). They All Came to See the NORC, Business Machines. General Section, IBM (23 December 1954), pp.8-9. Grosch, Herb, private correspondence (May 2003 - 2010). A Conversation with Herb Grosch. ACM Ubiquity. Volume 2, Issue 39 (4-10 December 2001). Schreiner, Ken, private correspondence (May 2003). Berkeley, Edmund, Giant Brains: or, Machines that Think. John Wiley amp Sons, NY (1949). The first book about computers for a general nontechnical audience. Fact Sheet on Simon . Columbia University Public Information Office (18 May 1950). Eckert, Wallace J, and Rebecca Jones, Faster, Faster: a simple description of a giant electronic calculator and the problems it solves. McGraw-Hill, New York (1955). King, Kenneth, private correspondence (July-August 2003). Hankam, Eric, interviews (11 July and 4 November 2003). Eckert, Wallace J. Watson Laboratory Summary of Activities -- Quarterly Report: July-September 1955. Memorandum to IBMs J. C. McPherson (17 November 1955). W. J.E. (Wallace J. Eckert), The I. B.M. Pluggable Sequence Relay Calculator. Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation. Volume III, Number 23 (June 1948), pp. 149-161. Aspray, William (Ed.), Computing Before Computers. Iowa State University Press, ISBN 0-8138-0047-1 (1990). Ceruzzi, Paul E. Reckoners: The Prehistory of the Digital Computer, from Relays to the Stored Program Concept, 1935-1945 (Contributions to the Study of Computer Science, No.1). Greenwood Press (1983). Bergin, Thomas J. (Ed.), 50 Years of Army Computing: From ENIAC to MSRC. A Record of a Symposium and Celebration November 13 and 14 (1996), Aberdeen Proving Ground. Ceruzzi, Paul E. Crossing the Divide: Architectural Issues and the Emergence of the Stored Program Computer, 1935-1955, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Vol. 19 No. 1 (1997). Winegrad, Dilys, and Atsushi Akera, A Short History of the Second American Revolution, University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Vol.42 No.18 (30 Jan 1996). On the Web HERE. John McPherson, Computer Engineer . an oral history conducted in 1992 by William Aspray, IEEE History Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. Grosch, Herbert R. J, Editor, Proceedings, IBM Scientific Computation Forum. IBM: Endicott NY (1948). W. J.E. (Wallace J. Eckert), The IBM Pluggable Sequence Relay Calculator, Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation. Vol.3, No.23 (Jul 1948), pp.149-161. W. J.E. (Wallace J. Eckert) and Ralph F. Haupt, The Printing of Mathematical Tables, Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation. Vol.2, No.17 (Jan 1947), pp.197-202. McPherson, John C. Introduction and Biographical Note on Wallace Eckert in the 1984 reprint of 50 . Stibitz, G. R. A Note on Is and Might Be in Computers, Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation. Vol.4, No.31 (Jul 1950), pp.168-169. W. J.E. (Wallace J. Eckert), Mathematical Tables on Punched Cards, Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation. Vol.1, No.12 (Oct 1945), pp.433-436. Eckert, Wallace J. Calculating Machines, Encyclopedia Americana (1958). Eckert, Wallace J. Letter to Mr. G. W. Baehne, IBM, 270 Broadway, NYC (9 Jan 1934). Eckert, W. J. Electrons and Computation, The Scientific Monthly. Vol. LXVII, No. 5 (Nov 1948). Eckert, Wallace J. Transcript, Systems Service Class No. 591 (Aerial Navigation) for the US Army Air Corps Department of Education, International Business Machines, Endicott NY (8 Sep 1944). Jones, Walter D. Watson and Me: A Life at IBM, edited by Don Black, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Vol. 25 No. 3 (Jul-Sep 2003), p.15. Eckert, W. J. The Astronomical Hollerith-Computing Bureau, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Vol.49, No.291 (Oct 1937), pp.249-253. Smith, Harry F. interview, 8 Sep 2003. Eckert, Wallace, Correspondence and papers, 1935-1971, archived at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Eckert, W. J. Facilities of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, Proceedings of the Research Forum. IBM, Endicott NY (Aug 1946), pp.75-84. Gutzwiller, M. C. Wallace Eckert, Computers, and the Nautical Almanac Office in Fiala, Alan D. and Steven J. Dick (editors), Proceedings, Nautical Almanac Office Sesquicentennial Symposium. U. S. Naval Observatory, Washington DC, March 3-4, 1999, pp.147-163. Baehne, George W. (IBM), Practical Applications of the Punched Card Method in Colleges and Universities. Columbia University Press (1935) hardbound, 442 pages, 257 figures. Seidelmann, P. Kenneth, Research Professor, University of Virginia Astronomy Department, private correspondence, Sept-Oct 2003 and April 2004. Prof. Seidelmann was at the US Naval Observatory from 1965 to 2000 and is a historian of the Naval Observatory. Interrogation NAV No. 75, USSBS No. 378, Tokyo, 13-14 Nov 1945: Admiral Soemu Toyoda (Chief of Naval General Staff from May 1945), United States Strategic Bombing Survey Pacific, Naval Analysis Division: Interrogations of Japanese Officials. Volume II, OPNAV-P-03-100 (1946), p.319. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Japans Struggle to End the War. Chairmans Office, 1 July 1946, p.13. Stimson, Henry L. and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War. Harper, NY (1948), p.618. Krawitz, Eleanor, The Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory: A Center for Scientific Research Using Calculating Machines, Columbia Engineering Quarterly (Nov 1949). IBM Technical Newsletter. No.3, Applied Science Department, International Business Machines Corporation, 590 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y. 22-8823-0-3M-LB-P (Dec 1951). IBM Watson Lab Three-Week Course on Computing, Class Lists (1947-56). Buderi, Robert, The Invention That Changed the World (How a small group of Radar pioneers won the Second World War and launched a technological revolution), Simon amp Schuster, New York (1996). Grosch, Herbert R. J. Early Women in Computing, Communications of the ACM. Vol.38 No.4 (April 1995) (1996). Dick, Steven J. Sky and Ocean Joined: The U. S. Naval Observatory 1830-2000. Cambridge University Press (2002), ISBN 0-521-81599-1, 609pp. Backus, John, private correspondence, July 2004. Eames, Charles and Ray. A Computer Perspective: Background to the Computer Age. Harvard University Press. First Edition 1973 Second Edition 1990. Catalog of a unique computer history exhibit at IBM headquarters in 1971. Knuth, Donald, The Art of Computer Programming. Vol.3 Sorting and Searching. Addison-Wesley (1973) Section 5.5, pp.382-384 the link is to the 1998 revised edition. Eckert, W. J. The IBM Department of Pure Science and the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, Educational Research Forum Proceedings. IBM, Endicott NY (Aug 1947), pp.31-36. Bellovin, Steve, personal correspondence, January 2006. Now a member of Columbias Computer Science faculty after many years at Bell Labs ATampT Labs, Steve, as a Columbia student in 1968-69, worked at the IBM Watson Lab building on 115th Street doing system administration tasks on an IBM 1130. Pugh, Emerson W. Johnson, Lyle R. Palmer, John H. IBMs 360 and Early 370 Systems . MIT Press (1991). Jeenel, Joachim, Programming For Digital Computers. McGraw-Hill (1959), 517 pages IBM 650. Andree, Richard V. Programming the IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Computer and Data-Processing Machine. Henry Holt and Co. New York (1958). Andree, Richard V. Computer programming and related mathematics for the IBM 1620 computer . Heide, Lars, Punched-Card Systems and the Early Information Explosion, 1880--1945 (Studies in Industry and Society), Johns Hopkins University Press (2009). Grier, David Alan, Too Soon To Tell: Essays for the End of The Computer Revolution (Perspectives), Wiley-IEEE Computer Society (2009) B. Gilchrist, J. Pomerence and S. Y. Wong, Fast carry logic for digital computers, IRE Transactions on Electronic Computers . EC-4 (Dec.1955), 133-136. Digital Computer Newsletter, Office of Naval Research, Mathematical Sciences Division, Vol.10, No.4, October 1958 PDF . Digital Computer Newsletter, Office of Naval Research, Mathematical Sciences Division, Vol.12, No.3, July 1960 PDF . Reid-Green, Keith S. The History of Census Tabulation, Scientific American . February 1989, pp.98-103. Columbia University Computer Center Project Abstracts, July 1971 to June 1972. Paperbound, about 250 pages (COVER ). Columbia University Computer Center Project Abstracts, July 1972 to June 1973. Paperbound, about 250 pages (COVER ). Geschichte der IBM in Deutschland (IBM). National Science Foundation, Twelfth Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1962. Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Science Facilities: Establishment of a Computing Center . 100,00 for the first year. Tanenbaum, Andrew S. Lessons Learned from 30 Years of MINIX . CACM, Vol.59 No.3, March 2016, pp.70-78. Jones, Steven E, Roberto Busa, S. J. and the Emergence of Humanities Computing: The Priest and the Punched Card . Routledge (2016). Includes chapter on the SSEC. Sources are listed in the order they were encountered. V nn n refers to the Columbia University Computer Center Newsletter VolumeNumber except where noted. Web links are notoriously unstable dont be surprised if any or all of the following dont lead anywhere. Just a Beginning: Computers and Celestial Mechanics in the Work of Wallace J. Eckert . Ph. D. Dissertation of Allan Olley, 31 August 2011. Harold Hunter Channer, Interview with Bruce Gilchrist (former directory of the Columbia Computer Center), 31 May 2007. (Youtube). The Origin and History of the Internet . address by Kenneth M. King (first director of the Columbia Computer Center), 17 February 2011 (Youtube). Columbia Universitys 250th Anniversary The DECSYSTEM-20 at Columbia University (1977-1988) Columbia University 1968. the student uprising. General Computing History:News Archive 6 Feb 2013 - Boeing Shanghai Celebrates Door Cutting Completion for First Boeing 737-300 PTF Conversion SHANGHAI, Feb. 6, 2013 ndash Boeing Shanghai Aviation Services Co. Ltd. (Boeing Shanghai) held the door cutting ceremony for the first Boeing 737-300 passenger-to-freighter (PTF) conversion at its hangars at Shanghai Pudong Airport. The aircraft was inducted in December from Kenya Airways, Boeing Shanghairsquos launch customer for this program. The modification is conducted under a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) developed by Aeronautical Engineers, Inc. (AEI). At the ceremony, Tom Ouma Kadoyo, technical director of Kenya Airways, Roy Sandri, AEI President, Dermot Swan, CEO of Boeing Shanghai, and Daniel Ni, operation director of Boeing Shanghai jointly completed the door cut, completing a significant milestone for the PTF modification. The new door surround structure and the main deck cargo door will be installed on the aircraft later in the process. The conversion is targeted for completion in March 2013. ldquoWe are making outstanding progress for our first 737-300 PTF. This is a great example of the new skills that our team continues to develop as we enhance our MRO services, rdquo said Dermot Swan, CEO of Boeing Shanghai. ldquoThis is an excellent showcase for our capabilities as a full service MRO and to demonstrate how we provide value to Kenya Airways, AEI and other global customers. rdquo Boeing Shanghai is a joint venture between Boeing, Shanghai Airport Authorities and China Eastern Airlines. Boeing Shanghai offers a broad range of services from engineering, aircraft maintenance and modification to material management, and component repair and overhaul. Boeing Shanghai supports customers located throughout the world. 07 Oct 2012 - YouTube video of 737 Ecodemonstrator YouTube video from Boeing showing the American Airlines 737-800 Ecodemonstrator which is partially funded by a grant from the FAA Continuous Lower Energy Emissions Noise (CLEEN) programme. Technologies include: Adaptive trailing edge flaps variable area fan nozzles active engine vibration reduction a regenerative fuel cell flight trajectory optimization Configurations chosen for the adaptive trailing-edge flight test include a fixed mini split flap for the inboard sections out to around mid-span and a drooped aileron tab. The outboard fixed trailing edge will also be modified to test both a mini plain and mini split flap. ldquoThey are all looking at better ways to make the trailing edge move without causing more drag, rdquo says Mike Carriker, Boeingrsquos new airplane product development chief pilot. Not all of these new technologies will be adopted or even make it to the forthcoming 737 MAX as these are only trials. Next year Boeing will change the Ecodemonstrator aircraft to a widebody, probably the 777. 20 Mar 2012 - Steven Udvar-Hazy verdict on 737 MAX Air Lease Corp chief executive Steven Udvar-Hazy, a vocal advocate for Boeings now-shelved New Small Airplane concept, says the airframers strategy to develop the CFM International Leap-1B-powered 737 Max is intended as a bridge to a clean sheet design arriving in the middle of the next decade and not a long-term solution. The 737 Max is aimed at keeping the market share positioning against the Airbus A320 Neo. to create an equilibrium of some sorts, says Udvar-Hazy. Udvar-Hazy, who dubs Boeings 737-replacement concept his Hazyliner, has in the past said new aircraft concepts are part of Boeings DNA, describing the airframers proclivity for embracing all-new, clean-sheet designs. Boeing has been open about its strategic goals for the 737 Max, including a 50-50 marketshare split with Airbus, while openly acknowledging the cost and production capability of an all new narrowbody programme meant it was not ready for launch. It declines to discuss a timeline for such an offering. Boeings senior vice-president of marketing, Mike Bair, says our intention is that we will build the Max until the market doesnt want to buy any more and we dont know when thats going to be. I wouldnt predict 2025 or 2035, at some point, either something better will come along or the marketplace will decide they wont continue to take it. Well make it until it runs out of gas and that could be a long, long time, says Bair. Without going so far as to dismiss the airframers strategy outright, Udvar-Hazy says: I think 737 Max is viable because Boeing is going to stop building the 737NG by 2019-2020, theyre going to phase it out, just like the 737-300, -400, -500s were phased out requiring existing customers to transition to the revamped narrowbody. Bair also says no decision on curtailing 737NG production has been made, of which 2,223 are in backlog as of 1 March, including 78 for ALC. A significant leap in efficiency on the 737 is restricted both by the current geometry of the aircraft and its limited under-wing clearance for a fan diameter larger than the 174cm (68.4in) offered by the Leap-1B, says Udvar-Hazy. A focus on the widebody market has also meant an all-new 737 has been pushed down the list of priorities. Hazy believes a second engine option on the Max would help bolster its overall business case, but adds: I dont think Boeings going to do it. He has pushed the airframer to offer a Pratt amp Whitney PW1000G-series engine, but its larger fan would require a more costly redesign of the narrowbody. Ive had long talks with Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh and guys over there, where I showed them the dual engine option has helped Airbus gain marketshare with the A320neo family. because they had two choices and airlines were able to leverage that to get better deals. I just dont think Boeing is able to do that. I think theyre kind of stuck in this situation because of the airframe, he says. The 737 has been a great bus for the industry, but at some point Boeings going to have to deal with it. Right now, I think the focus has been getting the 787-10X launched and firming the competitive response to the A350 with its 777X which I think Boeings board will approve when they see they can get some 787 deliveries out. Hazy says Boeings 737 Max still holds distinct advantages over the A320neo, despite a 4.5t (10,000lb) weight growth in the airframe, he says, including being slightly lighter with nine additional seats between the 189-seat 737-8 and re-engined 180-seat A320neo. By comparison, Airbus says the A320neos weight has grown by between 1.6t and 1.8t (3,500lb to 4,000lb) with the addition of Leap-1A and Pratt amp Whitney PW1100G engines, respectively. Max launch customer Southwest Airlines will take delivery of its first 737 Max in the fourth quarter of 2017. 12 Nov 2011 - More 737 MAX details More details finally emerged about Boeingrsquos plans for the 737 MAX during a review of the third quarter by Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh at the November 3 Goldman Sachs Industrials Conference in Boston. Perhaps most significantly, Boeing has finally decided on a 68-inch-diameter fan for the CFM Leap-1B engines chosen for the family of airplanes, prompting a lengthening of the front main landing gear by between six and eight inches, said Albaugh. Other changes planned for the 737 MAX include a ldquorevisedrdquo tail cone to reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency an ldquooptimizedldquo engine core fly-by-wire spoilers external nacelle chevrons similar to those on the 747-8 and 787 for more efficient airflow mix and less noise some ldquolocalizedldquo strengthening of the wings and fuselage a new landing gear strut a slight repositioning of the engine forward on the wing to accommodate higher engine loads new software for the engine computer and pneumatic system adjustments to adapt to differences in engine pressures. Albaugh somewhat downplayed the difference in fan diameters of the engines planned for the A320neo and that of the CFM Leap-1B planned for the 737 MAX. In fact, the CFM-powered A320neo will use a 78-inch-diameter fan while the fan on the Pratt amp Whitney PW1100G-powered Airbus will span 81 inches. ldquoA lot of people get over-enamored with fan size, rdquo he said. ldquoYou know, right now we have a 61-inch fan on the NG and I think Airbus has a 68-inch fan on theirs, but, again, we still have the most efficient airplanes. rdquo Albaugh added that the 737 MAX has now drawn ldquonorth of 600 commitments, ldquo meaning Boeing has added tentative orders for more than 100 additional 737 MAX airplanes since he last reported on the total in September. ldquoWersquore working very hard on what the guarantees on the airplane will be, and once we finalize those, wersquoll get the definitive agreements in place for the customers that we have. rdquo Eight customers have now committed to the 737 MAX. Given its inability to issue guarantees yet, Boeing has shown what some might consider overconfidence in the advantages it has publicly claimed the 737 MAX will offer over the A320neo. Even before it decided on a fan size, Boeing claimed the new 737 MAX 8 would produce an operating-cost advantage of 7 percent over the Airbus offering. In addition, Boeing has claimed that a fleet consisting of 100 dual-class 737 MAX 8s would use nearly 175 million pounds less fuel per year, based on a 500-nm mission, than a similarly sized fleet of 737-800s. 21 Jul 2011 - First 737 with 7BE engines delivered Boeing delivered the first 737 with improved engines to China Southern Airlines last week, the plane maker announced Thursday. The new CFM56-7BE engine configuration is part of a package of airplane improvements that aim to cut fuel use by 2 percent. Boeing plans to incorporate other improvements into 2012. ldquoWe continue to review performance flight test data and collect delivery data, rdquo John Hamilton, 737 chief project engineer, said in a news release. ldquoThe improved fuel savings is part of our commitment to deliver market-leading value to Next-Generation 737 customers. rdquo This is not to be confused with the program Boeing announced Wednesday to outfit the 737 with new CFM LEAP-X engines. 19 Jul 2011 - Boeing Offer Re-engined 737 to American Airlines Boeing has made a last-ditch offer to sell American Airlines updated 737 jets with next-generation engines as it scrambles to prevent a strategic Airbus victory in a massive order from the longtime Boeing customer. The offer is a striking turnabout from signals all year that Boeing executives preferred to design an all-new small airplane that could replace the Renton-built 737 toward the end of the decade. American is expected to announce Wednesday its order for more than 200 single-aisle planes, likely split between the Airbus A320neo and the rival 737. According to three industry insiders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Airbus came close to winning the entire order. Before anyone at Boeing knew about it, last month the airline signed an initial memorandum of understanding to buy A320neos, which will come with new fuel-efficient engines. To head off that loss, within the last 10 days Boeing gave American a new proposal that offers the 737 jet equipped with similar engines, the sources said. Boeing sales teams worked furiously the past weekend to salvage the deal, according to a person with knowledge of the developments. quotBoeing is putting up a real fight, quot he said, quotBut at best, theyd hope to get some kind of a split buy. quot Last-minute negotiations with American continued in advance of a decisive board meeting of the airlines parent company Tuesday evening. Bloomberg News reported the deal could be as big as 400 airplanes. Upside for Airbus A split order could mean Boeing replaces part of the carriers aging fleet of almost 250 MD-80s with a mix of current and re-engined 737s, while Airbus replaces Americans fleet of more than 120 larger 757s with A321neos. Winning even that much would be a tremendous win for Airbus. The A320 and 737 families of jets now divide the bread-and-butter single-aisle jet market evenly. But a big Boeing customer defection would suggest the A320neo could tilt that market share significantly. And Airbus may do better than an even split of the American deal. A second person, with knowledge of the sales talks, said Boeings late offer could still prove quottoo little, too late, quot with the majority of the order going to Airbus. quotUnless something dramatic changes today, this a done deal for Airbus, quot said that person. He said the Boeing offer lacked detailed data on the cost of the re-engined airplane, and the Boeing board has not given its go-ahead. quotAmericans feeling has been, You guys (Boeing) havent got your act together. Youre giving us something on a piece of paper that isnt anywhere near as far along as Airbus, quot he said. Through most of this year, Boeing executives have said that re-engining the 737 was less likely than the favored alternative option: building an all-new small airplane that could enter service around 2020. To develop a re-engined 737, the wings have to be modified to hold the bigger, heavier engines, and the landing gear may have to be raised so the engine pods dont scrape the ground. Boeing believes it can do that for about 2 billion, according to a person familiar with the internal debate. A new airplane would cost upward of 10 billion. A re-engined 737 would continue to be built in Renton through at least 2025. When a new airplane is eventually launched, Washington will have to compete against other states to be the site of final assembly. Despite intense pressure from customers, Boeing said repeatedly it wouldnt even formally choose between these options until later this year. Airbus, by contrast, announced its plan last December, saying the first of its new A320neo family would enter service by late 2015. Air show fallout It now looks as if the American order, closely following a cascade of orders for A320neos at the Paris Air Show, has precipitated an early decision by Boeing. quotAirbus forced their hand, quot said the first source. Airbus announced more than 700 orders and commitments in Paris for its plane, a success that respected aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group this week called a quotshock and awe sales campaign. quot He concluded Boeing has been too slow to realize its not the next new airframe, but the next generation of fuel-efficient engines, that will provide most of the technological progress that matters to the airlines. quotIf Boeing hasnt learned this lesson, it needs to, quot Aboulafia wrote in a report this week. quotIf (American) goes Airbus, much changes overnight, quot he added. quotBoeing should offer a 737 Neo, fast. quot A study released this month by industry consulting firm AirInsight concluded that in particular the A321neo is a good candidate to replace the older 757s in many fleets, including Americans. Industry analyst Scott Hamilton, a co-author of the AirInsight report, cited unnamed company insiders Tuesday on his Leeham. net blog saying that the re-engined 737 is now targeted to enter service in 2017, more than a year later than the A320neo. But Hamilton said Boeing still plans to go ahead with the new small airplane as well, no more than a year or so later than originally planned. One of the people with knowledge of Boeings thinking said the target for an all-new plane is 2022, but described that as just a quotplaceholderquot that could get pushed out further at a later date. Financing is key To hold off Airbus with American, Boeing has to match the European plane maker in more than engine technology. American has lost money every year since 2007, so the financial aspects of the deal are crucial. Ironically, the close historical relationship between Boeing and American could leave the aircraft maker in a bind as it reduces its price to win the deal. In 1996, Boeing signed landmark agreements with American, Delta and Continental for quotmost favored customerquot status mdash guaranteeing them the lowest prices on any jet sales. Boeing knows that whatever discount it sets for American will trigger the same for Delta and possibly for United, which merged with Continental. A low bid could undermine Boeings pricing for many hundreds of other jets. People working on the deal inside Boeing heard from American that the Airbus offer minimized the airlines upfront costs by arranging to lease a large portion of the jets. That would mean American pays monthly rent on the Airbus jets as it uses them, rather than buying them outright. To counter that, Boeing likely can enlist leasing companies such as GECAS, the airplane leasing arm of General Electric, to back its bid. Boeing would equip its revamped 737s with the new LEAP engine from GESnecma. The complex final details of such financing could determine the outcome of the American order. Whatever the outcome, said the first source Tuesday, quotIts going to be a blockbuster of an order. Well know in 24 hours. quot Another warned that such deals often are fluid until finally signed. quotLast week, I was convinced Airbus was going to win this, and that Boeing would stick to its strategy of going for a new airplane. A week later, its a split buy and Boeing has changed its strategy, quot he said. quotThis still could have some twists and turns. quot 04 Mar 2011 - 737 replacement possibly to be twin-aisle 797 By Geoffrey Thomas ATW Boeing is moving quotfar more aggressivelyquot toward a 180-250 seat twin-aisle replacement for the 737, according to company insiders. It would continue production of the 737-800900ER for airlines that still want the standard offering. VP-Advanced 737 Product Development Mike Bair confirmed this week that a twin-aisle has been canvassed, a scenario first revealed by ATW in 2006 (ATW, June 2006). Separately, ATW has learned that Boeing will announce an all-new 737 replacement, to be named the 797, at or before the Paris Air Show commencing June 20. Bairrsquos comments regarding the replacement being a twin-aisle, which have not been denied by the company, came in an interview with Flightglobal. The 180-seat twin-aisle concept has a fair amount of history. McDonnell Douglas developed a 180-seat twin-aisle concept in a 2-2-2 configuration in the early 1980s dubbed the DC-11. Delta Air Lines wanted to order 60 but MDC balked at the commitment, considering it too risky given the lack of interest from another US airline. The fuselage had a cross-section that was 22 in. wider than the 727757, allowing for 17.7-in.-wide seats in doubles with two 18-in. aisles. In an all-economy layout at a 30-in. pitch, it could seat 214. Using the latest technology at the time, including composite floor beams, control surfaces, nacelles, vertical and horizontal stabilizers and other primary structures, MDC predicted fuel consumption 10 better than the 757 with the same engine applicationmdashthe JT10D-32 engine rated at 32,000 lb. thrust. Boeing also floated the twin-aisle 180-seat concept in 1987 with its 7J7 and showed a full cabin mockup at that years Paris Air Show. It took the widebody concept further with a 181-in. cabin width that would permit 2-3-2 seating, 17-in.-wide seats and 18-in. aisles in coach. It is this cross-section that insiders at Boeing tell ATW the company is focused on. The twin-aisle idea surfaced again in 2001 in two patents filed by Boeing under the heading quotTwin-Aisle Small Airplane, quot with Mithra Sankrithi, a manager in Commercial Airplanes product development, configuration and engineering analysis group, named as the inventor. The patents were submitted on Oct. 2, 2001, and approved in 2003 and 2004. One cabin sports a 2-3-2 configuration with Sankrithi claiming the new configuration could deliver quotthe comfort typically reserved for larger aircraft, quot while at the same time minimizing drag, weight penalties, fuel burn and quoteconomic penalties. quot The fuselage cross-section for the 2-3-2 configuration is 200.7 in. fractionally wider than the 767s 198.03 in. and the design features a swept T-tail. Interestingly, Sankrithi filed another patent last year with co-engineer Kevin Retz with the same T-tail twin-aisle under wing engine layout, which is similar to the configuration and layout of another McDonnell Douglas aircraft: The 1981 vintage 150-seat MDF100, which was to be built with Fokker on a 5050 basis but didnt get off the drawing board. 10 Feb 2010 - Boeing to replace rather than upgrade the 737 Boeing will replace its 737 rather than outfitting the single-aisle workhorse with new engines, company President Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney said todday. quotWere going to do a new airplane, quot McNerney said at the Cowen AerospaceDefense Conference in New York. He then qualified this a bit, saying: quotWere not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to a whole new airplane at the end of the decade, the beginning of the next decade. quot McNerney and other executives have said for months that they didnt see a compelling business case for re-engining even after Airbus decided to re-engine its competing A320. Boeing and Airbus are responding to competition from upstarts such as the Bombardier CSeries, Comac C919 and United Aircraft Corp. MS-21. He addressed the situation Thursday in responding to a question about whether the re-engined A320neo was a threat to the 737. quotIts our judgment that our customers will wait for us, rather than move to an airplane that will obsolete itself when (Airbus) move(s) to a new airplane, quot McNerney said. He also repeated his companys contention that Airbus was playing catchup to Boeing, saying: quotThe neo on paper closes the value gap that we have enjoyed. quotI feel pretty comfortable that we can defend our customer base both because theyre not going ahead of us, theyre catching up to us, and because were going to be doing a new airplane that will go beyond the capability of what they neo could do. quot 10 Dec 2010 - Boeing sees no quotcompelling reasonquot for 737 upgrade Boeing said it could not see a quotcompelling reasonquot to follow European rival Airbus in upgrading the 737, its commercial aircraft chief told the Financial Times. Airbus, the worlds largest plane-maker, said earlier this month it would spend roughly 1.3 billion (1.09 billion pounds) to improve efficiency of its A320 aircraft by upgrading it with engines that offer 15 percent fuel savings. Boeing was mulling whether to upgrade its competing 737 plane, as airlines and the market welcomed the Airbus announcement on December 1. quotWe certainly cant see a compelling reason to do it, quot Jim Albaugh said in an interview published in the Fridays edition of the newspaper. Albaugh said it would only add quota few percentquot in financial benefits for customer airlines. quotI think most of them will wait for a new aeroplane. quot 31 Aug 2010 - Boeing Leaning Away from 737 Re-engining By: Gregory Polek August 31, 2010 Aerospace Industry, Air Transport and Cargo Aircraft Chances that Boeing will fit new engines on the existing 737 appear slimmer now than at any time since the company began talking publicly about the prospect, judging by the comments of Boeing CFO James Bell today at the Morgan Stanley Industrials Unplugged Conference in New York. According to Bell, potential customers havent shown much interest in a re-engined 737, and Boeing remains unconvinced that the performance improvements promised by the various engine makers will prove sufficient to warrant such a step. quotRight now it looks like the engines can get 10- to 15-percent more efficient, but its not flow-through efficiency, quot said Bell. quotWhen you add the weight associated with the change in the design of the airplane and you add the cost, it looks more like a single-digit improvement, which we dont believe is something that our customers are interested in. quot Still, Bell wouldnt completely discount the prospect of a re-engining, particularly if fuel prices rise well above todays relatively low cost by the time the company decides on plans for the future of the 737. Still planning to choose among the options of re-engining, introducing an all-new airplane or essentially maintaining the status quo by the end of this year, Boeing has yet to finish its studies, said Bell. quotOn the new airplane, we obviously are looking at what are the technological improvements that we need to have in order to achieve flow-through improvement of 10- to 15 percent, quot he added. quotAt this point we dont know exactly what that is. We do know part of it would be the engine. The other part would have to be improved aerodynamics of the aircraft itself, and its easier to scale up composite material than scale it down, but were still working at ithellipBut I can tell you right now our customers have not shown a real interest in a re-engining. quot 4 May 2010 - Project Phoenix chooses 737-800 Project Phoenix, the Dubai-based business aircraft sales organisation which specialises in the renovation and conversion of airliners to VIP aircraft has chosen the Boeing 737-800 as the ideal candidate to enter the narrow-body airliner conversion market. Its new venture will be known as The Phoenix LBJ (Large Business Jet). The decision follows a six-month technical evaluation of suitable airliners and a dialogue with potential customers. Having selected the 737-800, Project Phoenix has issued an RFI (Request for Information) to several completion facilities in Europe, Australasia and the USA, to undertake the work. Several designs are being prepared including a 30-seat VIP version with private office and State Room as well as a higher density Corporate version. Customers will be able to choose the number of auxiliary tanks to be installed depending on their operational range and payload requirements. Project Phoenix President Mike Cappuccitti said the group decided on the 737-800 owing to the typersquos popularity and strong likelihood that there will be an increasing number of aircraft coming into the market. ldquoThe aircraft has all the right attributes for our program. It is a New Generation 737. It requires little in the way of avionics upgrades. It has winglets and we can vary the range and payload capability depending on our customerrsquos specific needs. rdquo he said. A key market driver, the company believes, will be the need for fiscal prudence in future VIP aircraft purchases. ldquoThe Phoenix LBJ will represent outstanding value and quality. It will be many millions of dollars less than comparable new aircraft with no compromise in quality, rdquo said Project Phoenix Chairman John Lawson. The company expects a full data package to be available by late 2010 after a completion facility has been chosen following the comprehensive RFP process. Mike Creed, VP Business Development said, ldquoWe anticipate an official launch at the 2010 MEBA show in Dubai but we are ready to start preliminary discussions with interested customers now. In fact, we already are talking to several potential buyers. rdquo 18 Mar 2010 - Boeing likely to boost 737, 777 production rates Boeing is leaning toward increasing production rates for the 737 and 777 families with decisions expected by mid-year, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Jim Albaugh said yesterday. The current 737 build rate is 31.5 units per month and the company expects to make a decision in June on whether to raise it. Last week, Airbus announced it was taking the A320 rate to 36 per month from 34 as of December (ATWOnline, March 10). Speaking to media at Boeings Arlington, Va. offices, Albaugh explained that quotWe made a conscious decision a couple years ago to sell more airplanes than we had production capability to manufacturequot owing to the likelihood of deferrals and lapsed options. As a result, production is sold out for 2010-11 and quotwere overbooked in 2012.quot Turning to the 777, he said, quotStay tuned. Were going to make a decision on that in April. We have three 777 campaigns and I think there is a very good chance we will raise the triple 7 rate as well. quot The manufacturer currently is trimming the monthly rate to five from seven, he noted, adding, quotDepending on our decision in April it will take about 15 months to ramp up. quot He said it will take somewhat longer to increase the 737 rate. Albaugh also signaled a tougher negotiating stance in selling airplanes. In what observers took to be a reference to last years failed Ryanair 737 campaign (ATWOnline, Dec. 21, 2009), he said, quotWe couldve sold 200 more airplanes last year. and we didnt take those orders because people wanted them at the bottom of the cycle prices. quot Referencing the 787, he said, quotI believe we sold those a little bit cheaper than we probably should have. quot Elaborating on the theme, he pointed to quota backlog of 3,400 airplanes. We dont have to do a deal to keep the production lines running. We are going to remain disciplined. quot Boeing continues to study the business case for re-engining the 737 but does not feel pressure to make a decision by Farnborough (ATWOnline, March 10). Should it go forward, Albaugh quotwill do everything I can to reduce the requirements creep so it doesnt become the equivalent of a major change to the aircraft. quot He agreed that the CSeries 300 appears to be targeted at the 737-700 market. Refuting speculation that Boeing will not fight hard to defend its position in the under-150-seat market, he stated: quotI look at the 737 business that we have and it is one of the cornerstones of Boeing Commercial and it is a marketplace we are going to defend. quot 2 Feb 2010 - CFM56-7BE 150-Hour Block Test imminent Certification Program on Schedule Certification of CFM Internationalrsquos advanced new CFM56-7BE engine is progressing on schedule. In the next few weeks, the engine is scheduled to begin a 150-hour block test, paving the way for the flight test program early this year. A block test, which is a certification requirement, is one of the most grueling to which an engine can be subjected. The engine is operated at what is referred to as triple redline: maximum fan speed, maximum core speed, and maximum exhaust gas temperature. This test simulates conditions far more extreme than would ever been experienced in commercial service to validate the reliability and durability of the hardware. The first full CFM56-7BE type design engine completed ground testing in January, and engine operation and performance was as expected. In the second quarter of this year, the ndash7BE configuration will begin a 50-hour flight test program on GErsquos flying testbed in Victorville, California. Engine certification is on schedule for mid-2010, paving the way for flight tests on the Next-Generation 737 planned for early in 2011, followed by aircraft certification and entry into service in mid-2011. The CFM56-7BE-powered Next-Generation 737 enhanced airplaneengine combination will provide a 2 percent improvement in fuel consumption, which, in turn, equates to a 2 percent reduction in carbon emissions. Additionally, the enhanced -7B will provide up to 4 percent lower maintenance costs, depending on the thrust rating. The CFM56-7BE engine enhancement program, which CFM International (CFM) launched earlier this year, is scheduled to enter airline service in mid-2011 to coincide with Boeing Next-Generation 737 airframe improvements. CFM is using advanced computer codes and three-dimensional design techniques to improve airfoils in the high - and low-pressure turbines to improve engine performance. In addition, CFM is improving engine durability and reducing parts count to achieve lower maintenance costs. 28 Jan 2010 - Changes to Boeing 737 management team SEATTLE, Jan. 28 PRNewswire-FirstCall -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) Commercial Airplanes President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Albaugh today announced organizational changes intended to strengthen the companys focus on both performance and long-term strategy. quotOur priorities for 2010 and beyond are clear, quot Albaugh said. quotWe must execute on our 787 and 747-8 development programs we must continue to perform on our ongoing production programs and in this increasingly competitive world, we must develop a clear vision and roadmap for both the single-aisle and twin-aisle marketplaces. quot Albaugh announced moves intended to strengthen execution of ongoing Boeing programs, including: Beverly Wyse was named vice president and general manager, 737 Program, also reporting to Shanahan. She replaces Mark Jenkins, who recently announced his retirement after 35 years at Boeing. Wyse most recently was vice president and general manager, 767 Program. She will continue to support the U. S. tanker program. Albaugh made further executive changes intended to stimulate future growth, saying in a message to employee message Thursday, quotDefining Boeings airplane product strategy is critical to our future growth. We need a clear vision and roadmap for both our single-aisle and twin-aisle offerings for the future. Also, in the global environment in which we operate, we need a sharpened situational awareness of macro-economic and geopolitical realitiesquot. Mike Bair will lead a newly created Advanced 737 Product-Development team, which will be responsible for planning the future of Boeings single-aisle offering. Bair most recently was vice president, Business Strategy and Marketing, Commercial Airplanes. 27 Jan 2010 - Boeing CEO: Actively Considering New Engine For 737 Boeing Co. (BA) on Wednesday said it plans to maintain production rates for its key 737 aircraft as it nears a decision on updating the model to fend off looming new competition. The company rebuffed speculation that the downturn in the airline industry and tight credit markets would force it to produce fewer 737s despite a bulging order book. Boeing will maintain existing 737 production and also look to provide new engines and other updates to refresh the product range. Chief Executive Jim McNerney said on a conference call that Boeing is quotactively consideringquot putting a new engine in the 737, a move that would be cheaper and quicker than an all-new aircraft. Boeing and rival Airbus have slipped the timescale for a new narrowbody aircraft by five or more years to 2020 to 2024. Airbus has said it will decide this year whether to re-engine its A320 family. quotIn this era of high fuel prices and productivity requirements, I think airlines are focused more on ongoing productivity than obsolescence. Many of these operators are anxious for us to move, quot McNerney said. Boeing and Airbus face intensifying competition in the narrowbody segment, which accounts for the bulk of their commercial aerospace profits. Canadas Bombardier is developing a larger new jet with more efficient engines, and an all-new Chinese airliner could also have an advantage over existing Boeing and Airbus models. Russian and Brazilian manufacturers are also eyeing the market. The new Bombardier C-Series expected to arrive in 2013 features a new engine from Pratt amp Whitney promising a 15 advantage in fuel efficiency over existing models. Boeing expects to deliver 460 to 465 commercial aircraft, down from 481 in 2009 after electing to trim output of its 777 widebody. Airbus reduced its production rate for A320 single-aisle family to 34 a month from 36 last October. It said there were no immediate plans to adjust it again, but will do so if necessary. Production of A330A340 widebodies is steady at around eight a month. After a slow year for new aircraft orders, discussions with customers are picking up a bit, McNerney said. A year ago, Boeing had expected to step in with 1 billion of aircraft financing in 2009 to help get planes out the door. It forecast a similar need for manufacturer financing this year. James Bell, Boeings chief financial officer, said Wednesday that Boeing Capital Corp. financed 800 million of aircraft in 2009, and now expects to provide less than 500 million of financing assistance in 2010. McNerney said commercial banks, lessors and other lenders all are in stronger-than-expected financial shape from last January. Boeing is sold out of new aircraft in 2010 and 2011, Bell said. While customers have canceled or deferred hundreds of new aircraft, he said the rate of deferrals slowed in the final quarter of 2009. 14 Nov 2009 - Boeing to install CMC EFBs in 737NGs, BBJs late next year Operators are expected to begin installing Esterline CMC Electronicsrsquo new 10.4-inch Class 2 PilotView electronic flight bag (EFB)ndashselected by Boeing for its Next-Generation 737s and BBJsndashon 737NGs starting in the third quarter of 2010, according to Esterline. Plans call for the Class 2 EFB system to come installed on production airplanes and be available for retrofit. Boeing has begun developing a common application suite and ground infrastructure for use across Class 1, 2 and 3 EFBs. The EFB contains all documentation and forms that pilots carryndashfrom aeronautical maps and charts, manuals, fault reporting and operations to minimum equipment lists and logbooksndashin digital format. ldquoThe news that Boeing will start to install the latest addition to our EFB product portfolio on Next-Generation 737s and BBJs in production next year strengthens our growing OEM supplier position, rdquo said Greg Yeldon, Esterline CMC Electronics president. CMCrsquos PilotView EFB stays powered during all flight phases, thereby improving productivity and reducing workload. It features an LED-backlit display delivering enhanced readability in all ambient lighting conditions. Authorities have issued more than 23 STCs for the PilotView 8.4-inch EFB on aircraft ranging from the Gulfstream V and IV and Bombardier Global ExpressXRS to the Boeing 737. PilotView stands as the sole OEM Class 2 EFB option at Dassault, Pilatus and Emivest Swearingen. Rockwell Collins has selected PilotView for the Bombardier Global platform, as has Embraer for the E 170190 program, and ATR for the ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft. 21 Jul 2009 - 737 production rate expected to remain steady Since the turn of the year, speculation about when (or if) the 737 production rate would be cut has thus far proven to be unfounded. Its value proposition has forced operators to realise that ldquoout with the old, in with the newrdquo mantra is an endearing philosophy. Letrsquos look at some of the figures this year. At the half-way mark, there have been around 500 Airbus and Boeing deliveries. Of that, 81 of those deliveries for Airbus comprised the A320 family and for Boeing, the 737 accounted for 77 of deliveries thus far. No question, narrowbody airplanes are leading the delivery charge as airlines phase out older jets and replace them with new-build ones that offer a raft of new technology, are more greener and efficient along with a much lower cost of operation. Boeing has the benefit of its single-aisle production being housed in one location, and not three. Despite a 737 production rate of just over 30-a-month, more deliveries are being brought forward than being pushed out, such as this deal with Copa Airlines demonstrates. Where Qantas once stepped in to take American Airlines 737-800 slots a few years ago, a role reversal today means that where the Australian airline has deferred a plethora of airplanes, American is speeding up retirement of its MD80 fleet by snaring freed up slots. Funding of course is a question, but in parallel to placing orders, much of the backstop financing and money for pre-delivery payments and progress payments continued to be readily available ldquoon taprdquo for those pre-2008 orders. The constant call for rate adjustments is not consistent with the marketplace. This cycle could be the first in history where jets less than 10 years old cut from the world fleet due to excessive capacity may never return to active service. There certainly isnrsquot chronic oversupply, nor has there been any significant downward pricing pressure on new or second-hand 737s. The key indicators will be deliveries from the second half of 2010 and beyond. Any slow down in replacement could be the trigger for delivery rate adjustments ndash and even that is by no means a certainty with many speculating that the ldquogreen shootsrdquo of recovery are not that far away. Critically, any 737 rate revision will not exceed the 15-20 window. Boeing still derives plentiful economies of scale on its most productive and efficient assembly line. One of the fundamental reasons why the 737 will continue to both capture orders and maintain rates is because of consumer spending. With this downturn, businesses are just not prepared to pay vast sums of money to fly execs around anymore (witness the collapse in premium traffic just about anywhere). In Europe, Ryanair has long been poised to churn its existing 737-800 with up to a couple hundred more of the same ndash low cost carriers are driving the growth and could in turn spur the revival of fractional ownership too. In the absence of orders, if Ryanair does, as expected, go for more 737s, just why would Boeing need to cut rates when one of their biggest customers simply wants more 737s as quickly as they can be built With Copa Airlines taking delivery of its new 737s from 2012 through 2015 and exercising its options between 2015-17, it takes less customers than some think to keep the Renton line ticking over as nicely as it has done since the woes it had in the late 1990rsquos. If Boeing has learned lessons with its product portfolio, then the 737 is streets ahead of the sceptics and certainly doesnrsquot have to pay attention to rate cuts that are incompatible with whatrsquos going on in the market. 03 Jun 2009 - Northern Air Cargo 737-200s First with WAAS Northern Air Cargo said it has implemented the new Wide Area Augmentation System technology, which will let its Boeing 737-200 jets follow more direct flight paths and increase their ability to land safely in low-visibility conditions. The Federal Aviation Administration developed the technology, Northern Air said. Its 737-200s are the first Boeing aircraft in the United States equipped with the technology, the Anchorage cargo airline said. The technology will save Northern Air money, improve its service and lessen its environmental impact, the airline said. 12 May 2009 - 737 AEWampC Wedgetail gets STC Boeingrsquos 737-based airborne early warning and control (AEWampC) aircraft has received its supplemental-type certification (STC) from FAA, marking the first time one of the companyrsquos larger battle management platforms has received this commercial approval rating. ldquoItrsquos a big milestone for us, rdquo Boeing AEWampC business development senior manager Egan Greenstein says. The STC, received May 11, is an amendment to the 737-700IGW (increased gross weight) certification and means the substantially modified aircraft meets all FAA standard airworthiness requirements. Approval also means pursuing international sales and deliveries will be considerably easier, and comes as Boeing awaits the outcome of an independent study into the aircraftrsquos Northrop Grumman-developed multirole electronically-scanned array (MESA) radar. Commissioned by the Australian government, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory study is evaluating the baseline architecture of the MESA surveillance system and its abilities. The report was prompted by a series of long-running delays to the program, which was launched with a development contract in 2000 by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) for its Wedgetail AEW requirement. The first pair of six Wedgetail 737s are now slated for delivery in November, roughly three years later than originally planned. If the study returns a negative verdict, Australian reports suggest this could give the RAAF a legitimate reason to cancel the program. But Greenstein expresses confidence and notes significant re-engineering two years ago. ldquoWe feel confident about our foundation, and that wersquore on the right path, and that there are no weaknesses in the system, rdquo he says. ldquoWe have been implementing fixes to improve performance. rdquo Boeing is currently working through acceptance tests on the radar and continues to introduce periodic software drops as the program moves toward first deliveries. ldquoAny changes wersquore doing now are minor fixes, rdquo Greenstein says, adding that the early development phase faced issues with radar tracking and integration. ldquoIn 2000, when we started, the maturity of the radar system was not as far along as wersquod have hoped, rdquo he concedes. Boeing and the RAAF also are working through initial data collected from the aircraftrsquos first realistic operating exercise. Wedgetails took part in a military operational utility demonstration called Arnhem Thunder from late April to last week, based out of Darwin in the Northern Territories. Working with air, ground and sea forces, the aircraftrsquos crew controlled multiple engagements over six sorties. Developmental test and evaluation work also is under way on the first of four Turkish Peace Eagle AEWampC aircraft at Boeing Field. Deliveries of the Turkish aircraft are expected to begin in 2010, while the first of four South Korean Peace Eyes are due to enter service in 2011. The remaining three Korean aircraft are scheduled for delivery by the end of 2012. Negotiations, meanwhile, continue with the United Arab Emirates over the potential sale of from two to four AEWampC aircraft, while Boeing has also responded to a request for information from India. 28 Apr 2009 - Boeing Unveils Performance amp Comfort Changes to 737NGs SEATTLE, April 28, 2009 -- Boeing unveiled Tuesday enhancements to its 737 single-aisle jet that should modestly boost fuel performance and significantly improve the passenger experience. The good news for travelers on this workhorse of domestic flights is the new passenger cabin will have lots more room overhead: No more hunching under the luggage stow bins as you exit your seat or wait for other passengers to disembark. The package of enhancements is designed to refresh the 737 brand now that Boeing has pushed out a replacement jet at least until late in the next decade. The changes include improvements to the engine made by CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and Snecma of France. But with this announcement, it appears Boeing has ruled out a major redesign of the airplane to enable it to fly with Pratt amp Whitneys all-new quotgeared turbofanquot engine. quotWe have a dynamite partnership with CFM, quot said John Hamilton, chief engineer on the 737. quotWere going to stick with them. quot The new 737 cabin design, dubbed the quot737 sky interior, quot is modeled on the innovative 787 Dreamliner passenger cabin. It includes blue mood lighting and brighter colors. And it replaces the shelflike stow bins with sharply curved pivoting bins of the type introduced on the 777 jet 15 years ago. When opened for loading, they pivot down to about the same height as bins used today. But when closed, they tuck high into the corner of the cabin and remove that low overhang that makes it impossible to stand fully upright even in the aisle seat. The new 737 interior will roll out late next year. It will be standard on jets going to new customers, but optional on airlines already having 737s. Some may choose to keep all their cabins looking alike, rather than switch. Airlines already signed up to get the new cabin are Continental Airlines in the U. S. FlyDubai of the United Arab Emirates, GOL of Brazil, Lion Air of Indonesia, Malaysia Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle and TUI Travel of London. Fuel burn may matter more to airlines like European budget carrier Ryanair, a top 737 customer known for its commitment to low prices with minimal service and comfort. Boeing is targeting a 2 percent reduction in fuel consumption by 2011, through a combination of airframe and engine improvements. Structural improvements mdash refining the aerodynamic shape of the wheel well, the wing control surfaces, an exhaust outlet and even the red warning light on top of the fuselage mdash will reduce drag on the airplane. On the engine, Boeing has designed a shorter exhaust nozzle and an elongated plug at the back to reduce drag. The overall reduction in drag will reduce fuel consumption by about 1 percent. CFM claims its improvements to the engine innards mdash taking out some of the blades and reshaping others to improve air flow mdash will provide the remaining 1 percent fuel-burn improvement and also reduce maintenance costs about 4 percent compared with the current engine. The enhanced engine is expected to enter service in mid-2011. 16 Apr 2009 - RAAFs Wedgetail future on the line Max Blenkin April 16, 2009 - 3:45PM The future of the RAAFs 3.45 billion Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW and C) aircraft project is on the line. Defence is soon to receive a series of reports which could lead to cancellation of the troubled project, now running three years behind schedule. Should that occur, the loss to the Commonwealth would dwarf the disastrous Seasprite project, cancelled last year at a cost of 1 billion. It would also leave Australia without long-awaited AEW and C aircraft, a vital element of future air combat capability. Warren King, general manager of programs for the Defence Materiel Organisation, said the Wedgetail program remained very challenged and under intense pressure from Australia and prime contractor Boeing. Mr King said the two key problems related to performance of the aircrafts advanced MESA radar and the electronic surveillance systems. He said defence had commissioned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory to assess radar performance and judge whether it could achieve the desired capability. As well, the RAAF will conduct tests of a Wedgetail aircraft under Australian conditions next month. The Lincoln report is imminent. Mr King said the intention was to assess this report, the RAAF trials and other tests conducted in the US to determine whether the radar technology could mature over time. quotIf it has no future there is no point going forward with it, quot he told a parliamentary committee. quotBluntly speaking, it would be - is there a future or not for this technology The extreme of that is to recommend to cancel the program. quot Mr King said much of Wedgetail was at or near doing exactly what it should. But it was clear some elements of Wedgetail radar performance would not meet RAAF technical specifications, but it wasnt clear by how much. quotWe still have to get air forces view about what does that shortfall mean operationally, quot he said. Mr King said defence and Boeing were aiming for an end of June deadline, although there might not be enough information to make a decision until July, August or even September. He said Australia was only paying the contract fee and the real issue was not having the military capability. The Boeing 737 Wedgetail was chosen in 1999 at the conclusion of a protracted project definition and procurement process launched in the 1980s. Australia opted for six Boeing 737 aircraft, each equipped with the advanced Northrop Grumman MESA radar which appeared to offer very considerable advantages over elderly rotating antenna radar systems on US E-2 and E-3 aircraft. But that required substantial development to produce a mature capability. Wedgetail was initially promised for delivery in 2006, but under a revised schedule the first aircraft should arrive this November with a limited capability suitable for training, but not operations. 31 Mar 2009 - Boeing 737 Certification For Kid-Systemes GSM On Board Technology HamburgBuxtehude - KID-Systeme, the leader in aircraft cabin electronics, recently announced at the Aircraft Interiors Expo that its GSM on Board inflight passenger communications system, used by OnAir, has received European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) supplement type certification for Boeing 737 aircraft. The Boeing 737, is operated by more than 500 airlines including Ryanair, the first airline to commit to a full fleet deployment of Mobile OnAir. EASA supplement type certification for the B737, in service for Ryanair, follows certification for the OnAir mobile telephony system on the whole Airbus A320 family of single-aisle aircraft. Ryanair currently has over twenty aircraft flying with the KID-Systemelsquos GSM on Board equipment and OnAirs inflight passenger GSM voice and data services. Ryanair is in the process of retrofitting the equipment to the rest of its B737 fleet. The Boeing retrofit installation design and Supplemental Type Certification (STC) process was managed by KID-Systeme with its partner ECS. A key feature of the STC retrofit design is the use of an innovative distributed Line Replacement Unit installation concept, allowing the GSM on Board equipment to be installed during an aircrafts regular maintenance check. The design of this system enables activation during an over-night stop, meaning the aircraft does not have to be taken out of passenger service. The GSM on Board equipment has been designed to minimise weight and space usage, particularly in areas designated for passenger use. The GSM server is located in the electronics bay under the cockpit the leaky-line cable runs along the inside ceiling of the cabin and the satellite communications equipment, picocell and onboard control equipment are located above the ceiling panels in the aft fuselage. Patrick Schrot, Managing Director of KID-Systeme, said, This EASA certification demonstrates the excellence of the programme run by KID-Systeme and ECS. It has also paved the way for Ryanairs inflight passenger connectivity services and we have no doubt it will prove to be the tipping-point for the technologys wide-spread adoption. KID Systemes GSM on Board airborne equipment has already been in commercial use on Air France, bmi, Royal Jordanian, TAP Portugal and Wataniya Airways, with further airlines signed up to start the service in 2009 and 2010. It is unique in that it uses Inmarsats SwiftBroadband technology, providing passengers with the widest range of inflight communications services currently available. 24 Mar 2009 - IAIs Bedek Aviation Group Delivers First Boeing 737-400 Converted Freighter BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ISRAEL -- Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Bedek Aviation Group delivered its first B737-400 Bedek Special Freighter Configuration (BDSF) on March 15, 2009, to General Electric Commercial Aviation Service (GECAS). The aircraft has been leased to Bluebird Cargo based in Iceland. Bluebird already operates three B737-300BDSF aircraft. This is the 39th B737 conversion from Passenger to Freighter (P2F) aircraft performed by IAI to date. The conversion was performed at IAIs Ben Gurion Airport facility. IAI holds Supplemental Type Certificates (STC) from the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel (CAAI), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Dany Kleiman, IAI Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Bedek Aviation Group, emphasizes that the Passenger to Cargo Conversion Program (B747-400, B767-200, B737-300 and now B737-400) is a core business of the Aircraft Division, and that in spite of the quotslowdownquot in the industry, IAI looks forward to many additional B737-400 conversion projects, including some this year. 15 Jan 09 - Boeing marks aerial refuelling first for 737 family Boeing has completed the first aerial refueling of the 737-700 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEWampC) aircraft for Australia. The event marks the first aerial refueling of a member of the Boeing 737 family, a company spokesman says. The 737-700 Wedgetail received fuel from a Boeing KC-135 and Boeing KC-10. Boeing is scheduled to deliver the first Wedgetail aircraft to Australia more than two years late in July, but is likely to be further delayed to November. Boeing confirms that the programme is quotdriving toward the second half of 2009quot for first delivery, the spokesman says. The aircraft will be restricted to training missions until the electronic warfare system is delivered in 2010. 06 Jan 2009 - First biofuel from algae airliner flight tomorrow by a B737 US airline Continental says it will carry out the first biofuel flight by a commercial carrier using algae as a fuel source tomorrow. Previous airliner biofuel trials have used controversial first-generation feedstocks, seen as contributing to world hunger and deforestation, apart from a recent New Zealand test involving jatropha nuts. Continental says the flight will occur at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, at 1115 AM local time tomorrow (7 Jan 2009). The aircraft in question will be a Boeing 737-800 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines, and the biofuel mix used will be sourced from feedstocks including jatropha and algae. Continental say that this means the test will draw only on sustainable, second-generation fuel sources that do not impact food crops or water resources, and do not contribute to deforestation. In addition to airline execs, the event will be attended by Billy Glover, Boeings managing director in charge of environmental strategy. First-generation biofuels made from feedstocks such as corn or palm oil have come in for sustained criticism lately. It has been suggested that these fuels displace food production from farmland, driving up food prices and so causing hardship among the poor. The resulting desire for more farmland is also seen as contributing to deforestation. Convincing analysis has also suggested that developed nations - or those wishing to become developed one day - will simply never have enough arable land to fuel any significant proportion of their transport using crop fuels. This has led to the push for second-generation biofuels, ones not requiring the use of good farmland for production. Thus far the main candidate here has been oil from the jatropha nut, which might perhaps be cultivated in unused arid deserts not suitable for food production. A recent test by Air New Zealand has shown that jumbo jets will run on a 50-50 jatropha and normal jetfuel mix, but as yet there are not well-established large scale sources of the oily nuts and many are sceptical regarding the viability of the idea. The other headliner gen-2.0 biofuel feedstock is algae, which might be grown in large amounts on water surfaces - perhaps even on saltwater, avoiding the need to exploit possibly overstressed freshwater resources. To many in the avaiation industry of recent times, algae has been something of a holy grail - offering a way to avoid the high fuel prices seen last year and a possible get-out from tough carbon pricing regimes planned by such bodies as the European Union. Biofuel is one of the few technically feasible low-carbon avenues open to aviation: such options as hydrogen fuel and electric power would be hugely harder to use on aircraft than they are to implement in road vehicles. All of which means that tomorrows test by Continental should generate a good deal of interest - although the firm hasnt yet offered details of its algae feedstock, nor of how much of the fuel it provides. It is understood that the biofuel is provided by Honeywell subsidiary UOP, which is working on second-generation biojetfuel as part of the Airbus Initiative, and which has a US military contract aimed at renewable, securely sourced JP-8. 05 Jan 2009 - BBJ3 nearing completion Boeing recently completed work on the first BBJ 3, a larger business jet based on the Boeing Next-Generation 737-900ER. The airplane is now at DeCrane Aircraft in Georgetown, DE where it will receive its long-range auxiliary fuel system and a Head-up Display. The fuel system, new for the model, will undergo a two-month certification process at DeCrane. The airplanes final stop is at a completion center of the owners choosing, where it will receive a custom interior. The un-named customer will receive the completed airplane in 2009. The BBJ 3 has 1,120 square feet of floor space, and provides 35 percent more interior space and 89 percent more luggage space than the BBJ 2. The BBJ 3s range is between 5,435 nmi and 4,725 nmi, depending on the number of passengers flown. All BBJs are equipped with Blended Winglets (wing tip extensions), which reduce community noise, lower emissions and increase the airplanes range. The BBJ program focuses on features that help owners fly safely, efficiently, reliably and comfortably. Boeing currently is delivering BBJs with lower cabin altitude and Future Air Navigation System technology. Lower cabin altitude allows the cabin pressurization control system to regulate the cabin environment to equal a maximum cabin altitude of 6,500 feet so that passengers travel in greater comfort. Future Air Navigation System (FANS) streamlines communication between flight crews and air traffic controllers. FANS adds another layer of safety and efficiency to the global air transportation system, and allows BBJ owners to take more direct routes, shortening flight times and saving fuel. 01 Jan 2009 - Boeing considers 737 enhancements Boeing whose 737 is the worlds most widely flown plane, said its studying new product enhancements as replacement plans for the aircraft have been delayed toward the end of the next decade. The Chicago-based company is considering rolling out more changes to the current version of the jet as it has done since 2000, with improvements to performance, comfort and navigation, Russell Young, a spokesman in Seattle, said Wednesday. We will share the details of future enhancements when we have decided to implement them, Young said. Both Boeing and Airbus SAS have struggled to meet customers demands for a 20 percent reduction in operating costs for the 737 and the Airbus A320, short-haul planes that are the backbone of fleets for many airlines domestic routes. Enginemakers havent come up with technology yet that would ensure enough of a decrease in fuel burn and emissions, forcing planemakers to push back replacement plans until late in the next decade. With environmentalists and the slumping economy putting pressure on the industry, Boeing is considering a bridge model that would provide a 10 percent improvement until a replacement is ready, according to the current edition of Aviation and the Environment magazine. Aviation analyst Scott Hamilton reports that Boeing is considering a major upgrade of its popular 737 before it develops a new single-aisle aircraft to replace the workhorse plane. The upgraded 737, a fourth generation of an aircraft originally designed in the 1960s, would feature more fuel efficient engines, perhaps Pratt amp Whitneys new geared turbo-fans or CFMs new generation engine. If Boeing picks the geared engine, which is larger in diameter than the 737s present CFM engines, it could require substantial revisions to the design: new, taller landing gear to increase the clearance between the engine and the runway and perhaps a new wing and wing box. Any such update, of course, would include an updated cockpit and passenger amenities. Boeing and its rival, Airbus, have repeatedly delayed complete redesigns of their popular 737 and A320 aircraft saying the science of aircraft design hasnt advance enough yet to prompt the expenditure of billions of dollars to produce an aircraft only 10 percent or so more efficient than the planes being built now. A fourth-generation 737 would mean postponing the new single-aisle design until at least 2020 and give Boeings Renton plant at least that much more longevity. The Renton plant produces that 737. Boeing has said it likely will consider the Renton plant and other sites around the country for assembly of a totally new single-aisle plane. 22 Dec 08 - Boeing to Lead Southwest Airlines 737 Flight Deck Modernization Boeing NYSE: BA has been selected by Southwest Airlines as the lead integrator for the airlines 737-300-700 flight deck upgrade to incorporate advanced performance-based navigation capabilities. Boeings role will include design, installation and integration of new hardware and software from multiple suppliers, as well as flight testing and certification. Under this large-scale integration program, the 737-300 airplanes will be modified with new and enhanced avionics supplied by GE Aviation, Honeywell and Rockwell Collins. The Classic 737s will be equipped with GEs large area displays which use the latest in LCD technology and more closely align the 737-300 and 737-700 flight decks, creating commonality, and allowing the 737-300 to operate in the same preferred airspace as the newer 737-700s. The 737-300 enhancements will also position Southwest for additional features - currently under development - that will support future airspace requirements. Southwest Airlines, an industry leader in airline efficiency, also is making a fleet-wide commitment to Required Navigation Performance (RNP) operations, a navigation technology that enables an aircraft to operate within a tight corridor of airspace with Global Positioning System guidance. These RNP enhancements will help the airline reduce fuel consumption, enhance safety and situational awareness, and minimize aircraft emissions and noise resulting in improved efficiency and reduced costs. Southwest is a great airline and partner and were proud to support in their initiatives toward more efficient operations, said Kevin Schemm, vice president, North America Sales, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Boeing is committed to working with our customers to introduce environmentally progressive lifecycle solutions. This upgrade program will enhance safety, situational awareness, and fuel efficiency, and it will allow greater training flexibility due to flight deck commonality, said Chuck Magill, vice president of Flight Operations at Southwest Airlines. But the bottom line is that our customers will benefit from better performance and continued low fares. As the original equipment manufacturer, Boeing is uniquely qualified to provide the lowest risk solution through its intellectual property, engineering and technical resources, world-class testing and certification capabilities and long term supplier relationships. 08 Dec 2008 - Algae to fuel Boeing 737 flight Continental Airlines has scheduled the first biofuel demonstration flight to include algae-derived fuel in the mix of fuel sources, for a Jan. 7 flight from Houston. The non-revenue flight by a Boeing 737-800 will be the first by a U. S. airline, and the first to involve a twin-engined airliner. Air New Zealand is expected to conduct its delayed biofuel flight, with a Boeing 747-400, by year-end. For the Continental flight, one of the 737s CFM International CFM56-7B engines will burn a blend of 50 traditional jet fuel and 50 biofuel produced from algae and jatropha oil. Air NZ will use a 50:50 blend of Jet-A1 and jatropha-derived biofuel. Both algae and jatropha, an inedible plant that grows on arid and non-arable land, are regarded as sustainable, second-generation biofuel sources that do not impact food crops or water resources and do not contribute to deforestation. The fuel for both trials has been produced using processing technology developed by Honeywell company UOP. The jatropha oil for both flights was sourced by Terrasol from plantations in southeastern Africa and India. The algal oil was provided by Sapphire Energy and was produced from microalgae grown on open ponds in Hawaii by Cyanotech, says UOP. The algal and jatropha oils were mixed then processed into biofuel, the company says. Continental test pilots will crew the passenger-less 737 for the demonstration flight with the No. 2 (right) engine burning biofuel. Tests will include accelerationsdecelerations, in-flight shutdown and restart and other procedures. Data recorded during flight and post-flight inspection of the engine is expected to contribute toward the eventual approval of biofuels as drop-in replacements for jet fuel. Standards body ASTM International anticipates approval of 50 biofuel blends by 2010. 14 Nov 2008 - Uncoated nutplates in production cause further delays Boeing which is ramping up airplane production after a costly strike, said Thursday that it was delaying delivery of 737 jetliners and planning to inspect some in service to replace parts that lacked a required anti-corrosion coating. The uncoated nut plates, small fastening devices used to attach bundles of wires and other items to the inside of fuselages, had been used since August 2007, said Vicki Ray, a company spokeswoman. Boeing delivered 394 of the planes between then and October, according to Chicago-based Boeings Web site. The parts do not pose an immediate safety risk, she said. Boeing was notfied about the problem by Spirit AeroSystems Inc. a Wichita, Kan. firm that builds wing and fuselage components. quotWere replacing them as we find them, quot Ray said. quotAlso to be addressed is the in-service fleet, and were still working on a plan for that. quot 14 Aug 2008 - First BBJ3 completed Boeing NYSE: BA recently completed work on the first BBJ 3. The BBJ 3 is a new, larger business jet based on the Boeing Next-Generation 737-900ER (Extended Range). The BBJ 3 has 1,120 square feet (104 square meters) of floor space, and provides 35 percent more interior space and 89 percent more luggage space than the BBJ 2. The BBJ 3s range is between 5,435 nmi (10,066 km) and 4,725 nmi (8,751 km) depending on the number of passengers flown. The airplane is now at DeCrane Aircraft in Georgetown, Del. where it will receive its long-range auxiliary fuel system and a Head-up Display. The fuel system, new for the model, will undergo a two-month certification process at DeCrane. The airplanes final stop is at a completion center of the owners choosing, where it will receive a custom interior. The un-named customer will receive the completed airplane in 2009. All BBJs are equipped with Blended Winglets (wing tip extensions), which reduce community noise, lower emissions and increase the airplanes range. The BBJ program focuses on features that help owners fly safely, efficiently, reliably and comfortably. Boeing currently is delivering BBJs with lower cabin altitude and Future Air Navigation System technology. Lower cabin altitude allows the cabin pressurization control system to regulate the cabin environment to equal a maximum cabin altitude of 6,500 feet so that passengers travel in greater comfort. Future Air Navigation System (FANS) streamlines communication between flight crews and air traffic controllers. FANS adds another layer of safety and efficiency to the global air transportation system, and allows BBJ owners to take more direct routes, shortening flight times and saving fuel. Boeing has been selling its entire line of commercial airplanes to private aviation since the beginning of the jet age. In addition to the narrow-body BBJs, Boeing also sells VIP versions of its 787, 777, 767 and 747-8 models. All of Boeings business jets include top-notch product-support and dedicated field service representatives located around the world 04 Aug 2008 - 737NG Carbon Brakes Earn FAA Certification SEATTLE, Aug 04, 2008 PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX -- Boeing (BA:Boeing Co. News, chart, profile, more Last: 61.36-0.65-1.05 4:01pm 08042008 Delayed quote dataAdd to portfolio Analyst Create alertInsider Discuss Financials Sponsored by: BA 61.36, -0.65, -1.0) announced that it earned certification last week from the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration for its new carbon brakes designed for the Next-Generation 737. The brakes, supplied by Messier-Bugatti, also entered service last week when Boeing delivered a Next-Generation 737-700 to Delta Air Lines -- the first of 10 737-700s the airline will receive over the next several years. Carbon brakes weigh 700 pounds (320 kg) less than high-capacity steel brakes for Next-Generation 737-700, -800 and -900ER (Extended Range) airplanes and 550 pounds (250 kg) less than standard-capacity steel brakes for Next-Generation 737-600s and -700s. Reduced weight contributes to reductions in associated fuel burn and CO2 emissions depending on airline operations. Delta Air Lines is coupling lighter-weight carbon brakes with drag - and emissions-reducing Blended Winglets (wing tip extensions) to improve operating and fuel efficiency simultaneously on its Next-Generation 737s. Deltas stated goal is to have greater flexibility to serve more markets with existing aircraft, further enhancing the largest international expansion in Deltas history. Carbon brakes are the most recent enhancement that Boeing is offering on its Next-Generation 737. Since its entry into service, Boeing has introduced product enhancements that improve performance, navigation precision and passenger comfort on the Next-Generation 737. 29 Jul 2008 - Honeywell delivers NGS to Boeing Jul 29, 2008 (AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION via COMTEX) -- HON Quote Chart News PowerRating -- Honeywell (NYSE:HON), a diversified technology and manufacturing company, has announced that it has delivered the Nitrogen Generation System (NGS) for the Boeing Next-Generation 737 aircraft. The NGS is intended to reduce flammability and thus increase aircraft safety through delivering nitrogen enriched air to the aircraft centre fuel tank. The US Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transport and National Transportation Safety Board recently announced that within two years all new aircraft must have technology to reduce the risk of centre fuel tank fires installed. 21 Jul 2008 - First flight of Turkish modified Peace Eagle The Boeing Company NYSE: BA has successfully conducted the first flight test of the first 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWampC) aircraft modified by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in Ankara for Turkeys Peace Eagle program. During the 2.5-hour flight from Ankara on July 16, pilot Ron Johnston and first officer Mark Mitchell performed a series of functional tests that verified the airworthiness of the aircrafts systems and structures. The aircraft included newly installed aerial refueling capability, an advanced Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) antenna, ventral fins and mission system equipment. This flight is a tribute to the skill and hard work of TAI while successfully executing a very complex modification effort in transforming a 737-700 into an AEWampC platform, said Mark Ellis, Boeing Peace Eagle program manager. Boeing will validate the aircrafts mission system over the next several weeks, before painting the plane with Turkish Air Force markings. The Peace Eagle program includes four 737 AEWampC aircraft plus ground support segments for mission crew training, mission support and system maintenance. Boeing modified the first aircraft at its facilities in Seattle. TAI is modifying the remaining three aircraft in Ankara. The 737-700 features 21st century avionics, navigation equipment and flight deck features. Because of its advanced technology, the aircraft requires minimal downtime for maintenance. The 737 series has a worldwide base of suppliers, parts and support equipment. In addition to Northrop Grummans MESA antenna with integrated identification friend-or-foe capabilities, the aircraft features a flexible, open architecture for cost-effective future upgrades, an extensive communications suite and aerial refueling capability. A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is one of the worlds largest space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a 32.1 billion business with 71,000 employees worldwide. 14 Jul 2008 - FMC U10.8 completed by GE Jul 14, 2008 (M2 EQUITYBITES via COMTEX) -- GE Quote Chart News PowerRating -- The new flight management system (FMS) software Update 10.8 for the Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft has been completed by GE Aviation an operating unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), the company announced on Sunday (13 July). Production incorporation of the U10.8 FMC software is scheduled for Airplane Line Position 2753 and on. Airplane Line Position 2753 is scheduled to be delivered in October of this year. Boeing Service Bulletin 737-34-2104 is expected to be released within thirty days after delivery of Airplane Line Position 2753. 23 may 2008 - Boeing pushes back design development of 737 replacement jet By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter Boeings schedule for developing a replacement for its Renton-built 737 narrow-body jet has officially been pushed out some years into the future. The company in 2006 created a team led by top executives to do preliminary studies on the replacements design configuration. But Boeing has decided that effort is premature. Spokeswoman Sandy Angers said Thursday the study team has been absorbed into the broader product-development unit and has shifted from specific airplane designs. Instead, Boeing is focused on finding technologies that might provide performance improvements of 15 to 20 percent that are demanded by airlines to justify launching a new jet. quotWeve reduced our airplane-design effort and are focusing more on the technology breakthroughs, quot said Angers. quotWe need technology breakthroughs in engines, aerodynamics, materials and other systems. quotYou cant simply shrink the 787 and expect the same benefits for the narrow-body market, quot Angers said. quotWeve got difficult challenges. quot The use of a 787-style composite plastic material, for example, wont offer as big a weight improvement on a much smaller jet. Angers wouldnt pin down a new target date for the 737s replacement beyond quotthe latter half of the next decade, quot but delivery to airlines could now be closer to 2020 than the previously anticipated 2015. In an interview Tuesday with aviation analyst Scott Hamilton, Airbus chief operating officer and top salesman, John Leahy, cited 2020 as the likely delivery date for a replacement of the rival A320 jet family. The A320 and the 737 divide the narrow-body market. A program to replace one of those with a new model is expected to trigger replacement of the other. The 737 is Boeings best-selling jet with just over 5,700 delivered to date. With almost 2,200 more on firm order, the production schedule is full well into 2014. Hamilton, of Leeham. net, said pushing out the 737 replacement could mean Boeing would first upgrade its wide-body 777 to counter the threat from the Airbus A350 mdash either with significant enhancements to the 777 or with an all-new large airplane. In late 2005, Alan Mulally, then-chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the company would develop a post-737 single-aisle jet to enter service between 2012 and 2015. The next spring, he named top executive Mike Cave to head a 737-replacement study team. Carolyn Brandsema, director of 737 engineering, was put in charge of developing the airplane and production concepts. Last fall, Cave was promoted to a corporate position in Chicago. Angers said Brandsema is back working on the current 737. The shift in the study teams role was first reported this week in the trade magazine Aviation Week. Addressing an audience of Wall Street analysts in Seattle on Wednesday, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson insisted the effort to develop a 737 replacement has not been abandoned, only pushed out to ensure that what results has a long market life. quotWere continuing our research effort until we find the right solution, quot Carson said. quotIt has to be a 25-year product. quot 18 May 2008 - Boeing Goes Back to Drawing Board for 737 Follow-on By Guy Norris and Robert Wall - Aviation Week Boeing is abandoning its long-running effort to devise a successor to the 737, driven back to the drawing board by the lack of existing technology that can deliver the huge leap in performance airlines want for a next-generation single-aisle aircraft. The decision to disband the 737RS (replacement study) design project, because it fell short of critical performance targets, has implications beyond Boeing. It will likely influence how Airbus moves forward on its A320 replacement effort, the A30X. For airlines, it means an even longer wait until a 737 or A320 follow-on hits the market. For Boeing, the focus now switches to more fundamental research into aerodynamics, composites and other advanced alloys and hybrid materials, systems and propulsion in the hope that concepts will emerge to meet the challenge. The manufacturer openly admits the change of strategy, saying, quotWe know customers are demanding really high targets for this aircraft, and we know that with the state of technology, were not going to get there anytime soon. quot As a result, Boeing adds, quotWere focusing on technology efforts and reducing the aircraft design effort while the technology matures. quot The transformation of the 737RS project into a more sweeping technology study effort is sparking industry speculation that this will inevitably push any prospective development of a 737 successor toward 2017-19. Boeing declines to be more specific on the impact of the decision or the potential for further slippage. It simply says, quotWe expect the rate of this technology development to be available in the latter part of next decade, and weve said this will be no earlier than 2015.quot Boeings 737RS study emerged from the product development groups P-1 project of the late 1990s, and was later absorbed as a subset of the Yellowstone project. Further details came out in early 2006, when Boeing named key executives to the project, including Mike Cave, vice president for airplane programs, and Carolyn Brandsema, head of aircraft and production system studies. At the time, Boeing was still targeting a 2012-15 entry-into-service window, and was starting to explore splitting the project, renamed 737RS, into two portions covering a 90-120-seater and a larger family bridging the gap between 125 seats and the lower range of the 787. Studies to date combining the best technology advances in materials, propulsion, aerodynamics, structures and systems have produced results that, according to industry sources, fail to get even halfway toward Boeings original operating cost, fuel burn and emissions goals. The most realistic design scenarios have produced overall operating cost improvements of only around 10 versus current 737-700800 performance. Boeing has not publicly stated the 737RS targets, but they are believed to be cost reductions in the 20-25 range. A company official clarifies, however, that quotyou cant just do a shrink of the 787 its not as easy as that because of the different missions, higher cycles and shorter range. You cant shrink the 787 because of the systems. You need volume to handle the systems on the 787. With this study, we really need breakthroughs. quot 3 May 2008 - Boeing Completes 737 Carbon Brakes Certification Testing Next-Generation 737 Operators Benefit from Reduced Weight, Emissions SEATTLE, May 02, 2008 -- Boeing NYSE:BA recently completed certification testing of new carbon brakes designed for the Next-Generation 737 airplane family by French supplier Messier-Bugatti. A Next-Generation 737-900ER (Extended Range) airplane is shown performing a high-speed rejected takeoff test, designed to verify that an airplane at maximum weight with greatly worn brakes can stop safely after a refused takeoff decision. Boeing will submit the test results to the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration for certification the second quarter this year. Entry into production is expected by third quarter. Boeing will offer a retrofit program for airplanes already in service. Through a month-long test program, Boeing reached its goal to show equivalent performance between steel and carbon brakes, and verified a weight savings of 700 pounds (320 kg) compared to high-capacity steel brakes for Next-Generation 737-700800900ERs, and 550 pounds (250 kg) on standard-capacity steel brakes for Next-Generation 737-600700s. Reduced weight contributes to reductions in associated fuel burn and CO2 emissions depending on airline operations. The Messier-Bugatti carbon brakes are available as a new feature. 27 Apr 2008 - Arlanda and Brisbane Airports Pursue RNP and 4D Trajectories By David Hughes Aviation Week amp Space Technology The key building blocks of global air traffic system modernization should be deployed at airports on two continents by year-end. The pioneering projects show why theres no need to wait a decade or more to lower fuel burn, emissions and noise while boosting runway capacity. The 4D trajectories (4DTs) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approaches are being implemented at Arlanda Airport here and Brisbane Airport in Australia. These medium-size facilities are good testbeds because of their mixed traffic and complex airspace. Scandinavian Airlines Boeing 737NGs are using 4D flight paths at Arlanda along with continuous-descent, or quotgreen, quot approaches. (quot4Dquot denotes the three spatial dimensions plus a required time of arrival over the threshold.) SAS has logged about 2,000 green approaches with area navigation (RNAV). Qantas, meanwhile, has exploited more precise satellite guidance during more than 8,000 RNP RNAV approaches at Brisbane, with the resulting savings in fuel and emissions (see p. 56). The LFV Group, Swedens air navigation service provider, is leading the Arlanda effort with SAS, while Airservices Australia is overseeing the Brisbane project with Qantas. Now SAS and LFV plan to add RNP to the 4DT demonstrations in the second half of this year, and Qantas will include 4DT in its RNP demos, according to Capt. Alex Passerini, the technical pilot in charge of Qantass 737 fleet. Airservices has not yet made a firm commitment to the 4DT effort but is talking to Qantas about assisting. Both Arlanda and Brisbane will then probably showcase the best of both techniques. The two airports fielding of RNP and 4DT later this year contrasts markedly with the timelines of Europes Sesar (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) program and the U. S.s NextGen modernization effort. Their program-completion targets are 2020 and 2025, respectively. But as many ATC experts assert, technology is not a hurdle for Sesar and NextGen: Much of it is already available, and at Arlanda and Brisbane, the idea is to use it now. Its noteworthy that the air navigation expertise needed to make 4DT happen at both airports comes from a small, advanced technology consulting company - Avtech - in the suburbs of Stockholm (see p. 55). And the RNP know-how is from another small company - Naverus in Kent, Wash. Not surprisingly, Avtech and Naverus are strategic partners on a wide range of advanced air navigation projects around the world. 4DT involves the transmission of the aircrafts quotreference business trajectoryquot (see drawing on p. 54) to controllers, who approve it whenever possible but often with adjustments to the time when the aircraft is required to touch down. RNP involves the use of GPS to position the aircraft on a precise flight track that can take the aircraft to 250 ft. AGL on a customized path that reduces track miles flown. Avtech leaders Lars Lindberg and Christer Staaf are confident that 4DT is much closer to being implemented permanently in day-to-day operations than many people realize. And the RNP procedures Naverus has designed for Qantas, Air New Zealand, Air China, WestJet and others are already proving that the technique is mature and ready for applications that are not fully understood in much of the civil aviation community. At Arlanda, the RNP4DT combination is expected to be much more than some laboratory experiment writ large. quotWe have passed the laboratory stage, quot says Lindberg, even though his companys 737 simulator is being used to refine the algorithms and procedures. And now, two other European airnav service providers are involved in the combined RNP4DT flights that will start soon. NATS of the U. K. and the Netherlands LVNL will help to design the flight trials, so the results will show how the same operational concepts would work at London Heathrow and Amsterdam Schiphol. Lindberg says RNP and 4DT could facilitate mixed-mode operations at Heathrow so that takeoffs and landings could be performed on the same runway - a move that British Airways and BAA Ltd. which operates Heathrow, have said could boost capacity there by 15. Arlandas 4DT project started in 2006 with funding from the European Commission. Partners were LFV, SAS, Avtech, Boeing Research and Technology Center of Madrid, Rockwell Collins France and GE Aviation. During 2006-07, 2,000 green approaches were flown into Arlanda. These continuous-descent procedures keep aircraft at cruise altitude longer compared with conventional approaches, and then bring them down at or near idle power until they are configured for landing. The flights used a sequencing tool called Collaborative Information Exchange System to allow controllers to interact with the aircraft over an Acars (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) data link, starting about an hour before touchdown. Lindberg says Acars is suitable for the current demonstrations even though its not designed for time-critical applications. The next generation of data link, coming with Sesar, will clearly improve this aspect of operations. Once the trajectory is downlinked to the ground, the controller can see the path that the aircraft intends to follow. If the estimated time of arrival is in conflict with the needs of other arriving traffic, the controller can make adjustments and send a revision (known as a required time of arrival, or RTA) back to the cockpit. From 1 hr. before landing, controllers have what Staaf calls quotsix minutes of control authority. quot This means the controller can command the airplane to speed up or slow down to hit an RTA within a 6-min. window. quotThis enables the air transportation system to work like a real logistics system, quot says Lindberg. Controllers can direct aircraft (similar to packages in a supply chain) to arrive at a certain runway quotjust in timequot much more efficiently than they can now. Currently, controllers sort out the lineup of aircraft when theyre at low altitude (burning lots of fuel) by giving the pilots radar vectors, notes Staaf. Now, as time-based operations are being added to the mix at Arlanda, the focus is shifting to Eurocontrols CTA (controlled time of arrival) ATM System Integration Studies, or Cassis. This 15-month project involving flight trials at Arlanda will start next month using an RNP procedure to Runway 26 with 4DT techniques and wind uplinks. The 4D trajectory thats sent to the ground comes from the flight management system (FMS) made by General Electric. GE modified the software in the FMS (formerly a Smiths product) and introduced the quotintent busquot that makes it possible to send the trajectory calculation to the ground. It includes not just a series of waypoints, but a much more complete set of data defining the aircrafts intended trajectory from cruise altitude to touchdown. This is called the quotreference business trajectoryquot because it reflects what the airline is seeking in a flight path for the greatest efficiency in the way it wants to run its operation. For example, the flight management computer has a cost index set by the airlines to balance the time-variable cost versus the fuel cost. The data set includes everything from the Vref approach speed to when the aircraft will be configured for landing, and even the exact radius of each turn the airplane will make. The computers on various flight decks form a distributed network linked to the ground where a computer can mesh all the data into an overall arrival sequence for review and approval by a controller. Avtech believes distributed computing produces a better arrival sequence than having a computer on the ground devise all the flight paths by itself with no input from the aircraft, and then transmitting instructions to the flight decks. The other method is the quottailored arrivalquot concept now being tested at San Francisco and Miami international airports. Lindberg points out that when ATC calculates all the flight paths on the ground and uplinks them to the cockpit, this creates a much quotheavierquot data-transfer load. The Sesar modernization effort sees the quotbusiness trajectoryquot as the quotcoin of the realmquot that will be the keystone of how flight operations will be run in the future. Controllers will allow the airplane to fly the requested path whenever possible. The holy grail is to increase the number of aircraft an airport can handle. By relying on automation, quotwe can deliver that required time of arrival at the runway day in and day out, and increase airport capacity, quot says Lindberg. Using 4DT techniques and interleaving takeoffs and landings, many runways could achieve up to 30 landings and 30 takeoffs per hour, he asserts. By interleaving operations, the quothighly efficientquot Gatwick is already at 50 movements per hour on the airports only runway, he says. In the next phase of flight demonstrations, GE will add an avionics box to an SAS 737 to record all of the calculations going on inside the flight management computer. Until now, the partners relied on data from a quick-access recorder, but information from this new box quotwill give us all of the answers to whats going on in the FMS and help us understand wind effects on the approach, quot says Lindberg. The green trials started in 2006 in low traffic with SAS 737s but the next phase will target higher traffic periods at Arlanda and will include other legacy aircraft that arent equipped with the GE FMS. SAS MD-80s, for example, will send the estimated time of arrival data from a Honeywell FMS via Acars. MD-80 pilots will make speed adjustments to arrive at an initial approach fix within 30 sec. of the required time. Avtech is now talking to other airlines about joining the 4DT project, and Lindberg expects some Airbus aircraft to join using Thales-GE FMS equipment. Many of the upcoming tests with time-based operations and RNP will be devoted to refining techniques to make runway-arrival times even more consistent. One area of analysis will be to study how pilots might deploy flaps and slats to achieve a required arrival time. Another area of interest is to improve the wind data used by the flight management computer to calculate the aircrafts arrival time based on a particular trajectory. For the wind calculations, a new Avtech-developed software tool, called Aventus NowCast, uplinks selected weather forecast data along the route of flight to the cockpit. The FMS uses the wind information to adjust the top-of-descent point. Avtech is building on NASA Amess 1980s work with a 737 testbed and has improved this wind-reporting technique with computer modeling. The GE FMS can accept wind reports at three points along the flight path, and Avtech has learned that having the software select the right points is critical. If they are wrong, the wind data may actually make the approach timing worse than it would have been without the data. (Some of the information comes from other aircraft reporting what they encounter. During one day at Arlanda, 5,000 weather data reports may be received by Aventus from aircraft.) The tool was demonstrated in the trials completed last year, and will be used and validated by both SAS and Qantas. With better wind data and other refinements, Avtech and GE believe they can improve on the arrival time over the threshold thats now off by just yacuteyacute7 sec. on average. Capt. Peter Larsson, project leader for SASs Green Flight Program, says that with todays conventional procedures - radar vectors to an ILS - its normal that 95 of the aircraft cross the threshold at yacuteyacute12 min. of whats expected. The uncertainty factor has cost consequences in terms of gate allocation and scheduling everyone from caterers to luggage handlers. If the threshold-crossing time improves to yacuteyacute2 min. the airport would no longer have to reserve a gate for up to 50 min. to match a 30-min. aircraft turnaround. quotThe time-dimension part is even more valuable in terms of the money saved by the airline than the fuel savings, quot says Larsson. However, for the Avtech 4DT technique to quotgrow legs and walkquot to a large number of airports, it will have to be a very robust procedure. quotWe are taking some important steps, but we have to move into peak traffic periods, quot says Lindberg. SAVINGS OVER TRADITIONAL APPROACH Each Continuous Descent Approach (CDA) saves Each Required Navigation Performance approach saves 4-D trajectories make arrival time more predictable, allowing gate reservation times to be reduced. Each minute reduced saves 1,000 kronor (170). SourceS: Avtech and SAS 13 March 2008 - Boeing, partners will test 737 powered by biofuel The Boeing Co. announced 13 March 2008 that it has teamed with Continental Airlines and GE Aviation to test a 737 powered by a biofuel. quotExploring sustainable biofuels is a logical and exciting new step in our environmental commitment, quot Continental executive Mark Moran in a statement. The flight is scheduled for the first half of 2009. 7 Mar 08 - Luxell Technologies becomes risk-sharing partner to provide WheelTug electric wheel drive for 737NG and takes equity stake Canadian manufacturer Luxell Technologies has become a risk-sharing partner for WheelTugs electric wheel drive for Boeing 737NG ground manoeuvring, after agreeing to supply the cockpit controls interface kit and take an equity stake in the company after quottimelyquot certification of the system. Ontario-headquartered Luxell manufactures and licences flat-panel display technologies and equipment for the defence and avionics industries. WheelTugs contract with Luxell is expected to last the lifetime of the WheelTug 737NG system. quotThe deal represents a part of our business strategy to expand into commercial avionics and demonstrate our display expertise to major players in that sector, quot says Luxell chief executive Jean-Louis Larmor. If the arrangement proves successful, says WheelTug chief executive Isaiah Cox, Luxell will be WheelTugs quotlikely partnerquot to develop electric wheel drive systems for other aircraft types. The partnership comes as WheelTug reveals it is in talks with other risk-sharing partners, covering the wire harness and inverters for the WheelTug system. Patented motors developed by WheelTugs parent, European manufacturer Chorus Motors, will comprise the core of the system, which will be built into the hubs of aircraft nose-wheels and take power from the auxiliary power unit (APU). This will give aircraft full ground mobility - forward and reverse with steering - without using engines or external tugs. The first motor designed specifically for 737NG aircraft will be ready for testing in May. WheelTug aims to secure supplemental type certification covering Boeing 737-600, -700, -800 and -900 aircraft. An FAA-approved project-specific certification plan (PSCP) has been tagged to be completed after deals with partners are in place. Although this plan delays the original strategy to have a PSCP in place this spring, it will not push back the entire certification programme, says Cox. WheelTug has been testing the equipment with US launch customer Delta Air Lines, which since early 2007 has assisted with time, resources and aircraft. This type of assistance is quotinvaluablequot, says Cox. Delta may yet make a financial investment, but the carrier has quotno financial incentive to exercise warrants until they come duequot, he says. Deltas TechOps maintenance, repair and overhaul division has first refusal on all installation and maintenance services within the USA once the system is certificated and deployed. Last year, WheelTug also formed an alliance with a French group, Association pour le Deacuteveloppement Durable dans lAviation Civile (ADDAC), to develop and certify the WheelTug system for the Airbus A320 family. quotWe are in discussions over a number of different aircraft, including the A320, regional jets and military aircraft, quot says Cox. quotBy the beginning of 2009, well be able to launch the second aircraft type, but it is equally likely to be a regional jet as it would be to be an A320.quot He notes that the system would be ideal for 757 manoeuvring. Because engine taxiing is reduced, environmental benefits could include savings, through fuel cuts, in emissions such as CO2 and NOx. For the system to be certified on any other aircraft type, says Cox, quotwe will at least have to have that level of assistance from an airlinequot as it has enjoyed with Delta. He declines to say whether WheelTug is in talks with Delta to provide the system for its regional jet fleet. Later this summer, WheelTug intends to begin offering delivery slots to other customers. At that point, specifications will be clear quotso an airline will know exactly what theyre gettingquot, says Cox. 16 Feb 2008 - Indias quotAir Force Onequot Herersquos some news for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In three months, he is getting a new office. What is more, he will be going places in it. And he will be better protected in it, have more elbow room, even play host to foreign visitorsmdashall without even being on Indian soil. The fact is, the Indian Air Force, in whose craft the top dignitaries of the country fly, is getting a spanking new home in the sky for the Indian Prime Minister. The first of three ultra luxury transport aircraft, the Boeing Business Jets (BBJ), ordered for a whopping Rs 734 crore, will arrive in May to join the VVIP squadron of the IAF that ferries the President, Prime Minister and top Cabinet ministers. While the Indian version of Air Force One is being kept under wraps by IAF due to ldquosecurity concernsrdquo, the aircraft is known to be fitted with a secure satellite communication centre, an advanced missile warning system and deflecting shield, electronic counter measures and radar warning systems. This means that when the PM travels on official work, he will be able to conduct meetings, hold press conferences, catch a wink of sleep and remain in constant audio and visual touch with New Delhi without leaving his aircraft. ldquoThe Boeing Business Jet is a specially configured aircraft for VVIP comfort. Its interiors create a working environment befitting the VVIPrsquos official stature. More importantly. it is equipped with the latest self-protection suite, thus providing our VIPs the highest level of protection from any ground-based or airborne threat, rdquo the Indian Air Force, tasked with maintaining and operating the VVIP fleet, says. While the older 737s do not have any self protection systems, the Embraer executive jets are reported to have limited protection against land-launched weapons and heat seeking missiles. The BBJs, on the other hand, have an ldquoextremely efficientrdquo missile protection suite and powerful electronic systems designed to confuse the incoming missile. The IAF refuses to share details, but the minimum systems on board will be an IR (Infra Red) sensor and jammer to track incoming missiles from a good distance to warn the pilot. This would also activate the counter measures unit that will dispense flares and decoys. Like the American Air Force One, the BBJ is also being fitted with electronic counter measures to jam enemy radars. The three BBJs have been specifically ordered to replace the Boeing 737-200s that were acquired in the 1980s for the use of the top dignitaries. Unlike the earlier craft with their limited resources, the BBJs have a range of close to 11,000 km and a maximum speed of 890 kmph. So they will be able to fly to most parts of the world without a refuelling stopover. This will be a massive change from the current lot of aircraft that fly VVIPs in the country. Both the Embraer executive jets and the Boeing 737s in the IAFrsquos inventory have a limited flying range and need to make numerous fuel stopovers during long flights. In fact, the Boeing 737s cannot even fly abroad due to outdated avionic systems and the lack of modern navigational aids. The arrival of the jets will also be a welcome relief for Air India as currently a regular commercial airliner has to be pulled out of service and ldquoretrofittedrdquo for VVIP duty whenever the President and Prime Minister fly abroad on tours. While the Embraersmdashfive of them were purchased for over Rs 650 crore in 2003mdashcan accommodate close to 20 passengers in a regular seating arrangement, the BBJ will carry more than twice that number in much more luxury. Once inside, the PM and his entourage will find a full-fledged flying office-cum-residence that can host up to 48 guests besides having a private bedroom for the VVIP, an executive office with Internet availability and secure communication connections. The 807 sq ft cabin has been customised with a stateroom and a separate meeting room, something that is inconceivable on the much smaller Embraer 135 Legacy jets that are used to transport VVIPs within the country and for short overseas hauls and the older generation Boeing 737-200s that fly dignitaries on the domestic circuit. While the three jets have already been delivered by Boeing to IAF in an unfurnished condition, the interiors of the aircraft are being customised at the PATS Aircraft completion center in Delaware, USA. ldquoPATS will install an interior that includes a stateroom, meeting room, communications centre and seating for 48 passengers, rdquo a Boeing statement said. The first of the BBJs, fitted with the highly classified missile avoidance systems and security suite, is currently being flight tested by the IAF in the US. After complete integration of the security package, the BBJ is expected to land at the Palam Airportmdashhome to the IAFrsquos elite Communications Squadron responsible for air travel by VVIPsmdashby the the first week of May. The other two jets are expected to arrive later in the year. It is not only a luxury craft for Indian VVIPs. The BBJ is being used by close to a dozen countries, including Australia, South Africa, Argentina and Malaysia to fly their heads of state. However, it pales in comparison to the home in the sky of the American President. The Air Force One, a highly modified Boeing 747, is not only much larger but also had a virtually unlimited range as it can carry out air to air refuelling. Besides conference rooms, resting areas and the Presidentrsquos residential quarters, the jumbo jet even has a gymnasium specially designed for long flights. The Indian Prime Ministerrsquos needs perhaps do not warrant a gymnasium. But when he climbs aboard his new carrier, there will surely be a new kick in his steps. 2 Nov 2007 - C-40B Missile Countermeasures System Installation The Boeing Company NYSE: BA has begun modifying the first of three U. S Air Force C-40B transport aircraft with a laser-based countermeasures system that defeats incoming infrared-seeking missiles. The Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures system, supplied by Northrop Grumman NYSE: NOC, protects large fixed-wing transports and small rotary-wing aircraft from infrared missile attacks by automatically detecting a missile launch, determining if it is a threat and activating a high-intensity countermeasures system to track and defeat the threat. The first installation is scheduled for completion in late February 2008, with the second and third modified aircraft slated for delivery in August and December of next year. The C-40B, a derivative of the Next-Generation 737-700 Boeing Business Jet, is designed to be an quotoffice in the skyquot for senior military leaders, providing broadband datavideo transmit-and-receive capability as well as clear and secure voice and data communication. It enables combatant commanders to conduct business anywhere in the world using onboard Internet and local area network connections, improved telephones, satellites, television monitors and fax machines. 18 Oct 2007 - Flight Deck Windscreen Inspections WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U. S. aviation authorities advised airlines on Wednesday to inspect cockpit windows on Boeing Co. 737s after two were damaged in flight, causing one plane to lose cabin pressure. The proposed airworthiness directive follows similar action in July on all Boeing 747 jetliners after a cockpit window fell out, causing a rapid loss of cabin pressure and an emergency landing. The FAA recommended repeated inspections of nearly 800 737-series models in the U. S. fleet to detect any cracks in vinyl supports or damage to glass panes. There are another 1,800 planes flown by airlines overseas that would qualify for inspections. Boeing alerted airlines to the problem in May and recommended action. The FAA said it received reports of partial window separations on two 737s. One experienced a loss of cabin pressure at 12,500 feet when edges of a window came loose. The other was flying at 29,000 feet when a similar failure occurred. There are several windows in a 737 cockpit. In addition, the FAA is concerned that cracked vinyl supports would make the window more vulnerable to failing if struck by birds. 06 Sep 2007 - Boeing Successfully Completes First Test Flight of AEWampC Peace Eagle Aircraft Boeing has conducted a successful first test flight of a 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWampC) aircraft for Turkeys Peace Eagle program. During the 2.5-hour flight from Boeing Field in Seattle, pilot Regis Hancock and first officer Randon Stewart performed a series of functional tests that verified the airworthiness of the aircrafts systems and structures. The flight follows major aircraft modifications, including the installation of an advanced antenna, ventral fins and mission system equipment. quotThis is a major milestone for the program and a big step forward in our development and testing of this critical capability for our Turkish customer. We planned the flight almost a year ago and achieved it on schedule, quot said Mark Ellis, Boeing Peace Eagle program manager. Additional functional test flights are planned in the coming weeks, leading to mission system flight testing in the fall. The Peace Eagle program includes four 737 AEWampC aircraft plus ground support segments for mission crew training, mission support and system maintenance. Modification of the first aircraft is under way at Boeing facilities in Seattle. TUSAS Aerospace Industries in Ankara, Turkey, will modify the remaining three aircraft The 737-700 features 21st century avionics, navigation equipment and flight deck features. Because of its advanced technology, the aircraft requires minimal downtime for maintenance. The 737 series has a worldwide base of suppliers, parts and support equipment. The aircraft also is equipped with Northrop Grummans Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array antenna with integrated identification friend-or-foe capabilities. The system also includes a flexible, open architecture for cost-effective future upgrades, an extensive communications suite and aerial refueling capability 6 Jul 2007 - GE Aviations Flight Management System Enables Green Operations Landing Approach System Reduces CO2, NOx Emissions By 20 Percent Airlines operating Boeing 737s in Europe have been given the quotgreen lightquot to use an optimized landing approach that is designed to significantly reduce the amount of fuel used during arrival and approach operations, thereby reducing CO2 and NOx emissions by roughly 20 percent compared to standard arrival procedures. The quotAdvanced Continuous Descent Approachquot (A-CDA), also known as the quotGreen Approach, quot is the result of GE Aviations Systems divisions (formerly Smiths Aerospace) participation in Europes NUP2 project, where select 737 aircraft in Sweden are allowed to employ GEs Flight Management System (FMS) to fly the aircraft at idle thrust from cruise through landing, according to the company. quotOur FMS on Boeing 737s is another example of how committed we are to developing technology solutions that not only benefit customers, but are also kind to the environment, quot said Dr. John Ferrie, GE Aviation systems president. quotGiven the issues we face with growing air traffic congestion and increasing green house gases worldwide, the appropriate use of FMS to help remedy the situation is a clear and valuable option. quot GEs FMS on the Boeing 737 features a 4-dimensional trajectory downlink for use by air traffic controllers to manage traffic flow using precision positioning and time guidance, known as Required Time of Arrival (RTA), to the runway threshold. Combined, these features enable the creation of flight profiles that are optimal for operators as well as the environment -- increasing efficiency, providing fuel savings, and dramatically reducing greenhouse gas and noise emissions. Scandinavian Airlines already uses the FMS for operations into Stockholm. The carrier said its estimates annual benefits for flights arriving at Stockholm Arlanda airport, could reach 6 million in fuel savings with an additional 6 million in cost avoidance due to the increased efficiency and punctuality of aircraft using the FMS. Flights over the North Atlantic will commence during the latter part of 2007, and will also involve aircraft manufacturer Airbus. quotOur concept and technology facilitate the efficient implementation of green flights and we believe that in the future additional airlines will adopt our ideas and work methods to include more airports primarily in Sweden and the Nordic region, and also have a greater impact in Europe, quot said the carrier. The carrier said it expects the Green Approach to achieve annual emission reductions of more than 25,000 tons of CO2 and 87 tons of NOx comparable to the yearly emissions of 5,100 automobiles. 13 June 2007 - Boeing Begins Mission System Flight Testing of First Australian Wedgetail Aircraft The Boeing Company has begun flight testing the mission system aboard the first 737 airborne early warning and control (AEWampC) aircraft for Australiarsquos Project Wedgetail. During an initial four-hour flight from Boeing Field in Seattle on June 6, the crew conducted a series of functional tests as part of a program to measure the mission systemrsquos impact on the aircraftrsquos power generation capability and environmental controls, such as the liquid and air cooling systems. The mission system includes the radar, navigation, communications and computing subsystems. Boeing will flight test the aircraft several days a week for the next month over land and water, while the mission system is used in a manner similar to an AEWampC operational mission. The next phase of the flight test program aboard aircraft No. 1 is scheduled for later this year when it joins aircraft No. 2 as a test bed for system-level developmental testing. Australia has purchased six 737 airborne early warning and control aircraft. Delivery of the first two aircraft is scheduled for March 2009. The remaining four aircraft will be delivered later that year. The 737 AEWampC, designed to provide airborne battle management capability with 10 state-of-the-art mission system consoles, is based on the Boeing Next Generation 737-700 and features 21st century avionics, navigation equipment and flight deck enhancements. Northrop Grummanrsquos Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar is the critical sensor aboard the 737 AEWampC. The MESA array is designed to provide optimal performance in range, tracking and accuracy. The radar is able to track airborne and maritime targets simultaneously. 10 June 2007 - Boeing says 737 replacement not expected before 2015 Boeing expects airframe technology will play as crucial a role as new clean-burning engines in developing a replacement for its best-selling 737, providing a potential advantage over Airbus in the race to design the next generation of single-aisle aircraft. The two rivals are developing replacements for their 737 and A320 families, which are the workhorses of global airline fleets and account for half of the 3,200bn in aircraft deliveries forecast between now and 2025. Engine manufacturers are struggling to develop new power plants to meet ever more exacting efficiency standards, as well as tighter emission and environmental demands. Over the past two decades, in contrast, improvements in engine technology have led the way in developing quieter, more fuel-efficient aircraft. Boeing now believes the new airframe technology, using composite carbon-fibre pioneered on its 787 widebody jet, will be just as important as the engines. The 787 is due to enter service next year but the 737 and A320 replacements are not expected before the middle of the next decade at the earliest. quotI think the introduction of composites has raised the ability of the airframe to make a difference. and really puts it on a par with the engine development, quot said Jim McNerney, chairman and chief executive of Boeing. Boeing and its partners in the 787 programme already have an advantage over Airbus in building airframes using composites, which replace most of the traditional aluminium structures. The materials are lighter and more durable, and can be assembled faster. Mr McNerney admitted in an interview with the Financial Times that the American company had yet to finalise the transfer of the 787 technology to developing a replacement for the 737, the worlds best-selling commercial aircraft. The FT revealed last year that Boeing was working with key 737 customers including Southwest, Ryanair and Gol on the replacement, dubbed the 797. quotI think the market knows what it wants, quot said Mr McNerney, pointing to a 20-25 per cent improvement in the operating costs and environmental footprint compared with the existing 737 family. quotThe technology component will be slightly different than for the 787. We havent totally figured that out, quot he said. 26 Apr 2007 - Boeing Next-Generation 737-900ER Receives FAA Certification The newest member of the Boeing Next-Generation 737 family, the 737-900ER (Extended Range), earned type certification from the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration on April 20. The 737 derivative incorporates an extra pair of exit doors to increase the maximum passenger capacity, a flat aft-pressure bulkhead to increase interior volume, a two-position tailskid for improved takeoff and landing capability, wing strengthening changes to accommodate the 13,500 pound maximum takeoff weight increase, enhancements to the leading and trailing edge flap systems for improved takeoff and landing capability, and optional Blended Winglets and auxiliary fuel tanks that increase the range of the 737-900ER to 3,200 nautical miles (5,925 km). The airplane is certified to carry up to 220 passengers in a single-class configuration. On July 18, 2005, Indonesias Lion Air launched the higher capacity, longer range Next-Generation 737-900ER with an order for 30 airplanes. Airlines have ordered more than 100 Next-Generation 737-900ERs to date. 20 Mar 2007 - Boeing Completes Subsystem Integration on Australian Wedgetail Aircraft ST. LOUIS, March 20, 2007 -- The Boeing Company NYSE: BA has completed the integration of major subsystems aboard a 737 airborne early warning and control ( AEWampC ) aircraft for Australias Project Wedgetail. The subsystems include communications, navigation, mission computing, radar and electronic warfare self protection. Boeing conducted tests aboard the aircraft and at its System Integration Lab in Kent, Wash. using a variety of simulations. quotThe tests demonstrated that the systems worked separately and together, and that they were compatible with the aircraft, quot said Ross Dessert, Boeing Wedgetail program manager. Integration is a major step toward functional checkout of the AEWampC system with the aircraft at the end of April. FAA certification and qualification testing are scheduled for this summer. Ongoing integration of the Electronic Support Measures ( ESM ) subsystem will continue through functional checkout. ESM is a passive sensor that detects electronic signals. Boeing will deliver the first two of six Wedgetail aircraft to Australia in March 2009, and the remaining four aircraft by mid-2009. Turkey and the Republic of Korea also have purchased four 737 AEWampC aircraft each. The 737-700 features 21st century avionics, navigation equipment and flight deck features. Because of its advanced technology, the aircraft requires minimal downtime for maintenance. The 737 series is one of the most popular and reliable jet aircraft in the world, resulting in a worldwide base of suppliers, parts and support equipment. The aircraft also is equipped with Northrop Grummans Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array antenna with integrated identification friend or foe capabilities. The system also includes a flexible, open architecture for cost-effective future upgrades, an extensive communications suite and aerial refueling capability. 13 Mar 2007 - 737-800SFP Flight Spoiler Jams AD Sticky Spoilers On SFP-Equipped Aircraft To Blame The FAA has issued Emergency airworthiness directive (AD) 2007-06-51 to all owners and operators of Boeing Model 737-800 series airplanes. The agency states it has received a report of seven flight spoiler actuator jams on Model 737-800 Short Field Performance (SFP) airplanes. quotTwo reports involved in-service airplanes that were discovered during a routine maintenance walk-around and were believed to have occurred on the previous landing during auto speedbrake extension, quot the AD states. quotFive other reports occurred during spoiler system testing at Boeing prior to delivery. An additional two reports of spoiler actuator input lever binding were identified during bench testing after Boeing began to investigate this issue. quot The agency adds two in-service failures of flight spoilers resulted in the spoilers not retracting after the speedbrake handle was moved to the DOWN position after landing, on a Boeing Model 737-800 airplane equipped with an SFP package. In both of those cases, the spoiler was discovered in the full-extended position during a routine maintenance walk-around. The spoiler remained in the full-extended position after cycling of the speedbrake handle. quotFurther investigation revealed that the spoiler actuator failure is most likely to occur when the speedbrakes are deployed on the ground (automatically or manually) for either a rejected takeoff or normal landing. The takeoff configuration warning will not sound if any flight spoiler remains extended with the speedbrake handle in the DOWN position. quot The FAA states the cause of the failure has been identified as interference within the actuator main control valve. This condition, if not corrected, could result in a spoiler actuator hardover, which could cause the spoiler surface to jam in the fully extended position. Two or more hardover failures of the spoiler surfaces in the up direction on the same wing, if undetected prior to takeoff, can cause significant roll and consequent loss of control of the airplane 13 Feb 2007 - satLINK Iridiumtrade Communications Certified for Installation on Boeing 737 Fleet Avionica is pleased to announce Boeing 737 STC availability for satLINK, the Iridiumtrade satellite-based voice and data communications alternative. FAA STC ST03386AT has been granted to Avionics Support Group (ASG), who now offer our mutual customers both kit fabrication and installation for this product. Launch customer Miami Air recently commenced installations, as will our newest satLINK customer, Continental Airlines. Reliable, global, real-time voice and data communications are finally possible. Iridium is expected to gain its FAA safety certification in May, 2007, making it acceptable as an ATC communications alternative. quotThis is an excellent, affordable communications solution for airlines flying outside the range of HF stations, and even for Inmarsat-equipped aircraft flying polar routesquot, notes Avionicarsquos president, Raul Segredo. quotIt also fills the gap left by Verizonrsquos exit from the in-flight telephone business - satLINK is an excellent solution for emergency air-ground communications, like in-flight medical emergency managementquot. satLINK may be installed with either a dedicated audio handset, or integrated into the aircraftrsquos audio system using the audio panel. headset, and mic push-to-talk keys for control. The cabin handset option is a uniquely functional feature - it uses VoIP technology over the Cabin Wireless LAN (CWLU) option. And each aircraft can be addressed with a unique telephone number, ensuring it can not only place calls, but also be selectively called. satLINK not only provides an Iridium connection, it also manages communications traffic, routing it based on network availability and criticality, ensuring the most economical transmission of data. Since over 60 of ACARS transmissions often occur on the ground, significant savings can be achieved by routing them over 802.11 wireless. Unlike ACARS, Iridium data channels are dedicated. ACARS is shared, and as more and more customers are signed under flat-fee contracts, availability can only decline. quotThe Iridium constellation is the ATC messaging backbone of the futurequot, notes Raul. satLINK provides gateway connectivity between a variety of aircraft communications network types, including ARINC 429, ARINC 618, ARINC 619, Ethernet, and 802.11 wireless. satLINK bridges all these networks to Iridium and to each other. A shared or (optionally) dedicated audio channel is also included. satLINK can provide GPS position data to the Ethernet bus. as well as an 802.11 cabin wireless access point. Avionica, Inc. specializes in complete flight data management solutions. Products include secureLINK, the airborne wireless Ethernet router, the miniQAR, the worldrsquos first miniature quick access flight data recorder, the RSU II, a handheld flight-data recorder monitoring and download tool, AVSCAN. flight, a commercial and military flight data analysis tool, USB429win, a USB ARINC 429 databus analyzer, and LOAD615win, the USB-based ARINC 615 portable dataloader. 24 Jan 2007 - F-35 LIGHTNING II AVIONICS TEST BED TAKES WING MOJAVE, California mdash The Joint Strike Fighter Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CATB), a 737-300 aircraft extensively modified by BAE Systems, successfully completed its maiden flight Jan. 23 at Mojave, California. The flight capped a nearly three-year effort to transform a commercial airliner into a flying laboratory for Lockheed Martinrsquos F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter. The 737 aircraft, also known as the ldquoCAT-Bird, rdquo is a flying test bed that replicates the F-35 avionics suite. The CATB will develop and verify the F-35rsquos capability to collect data from multiple sensors and fuse it into a coherent situational awareness display in a dynamic airborne environment. ldquoTodayrsquos flight caps what has been a significant technical challenge, rdquo said John Wall, BAE Systems CATB program director in Mojave, where the work was performed. ldquoThe CAT-Bird is helping the Lightning II take its place as the premier fighter aircraft serving the U. S. and multi-nation partners for decades to come. rdquo The CAT-Bird now begins a one-month test flight phase to prove the aerodynamics of the converted airliner mdash an important validation because of modifications to the craft made to accommodate the avionics test requirements. These include the addition of a nose extension to simulate that of the F-35, a 42-foot-long spine on the top, a 10-foot ldquocanoerdquo on the bottom to accommodate electronic equipment, and twin 12-foot sensor wings that replicate the leading edge of the F-35rsquos wings. The inside of the plane also was transformed. An F-35 cockpit will allow the sensor inputs to be displayed as they would be in the fighter itself. The rest of the interior houses equipment racks for the avionics equipment, and 20 workstations for technicians to assess the performance of the avionics. ldquoThe CAT-Bird is a vitally important and powerful tool in Lockheed Martinrsquos arsenal for early risk mitigation and maturation of the F-35,rdquo said Doug Pearson, Lockheed Martinrsquos vice president of the F-35 Integrated Test Force. ldquoIt allows us to concurrently develop and integrate mission systems hardware and software well before it is installed on F-35s. We congratulate BAE Systems on todayrsquos successful first flight and look forward to many years of productive flight test operation. rdquo Todayrsquos flight was the first of about 20 sorties that will comprise CAT-Birdrsquos initial test phase. After conclusion of some additional modification work, and the initial flight test phase, the B-737 CATB will transition to its home base and begin test operations at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth, Texas. The CAT-Bird will be used to develop and evaluate the F-35s extensive sensor architecture. 9 Jan 2007 - Rockwell Collins announce EVS offering for BBJ SEATTLE (January 09, 2007) - Boeing NYSE: BA Business Jets and Rockwell Collins today introduced an Enhanced Vision System (EVS) offering for Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) operators. The offering will be available to BBJ customers through Boeing and Rockwell Collins service bulletins, and certification for the system is expected by early 2008. Rockwell Collins EVSThe Rockwell Collins EVS presents an image (shown at right) of the external environment on the Head-up Guidance System (HGSreg) and head-down displays to enhance pilot situational awareness of terrain and the airport environment in low-visibility situations. When displayed on the HGS, EVS allows the pilot to descend below minimums, if the visual references to the intended runway are visible using the EVS. quotThe EVS upgrade will increase safety and operational capability of the aircraft by enhancing situational awareness at night or in poor weather conditions, quot said John Desmond, vice president, Rockwell Collins HGS. quotWe look forward to working closely with Boeing to deliver this offering to their BBJ customers. quot quotBoeing is pleased to collaborate with Rockwell Collins to provide EVS capability on BBJs, quot said Boeing Business Jets President Steven Hill. quotBoeing constantly evaluates and adds cutting-edge technology that brings value to our customers and enhances the performance and efficiency of a great product like the BBJ. quot Rockwell Collins has teamed with Max-Viz to complete the certification of EVS on the BBJ. Rockwell Collins will incorporate a Max-Viz multi-wavelength infrared sensor into the Rockwell Collins HGS. BBJ operators that upgrade to the new EVS system will require an upgrade to their HGS 4000, as well as the infrared camera. Rockwell Collins (NYSE: COL) is a pioneer in the development and deployment of innovative communication and aviation electronics solutions for both commercial and government applications. Rockwell Collinsrsquo expertise in flight deck avionics, cabin electronics, mission communications and information management and simulation and training is strengthened by 18,000 employees, and a global service and support network that crosses 27 countries. To find out more, visit rockwellcollins. The BBJ is a product of a joint venture formed in July 1996 by The Boeing Company and General Electric Co. The BBJ is a high-performance derivative of the commercially successful Next-Generation 737-700. There are currently 88 BBJs in service around the world. The fleet has generated more than 215,000 cumulative flight hours and 84,000 flights while maintaining an industry-leading 99.9 percent dispatch reliability rate. 4 Jan 2007 - First Boeing Next-Generation 737-700ER Rolls Out of Factory The first Boeing Next-Generation 737-700ER (Extended Range) completed final assembly and rolled out of the Renton, Wash. manufacturing facility Jan. 2. The airplane receives a painted livery and goes through preflight testing before delivery to launch customer ANA (All Nippon Airways) in early 2007. The Next-Generation 737-700ER is inspired by the Boeing Business Jet and is designed for long-range commercial applications. Cabin configuration is flexible, and may range from a 48-person, all-business-class cabin, as an example, to a more traditional 126-seat count to suit the airlines needs. The high-performance derivative can fly up to 2,145 nautical miles farther than the current 737-700. With up to nine auxiliary fuel tanks and optional Blended Winglets, the Next-Generation 737-700ER is capable of flying 5,510 nautical miles. 25 Dec 2006 - ANA to Launch BusinessJet Service Worlds First Boeing 737-700ER on Nagoya-Guangzhou in March 2007 To better serve the needs of the international business traveller, ANA will launch a new service called ANA BusinessJet when it takes delivery of the worlds first Boeing 737-700ER. The 48 seat aircraft will be fitted with 24 business class and 24 economy class seats, both in a 2-2 configuration. Club ANA BJ will feature seats with a pitch of 61 inches - similar to that on ANA intercontinental services, and Economy BJ seats will have a pitch of 38 inches. The seats will be 20.6 inches and 20.5 inches wide respectively. This 737-700ER, of which ANA is the launch customer, will be used to open ANAs fifth international route from Nagoyas Centrair Airport to Guangzhou from March 25,2007, serving on a daily basis. This will bring the number of China routes plied by ANA to a total of 20, with 147 flights per week. We are introducing the 737-700 as part of our commitment to flying the most efficient, customer pleasing and environmentally friendly fleet of next generation aircraft, said ANA President and CEO, Mineo Yamamoto. With the new 737-700ER we can offer a product tailored for the business community, and at the same time secure the cost benefits derived from streamlining our narrow body fleet into one family of aircraft, he continued. 17 Nov 2006 - 737-300 Advanced cockpit from Universal Avionics receives FAA certification Boeing 737-300F Flight Deck shown with newly installed Universal Avionics EFI-890R Displays, Dual UNS-1F FMS and Class A Terrain Awareness amp Warning System. Universals Synthetic Vision System can be seen displayed on the Pilotrsquos PFD and the Copilots Navigation Display. Tucson, AZ ndash November 11, 2006 ndash Universal Avionics along with Commercial Jet, Inc. (CJI) and ARC Avionics (ARC) announced today that the first Boeing 737-300F EFI-890R flat panel display flight deck retrofit received FAA STC approval on October 19, 2006. The installation of 4-Universal Avionics EFI-890 flat panel displays, the Vision-1trade Synthetic Vision System, dual UNS-1F Flight Management Systems, Class A Terrain Awareness amp Warning System was seamlessly integrated with the existing autopilot. A follow-on certification will add Universal Avionics TSOrsquod amp STCrsquod Application Server Unit. This server unit provides weather graphics, charts, checklists and E-Docs to be displayed on the EFI-890R Navigation Display. The core of this system is the Universal EFI-890 high-definition LCD display. This 8.9rdquo diagonal display is the only large display system capable of both Synthetic Vision and Electronic Charts on the market today. In addition, flexible interface capability and ease of installation means a lower ldquoout the doorrdquo price than competitive products. ldquoThe B737-300F Advanced Cockpit offers our customers a new standard for operational capability, flight safety, reliability and for fleet operators, standardization, rdquo said Iso Nesaj General Manager Commercial Jet, Inc. The ARC Avionics and Commercial Jet, Inc. teams are co-located at the Miami International Airport. They were responsible for all aspects of the Advanced Cockpit installation including design, fabrication and certification. ARC is comprised of DAR, DER, DMIR, FAA licensed AampP mechanics and FCC licensed avionics technicians. During the past 20 years, ARC has established a reputation for quality and expertise. Today ARC Avionics is recognized as a leading provider of avionics engineering services. CJI specializes in complete airframe inspections, passenger to cargo conversions, heavy maintenance repairmodifications, interior modifications and avionics upgrade programs for a wide variety of commercial aircraft. CJI takes pride in maintaining a high standard of quality, workmanship, reliability and satisfaction for its worldwide customer base. 16 Oct 2006 BBJ3 Officially Launched Boeing Business Jets today celebrates its 10-year anniversary by launching the newest member of its business jet family -- the BBJ 3. The airplane, which is based on the new Next-Generation 737-900ER (Extended Range), won two orders from undisclosed customers. Boeing does not reveal the identity of BBJ owners at the request of its customers. The new BBJ 3 is the largest BBJ family member and offers 1,120 square feet (104 square meters) of cabin space, 35 percent more than the BBJ and 11 percent more than the BBJ 2. With up to eight auxiliary fuel tanks, the BBJ 3 has a maximum range of 5,475 nautical miles (10,140 km). In addition to the two BBJ 3 orders, Boeing Business Jets has secured 10 new orders for BBJs in the last 11 months, bringing total program sales to 114 airplanes. This has been a remarkable year for the BBJ, Boeing Business Jets President Steven Hill said during a media briefing at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Convention and Exhibition in Orlando. Since last years NBAA, we have won 12 new orders. The continued success of the BBJ is validation of the airplanes value to its owners. And I cant think of a better way to celebrate 10 years of success in the VIP market than with a new family member. A decade ago, Boeing and General Electric launched Boeing Business Jets, providing private owners, heads of state, corporate leaders and charter companies with a long-range airplane that offers three times the interior space of traditional business jets with similar range capability. Since then, Boeing Business Jets has become the eighth-largest Next-Generation 737 customer. Boeing Commercial Airplanes provides airplanes to Boeing Business Jets, which then delivers them green to a customer-selected completion center for interior configuration and paint. Private individuals comprise 43 percent of the BBJ customer base. About 35 percent are government heads of state, 12 percent are corporate operators and the remaining 10 percent are charter operators. The BBJ 3 joins an airplane family that includes the BBJ, which is a high-performance derivative of the 737-700, and the BBJ 2, which is based on the 737-800. The BBJ was launched July 2, 1996, and was followed by the BBJ 2 on Oct. 11, 1999. 27 Sep 2006 - Launch order for BBJ3 The first BBJ3, based on the 737-900ER, has received its first order. This is ahead of the formal launch expected at the NBAA meeting in Orlando, Fl. in October. 13 Sep 2006 - Boeing Considering Two 737 Replacements Boeing is weighing options for replacing its best-selling 737 and one scenario might include separate aircraft for two markets, the companys senior marketing official said on Wednesday. The 737 family covers the 110- to 200-seat range and is the most popular commercial plane ever with more than 5,000 produced in nearly four decades. There have been several 737 upgrades, including a major overhaul in the early 1990s. With airlines seeking variety in seating capacity and more fuel and operating efficiency, Boeing is studying how to meet expectations and continue to offer a workhorse for the short - and medium-haul market. A decision is nearly two years off and production several years away but one option under study, said Boeing marketing vice president Randy Baseler, is dipping into the under 100-seat market dominated by regional jets and satisfying customers who want more than 200 seats at the same time. Boeing currently does not manufacture a regional jet, a market dominated by Canadas Bombardier Inc and Brazils Embraer SA. Boeing would also compete with any changes by Europes Airbus, which now makes the A320 to compete with the 737. A Boeing foray into the 100-seat market with the 717 aircraft ended in May. The plane was initially a product of McDonnell Douglas and was renamed after Boeing absorbed that company in 1997. Baseler said Boeing first must determine whether it should replace the 737 -- one for one -- with another one-class single-aisle aircraft. He said the company is studying the 80 and 90-seat market and what regional jet manufacturers are planning for 100-seat aircraft. It could end up being it doesnt make any sense for us being in the 90 or 100-seat market, Baseler said. But if Boeing goes that way, Baseler said it will have to have two models to also satisfy airlines that want more than 200 seats. SEATTLE, Sept. 05, 2006 -- The newest member of the Boeing Next-Generation 737 airplane family took to the skies over Washington state Friday on its maiden flight. Painted in the Boeing blue-and-white livery, the 737-900ER (Extended Range) took off at 9:21 a. m. PDT from the Renton Municipal Airport in Renton, Wash. The first flight marks the beginning of a five-month flight test program to obtain certification of the airplane from the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency by early 2007. Boeing flight test pilots, Capts. Ray Craig and Van Chaney, flew the airplane west toward the Pacific Ocean, then south to Astoria, Ore. and over Washington states Olympic Peninsula before landing at Boeing Field in Seattle. The first flight tested the airplanes airworthiness, aerodynamic performance, stability and cruise performance. Flight controls, the autopilot, pressurization, avionics, air condition systems and the flight management computer also were checked during the flight. It was a near flawless flight, said Craig, following the one-hour, 45-minute flight. Weve been working on this airplane since 2001 and to see it come to fruition under budget and ahead of schedule is a great tribute to the Boeing engineering and manufacturing team. The 737-900ER flight test program will include a second test airplane, and the two jets are scheduled to accrue a total of 235 hours of flight testing and 210 hours of static ground testing. Both flight-test airplanes are scheduled to be delivered next year to Lion Air, the 737-900ER launch customer. To date, Boeing has won orders for 80 737-900ERs from Lion Air, GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS), Sky Airlines, Continental Airlines and SpiceJet. Additionally, Futura International Airways and Excel Airways will begin operating 737-900ERs on lease from GECAS in 2008. The 737-900ER incorporates a new pair of exit doors, a flat rear-pressure bulkhead and other structural and aerodynamic design changes that allow it to carry up to 215 passengers and fly up to 3,200 nautical miles (5,900 km). The 737-900ER will begin commercial service with Lion Air in the spring of 20. 29 Aug 2006 - RAAF AEWampC almost 2 years behind schedule - The Australian. The first of the RAAFs new Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft is now slated for delivery in August 2008, almost two years behind schedule. The latest setback to the 3.5billion project was confirmed yesterday by the Defence Department in response to a series of questions put by The Australian. Software integration problems are cited as the reason for the latest delay in delivery by US manufacturer Boeing. In a meeting with Boeing chief executive Jim Albaugh in June, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson expressed the federal Governments disappointment that the project had fallen behind schedule. After the meeting, Dr Nelson was assured of a new delivery date in early 2008 following testing problems with radar and sensor computer systems. The first two Wedgetail aircraft are now expected to be delivered in the August 2008 timeframe, Defence said. When Boeing announced the schedule delay in June, the company cited problems associated with sub-system integration, hardware reliability, radar and ESM maturity, and aircraft modification as the cause of the delay. This remains the case. Australia has ordered six of the state-of-the-art airborne early warning aircraft. Boeing is building the airframe based on its popular 737-700 commercial aircraft. The first two aircraft will be built in the US, while the other four will be assembled in Australia. Dr Nelson earlier warned that the Wedgetail contract included a provision for damages. But federal Opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland said cost was not the issue, rather the lack of capability, and that the new delay posed a very, very big problem for the RAAF. The air force was already looking at a gap in its air defence capability with the retirement of the F-111, Mr McClelland said. That gap was supposed to be bridged by the Wedgetail, whose role was to enhance the capability of the FA-18 fighter bomber. 31 Jul 2006 - First 737 with Short Field Design Enhancements Delivered SEATTLE, July 31, 2006 ndash Boeing on Friday delivered to GOL, Brazilrsquos low-fare, low-cost airline, the first Next-Generation 737 with enhanced short runway landing and takeoff capabilities. The 737-800 is the first of that model type delivered to GOL as the carrier augments capacity on domestic and regional international routes. It also is the first delivery of 67 737-800s the all-Boeing carrier has on order for delivery out to 2012. The airline currently operates 50 737s. We have worked with GOL to enhance the 737 and add value to its operations. Our partnership drove development of these enhancements that now will benefit the product line and many airlines around the world, said John Wojick, vice president Sales, Latin America and the Caribbean, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The 737 design enhancements allow operators to fly increased payload in and out of airports with runways less than 5,000 feet long. The design enhancements include a two-position tail skid that enables reduced approach speeds, sealed leading-edge slats that provide increased lift during takeoff, and increased flight spoiler deflection on the ground that improves takeoff and landing performance. Boeing helped us to expand our capacity on the most profitable route in Brazil, (Sao Paulo-Rio De Janeiro) while offering comfort and safety to our clients, rdquo said David Barioni, GOLrsquos vice president, technical. The short-field performance changes were developed starting in 2004 in response to GOLrsquos needs at Santos Dumont airstrip in Rio de Janeiro. That 4,300-foot runway is short compared to other runways and could not accommodate larger airplanes at higher approach speeds with full payloads. The short-field design package is an option on the 737-600, -700 and -800 and is standard equipment for the new 737-900ER. The enhancements increase payload capability for landing up to 8,000 pounds on the 737-800 and 737-900ER and up to 4,000 pounds on the 737-600 and 737-700. They also increase payload capability for takeoff up to 2,000 pounds on the 737-800 and 737-900ER and up to 400 pounds on the 737-600 and 737-700. To date, 11 customers have ordered the short-field performance package for more than 250 airplanes. In addition to GOL, Alaska Airlines, Air Europe, Air India, Egyptair, GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS), Hapagfly, Japan Airlines, Pegasus Airlines, Sky Airlines and Turkish Airlines are among some of the operators that have ordered the design package. 27 Jul 2006 - Boeing 737 Short Field Design Enhancements Earn FAA Certification Boeing design enhancements that increase the short-field performance of the Next-Generation 737 earned certification this week from the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration following a successful four-month flight-test program. European Aviation Safety Agency certification is expected to follow soon. Our ultimate goal is to help our customers succeed by offering them products that add value to their operations, said Mark Jenkins, vice president and general manager of 737 Airplane Production. The 737s short-field performance enhancements will allow airlines to generate more revenue. The 737 design enhancements allow operators to fly increased payload in and out of airports with runways less than 5,000 feet long. The design enhancements include a two-position tail skid that enables reduced approach speeds, sealed leading-edge slats that provide increased lift during takeoff, and increased flight spoiler deflection on the ground that improves takeoff and landing performance. The short-field design package is an option on the 737-600, -700 and -800 and is standard equipment for the new 737-900ER. The enhancements increase payload capability for landing up to 8,000 pounds on the 737-800 and 737-900ER and up to 4,000 pounds on the 737-600 and 737-700. They also increase payload capability for takeoff up to 2,000 pounds on the 737-800 and 737-900ER and up to 400 pounds on the 737-600 and 737-700. The short-field performance changes were developed starting in 2004. The flight-test program was conducted on a new 737-800 and began when the airplane made its first flight on Jan. 24, 2006. Boeing will deliver the refurbished test airplane later this week to the launch customer, Brazilian low-cost carrier GOL Linhas Aereas S. A. The jet is the first of 67 737-800s ordered by the carrier. To date 11 customers have ordered the short-field performance package for more than 250 airplanes. In addition to GOL, Alaska Airlines, Air Europe, Air India, Egyptair, GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS), Hapagfly, Japan Airlines, Pegasus Airlines, Sky Airlines and Turkish Airlines are among some of the operators that have ordered the design package. The Next-Generation 737s are 10 years newer and fly higher, faster and farther than competing models. Through June 2006, 97 customers have placed orders for more than 3,300 Next-Generation 737s the program has 1,365 unfilled orders with a value of 91 billion at current list prices. 20 Jul 2006 - Mulally Talks About 737 Replacement In an interview before leaving Farnborough for Seattle, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Alan Mulally spoke about the next jet-development program just over the horizon mdash the 737 narrow-body replacement. He talked in more detail about what will be the companys next new jet after the 787 -- a composite plane that will replace the popular 737. Although some airlines are eager for Boeing to develop this jet as soon as possible, Mulally said Boeing will take its time. He repeated that a 737 replacement wont be ready for airline service until at least 2012 and perhaps not before 2015. Like the 787, the 737 replacement will have a composite airframe, now the material of choice for airplane design, Mulally said. Composites dont corrode, dont fatigue and are more reliable and easier to maintain. This has been our goal and dream. Composites also allow a greatly simplified manufacturing process, and that can significantly drive down costs. With the 787, the first commercial jetliner with a composite fuselage and wing, Boeing is introducing a new way of making jets. Large one-piece composite sections of the plane will be manufactured elsewhere and then taken to Everett for final assembly in only a few days. That manufacturing method will become even more efficient by the time Boeing is ready to build the 737 replacement. The goal is to get the fewest number of parts that fit together accurately, and then final assembly takes the least amount of time and has the highest quality. To replace the most efficient plane in the world, the 737, we need to improve its fuel burn, maintenance costs, weight and manufacturing costs, which will translate into savings for airlines. It takes time to do that. We will end up with a very competitive airplane Udvar-Hazy, Chairman and chief executive of International Lease Finance Corp. said Boeing and Airbus shouldnt rush their upcoming development programs, expected around 2012 to 2015, to replace their narrow-body 737 and A320 families. He said he and Mulally had had some off-site secret meetings. to focus on what the airlines will need five, 10, 15 years from now. Its really looking at a crystal ball, he said. It gets a little hazy. 19 Jul 2006 - Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. Announce Flat Panel Display System Upgrade for 737-34500 Exton, PA. and Hampshire, U. K. ndash July 19, 2006- Innovative Solutions amp Support, Inc. and Jet Partners, LLC announced today at a joint press conference their program to install their CockpitIP Flat Panel Display System in the Jet Partners fleet of Classic B-737 aircraft. Deliveries will occur in ISampSrsquos fiscal year that begins October 1, 2006 for 30 firm and 30 options. The ISampS Flat Panel Display System can be utilized on the B737-300400500 models. The state-of-the-art CockpitIP is an all-glass cockpit offering AMLCD displays for Primary Flight (PFD), Navigation (ND), and Engine Instrument Displays (EIDS) systems. The cockpit suite eliminates 65 traditional components and replaces them with 5 display units, 2 control panels, and 3 data concentrator units. ldquoInstalling the ISampS CockpitIP Flat Panel Display System is the most cost effective way to retrofit aircraft with modern navigation technology, rdquo says Innovative Solutions and Supportrsquos President, Roman Ptakowski. ldquoThrough our agreement with Jet Partners, lessors of Classic B-737s will have the unique ability to configure their aircraft to their individual needs and preferences, while gaining significant safety, situational awareness and performance enhancements. rdquo With the addition of the ISampS CockpitIP to their B-737 aircraft, customers of Jet Partners will benefit from highly desirable options like a built-in Class 3 electronic flight bag with functionality that includes the Jeppesen certified database, XM or WSI satellite weather radar services, and advanced synthetic vision systems. Weight savings of 150 pounds, convection cooling, and a reduction in power consumption provide fuel and heat savings to the operator. ldquoISampS flat panels replace 20-plus year old, virtually unsupportable technology with liquid crystal displays that offer a ten-to-one improvement in reliability as well as a platform for growth, rdquo adds Ptakowski. ldquoExisting instrumentation is increasingly difficult to support as the products are no longer in production, and parts acquisition and repair becomes increasingly more expensive. But with the ISampS CockpitIP, modern design technology and processes offer significant reliability improvements with MTBFs in excess of 24,000 hours. rdquo For additional benefits, improved dispatch reliability is provided by the CockpitIPrsquos triply - redundant engine instrument data concentrator unit and the dual redundant PFDND data concentrator units in each of the Pilot and Co-Pilotrsquos positions. On the B767, the CockpitIP solution received FAA MEL dispatch relief of three days. Customers can achieve further functionality and configuration growth from the CockpitIPrsquos capability to support data related to upcoming requirements such as ADS-B and RNP. With thriving retrofit programs already in place for the B-747, 757, and 767, the ISampS agreement with Jet Partners offers easily installed cockpit upgrades at a low cost to an ever expanding variety of aircraft. The program has the ability to standardize pilot training, utilize industry recognized Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Navigation Display (ND) formats, provide health monitoring and exceedance recording for engines, and eliminate the complexity and support of analog andor EFIS displays. Furthermore, changing requirements are accommodated by flexible graphic display formats certifiable by the FAA. 19 Jul 2006 - Southwest to Retrofit Winglets on 737-300 Fleet Southwest Airlines committed to install Aviation Partners Boeing Blended Winglets on up to 90 of their 737-300 aircraft. The order of 59 firm systems and 31 options follows Southwests commitment in June of 2003 to install Blended Winglets on all of their 737-700 aircraft. Installations are planned to begin in early 2007. This is a monumental order for our 737-300 winglet program and a real testament to the value of our Visible Technology, says Aviation Partners Boeing 31 May 2006 - Assembly Begins on the 737-900ER Boeing today began final assembly of the first 737-900ER (Extended Range), the newest member of the worlds most successful single-aisle airplane family. The wings and landing gear shown here are being joined to the 737-900ER fuselage in the Boeing manufacturing facility in Renton, Wash. Last-stage assembly and interiors installation will begin once the airplane joins the moving assembly line. The 737 derivative incorporates an extra pair of exit doors, a flat aft-pressure bulkhead and other structural and aerodynamic changes that allow it to carry more passengers and fly farther than the 737-900. The twin-engine jet can carry up to 215 passengers and fly up to 3,200 nautical miles (5,900 km). The 737-900ER, destined for Indonesian-based launch customer Lion Air, will embark on a five-month flight test program later this year. 02 May 2006 -- Boeing Business Jets today announced it has won six new orders, increasing total program sales to 108 airplanes. The continued sales momentum of the BBJ reflects the value customers place on the airplanes range capability, its industry-leading reliability and its spacious cabin, BBJ President Steven Hill said during a media briefing at the European Business Aviation Convention amp Exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland. The BBJ offers more than transportation it offers the ability to travel with family, friends or business associates while working, eating, sleeping or entertaining in the air as you would at home or in the office. Boeing Business Jets secured the new orders within the last six months from regions all around the globe including Southeast Asia and Europe. Most BBJ customers choose to remain anonymous, which often is typical in these types of private business transactions. Seventy-three customers have ordered 95 BBJs and 13 BBJ 2s. About 40 percent of BBJ customers are private individuals, 37 percent are government heads of state, and the remaining customer segment is divided between corporate and charter operators. Hill also announced that the program is considering the development of a convertible cargo airplane based on the commercial Next-Generation 737-700C (Convertible). The airplane allows operators to alternate between passenger and cargo layouts. The 737-700C already includes the BBJ-inspired configuration of the 737-700 fuselage and the strengthened landing gear and wings of the 737-800. The airplane would provide the ultimate in flexibility and multi-purpose mission capability. It would be an ideal airplane for government heads of state or entrepreneurs, Hill said. The decision to explore a possible new BBJ family member is based on a firm order from a BBJ customer for a 737-700C. Hill said a decision to offer the business jet version could be made before the end of the year, and if launched, it would be called the BBJ C. 18 Apr 2006 - Allegations of 737 Production Quality Faults Claims that Boeing is using faulty aircraft parts have raised questions about jet safety, write Florence Graves and Sara Kehaulani Goo Wednesday, April 19, 2006 Claims that Boeing is using faulty aircraft parts have raised questions about jet safety, write Florence Graves and Sara Kehaulani Goo Jeannine Prewitt knew there was a problem when the holes wouldnt line up. On a Boeing assembly line in Kansas in 2000, Prewitt saw workers drilling extra holes in the long aluminum ribs that make up the skeleton of a jetliners fuselage. That was the only way the workers could attach the pieces, because some of its pre-drilled holes didnt match those on the airframe. Prewitt was a parts buyer, the third generation of her family to work at the sprawling Boeing factory on the outskirts of Wichita. She believed pieces going into one of the worlds most advanced and popular airliners, the Boeing 737, should fit like a glove. The assembly workers Prewitt observed were not the only ones who noted problems with parts from a key Boeing supplier, AHF Ducommun of Los Angeles. Other workers told her many pieces had to be shoved or hammered into place. And documents reviewed by The Washington Post show that quality managers reported numerous problems at Ducommun in memos recorded in Boeings system for monitoring its suppliers. Whether questionable parts ended up in hundreds of Boeing 737s is the subject of a bitter dispute between the aerospace company and Prewitt and two other whistle-blowers. The two sides also have enormously different views on what that could mean for the safety of the jets. The whistle-blower lawsuit is in US District Court in Wichita. No matter how it is resolved, it has exposed gaps in the way government regulators investigated the alleged problems in aircraft manufacturing. Boeing said the lawsuit is without merit and there is no safety issue. Even if faulty parts landed on the assembly line, the company said, none could have slipped through Boeings controls and gotten into the jetliners. The whistle - blowers are not intimately familiar with Boeings quality management system, said Cindy Wall, a company spokeswoman. Our planes are safe. The three whistle-blowers contend that Boeing officials knew from their own audits about thousands of parts that did not meet specifications, allowed them to be installed and retaliated against people who raised questions. They say the parts, manufactured from 1994 to 2002, fit the Federal Aviation Administrations definition of unapproved because they lack documentation proving they are airworthy. Moreover, they say, forcing a part into place could shorten its lifespan. After the whistle-blowers notified federal authorities in 2002, the FAA and the Pentagon looked into their charges. Each said its investigation cleared the airplane parts and found no reports of problems from military or civilian operators of Boeing jets. The Department of Transportations inspector general also dismissed the charges. The Posts review, however, found that the FAA did not assess many of the whistle-blowers key allegations. FAA inspectors examined only a small number of parts in the plants and did not visit any airplanes to inspect the roughly 200 types of parts questioned by the whistle - blowers. The Pentagon and Transportation Department, in turn, relied on the FAAs work, documents show. One reason the FAA chose not to pursue the whistle-blowers claims, officials said, was that its engineers believed the parts in question would not present a safety risk even if they failed in flight. There has not been a crash caused by such a failure, the agency said. But on several occasions, the agency has expressed concern about similar parts, albeit on the previous generation of 737s. Last year, prompted by reports from some carriers of cracks, the FAA formally alerted US air carriers that fly 737s made before 1998 to inspect for possible fatigue cracks around such parts. Cracks in these areas, the FAA said, could result in reduced structural integrity of the frames, possible loss of a cargo door, possible rapid decompression of the fuselage. Prewitts job at Wichita was to purchase parts for 737s and other jets from Ducommun and other suppliers. She said she saw that some pieces were coming in with inaccurate measurements beyond the margin of error. In the summer of 2000, she visited one assembly line where the aluminum ribs, known as chords, were being attached to the 737 fuselage. As Prewitt watched, she said, one worker pulled a chord from the stack and saw its holes were in the wrong place. I said: So what do you do She grabbed a drill and drills a hole and connects it together, said Prewitt, now 45. Were all appalled. I sat there watching her drill, drill, drill. She said the chord problem reinforced worries that others had raised for a year about other Ducommun parts. She had examined reports of problems with bear straps, large pieces of reinforcing sheet metal bonded to the skin around an airliners doorways. Prewitt said the pieces, which have four jutting corners something like a bearskin rug, were coming in short in one corner. That forced workers to drill holes for rivets closer to the edge of the piece than specified. The whistle-blowers said they learned that some managers knew of the problem but encouraged workers to make the parts fit. For example, when Prewitt recommended tossing out 24 bear straps she considered unacceptable, a Boeing procurement manager objected. Scrapping any bearstraps is stupid, since weve used over 300 with the same condition, the manager wrote to one of the whistle-blowers in a May 13, 1999, e-mail. Boeings corporate audit office convened a team to look into the parts problems in 2000. The 14 members included Prewitt and two others who later joined the whistle-blower lawsuit - Taylor Smith, 44, contract administrator for the new generation of 737 and other jets and James Ailes, 53, a technical troubleshooter. Others were experts on quality assurance, tooling and manufacturing processes. The team visited Ducommuns plant in California. In its report to Boeing, the team said it found that many of the more than 500 heavy-duty manufacturing tools used by Ducommun were incorrectly calibrated, misused or not built to Boeings specifications. Contrary to Ducommuns factory records, the report said, the supplier still was making parts with hand tools such as routers, as it had done for the older 737 models, instead of the sophisticated computer-programmed tools Boeing engineers had specified. Ducommun, also named in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the allegations beyond stating that the FAA and other agencies had already dismissed them. The Boeing audit team issued its report in August 2000. It noted that Boeing was seeking financial compensation for irregularities at Ducommuns plant and was reconsidering its relationship with the supplier. Ducommun said it never made a payment to Boeing as settlement, but according to documents reviewed by The Post, the firm agreed in January 2001 to a US1.6 million (HK12.48 million) settlement with Boeing for overbilling and manufacturing problems. Boeing declined to comment. Prewitt received a cash-and-stock bonus worth nearly US3,000 after what Boeing called her outstanding contribution to the audit. Soon, however, members of the team grew discouraged with what they saw as Boeings reluctance to follow up on their findings. They said Boeing officials cleaned the report of details about possible airliner safety problems and violations of FAA procedures. When they raised the possibility of reporting their concerns to the FAA, they said, they were told to keep quiet or face possible legal action from Boeing. Boeing said it did not sanitize the report and its policies prohibit threats or retaliation against employees who raise safety questions. Company spokeswoman Wall said the fact that the audit team was assembled shows Boeings oversight of suppliers is effective. She said the teams mission was to look at cost issues regarding Ducommuns accounting and tools and she does not know how the whistle - blowers on the team drew the conclusion that the parts were flawed. She said assessing quality was outside their area of expertise. In early 2002, Prewitt, Smith and Ailes sent thousands of documents supporting their case to the Justice Department. They alleged questionable parts had been installed not only on hundreds of 737s but also on some 747s, 757s, 767s and 777s and their military equivalents without the knowledge of the Air Force and Navy, the commercial airlines, or the FAA. Shortly after that, in March 2002, the three workers - and one other whistle-blower who later dropped out - filed their lawsuit. In 2003, the whistle-blowers withdrew their suit after the Justice Department declined to join. They refiled it in March 2005. By then, Ailes was still employed but Prewitt and Smith had been laid off. All three allege they received demotions and lower job evaluations because of their actions. The lawsuit cites only those jets sold to the military, because the False Claims Act applies to only federal contracts. However, the whistle-blowers said most of the parts in question also had been installed on commercial airliners. So at the request of the Justice Department, the FAA launched a probe in the spring of 2002. It was handled by the division that investigates parts suspected to be unapproved - ones that lack the paper trail showing they meet specifications. FAA officials said that rather than restrict themselves to the more than 200 types of parts questioned by the whistle - blowers, their engineers reviewed a list of all Ducommun parts made for Boeing. They said they found most of the parts were unique to military planes. None of the commercial parts on their own, the engineers decided, were principal structural elements, or parts whose individual failure could lead to a catastrophe. FAA officials, however, now say that some parts are in areas considered principal structural elements. In the end, the engineers narrowed their list to 11 of the most critical Ducommun commercial parts and the FAA focused its investigation on how they were being made at the time of its probe. The agency said it has no official documents explaining the decision to eliminate hundreds of parts from investigation. That did not follow procedures adopted when the agency created an office devoted to investigation of suspect parts in 1995. Those rules require that FAA inspectors review the manufacturing history, quantity and importance of each part that is reported as suspect and then document their findings. In the summer of 2004, the FAA closed its two-year probe, saying Ducommuns current manufacturing processes were sound. The most important thing is corrective action, said Peggy Gilligan, deputy associate administrator for aviation safety at FAA. Last year, the FAA reopened the case. The agency had received new reports about the parts from two FAA - certified experts hired by the whistle - blowers lawyers. The lawyers had provided four experts with the court documents and Boeing quality control reports from 1999 and 2000. All four experts, who are certified by the FAA to make decisions about aircraft engineering or airworthiness on behalf of the agency, and one additional expert hired by The Post to review the same documents said they believed that practices at Ducommun and Boeing were seriously flawed. The evidence that Boeing and Ducommun ignored quality controls is beyond the scope of anything Ive ever heard of - where an entire inspection system would be bypassed, said Sammy Hanson, the consultant hired by The Post. Hanson, who has worked in aircraft certification for 12 years, said that because the FAA acknowledges it did not look at parts installed on planes, every one of these parts (in the lawsuit) is unapproved. Other aviation consultants said that even if FAA procedures were violated, metal parts used for reinforcement are not as critical as, say, the main landing gear. Sheet metal parts are necessarily pretty flexible so if they dont fit perfect as delivered, its not a big deal to shove them into place, bend them a little bit, push on them and rivet them together, said Charles Eastlake, a professor of aerospace engineering and a former aircraft structural designer for the Air Force. Quality control people turn purple when they see that, but its the way its always been. Another argument holds that because planes are stripped down for major maintenance every five to seven years, any early cracks or corrosion would probably be spotted before the part could create a problem. In fact, FAA officials said their inspectors combed through records from airlines that performed such maintenance and found no reports of problems with bear straps, chords or frames. Spokesmen for Southwest, American and Continental airlines told The Post they had found no problems with the parts. But some analysts suggest that when factory workers force together parts that are not built according to their design, it could eventually cause premature cracking. When you bend and twist with undue force, you can introduce more stress on the parts and the structure they are attached to, said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member and former airline mechanic. Goglia said that can be especially true of parts used to reinforce the cabin around doors, which may be more vulnerable to fatigue. But, Goglia added, the safety impact of any suspect part is difficult to determine without an engineers analysis of how it was made. The FAA has yet to complete its second investigation. The agency said the same lead inspector has been assigned to the matter. Were confident we came to the right conclusions in the first case, said Brown, the FAA spokeswoman. THE WASHINGTON POST 2 Mar 2006 - Boeing team to develop post-737 jet By Dominic Gates, Seattle Times aerospace reporter Only a couple weeks after rolling out the 5,000th 737, Boeing formally named an initial planning team to lead development of a replacement for the Renton-built jet. On Boeings internal Web site Tuesday, the company announced that Mike Cave, vice president for airplane programs, will direct the work. The Next-Generation 737 is a wonderful airplane with a strong future in the marketplace the challenge of dramatically improving on its proven economy, performance and reliability is a daunting task and one that will take considerable innovation, Cave said in the Boeing news item. The leaders weve named today understand the challenge and are the right team to assess both the market requirements and necessary technology developments. The decisions made by the new team, from timing to location of assembly, could have a huge impact here. In December, commercial airplanes Chief Executive Alan Mulally, said a replacement for the single-aisle 737 would enter service between 2012 and 2015 and hinted it will be assembled in the Puget Sound area. Its unclear if that would be in Renton or in Everett. The project team includes: bull Carolyn Brandsema, director of engineering for the 737MMA program, who will head the study of the airplane and the production system used to build it. Its expected that the replacement jet will have a carbon fiber-based plastic fuselage like the 787, and will use the innovative, flexible manufacturing methods that will be introduced for the larger jet next year. Also like the 787, the new program will likely require orchestration of a global supply chain, with major overseas partners contributing large sections of the aircraft. bull Kent Fisher, a marketing vice president in the commercial-airplane division, will head business development. His job will be to ensure that whatever Boeing comes up with is what the airlines want. bull Don Moon, now on the 787 program-management team, will consider how best to manage the project. bull Rod Wheeler, director of finance estimating and planning in the commercial-airplanes division, will work out what it will all cost. Major partners on the program are likely to have to contribute their own investment to reduce Boeings development costs. Initiating a new airplane program has the potential to hurt sales of the current jet mdash airlines might become reluctant to buy if they think that a new, improved jet could be available soon. So even as it made the announcement internally, Boeing sought to play down the move. Someday both the Next-Generation 737 and the (Airbus) A320 will need to be replaced, but so far we have not found a more compelling airplane for the single-aisle market, Cave said in his statement. Until we do, we will continue to invest in the Next-Generation 737. Despite the description of the team as being formed for initial studies of a 737 replacement, early exploratory work has been going on within Boeing for several years. At the Farnborough Air Show in July 2004 a top executive with a major systems supplier confided that his company was already discussing concepts with Boeing on what was then code-named the Y1 project. Boeing spokesman Craig Martin said the internal announcement doesnt mean the 737 replacement program will launch any earlier than publicly stated by Mulally last year. To deliver in 2012, Boeing would have to launch the program soon after airlines take their first 787s in 2008. 31 Jan 2006 - 737-700ER (Extended Range) Launched SEATTLE, Jan. 31 PRNewswire-FirstCall -- The Boeing Company today launched the 737-700ER (Extended Range), following an order conversion from ANA (All Nippon Airways) for two airplanes. The 737-700ER has the longest range capability of any 737 commercial family member, and is able to serve new nonstop, point-to-point routes profitably. ANA exercised rights to substitute 737-700s with 737-700ERs. The two 737-700ERs are part of a larger order announced June 23, 2003, for 45 737-700s. The value of the Next-Generation 737 family continues to grow with the 737-700ER, and we are delighted to have ANA as the launch customer, said Alan Mulally, chief executive officer and president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. This new 737 derivative is a great example of how Boeing helps our customers succeed by responding to new emerging airline business requirements. Boeing is scheduled to deliver the first airplane to ANA in early 2007. This special airplane will bring new possibilities for ANA in terms of the routes we fly, said ANA President and CEO Mineo Yamamoto. It will allow us to explore destinations that could hitherto only be reached with larger aircraft, and further provide greater choice and convenience to our customers. The 737-700ER is a Boeing Business Jet-inspired airplane, designed for long-range commercial applications. The airplane features the fuselage of the commercial 737-700 and the wings and landing gear of the larger 737-800. The high-performance derivative can fly up to 2,145 nautical miles farther than the current 737-700. With up to nine optional auxiliary fuel tanks and optional Blended Winglets, the 737-700ER is capable of flying up to 5,510 nautical miles. Sharing the same industry-leading reliability and low operating and maintenance costs of other models in the 737 family, the 737-700ER allows carriers to compete in relatively new markets such as the long-range all-premium class market, or is particularly well suited for low-cost carriers seeking to operate on longer routes. The Next-Generation 737s are 10 years newer and fly higher, faster, farther, and more quietly than competing models. To date, 95 airlines have placed orders for more than 2,960 Next-Generation 737s. More than 1,130 737s are on order, worth about 69 billion at current list prices. 30 Jan 2006 - Boeing Offers Efficiency Enhancing Feature for Next-Generation 737 SEATTLE, Jan. 30, 2006 -- Boeing today announced a new carbon brake option that will reduce airframe weight and lower operating costs for Next-Generation 737 operators around the world. The no-charge option will save up to 700 pounds in airplane weight and increase the wear life up to twice the number of landings. The reduction in weight and increased durability will lower maintenance and operating costs overall. Carbon brakes offer the same stopping performance as steel brakes but with the added benefit of a significant weight savings, which ultimately increases fuel efficiency, said Mike Delaney, 737 chief project engineer. Next-Generation 737s are already lighter than competing Airbus models. This structural efficiency is a fundamental reason why Next-Generation 737s fly farther, higher and with better fuel efficiency than the competition. This new feature demonstrates our continued commitment to offer technology that brings value to our customers and continues to make the 737 the most capable airplane in the worlds single-aisle market, added Delaney. The carbon brakes, which will be supplied by Goodrich and Messier-Bugatti, will be available for deliveries starting in early 2008, following a two-month flight test program. The option also will be available for retrofit on all Next-Generation 737s. Known for their industry-leading reliability and low operating costs, the Next-Generation 737s are part of the best-selling 737 family. Overall, operators around the world have ordered more than 6,000 models. To date, 95 operators have placed orders for more than 2,960 Next-Generation 737s the program has a backlog of 1,133 units with a value of about 69 billion at current list prices. 26 Jan 2006 - Boeing Introduces New 737 Signals Intelligence Aircraft Variant of Navys 737-MMA Boeing announced Wednesday plans for a new 737 signals intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft to be used for airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and also advanced network centric communications. The new SIGINT aircraft concept is a variant of Boeings 737-based P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft, which is currently being developed for the US Navy. We think this affordable variant not only provides the US Defense Department with options for current and future airborne ISR requirements, but also is adaptable to any International SIGINT mission sets, said Tony Parasida, Boeing vice president for Maritime Systems. The Boeing 737 SIGINT variant will have increased mission capability, operational readiness and combat radius relative to legacy aircraft. The design also has built-in growth capacity so payload capacity can easily be increased or upgraded to accommodate future customer requirements. A key advantage of this new program is that the 737 SIGINT aircraft will leverage the P-8As advanced mission system architecture, mature design, and contractor logistics support and training systems approach. For customers that means reduced operating and maintenance costs over the entire life cycle of the system. Boeings Maritime Systems Industry team, currently working on the P-8A program, will be involved with the 737 SIGINT variant as well. Additional partners likely will be added to the team to help address future customer requirements. P-8A team members include Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Smiths Aerospace and CFM International. The P-8A -- a military derivative of the 737-800 aircraft -- is the Navys replacement platform for the P-3C. Its primary mission is to provide what the company terms persistent anti-submarine warfare. A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is one of the worlds largest space and defense businesses. 13 Nov 2005 - Bellview CVR amp FDR still not found. LAGOS, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Investigators have been unable to find the flight data and voice recorders from the site of a plane crash in Nigeria that killed 117 people in October, the head of the investigating team said on Sunday. Angus Ozoka said the failure to locate the black boxes meant it would take longer to determine what caused the Boeing 737, operated by Nigerian airline Bellview, to crash shortly after take-off from Lagos on Oct. 22, killing everyone on board. We were not able to recover the black boxes -- flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder -- although we found some strips of the casing, Ozoka told a news conference at Lagos airport. The wreckage recovered from the 4-metre (13-feet) deep crater near the village of Lissa, about 30 km (20 miles) from Lagos in Ogun state, has been taken to an air force base for further examination. Ozoka said the investigation would continue in Nigeria and in the United States. A U. S. team has been helping the inquiry. The aircraft took off from Lagos for the capital Abuja during an intense electrical storm and experts have said evidence so far points to a lightning strike as the possible cause for the crash, though there has been no official confirmation. Bellview, popular with government officials and expatriates, had previously had a clean safety record. The 24-year-old Boeing had received a clean bill of health from inspectors in February, the airline has said. 17 Oct 2005 - Boeing 737 Trials In-Flight Phone Systems Connexion by Boeing says that it has recently concluded a week of demonstration flights in Europe that showed travellers how mobile telephony in flight can be provided safely and conveniently for passengers in flight. During flights aboard a Boeing 737-400 test and demonstration airplane, Connexion One, guests sampled not only the Connexion by Boeing high-speed, real-time Internet service, which now includes four channels of live TV, but also used roaming-enabled mobile phones to make and receive phone calls. Enabling people to make and receive phone calls during flight demonstrated the flexibility of a high-speed connectivity system like ours, said Chris Petersen, program manager for voice and cellular service at Connexion by Boeing. We allowed our guests to make calls to the ground while we flew over international waters, and almost everyones first call was to their boss. Both callers and call recipients were equally excited and impressed by the voice quality and the reliability of the connection. The system supports both GSM and CDMA - so presumably, you could end up in the future, being able to make CDMA phone calls while travelling over Europe. 01 Sep 2005 - Boeing Completes First Airborne Test of Wedgetail Aircraftrsquos Radar Boeing successfully conducted the first in-flight test of the Northrop Grumman Multi-mode Electronically Scanned Array radar aboard a 737 airborne early warning and control aircraft for Australiarsquos Project Wedgetail. ldquoThe mission was flawless, rdquo said Jack DeLange, 737 AEWampC integration and test manager. ldquoAll of the first radar flight test objectives were achieved. rdquo The six-hour flight test over Washington state followed completion of three weeks of ground testing of the radar in Victorville, Calif. The ground testing verified the compatibility of the radar with other aircraft systems while operating and scanning through 360 degrees. The initial flight test aboard Wedgetail aircraft No. 1 collected data used to calibrate the radar for the effects of both the aircraft and the ground environment. Flight testing of the radar, integrated with the airborne mission system aboard Wedgetail aircraft No. 2, is scheduled to begin later this year. This follows several years of extensive stand-alone ground testing by Northrop Grummanrsquos Electronic Systems Division in Baltimore, Md. The Multi-mode Electronically Scanned Array radar is designed to provide optimal performance in range, tracking, and accuracy. It is able to track airborne and maritime targets simultaneously and can help the mission crew direct the control of high-performance fighter aircraft while continuously scanning the operational area. 18 Jul 2005 - 737-900ER Launched The Boeing Company today officially launched the 737-900ER (Extended Range) -- the newest member of the worlds best-selling Next-Generation 737 family -- following the completion of a sales agreement for up to 60 of the airplanes from Lion Air. The 737-900ER, formerly known as the 737-900X, will carry more passengers and fly farther, increasing the capability of the Next-Generation 737 airplane family. Lion Air, Indonesias first low-cost carrier, originally announced its intent to order up to 60 737s earlier this year. Todays firm order is for 30 of the new derivative airplane, with purchase rights for 30 additional models. The order is worth 3.9 billion at list prices. The first 737-900ER is scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2007. The Next-Generation 737 is the most efficient single-aisle airplane family today, and we are thrilled to have Lion Air as the launch customer to increase the 737 familys capability with the additional range and seating of the 737-900ER, said Alan Mulally, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In addition to the unprecedented economic advantages, the 737-900ER shares the same industry-leading reliability of the worlds most successful airplane family. The 737-900ER is the same size as todays 737-900, but, with the addition of a pair of exit doors and a flat rear pressure bulkhead, will carry 26 additional passengers, raising the maximum capacity from 189 to 215 in a single-class layout. Aerodynamic and structural design changes, including strengthened wings, a two-position tailskid, enhancements to the leading and trailing edge flap systems, and optional Blended Winglets and auxiliary fuel tanks, will allow the 737-900ER to accommodate higher takeoff weights and increase its range to 3,200 nautical miles (5,900 km), making it comparable to the 737-800s range. We are delighted to be the launch customer for the 737-900ER, said President Director Rusdi Kirana of Lion Air. We are confident that the outstanding economics and reliability of the aircraft will contribute to the expansion and modernization of our fleet. Powered by the CFM International CFM56-7B turbofan engines, the new derivative will have substantial economic advantages over competing models including 9 percent lower operating costs per trip and 7 percent lower operating costs per seat than the A321, which is more than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kg) heavier than the 737-900ER. The Next-Generation 737s are 10 years newer and fly higher, faster, farther and more quietly than competing models. To date, 86 airlines have placed orders for more than 2,700 Next-Generation 737s. 12 May 2005 - 737NG Certified for Cat I GLS approaches The Boeing Company today delivered a 737 equipped with an advanced landing system that will guide the airplane to runways with unprecedented accuracy. Unlike current technology, which relies solely on information from ground stations, the Global Positioning Landing System (GLS) integrates data from the global navigation satellite system, ground stations and a multi-mode receiver on the airplane to provide pinpoint accuracy of the airplanes position relative to the runway and surrounding terrain. Boeing is committed to a safe and effective global air transportation system. This precision approach and landing information will enhance safety by significantly improving takeoff and landing capability at airports around the world, said Captain Ray Craig, 737 Chief Pilot. GLS increases the Next-Generation 737s lead as the most technologically advanced airplane in its class, and enhances the revenue-generating capability for airlines. The FAA certified the GLS system following an extensive three-year testing program, during which the system proved to be a reliable and flawless navigation system suitable for automatic landings and low visibility takeoffs. JAA certification is expected soon. Initially, GLS is certified to support Category I operations, which allow airplanes to operate in low visibility conditions. In the future, as GLS ground stations become available worldwide, the system will be able to support Category III operations, which allow airplanes to operate in very low or near zero visibility conditions. The 737-800 is the first and only large commercial airplane certified and equipped with this sophisticated technology. GLS was one of nine new leading-edge technologies successfully tested and demonstrated on the 737 Technology Demonstrator airplane during 2002. Of the nine emerging technology features, six have now been certified and delivered on the 737. 19 Apr 2005 - Global ePoint Aviation Division Receives FAA STC for its 737 Cockpit Door Surveillance System. CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 2005--Global ePoint, Inc. (Nasdaq: GEPT), an innovative developer and manufacturer of homeland security solutions for aviation and law enforcement as well as financial, retail and industrial applications, today announced the AirWorks Division has received a new FAA Supplemental Type Certificate for its Cockpit Door Surveillance System (CDSS), which now spans the entire family of Boeing 737 aircraft (737-200 through 737-900) with two configurations. Aviation Speed News states there are some 4,597 Boeing family 737s flying in the world - spanning the 737-200 through 737-900 - which represents 48 percent of total Boeing aircraft flying today. It also noted 1,571 of these 737s are operating within U. S. airlines The original AirWorks Cockpit Door Surveillance System previously offered on 737-300 and 737-500s consisted of two 6.4-inch touch-sensitive monitors, a system controller and one camera mounted directly outside the cockpit door - with two more cameras located in the forward galley (and up to 16 cameras throughout the aircraft overall). Cockpit monitors were located to the side and just forward of the pilots seated positions. This standard system configuration is currently installed and flying on over 100 Boeing 737 aircraft. AirWorks has designed and introduced a new optional single-monitor 5-inch touch-sensitive system that installs in the overhead panel directly between the two pilots. The new condensed configuration allows either pilot to utilize the same monitor or to control the camera from either pilot position - and utilizes the same System Controller and cameras as in previously delivered 737 systems. Our continual investment in the CDSS Cockpit Door Surveillance System and its flexibility, and now, in these multiple applications as well, provides AirWorks the ability to meet any requirement for any model aircraft built by the Boeing or Airbus companies, said Ricky Frick, President of Global ePoints Aviation Division. It allows us to immediately move forward with a customer without the barrier of new designs for installation or certification requirements. We have made this commitment to ensure that any mandate or requirement - by any regulatory agency anywhere in the world - can immediately be satisfied with our product and certification. About Global ePoints Aviation Division The Companys Aviation division contains Global AirWorks, whose primary communications and security products include the Cockpit Door Surveillance System (CDSS), a digital electronic flight bag of all flight and on-board manuals and records for pilots and a Laptop Computer Power System for passengers and flight crews. AirWorks customers include airline major OEMs, such as ATampT Aviation, BAE Systems, In-flight Phone, L3 Communications, and Rockwell Collins all major U. S. airlines and all major international carriers, including ATA, Air China, Bombardier, Finnair, Varig, KLM, Lufthansa, and Cathay Pacific. AirWorks holds more than 40 supplemental type certificates (STC) certifying AirWorks as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved manufacturer and installer for a range of interior equipment and systems for a variety of commercial aircraft flying worldwide. 19 Apr 2005 - Boeing Talks of 737 Replacement Buoyed by the early success of its 787, and with Airbus finally on the defensive, The Boeing Co. is talking with some of its key suppliers about whats likely to be its next new jet - a 737 replacement based on the technology of its coming super-efficient twin-aisle jetliner. The aim of the preliminary talks, according to industry sources, is to better gauge how soon a new single-aisle jet could, or should, be brought to market. If possible, Boeing would like to move forward the development of a 737 replacement, the sources said. Although such a plane would not be available until at least early in the next decade, industry analysts say Boeing has an opportunity to keep Airbus off balance and on the run by leveraging the technology on the 787 Dreamliner -- the industrys first commercial jetliner with a composite wing and fuselage. Boeing needs to strike while the iron is hot, said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst with the Teal Group, an industry consulting firm. The development of an all-new jet rather than a derivative gives Boeing the upper hand over Airbus in using that 787 technology later for a 737 replacement. Boeing has not said when it envisions a new single-aisle jet, but knowledgeable industry observers have put an entry-into-service date around 2013. Speculation that Boeing might move forward development of a 737 replacement has been fuelled partly by recent public comments from engine makers looking to develop a next-generation engine that would be needed for a 737 replacement. That Boeing is talking with suppliers, principally those likely to provide the technology for a 737 replacement, suggests Boeings product development people are further along this road than previously believed. Byron Callan, a Merrill Lynch analyst who closely follows Boeing, said he was recently told by one Boeing supplier that the company has completed an internal new study of a 737 replacement. Boeing wont comment, other than to say it is focused on winning many more orders for its hot-selling 737, and that the only new plane that has its attention is the 787, which will enter service in 2008. The 737 is doing very well in the marketplace, Scott Carson, head of Boeing jetliner sales business, said when asked if there is pressure to move up development of a replacement plane. There are a lot of legs left with the 737 family of aircraft and the market response this year certainly demonstrates that. Boeing has won several key 737 orders so far this year, with more likely. Formerly known as the 7E7, the 787 represents a significant and unprecedented leap for Boeing. Smaller business and military jets have made extensive use of composites, but what Boeing is doing with the 787 has not been attempted before with a plane this big. The twin-engine 787, which is a little bigger than the 767 that it replaces, will carry about 225 passengers in a three-class configuration. In addition to the widespread use of composites, the 787 will be much more of an electric airplane than current jets, which use air bled from the engines to power some onboard systems. And the 787 will have new engines that are more fuel efficient and quiet than anything today. A 737 replacement would take these advances, and advantages, even further. As important as the technology is to the 787s success, so too is a new Boeing production system. Large composite fuselage sections, already stuffed by suppliers with the wiring and systems, will arrive at Boeings Everett plant on modified 747 freighters for final assembly with the composite wings. These sections will be snapped together in as little as three days. A 737 replacement would use this same production method, but likely refine it even further. The eventual end of the 737 program also means the likely close of Boeings operations in Renton, with airplane production consolidated at the companys Everett plant, where the 787 will be assembled. Boeings current 737 backlog of nearly 800 planes, with more orders to come, is enough to keep production going in Renton until well after 2010. But before Boeing can move on with the development of its next jet, it must get the 787 into service with airlines and find out if the plane performs as advertised. What we want to do is get some experience with the new airplane both in terms of its performance and manufacturing technologies and learn from that, said Carson, Boeings sales chief. After we have learned the right lessons, then we can worry about a replacement airplane (for the 737). And the engine makers will have to come up with a new engine for a single-aisle jet that would offer the kind of performance improvements that the 787 will enjoy over todays planes. To build a 737 replacement without a next-generation engine would be a dreadful mistake for us to make, Carson said. Boeing has said the 787 will be about 20 percent more fuel efficient than current jets that size. While Boeing is focused now on the development of the 787, Airbus has its own all-new plane, the 555-passenger A380 superjumbo that will enter service in mid-2006 and supplant Boeings 747 as the worlds biggest commercial jetliner. With the development effort for the A380 program winding down as production begins, Airbus has only recently turned its attention to the A350 and the challenge from the 787. But in offering customers an A330 derivative rather than an all-new jet, Airbus is taking the less-expensive approach, much as Boeing has done in the past in response to Airbus threats. It was not that long ago that some in the industry were calling Boeing Derivatives R Us. If Airbus were to change strategy and develop an all-new jet to match the 787, it would give Boeing a huge advantage. If Airbus has to start again with a clean sheet of paper and an all-new A350 rather than a derivative, that gives Boeing at least a couple extra years to have the 787 alone in that market and it gives Boeing a strong advantage in leveraging that technology for its next plane to replace the 737, Aboulafia said. What you are seeing, he added, is possibly the biggest reversal of fortunes in aviation history, with Boeing taking back lost market share from Airbus. This represents one of the biggest opportunities that any U. S. manufacturing company has ever enjoyed. 04 Apr 2005 - First Kitty Hawk Boeing 737-300SF Aircraft Arrives at DFW Kitty Hawk is the North American Launch Customer for 737-300SF Freighter Aircraft DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 4, 2005--Kitty Hawk, Inc. (AMEX:KHK) subsidiary, Kitty Hawk Aircargo, Inc. has taken delivery of its first new Boeing 737-300SF aircraft. The new freighter arrived Saturday, April 2, 2005 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), where Kitty Hawk is headquartered. Kitty Hawk is the North American launch customer for the 737-300SF conversion by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), Bedek Aviation Group. IAI is one of the premier passenger-to-cargo aircraft conversion and aircraft maintenance companies in the world. Kitty Hawk has also entered into a long-term strategic partnership with IAI for maintenance and support of the aircraft engines, components and landing gear. Kitty Hawk has a contract to lease seven Boeing 737-300SF aircraft from GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS). The aircraft will be delivered throughout 2005. The 737-300SF is the freighter version of one of the best-selling and most popular commercial passenger aircraft of all time. The two pilot, twin-engine aircraft are powered by CFM-56 jet engines. Bedek Aviation Group is delighted to have worked with Kitty Hawk for the first B737-300SF conversion in North America. The technologies designed into this conversion are state-of-the-art and offer major competitive advantages, said David Arzi, Bedeks general manager and corporate vice president. We are also honored that Kitty Hawk recognized the quality of our work by entering into a 10-year contract with us for maintenance and support of the aircraft. These services will be provided by our wholly-owned subsidiary, Aviation Services International LLC (ASI), which specializes in totally integrated maintenance packages, said Arzi. In the future, it is envisioned that the program will also cover airframe maintenance at Empire Air Center located in Rome, New York, another subsidiary of IAIs Bedek Aviation Group. For the present time, Kitty Hawk will continue to operate approximately 20 Boeing 727-200F aircraft, though some of those aircraft are planned for retirement in the future. The arrival of this first 737-300SF is a significant step that will enhance Kitty Hawks fleet and further prepare our company for the future, said Robert W. Zoller, Kitty Hawks president and CEO. The Boeing 737-300SF is a tremendous addition - it is a very fuel efficient, reliable and environmentally friendly aircraft, capable of achieving proposed federal Stage 4 noise regulations. The 737-300SF possesses a modern digital technology flightdeck and expected lower operating and maintenance costs. The new aircraft will allow Kitty Hawk Aircargo to conserve fuel, possibly open additional new markets, and begin to transition the company toward a more up-to-date, scalable aircraft platform. In addition, Kitty Hawk will install FAA-approved FuelMizer modification kits from AvAero on each of its new 737-300SF aircraft. Kitty Hawk will be the all-cargo launch customer for the FuelMizer modification. Kitty Hawk expects to realize as much as an additional four percent fuel savings from the FuelMizer system. 12 Mar 2005 - Wedgetail Update Daniel Cotterill, AUSTRALIAS new fleet of six Airborne early warning and control aircraft will be a fantastic capability so far as regional air superiority is concerned, but there is a significant technology transfer bonus as well. Four of the six aircraft, known as Wedgetails, are to be converted from airliners to military radar aircraft in Australia via a process that will break new ground for local industry. The aircraft used for conversion is a Boeing Business Jet - a 737-700 with increased gross weight fitted with wings and undercarriage from the 800 series. The new aircraft will be flown to Brisbane, where they will be stripped down to begin the modification program. Stripping includes removing the tail and engines while the entire inside of the aircraft is gutted, including the cockpit and all its flight instruments. Then, to facilitate fitting of the radar antennae, Section 46 is removed. Section 46 sounds fairly innocuous, perhaps the sort of minor part one might rip off the aircraft before morning tea on a good day, but its removal and the refitting of the new radar antennae support section is a serious task requiring extremely precise engineering. Section 46 extends from the over-wing exits to the rear doors from the floor up, and to remove it all the rivets are drilled out and the various seals cracked prior to it being lifted out of place. Great care must be taken not to stress components when the pressurisation seals are breached and the aircraft must be held securely in place on a jig. It must not move or twist, even slightly - not even by a millimetre. Any movement will mean that the new section will not fit into place. Over 500 man-years of work will be expended in converting the four Wedgetail aircraft in Australia. Few parts of the aircraft escape modification in some shape or form. New wingtips and nose and tail cones house a range of antennae and sensors for electronic surveillance measures. The new tail cone and ventral fins are built locally by Hawker de Haviland, and the tail cone in particular is a very complex composite construction. Conversion of an ordinary 737 into a Wedgetail is not easy, but undertaking that task locally will provide Australia with much more than just a challenging work package. The transfer of skills and advanced aerospace technology necessary for the task will see local industry well positioned for other opportunities. The 737 is a paperless aircraft, and to allow the Wedgetail conversion to take place in Australia terabytes of digital plans will be transferred here along with the necessary modelling and simulation software for complex aircraft modification. The size and complexity of the Wedgetail program has more in common with an initial manufacturing activity than a modification and upgrade program. It is four to five times larger on a time spent per airframe basis than anything previously undertaken in Australia. Boeing Australia will end up with a tremendous working knowledge of 737 aircraft and how to modify them. This capability will be very important for through-life support, and if any further modifications to the Wedgetails are required to cater for future communications or other systems. The first Wedgetail to be modified locally will be handed over in November this year and the conversion program will run in Australia for three and a half years 10 Mar 2005 - Retirements lead Boeing to shuffle executives Carolyn Corvi, who has been running Boeings 737 and 757 programs in Renton, was named vice president and general manager of airplane production. Mark Jenkins will replace Corvi in Renton as vice president and general manager of the 737 program. He most recently led supply management and procurement. He has worked in finance and commercial aviation services for Boeing and has more than 30 years with the company. 02 Mar 2005 - 737 to be replaced in the next decade. Boeing plans to overhaul its 737 family of single-aisle aircraft in the next 10 years, applying the advanced technologies of its 787 aircraft, a senior Boeing executive said Tuesday. One of our options we look at is to take all the learning and all the technologies involved in the 787. and apply all those to the single-aisle categories, Randy Baseler, vice president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group, said at a news conference. The new 787 Dreamliner long-haul aircraft, aimed at achieving high fuel effeciency, is Boeings latest project. It is expected to enter service in 2008. Baseler said the technology developed for the 787 would more than likely be applied next in the single-aisle area, for an overhauled version of the 737 short-haul aircraft. Asked about a possible launch date for the new-look 737, he replied: The market dictates timing. Probably its somewhere in the next decade, he said, adding that the aircraft would probably have a different name. Referring to the planned update of the 737, a short-to-medium-range aircraft, Baseler said: We have not defined what that airplane will actually look like, adding that studies were under way. Right now, all that we are saying is we dont have a firm date yet, because part of that is the market dynamic - when will the customer really want it, when will Airbus do something, he said, referring to Boeings arch-rival Airbus of Europe. I suspect that what it will be is not a continuation of the 737 family, he added. The latest version of the 737, a model popular with low-cost airlines and in direct competition with the Airbus 320, dates from 1993. Boeing estimates it will sell 14,715 units of the 737 aircraft in the next 20 years. 26 Jan 2005 - First 737 rolled out without eyebrow windows Boeing this week rolled out its first 737 without eyebrow windows, the four small windows above the front windshield. In the past the eyebrow windows helped provide better crew visibility, but todays advanced navigation systems have made those windows obsolete. The design change reduces airplane weight by 20 pounds and eliminates approximately 300 hours of periodic inspections per airplane. Retrofit kits to cover eyebrow windows will be available mid-2006 for the in-service 737 fleet. The first eyebrowless aircraft was 737-700, N201LV, LN 1650, first flown on 3 Feb 2005 and was delivered to Southwest 16 Feb 2005. 04 Jan 2005 - 737-200F collapses on runway at Banda Aceh after hitting Cows. A 737-200F operated by TRI-MG has blocked the runway at Banda Aceh airport this morning after hitting cows on the runway. The military says the engine and landing gear are badly damaged and without heavy lifting equipment, the airport remains closed to fixed-wing aircraft. The Republic of Singapore Air Force has been called in to use their Chinooks to float the aircraft off the runway using airbags. 28 Dec 2004 - Future of 737 Looks Strong In June, Boeing won a stunning victory over Lockheed Martin and gave Renton a new lease on life. The U. S. Navy awarded Boeing a contract to develop an anti-submarine ocean prowler based on the 737 airframe. On other military programs, commercial jets are typically modified at defense-oriented plants outside Washington state. But the Navys 737s will be modified on a new, dedicated assembly line in Renton. Boeing will produce seven test aircraft under the initial development contract, worth 3.9 billion. If thats successful, the program is potentially worth more than 40 billion in sales to U. S. and overseas military. The upshot: The Boeing plant at the southern edge of Lake Washington, previously scheduled to wind down perhaps as early as 2012, will be pumping out 737s for perhaps another 25 years. In addition to securing the 737 production jobs, already the Navy program has added almost 450 high-tech engineering jobs in Renton. On the commercial side, even though U. S. jet sales remain badly depressed mdash with several carriers including Delta, United and US Airways in serious financial trouble mdash the worldwide market has finally recovered. For the first time in four years, Boeings orders are up over the previous year. Internal documents show Boeing plans to increase the monthly 737 production rate from 17 to 21, the 777 rate from three to four and the 747 rate from one to 1-frac12. By 2006, as many as 28 of the 737s could be rolling out per month. Boeing declined to comment on the internal numbers. 12 Nov 2004 - RAAF Wedgetail AEWampC project sets records. By Steve Creedy, the Australian. ONE of Australias most complex aircraft modification programs is on track to move to Queenslands Amberley RAAF base late next year after a promising run with the first two planes. The RAAFs Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEWampC) system is making a name for itself as one of the rare military projects to run on time, or ahead, of schedule. The worlds first Boeing 737-based AEWampC aircraft has broken records at the US aerospace giant for flight testing since it took to the air in May with about double the per day sortie rate of similar programs. A second plane is undergoing an extensive refit at a hangar at Boeing Field in Seattle with installation of mission equipment due to start this week and testing to get under way next month. The plane has performed extremely well during all that time, says Boeing 737 AEWampC programs vice-president Patrick Gill. And even better than that, we havent had any nasty surprises with the aerodynamic characteristics that we predicted out of both the wind tunnel and the computational fluid dynamics. The good news from Seattle means modification of the final four aircraft at Amberley in Queensland, expected to create 150 to 170 jobs, is expected to begin on time in December next year. The federal Government in June this year made what is generally regarded by defence experts as the sensible decision to buy two more options for about 180 million. That decision paved the way for the extensive 20-month modification program being undertaken on the first two planes in the US to be done in Australia. The modifications essentially gut a 737-700 commercial airframe, replacing and reinforcing an entire section so it can support the aircrafts distinctive multi-role electronically scanned array (MESA) radar, designed to track airborne and maritime targets simultaneously to help the crew direct fighter aircraft. The modifications involve rewiring the entire plane, adding defensive measures, shoring it up against electromagnetic radiation, installing more than 60 new antennae and adding extra fuel tanks that give the aircraft a range of 3500 nautical miles. As the launch customer for 737-based AEWampC aircraft, Australians are already playing a key role in shaping the projects future. Defence Materiel Organisation deputy chief executive Norm Gray has a team of more than 40 Australians in Seattle working closely with Boeing. Australia has already asked for modifications which include a fuel jettison system which have been taken up by the programs other buyer, Turkey. The system allows fuel to be dumped in the case of an aborted take-off, avoiding the problems of a heavy landing, and has been deemed an enhancement that would also benefit potential future customers such as South Korea, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Spain. Its actually a change that will benefit the Commonwealth in terms of some increased Australian industry involvement over the life of the program, says Boeings Mr Gill, referring to contract terms that allow Australia to benefit from changes it specifies and are subsequently marketed to other customers. Air Vice Marshal Gray sees Wedgetail as bringing a huge amount of capability, not just to air defence but to support ground forces and the maritime fleet. Of course it was a risky program when we went into it and that drove a number of the decisions we made early, he says. Among those criteria was the need for a prime contractor with experience with airborne warning and control aircraft with whom Australian defence experts could partner. According to Air Vice Marshall Gray, the decision to work closely with Boeing as a partner has seen differences between the parties resolved more quickly and meant Australian personnel gain valuable experience before the aircraft go into service. 12 Oct 2004 - Boeing Electronic Flight Bag Available for Retrofit on BBJ Boeing is making its industry-leading Class 3 Electronic Flight Bag available for retrofit on Boeing Business Jets, giving BBJ operators the chance to make unsurpassed gains in safety, security and efficiency. The Boeing EFB contains the documentation and forms that pilots carry ndash Jeppesen charts, manuals for fault reporting and operations, minimum equipment lists and logbooks ndash in digital format, and puts them at the crews fingertips. It is the only fully integrated, FAA-certified EFB available on the market today. EFB includes an on-board performance tool that allows the pilot to instantly calculate the ideal speed and engine setting for an aircraft, in any weather, on any runway ndash or any runway section ndash with any payload. In addition, the EFB includes the award-winning Jeppesen Airport Moving Map application, which combines high-fidelity, geo-referenced airport taxi charts and precise navigational signals to show flight crews exactly where they are on the surface of an airport. It also gives flight crews a viewer for cabin surveillance systems, helping meet new and anticipated regulatory requirements. Boeing is offering an avionics-installed Class 3 version of the EFB comprising Jeppesen software and data, and electronics and display hardware from Astronautics Corp. of America. Boeing Commercial Aviation Services will design the installation on BBJ and handle all certification issues. Boeing received U. S. Federal Aviation Administration certification for its Class 3 EFB in October 2003, when the first commercial unit was delivered to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines on the carriers first 777. Installation of an EFB will give BBJ operators a first step into the future of the e-enabled air transport system. Boeing is offering content, applications, and services that connect all the data generated by an entire flight operation ndash in the air, on the ground and in the hangar ndash meaningful to all users: pilots, mechanics, flight attendants, operations departments and airport users ndash and other potential customers. 14 Sep 2004 - Algeria air crash due to human, technical error ALGIERS, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Human and technical error caused an Air Algerie Boeing 737 to crash in the Sahara desert last year killing 102 people, an official inquiry into Algerias worst air disaster showed on Tuesday. The state-owned plane had been heading for Algiers on the Mediterranean coast when it crashed near Tamanrasset, 1,920 km (1,200 miles) from the capital in the far south of the country last March. Some French nationals were among the dead. There are three key reasons behind the crash - losing the engine during takeoff, failure of the wheels to fold in, and the pilot being unaware of engine problems (before takeoff), Hasane Afane, head of the government commission, told a news conference. He gave no explanation as to why the left engine fell off, nor why the wheels did not fold back into the Boeing body, but Afane said the pilot failed to check the engines prior to departure. The commission called for more training for Algerian pilots, particularly on emergency situations. It said French and U. S. experts were also involved in the investigation. Initially, the commission believed the crash was due to an engine glitch. 13 Sep 2004 - Boeing Hikes 737 Prices Boeing Co. has raised catalogue prices on its aircraft by 7 to reflect inflation. The list prices, last updated in 2002, are a guide for industry analysts, the media, and the public to use as estimates for order values. Airlines usually dont pay list prices. The new price for Chicago-based Boeings 737, its most popular plane, is 44-74 million depending on maximum range and number of seats, up from 41-68.5 million in 2002. The increase was just producer price inflation, and its consistent with what others in the industry have done, says spokesman Todd Blecher. The new prices have been posted on the companys Web site. 18 Jul 2004 - SilkAir 737 PCU Servo Valve Found THERES nothing left of the SilkAir Boeing 737 that went down in Indonesia in 1997, except for one little piece. All 600kg of the salvaged parts, save the servo valve, were destroyed by Indonesian Customs last August. They had been sitting in a warehouse since 1998. And it was by a stroke of luck that aeronautical engineering expert Frederic Wilken found the valve, a component in the Boeing 737s power control unit that controls the rudders movements. Defects found in the cylindrical shaft - 2cm in diameter and about 30cm long - helped the Los Angeles law firm Lipscomb, Engstrom and Lack convince a Californian jury that the valve maker Parker Hannifin was responsible for the crash. The law firm engaged Mr Wilken to find the valve because no one would tell us where it went after it was inspected in May 1998, said lawyer Walter Lack. The four-month search that began last November was the most frustrating hes taken on, said Mr Wilken, 57, who has investigated more than 700 aircraft accidents in the last 30 years. Before he touched down in Jakarta, he was confident he knew where it was. From calls he had made, he learnt that the wreckage was in a warehouse for goods that did not get through Customs. The warehouse was searched, but the crates werent there. Mr Wilken was six weeks into the search when he learnt that they had all been destroyed months earlier. That was one of my low points, he told The Sunday Times from Jakarta, where he is investigating two more plane crashes. His only hope rested in the Indonesias National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) investigators who handled the probe back in 1998. Two weeks went by before he received a phone call that saved the day. An NTSC investigator who was helping me was yelling and laughing. He said another investigator who was involved in the probe seven years back had actually locked the servo valve in a safe in the NTSC office. He felt it was too important to leave it with the rest of the planes remains Mr Wilken then met twice with the NTSC to persuade its officials to let him take the valve to the US where experts could run tests on it. They agreed only a day before he was due to leave for home. He scrambled to get air tickets for the two Indonesian officials appointed to carry the valve to the US. But hours before the plane was to leave for Singapore en route to Boston, one of the two said he couldnt go, because a meeting had come up suddenly. By this time, Id given up. I left the next day and told the investigator that if he gets there, call me, he recalled. Three days and many cancelled and delayed flights later, the Indonesian investigator finally arrived in the US, carrying the valve in a sealed cardboard box. The next day, experts concluded that it did indeed have chip-outs and numerous burrs that could have interfered with the smooth operation of the valve. Mr Wilkens job was done. He then took a two-week vacation in the Caribbean. Till today, he hasnt laid eyes on the servo valve. Not once I just hoped it was there and that it was the right piece. Thank goodness it was 13 Jul 2004 - Anti AG missile system tested on IAI ELTA 737-200 Flight Guard, the airborne system designed to protect civilian aircraft from surface-to-air missiles, was successfully tested Monday and Tuesday over Palmachim Air Force base, Israel Aircraft Industries said Tuesday. Its developers at IAI, Elta, and TAAS-Israel Industries are now hoping US officials will license the platform, allowing not only Israels airliners to carry the system, but enabling Elta and its partners to market it worldwide. Using an IAI Boeing 737-200 as the test aircraft, air force personnel launched a virtual SA-7 Strela (shoulder-fired) missile at the plane, which was immediately tracked and destroyed by the Flight Guard system. The test was a huge success and we were more than pleased with the results, Elta Systems president Israel Livnat told The Jerusalem Post. We now await Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) licensing, and from there the FAA is expected to approve and license the system, added Livnat. Designed originally as a protective system for combat planes, helicopters, transports, and VIP aircraft, Elta adapted the successful military version that has been installed in over 150 aircraft and been on the market for 10 years ndash even before a near-disaster took place over African skies. On November 28, 2002, al-Qaida-related terrorists fired two SA-7 Strela anti-aircraft missiles at an Arkia Israeli Airlines jet as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya, narrowly missing the Boeing 757, which carried 261 Israeli passengers. Immediately following the attack, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the Defense Ministry to assist the state-owned aeronautics concern in completing all phases of the systems testing, and its successful installation in all Israeli airliners. Under Flight Guards current platform, the systems radar detects approaching heat-seeking missiles, automatically deploying tiny, powerful flares in all directions from the planes rear or sides that divert the missiles away from the plane. However in order to garner the precious FAA license, Flight Guards developers had to abandon the use of lit flares, opting for invisible ones designed by TAAS. We understood the psychological affect on passengers seeing brightly lit flares from their windows fired in all direction from the fuselage, so using TAASs technology the flares will be invisible, Livnat noted. Officials in Washington had presented concerns over the possibility of lit flares landing in populated areas or airport surroundings, endangering the lives of people on the ground. We do not expect to encounter any problems in the FAA certification process, he said. The certification will allow Israeli carriers to fly in and out of US airports using the Flight Guard system. Industry analysts expect the first El Al plane to be fitted with the system by years end. 8 Jul 2004 - Hydraulic firm loses 44 million in verdict Parker Hannifin, the worlds largest maker of hydraulic equipment, was told by a Los Angeles jury to pay 43.6 million to the families of three people killed in a 1997 crash of a SilkAir plane in Indonesia. The Los Angeles Superior Court jury determined that defects in a rudder-control system caused the Boeing 737 to plunge from 35,000 feet, killing all 104 people aboard. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that there were no mechanical defects and the pilot intentionally caused the crash. We are incredulous, said Lorrie Paul Crum, a spokeswoman for Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin, who said the company will appeal. The jury assigned the entire responsibility for the crash to Parker Hannifin, rejecting the option of apportioning any fault to Silk Air or Boeing, which manufactured the 10-month-old 737. 15 Jun 2004 - 737 MMA Wins 109 aircraft US Navy Order The Boeing Co. beat Lockheed Martin Corp. for a multi-billion dollar contract to replace the Navys aging fleet of P-3C Orion submarine-hunters. Boeing will build up to 109 multi-mission maritime aircraft for the Navy, a contract potentially worth 15 billion over the 10-year production run, the company said. The company won an initial 3.9 billion Monday to design the planes. The Navy chose Boeings 737s to replace the existing four-engine turboprop planes made by Lockheed. For its bid, Lockheed had proposed a next-generation P-3. The new aircraft will have enhanced surveillance and attack capabilities, expanding its role beyond anti-submarine warfare, said John Young, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, in a statement. The Navys existing fleet of 223 P-3s is more than 30 years old and is operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Boeings new field office in Norfolk served as a liaison between the military and corporate headquarters during the bidding process. Now, the local office will serve as Boeings link to the commander of Patrol and Reconnaissance Force Atlantic, based in Norfolk, which will oversee the fleet of aircraft. The company will produce seven test planes before the Navy places its order. Led by Boeings Integrated Defense Systems unit, the winning team also includes CFM International, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Smiths Aerospace. 08 Jun 2004 - NASA Tests Aviation Turbulence Detection System A NASA developed technology that can automatically alert pilots of potentially dangerous turbulence will make its first evaluation flights on a commercial airliner. The idea behind NASAs Turbulence Prediction and Warning System (TPAWS) airborne radar is to give flight crews enough advance warning, so they can avoid turbulence or advise flight attendants and passengers to sit down and buckle up to avoid injury. Researchers at NASAs Langley Research Center (LaRC), Hampton, Va. developed TPAWS to detect turbulence associated with thunderstorms as part of the NASA Aviation Safety and Security Program. NASA teamed with Delta Air Lines, Atlanta AeroTech Research, Hampton, Va. and Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the in-service evaluation of a production-prototype airborne radar unit with turbulence hazard prediction capabilities. Delta will install the TPAWSRockwell Collins radar unit on a Boeing 737-800 this summer. Delta flight crews will use and evaluate the technology during regularly scheduled flights in the U. S. and South America. The prototype is expected to fly for six to nine months. Researchers from NASA, the companies involved and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will evaluate interim and final results of the turbulence prediction radar system. If the evaluation is successful, the technology may be adopted for new and existing aircraft. The TPAWS technology is an enhanced turbulence detection radar system that detects atmospheric turbulence by measuring the motions of the moisture in the air, said NASAs TPAWS project manager Jim Watson. It is a software signal processing upgrade to existing predictive Doppler wind shear systems that are already on airplanes, he added. Delta Air Lines is always interested in evaluating new technologies that offer the potential for improved ride quality and safety for our customers and flight crews, said Ira Pearl, Delta flight operations technical support director. Researchers have already tested TPAWS on a NASA Boeing 757 research aircraft. The TPAWS equipped plane searched for turbulence activity around thunderstorms for eight weeks. The aircraft flew within a safe distance of storms, so researchers could experience the turbulence and compare the radar prediction to how the plane responded to the encounters. After one severe patch of turbulence, a NASA research pilot said his confidence in the enhanced radar had gone up dramatically, since the planes weather radar did not show anything, while the same time the TPAWS display showed rough skies ahead. Atmospheric turbulence encounters are the leading cause of injuries to passengers and flight crews in non-fatal airline accidents. FAA statistics show an average of 58 airline passengers are annually injured in U. S. turbulence incidents. Ninety eight percent of those injuries happen, because people dont have their seat belts fastened. Turbulence encounters are hazardous they cost airlines money and time, in the form of re-routing flights, late arrivals, additional inspections and maintenance for aircraft. The NASA Aviation Safety and Security Program is a partnership with the FAA, aircraft manufacturers, airlines and the Department of Homeland Security to reduce the fatal aircraft accident rate, protect air travelers and the public from security threats. Researchers at four NASA centers are working to develop advanced, affordable technologies to make flying safer and more secure. NASAs LaRC Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif. and Glenn Research Center, Cleveland are working on the program. 21 May 2004 - Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft makes its first flight A new era in Australian airborne surveillance was launched today with the first flight of the Royal Australian Air Forces new Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft. Defence Minister Robert Hill said the first flight conducted at Boeing Field in Seattle in the United States was a significant milestone in the 3.4 billion AEWampC project. During the flight, tests were made on the Wedgetails systems and structures. The pilots were in constant contact with test engineers monitoring the flight. After touchdown, the aircraft was greeted by Air Vice Marshal Norm Gray, head of the AEWampC program. The Wedgetail program is a hugely complicated undertaking, incorporating leading edge software technologies, Senator Hill said. To have it progressing ahead of time and on budget and with all of our capability requirements met so far is a dream come true. My congratulations to the Defence Materiel Organisation project team led by Air Vice Marshal Norm Gray, and to Boeing, BAE Systems and all the subcontractors who have achieved a great deal in such a short time. Senator Hill said that the Governments high confidence in the Wedgetail project was demonstrated last week with the announcement that we would purchase an additional two aircraft, equipping Australia with a fleet of six. Senator Hill said the aircraft would enhance Australias combat capability through leading-edge air and maritime surveillance. The Wedgetail is based on Boeings next generation 737 aircraft, which is being modified to accommodate an advanced phased-array radar and various other sophisticated mission systems , Senator Hill said. The aircraft will have far more flexibility and capability than other similar platforms in service today. The RAAFs re-formed No 2 Squadron based at Williamtown near Newcastle will fly the AEWampC Wedgetail when it becomes operational. Delivery of the first two aircraft is scheduled for 2006. 14 May 2004 - Boeing Makes History with 1,500th Next-Generation 737 Delivery Boeing made history today with its Next-Generation 737 family reaching 1,500 airplanes delivered sooner than any other commercial airplane model. The milestone delivery -- a 737-800 to Indianapolis-based ATA Airlines, Inc. -- occurred six years after Southwest Airlines received the first Next-Generation 737. The Next-Generation 737 family bested by four years the previous record holder, Boeings family of Classic 737-300s, -400s and -500s. This is a testament to the Next-Generation 737s efficiency and reliability the confidence and trust the worlds airlines have in it and the efforts of our employees who design, build and support the 737 every day, said Carolyn Corvi, Boeing 737757 programs vice president and general manager. Vice President, Marketing, Randy Baseler, added, We know better than any other airplane company what airlines and passengers want. Thats why the 737 is historys best-selling passenger airplane and why the 7E7 will set a whole new standard for passenger comfort and airplane efficiency. The Boeing 727 and Airbus A320 models are the only others to have delivered at least 1,500 airplanes. The A320 family, the 737 competitor, reached that mark in 13 years while the 727 did so in 16 years. Reliability, low operating and maintenance costs, and advanced technologies such as Head-Up and Vertical Situation displays not available on competing models, are hallmarks of the Next-Generation 737 family. Overall, Boeing has received orders for more than 5,390 737s. Thats more than Airbus has for all its models. At any given time, more than 1,200 737s are flying, and a 737 takes off or lands somewhere in the world every 5.3 seconds. The Next-Generation 737 family includes the 737-600, -700, -800 and -900 airplanes. The 737-100 through 737-500 airplanes are no longer produced. 5 May 2004 - Defects In Aging Passenger Jets Exposed SEATTLE -- KIRO Team 7 Investigators discover cracks, corrosion and weakened metal hidden inside a growing number of Boeing passenger jets. The problems lie along structural seams called lap joints. A fuselage is designed with overlapping sheets of metal riveted together. We uncovered at least 28 different warnings regarding flaws or defects. In 2002, a China Airlines jet plummeted into the water, killing 225 passengers. Fourteen years earlier, an Aloha Airlines 737 opened up like a sardine can, killing one person and injuring eight more. KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers a big new problem for Boeing, centered on lap-joint metal fatigue. The problem is called scoring. During assembly, workers lay a bead of sealant along this lap joint. It makes the jet more aerodynamic. A year or two flying you around and many jets have to get repainted. Powerful chemical strippers melt the sealant, so some maintenance crews have been putting on caulk then, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, have been cutting away the excess with a box cutter. That can ruin the integrity of the metal along the entire aircraft lap joint. The FAA recently grounded three passenger jets due to scribe marks and has identified 32 more Boeing planes with damaging box cutter-type cuts along the lap joint. When we found this, we jumped on it right away, said FAA spokesperson Mike Fergus. Fergus says they have no idea yet how many more jets are affected by scoring. With the contraction and expansion of thousands of flight hours, the scratch has the potential, not a guarantee, the potential of turning into a crack. That in turn may have safety factor. Thats our issue. If its safety, were interested, Fergus said. Scoring of some lap joints is just the latest chapter in Boeings long battle with the design and maintenance of its riveted seams. With that type of structure, whatever is occurring between the two sheets is not readily visible, said Earl Brown, a certified jet engine and airframe mechanic. Brown says the FAA has been warning airlines to inspect -- and re-inspect often -- the lap joints of thousands of still-operating older model Boeing jets. If we can catch a problem when its still just a crack and fix it, then we dont have to worry about something coming apart, breaking. The potential for breaking is there if a crack develops. Its pretty much inherent in the design of the airplane and the materials used, Brown said. The scoring issue has been kept quiet until now, but other huge maintenance nightmares include hundreds of previously patched or repaired planes. An Airworthiness Directive says new inspections are necessary to find premature cracking of certain lap joints, which could result in rapid decompression. Spotting fatigue in the lap joints on the outside of an aircraft, through the paint, is nearly impossible. So heres what the airlines have to do: They have to bring the jet into a hanger and gut the interior. That can cost more than 1 million. The super-high cost of that D-check inspection is hardly an incentive for airlines to look really hard for trouble spots. For example, KIRO Team 7 Investigators uncovered an Aviation Safety Report filed by a mechanic last year. He reported his company ignored a potentially deadly safety problem saying, A B737-200 had water leaking on passengers and inspectors found all fuselage lap joints leaking excessively. Despite that, the mechanic says the supervisor told me to get off the ACFT and not to check any laps. This ACFT had to go. Independent aviation robotics engineer Henry Seemann doesnt look at a Boeing 737 like the rest of us. We view them as a whole. He sees them in tiny parts, up close, one rivet at a time. And what he sees should make all of us a little nervous: cascading metal cracks, loose shear clips, corroded lap joints and tiny cuts in the metal. Halsne: Are there times when you walk up to a plane and think, I dont know about this one Seemann: Yes, Ive had my moments of certain airplanes when Ive looked at them and actually booked a different flight. Seemann invented a machine, currently used by Boeing itself, that automatically inspects lap joints. The robot could save the industry billions in early maintenance because it takes just a few days to computer map and analyze lap joint flaws. Current methods take a month. Despite the potential cost savings some airlines are telling Henry dont get that thing near our passenger jets. Theres a requirement that if you know something is wrong with your airplane, youre supposed to fix it. Its a moral thing, Seemann said. Some are afraid of that -- that their fleet is kind of old and were going to inspect their planes and were going to put a big red x on them. The Federal Aviation Administration confirms this robot design is in the final stages of approval. It could revolutionize the way we spot catastrophic metal failures - before a serious accident. Boeing refused our repeated requests for an on-camera interview about scoring and other lap joint issues, but did provide us with some background on how its working hard to fix the problems. We called Boeing again this week for a statement. While they still wont comment on past metal fatigue issues, they did say design improvements on their new line of 7E7s should take care of future problems. 5 May 2004 - Boeing denies report of 737 replacement due in nine years By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter A respected trade publication says Boeing has targeted 2013 for launch of a new commercial jet that would replace the narrowbody 737 and likely end production at the companys Renton plant. Aviation-industry magazine Flight International reports in its latest issue that a Boeing preliminary study to replace the 737 mdash dubbed the Y-1 program mdash is gaining momentum and that the new candidate airplane could enter service nine years from now. If so, that would be the likely schedule for the end of aircraft production in Renton, where the 737 is assembled. A 737 replacement jet would likely be close in design, structure and production to the all-composite 7E7 and would be assembled in Everett. While Boeing concedes long-term studies exist, it denies any firm plan to replace the 737. Were always studying a variety of product strategies, said Boeing spokeswoman Sandy Angers, There arent any plans. Were always doing studies. Boeing has in the past studied the eventual replacement of its entire jet family with a new product line that would have common cockpits, systems and manufacturing processes. Some insiders see the 7E7 as the first of what would eventually be three different size categories, with a 737 replacement next up. But Angers said the market is too dynamic to predict when the time will be right to end production of what is currentlyBoeings best-selling jet. Boeing will deliver its 1,500th next-generation 737 next week, a milestone achieved in a record time of just six years since the revamped 737 was launched. The schedule for launching a 737 replacement mentioned in the trade magazine does resonate with what is known of Boeings plans in Renton. City leaders have long been aware that once the 737 line closes, the great gray box on the south end of Lake Washington will be surplused, and Boeing will be gone. A 2003 internal strategic-planning document obtained by The Seattle Times revealed Boeings intention to sell its commercial operations in Wichita, Kan. and showed that the planned future state of Boeings Renton facility is to sell it all mdash though the document mentions no time frame. The city, in conjunction with Boeing, already has developed a detailed plan to replace the 280-acre Boeing plant with a lakeside project of mixed office, retail and residential space. In November, the City Council approved sweeping zoning changes, clearing the way for Boeing to eventually redevelop the property. In the meantime, Boeing has been rapidly shrinking the site toward the lake and has invested in relocating office space beside its 737 production line. Yesterday, Boeing announced it will begin marketing an additional 46 acres of vacated land at the site, a parcel named Lakeshore Landing. A Boeing directive obtained by The Times and dated January 2004 also authorizes vacating adjoining land on Renton Field by the end of this year. When might Boeing leave the site entirely Announcing the closure of the 757 line in October, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Alan Mulally said Boeing would be in Renton as long as the world wants 737s. Last year, Carolyn Corvi, the head of the Renton factory, offered assurances that Boeing would stay in the city for seven to 10 years, but insisted that she could not predict beyond that. Adam Pilarski, an industry analyst with Avitas, said airplane manufacturers are always conducting advance engineering studies of possible future products and that the obvious next step after the 7E7 would be a 737 replacement. Pilarski said it is not in Boeings interest to announce early a firm intention to introduce a new jet. Such an announcement could hit the stock as investors fear the expense of development costs and an adverse impact on sales of the current jet. As long as you are selling the 737 Next Generation, there is no reason for you to go there, said Pilarski. Will it eventually happen Obviously. 26 Apr 2004 - Pemco Inks 24M Deal with Chinese Airline Birmingham-based Pemco Aviation Group Inc. will modify up to 10 Boeing 737 passenger aircraft for cargo duty under a new 24 million contract with Chinas Hainan Airlines. Air cargo traffic, and the resulting demand for freighter aircraft, is showing strong growth in the Asia-Pacific region, says Pemco president and CEO Ron Aramini. Hainan is a successful company that is benefiting from this growth and an airline with which we are proud to conduct business. Pemco, the only company approved by the Chinese government to perform such conversions, began work April 15 on the first aircraft. 18 Apr 2004 - Boeing sees Altered 737 as Sub Spy BY ALAN BJERGA AND MOLLY MCMILLIN. The Wichita Eagle WASHINGTON - Its a modification of a commercial plane for military use. It has a fierce competitor. It could put hundreds of people to work at Boeing Wichita. But its not the 767 tanker. Its the 737 multimission Marine aircraft, a proposed Boeing modification of another of its popular commercial models. And it is competing for a Navy contract that would bring Boeing billions of dollars. The 737 MMA would primarily be a submarine-hunter, flying low over water to find and attack enemy subs. For Wichita, it would primarily be a job-preserver -- if the local plant lands the work. Boeing hasnt decided where to place the project, but with 75 percent of the 737 fuselage already built at Boeing Wichita, prototype and modification work could logically take place here. If Boeing Wichita did get the work, it would mean hundreds of jobs. With enough international business, the 737s impact could even surpass the 1,000 or so jobs promised by the tanker program, which is on hold under a cloud of scandal. The Navy is expected to award a contract by early June to either Boeing or Lockheed Martin, which made the Navys current sub-hunting fleet. The contract could mean about 150 planes for the U. S. military, and up to that many more for foreign militaries. Neither company would comment on the size of the contract or how much money the program would cost. Boeing MMA program director Tim Norgart said he thinks Boeing is in a good position to win the contract. I think weve offered the Navy a great offer that gives them the ability to grow and expand, he said. But some defense experts say Boeing is the dark horse they question whether the 737 is the right plane for the job. I dont think theyve convinced the Navy that the 737 design works as a sub-hunter, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va. think tank that deals with national security issues. The MMA is the latest Boeing attempt to wed commercial plane technology to military needs. The concept is simple. Take an existing plane and adapt it to military use, saving development costs and giving a proven product a new use. The lean manufacturing processes and established track record of the 737 at Boeing Wichita and in other places create tremendous value for the Navy, Norgart said. The 737 MMA takes a commercial 737 and gives it sensors, disposable listening devices and other special sound technology. It flies slow and low -- within 200 feet of water and at 200 mph. And it uses jet technology, a change from the fleet of turboprops used by the Navy. The 737 MMA is a pretty quantum leap technology wise in the primary mission of this platform, which is anti-submarine warfare, Norgart said. The winner of the contract would replace Lockheed Martins P3 Orion, which has served the Navy for more than 30 years. The newest P3s were built in the 1980s. Lockheed has its own plans to replace the plane: a new aircraft, the Orion 21, that would have the P3 Orions airframe and completely revamped inside parts. Norgart said that makes Lockheeds replacement candidate an untried new plane, in comparison with the tried-and-true 737. Lockheed spokesman Peter Simmons said thats not the case. The P3 design used in the Orion 21 is a well-proven platform for this particular mission, he said. Because the planes airframe doesnt change, the Navys infrastructure costs will be less than for a new plane, Simmons said. And while turboprops might not seem as advanced as jets, theyre the right approach for sub-hunting. Turboprops are preferred for these sorts of uses, he said. If turboprops are old technology, why are people trying to design new turboprop engines Should Boeing get the contract, the first delivery of the 737 MMA would be in 2009, with initial Navy deployment in 2012. The Navy, as is customary, is tight-lipped about the front-runner. Thompson said Boeing faces an uphill climb in getting the contract. Boeings basic concept of modifying commercial planes for military use is laudable, he said. But he doubts the 737 is the plane for this particular job. Originally, the 737 wasnt designed to fly slow and low, he said. I dont know how expensive it will be to meet (Navy) requirements for a plane that performs much differently than a commercial jetliner, he said. Norgart said the 737 meets all the Navys flight requirements, as proven by flight tests. Thompson said a better example of a commercial plane adapted to military needs is the 767 tanker. But that plane has its own problems, mainly federal probes related to negotiations between the Air Force and Boeing over the 23.5 billion deal. Thompson said a bright side for Boeing is that he doubts the well-publicized tanker woes will affect the Navy competition, which is being conducted through traditional procurement rules. The tanker program first ran into trouble because of a highly controversial leasing arrangement between the Air Force and Boeing that critics said unnecessarily added billions of dollars to the cost. I dont see any overlap between the tanker lease and MMA, Thompson said. Boeing, meanwhile, continues to make its case, working with the Navy until a final judgment comes. We have been following step-by-step with the Navy through this competitive process, Norgart said. 20 March 2004 - Boeing Unveils Project Wedgetail SEATTLE - More than a thousand Boeing workers and their families crowded into a hangar at Boeing Field Saturday to see their companys newest high flying defense system. The first two planes from Project Wedgetail go to Australia. The Aussie government has been working closely with Boeing for several years to develop the Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEWampC). The next generation Boeing 737-700s carry state of the art electronically scanning radar. The Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) is a steerable beam, L-band electronically scanned array able to track airborne and surface targets at the same time. Boeings other early warning radar planes, like the AWACS technology on the Boeing 767 platform, use a mechanically scanning radar disc. Boeing expects the 737 AEWampC to give a number of countries a low cost, high-tech solution to early warning radar needs for national defense. Australia is the size of continental United States, said Wedgetail Team Leader John Grubb from Australia. This is a capability we need to enhance our air defense network. It will improve our command and control, our air capability, our combat capability and our strike capability. Australia may buy as many as six of the planes. Boeing also has a contract with the government of Turkey and is in discussions with South Korea and Italy. The plane unveiled Saturday will now go through a 6-month air worthiness program before it and a second plane can be delivered to Australia. Trivia - On Sept 30, 1990, Mr R. Letchemanah used his hair to pull a 32.5-tonne Boeing 737 over 16.9m at the Sultan Aziz Shah Airport in Selangor, Malaysia. This is a world record. 19 Feb 2004 - Ryanair Gives New Meaning to no-frills Experience The no-frills experience will soon deepen even further for Ryanair passengers who already have to walk up to 15 minutes from air terminals to their aircraft because the budget airline does not provide buses. Window seats will no longer come with shades, and passengers will also not be able to recline their seats during flights as these will be non-adjustable. Those who want to put newspapers or passports in the back pockets of seats can no longer do so as there will be no pockets. White headrests on seats will be replaced by those that carry advertisements for things such as soft drinks, coffee, sweets and car rental companies. Ryanair, which has just become the biggest cut-price airline in Europe, will save millions of pounds with its new penny-pinching ideas. Most of the 150 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft that the airline is buying between now and 2010 will be delivered without non-essentials such as window shades, reclining seats and seat pockets. The absence of seat pockets will not only mean savings of about pound100,000 (US318,800) on the cost of each aircraft, Ryanair will also save on cleaning the pockets after each flight. Currently, up to 50 reclining seats have to be repaired by Ryanair on each of its aircraft every year. By using non-adjustable seats, it hopes to save pound1.5 million a year, as well as pay less for aircraft. As it is, the cost of each aircraft will be reduced by about pound200,000 for not having window shades. White cotton headrests also cost the company about pound100,000 a year. The company hopes that this amount and much more will be recouped by using seats with advertising. 16 Feb 2004 - Meggitt Safety Systems Receives FAA Certification for Its Silicon Dioxide Engine Cables for Boeing 737NG Fleet SIMI VALLEY, Calif. Feb. 16 PRNewswire -- Meggitt Safety Systems Inc. (MSSI) announced today that it has received Federal Aviation Administration certification of its engine fire warning system Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) engine cables for use on the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) family of commercial airplanes. The Meggitt cables will replace the originally installed organic wire harnesses. Initial shipments of the state-of-the-art product has begun by MSSI for installation into the hot sections of the CFM56-7 engines by the launch customer. This new cable eliminates the need for frequent maintenance required to replace the organic cabling and offers extensive life cycle cost savings. These SiO2 cables have replaced standard engine wire harnesses on MD-11 aircraft, as well as several 747-400 aircraft. Kevin Faughnan, General Manager of Meggitt Safety Systems, said: State-of-the-art designs, manufacturing technologies and the unique silicon dioxide dielectric make Meggitts cable systems the ultimate in hermetically sealed, inconel jacketed cable assemblies. And because we pioneered silicon dioxide cable systems in the early 1960s and hold the basic patent, our comprehensive experience is solving numerous unique application challenges. MSSI, a unit of Meggitt Aerospace Equipment Group, based in Simi Valley, CA. is a leading provider of Silicon Dioxide solutions for a wide variety of commercial and military aircraft. The aircraft utilization of the MSSI product represents a new application for a problem that has plagued ageing aircraft -- frequent engine wire harness failures in extreme environments. Meggitts cables offer numerous advantages over organic engine wire harnesses, including light weight, tight bend radius, smaller diameter, and superior mechanical durability and high-quality performance under high hazard conditions. The company has supplied more of this type of cable system than all other cable suppliers in the world combined. MSSI has further exploited the highly reliable SiO2 cable for applications that require truly fire-proof and robust performance. These applications include, but are not limited to, nuclear safety related coaxial and multi-wire instrumentation, control and power cable systems, Appendix R fire zone cables in nuclear installations, and high temperature engine vibration monitoring systems. The companys cables and connectors cover a wide frequency range of 0.1 to 40 GHz, and operate reliably when exposed to extremely low and high temperatures (cryogenic to 2400 degrees F), gamma radiation and high power RF conditions. The SiO2 cable will withstand vibration to 45gs on earth and 110gs in space. Meggitt Safety Systems has supplied aerospace OEMs, including Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier, with a variety of products since 1963. Pneumatic fire and overheat detection systems are used on virtually all Boeing aircraft models. Smoke detectors and high performance engine cables are used on several Boeing commercial aircraft types. The company also produces fire and overheat and bleed air leak detection systems for many Boeing military aircraft including the FA-18, F-15E and the AH-64 helicopter. Meggitt Safety Systems is a unit of Meggitt PLC (MGGT. L). Meggitt PLC, headquartered in the United Kingdom, is the parent company for an international group of companies operating in North America, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and the Far East. Recognized for its specialized engineering skills, Meggitt is a world leader in the aerospace, defense and electronics industries. 12 Feb 2004 - Australia Decides Whether to Convert their 2 AEWampC Options. Bargains are rare in the defence business. Over the next few months the Government has a chance to snap one up, thanks to an uncharacteristic gamble by the Prime Minister, John Howard, which is paying off. The decision rests with Howard to reap the benefits of that gamble. He must move fast. Somewhere in Seattle, a Boeing 737 is being taken apart and rebuilt to carry a 2-tonne radar antenna, and enough computing power to run a fair-sized trading bank. It is the first of Australias four new Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft, and its due to fly in May. Before the end of June Australia needs to decide whether to buy another two of the same. Until mid-year, these two extra aircraft are available under a contract option at one-seventh of the unit price we are paying for the first four. We are paying 3.6 billion for the four aircraft on order - 900 million each. We can get two more for 240 million - 120 million each. Or to put it another way, an extra 7 per cent investment will yield a 50 per cent increase in capability, from four to six aircraft. With numbers like that, it is hard to see how the Government could decide not to buy the extra two aircraft. But last weeks revision of the Defence Capability Plan makes no provision for the money needed. Odd. Of course, there must be a story behind a bargain like this. The story goes back to 2000, when Defence asked Howard and his colleagues to sign a contract with Boeing for six or seven AEWampC. This was not just the biggest defence contract this Government has considered, it was also the most risky. It is full of new, cutting-edge technologies. Ministers feared they were looking at another Collins submarine project - an overambitious embarrassment waiting to pounce. But they also recognised that, for once, there were good reasons why Australia should take the risk of developing a new high-technology capability, because the capability was critical to maintaining our fighting edge in the air. So the ever-cautious Howard hedged his bets. Yes, we would sign the contract, but he cut the order down to four, with an option to get two more once the project was far enough along to judge if it was working. Now Howard has every reason to be pleased. For once, in the problem-plagued world of defence acquisition, something is going right. Lessons from the Collins have been learnt and applied in the management of the project which is on track to deliver a first-rate capability. The two additional AEWampC are so cheap because all we need to pay for is the aircraft themselves, and the cost of fitting the systems to them. We are already buying and paying for six mission systems - the radars and other equipment that the aircraft carry to do their job. Of course, no matter how cheap they are, two extra aircraft are not a bargain unless we need them. But the arguments for buying six (or even more) are very strong. They will provide the eyes and ears for our fighters in air combat, support strike aircraft on bombing missions, provide coverage for naval ships at sea, and support land forces as well. Australias AEWampC will also be in high demand from the US and other coalition partners as a contribution to operations beyond our shores. Four aircraft will not be enough to do more than one of these roles at a time. An extra two aircraft would make all the difference. At 240 million we are still talking a lot of money. But Defence can find it within its budget. Compared with the cost increases in some other projects in the new Defence Capability Plan, this is small beer. Does it make sense, for example, to allow the cost of an extra 12 trooplift helicopters to blow out from 400 million to more than 750 million, and yet not find 240 million for two more AEWampC Howard should be asking Defence that question, soon. Hugh White is director of ASPI, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. These are his personal views. 22 Jan 2004 - Boeing Selects Palomar Digital Intercommunications System For 737 AEWampC Peace Eagle RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Calif. Jan. 22 PRNewswire -- Palomar Products, Inc. announced today that they have been awarded a contract by The Boeing Company for the Mission Intercommunications Systems (ICS) for the 737 AEWampC Peace Eagle program. The new ICS is a derivative of the system being delivered to Boeing for the Australian Defense Force 737 AEWampC Project Wedgetail. The Peace Eagle Program is for the Republic of Turkey. The program includes the acquisition and development of a new AEWampC system, which includes four 737 AEWampC aircraft and ground equipment. Delivery of the first aircraft is expected in 2007. Palomar Products has been supplying secure Intercommunications systems to Boeing since the 1970s, when the Palomar organization was part of Hughes Aircraft Company. In anticipation of the increasing demand requiring sophisticated digital communications capabilities, Palomar Products has developed a state-of-the-art audio data distribution system -- using the latest digital signal processing and networking technology. Val Policky, Palomar Products President, stated: We are very pleased with this award. Palomars forecasted production orders for this platform are significant in future years and it is gratifying to know that after three decades of being an award winning supplier to Boeing, that we will be able to continue in the decades ahead. Palomars analog ICS, long recognized as an industry standard, complemented by our digital system allows me to offer customers throughout the world a fully compliant solution meeting their operational needs, states Bob Lawson, Marketing Director of Palomar Products, Inc. Palomar Products, Inc. is a leading developer and manufacturer of secure audio and data distribution systems for military airborne and ground-based applications. Located in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, Palomar has provided TEMPEST qualified systems to customers throughout the world for over 30 years. The Boeing Company is the worlds largest manufacturer of satellites, commercial jetliners and military aircraft. In terms of sales, Boeing is the largest exporter in the United States. Total company revenues for 2002 were 54 billion. 20 Jan 2004 - 737-200 to be Sunk off Vancouver Island, Canada Divers are planning to sink a 33m-long, stripped-down, ex Air Canada Boeing 737 at Vancouver Island to provide a new dive site. Comox Valley Dive Association and the Artificial Reef Society are hoping their application for permission to sink the commercial airliner in 26m of water off Vancouver Island will win the approval of Environment Canada. If given the go-ahead, the airliner will become the seventh artificial reef sunk in Canadian waters - the previous six were ships. The Boeing 737 currently belongs to Air Canada and is kept at Vancouver International Airport. It has already been stripped to a shell and cleaned of pollutants. A previous application to sink the airliner at Sechelt Inlet was turned down by the local authorities who were unconvinced that it would attract the levels of interest and increased business revenue that the organisers were claiming. 16 Jan 2004 - Fresh New Look Debuts in Boeing Next-Generation 737 Lavatories SEATTLE, Jan. 16, 2004 - Boeing is introducing a redesigned lavatory for its Next-Generation 737 commercial airplanes that is more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing for passengers and easier for airlines to maintain. A 737-700 delivered to China Southern Airlines today is the first to carry the new lavatory. Aspects of the redesigned lavatory reflect suggestions from passengers and airline operators around the world. Were committed to offering technical or aesthetic innovation that enhances the value of the 737 as well as the comfort and flying experience for the passenger, said Carolyn Corvi, Boeing 737 vice president and general manager. The redesigned lavatory accomplishes both. The new lavatory features: A seat and lid damper also used on the Boeing 777, which slows the closure of the seat and lid and prevents slamming. A gently-curved composite countertop that holds a larger stainless steel sink. An adjustable temperature-controlled faucet that can be operated with one hand and automatically shuts off. A larger soap dispenser conveniently located over the sink rather than on the countertop. Brighter lighting that incorporates lightweight and efficient LED lighting technology. A re-vamped venting system that produces a quieter lavatory interior. Airline maintenance technicians will find that the restyled lavatory panels provide easier and faster access to plumbing, while improved anti-corrosion materials will lower maintenance costs. There is also a larger waste container and bigger stowage compartments for supplies. The new lavatory complements an already passenger-pleasing cabin that provides more head room and larger overhead stowage bins. The Next-Generation 737s are the newest and most technologically advanced in their class, and continue to be Boeings best selling commercial airplane. 12 Jan 2004 - Boeing 737-NGs Remain the Companys Best Seller in 2003 The Boeing 737 in 2003 remained the companys best-selling commercial airplane, propelled by strong demand from the worlds low-cost airlines. The Next-Generation 737 models (737-600-700-800-900) accounted for 86 percent of the 239 Boeing commercial airplanes ordered last year. The Next-Generation 737s have annually been Boeings best seller since entering service in 1998. Demand from low-cost airlines such as Southwest Airlines, Ryanair, WestJet and Virgin Blue underpins the 737s popularity. The Next-Generation 737s have received 56 percent of orders from that market segment during the past five years, nineteen of the 24 low-cost airlines operate only 737s, and 92 percent of airplanes flown by low-cost carriers are Boeing 737s. The 737 aircraft produced the best results for Virgin Blue and more importantly our guests, said Brett Godfrey, chief executive officer of Brisbane-based Virgin Blue. The 737 is the proven leader for low-cost airlines around the world, and it has been a key factor to the success of Virgin Blue. The Next-Generation 737s are the newest and most technologically advanced in their class, offering new flight-deck technologies such as Head-Up and Vertical Situation displays that arent available on competing Airbus models. In addition, the modern 737s provide exceptional economics through lower fuel burn and maintenance costs. The 737s design, reliability, fuel economy, and quick turn-around times, all of which contribute to low operating costs, make it the low-cost airlines airplane of choice, said Carolyn Corvi, Boeing 737 vice president and general manager. It allows those carriers to provide cost-conscious travelers with the value they want. Since 1998 air carriers have ordered more than 2,240 Next-Generation 737s. Overall the 737 family is the best-selling in history. About 5,400 Boeing 737s have been ordered, more than the total for all Airbus models combined. 3 Oct 2003 - FAA Is Testing Cameras Inside Planes NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The federal government is looking into putting video cameras on commercial flights so people on the ground could monitor pilots and passengers and get an early warning of hijackings or other trouble on board. The Boeing Co. demonstrated a satellite system to Federal Aviation Administration officials in two test flights early this year, showing how images could be sent from a plane to the ground, said John Loynes, an FAA program manager in Washington. A Boeing 737, equipped with seven cameras, transmitted images of the cockpit and cabin. Pilots have fiercely opposed efforts to put cameras in cockpits as an infringement of their authority. Passenger advocates have supported cameras as a way to prevent terrorist acts. FAA officials stressed that the tests, conducted in January and February, were preliminary. There will be further tests and the agency is far from deciding whether or how to use the technology, said Marcia Adams, an agency spokeswoman. About 20 federal and Boeing workers, most of them engineers, were on board the round-trip flights from Seattle. Federal air marshals also tested Boeing technology that allows the use of hand-held devices to transmit video and to speak with and send data from the air to workers on the ground, Loynes said. One camera showed the pilots from behind, one was in first class and the others showed the rest of the passenger area. Workers on the ground, at Boeing offices in Seattle and in McLean, Va. could choose which camera view to look at by touching a computer screen, said Joseph J. Tedino, a Boeing spokesman. Loynes described the tests as successful, with a few glitches in which video images were briefly garbled. There were no insurmountable problems, he said. The tests were part of Boeings 2002 contract with the FAA to test various security technologies. Boeing officials discussed the technology at a recent security conference in New Orleans. The city of Denver uses a similar video system to monitor part of its public transit system. For more than a decade, the FAA has considered various plans to put video cameras in airplanes. In 2000, National Transportation Safety Board officials pushed a plan for cockpit cameras, saying they aid air crash investigators. The proposal was dropped after stiff opposition from pilots, who were concerned that cameras could lead to a dilution of pilots control over decisions made during flights. Pilots said workers on the ground could misinterpret video images and give orders based on incomplete information. But advocates for air passengers say cameras would make air travel safer by preventing terrorism and hijackings. David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said cameras would allow officials to assess the seriousness of a disturbance in the cabin. Officials on the ground could then talk about the problem with the flight crew members, who could learn about the situation without having to leave the cockpit. In the old days, one of the flight crew could come out and check things out, but they cant do that anymore, Stempler said. These days, we want to keep the cockpit impenetrable to terrorists or hijackers. 27 Aug 2003 - AEWampC Mission Simulator to be Used in Australian Exercise AIR Force officers will get an early look at their new eye in the sky next week, with a computer simulation allowing the yet-to-be-built Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWampC) capability to be put through its paces at an exercise. Next weeks Armchair Warrior exercise in Adelaide will run Boeings 737 AEWampC aircraft through realistic Australian-scenario missions using locally-developed simulation technology. The technology will allow Defence to try out the 737 ahead of the expected delivery of four of the high-tech aircraft in 2007-2008 as part of its Wedgetail AEWampC capability. Developed jointly by Melbourne software firm Kesem International and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, the BattleModel Wedgetail Capability Modelling Environment (WCME) allows crews to get a hands-on view of the new aircraft. They will know how to use the capability when its delivered, said Kesem technical director Gil Tidhar. The same simulation environment is designed to support all three stages of the project. The BattleModel software is already turning heads in the US, Europe and Asia following its use in the selection and implementation of the Wedgetail project. Used to select the successful technology and currently in use to trial the technology in real-life scenarios, the simulator will eventually be used to simulate maintenance and upgrade work on the aircraft. Mr Tidhar said the WCME had already attracted interest overseas. We have looked at it for export overseas, and there has been a lot of defence-related interest from the US, Europe and Asia, he said. The technology can also be applied to other areas, like the P3C Orion. The WCME runs on Windows and Linux. Kesem - which also provides simulation technology for doctors - is based in Melbourne and has offices in Adelaide and Israel. 11 Aug 2003 - Boeing to test fuel cell APU on 737. Dont hold your breath but Boeing expects to start flight tests of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) APU in 2005. The SOFC uses jet fuel as the reformer in the proton exchange membrane to give a 440kW APU that is 75 efficient compared to the conventional 40-45 efficient APUs. This would give a typical fuel saving of 1,360t for a 737 over a year. It is actually a hybrid gas turbine fuel cell due to the sudden surges in demand eg engine starts and gear retraction etc. The SOFC will use air from a compressor passed through a heat exchanger for its gas turbine section. A potential drawback is that it has a 40min start-up time, so it would have to remain on for the whole day and depending upon its noise levels this could be a problem at airports which require the APU to be shutdown during the turnaround. The technology for the SOFC APU to replace the current APU is not likely to be available until at least 2010. 31 Jul 2003 - Jack Steiner, co-designer and patent holder of the 737 dies aged 85. John E. Jack Steiner, known as the father of the 727 for his role in designing what was once Boeings best-selling commercial jet, is dead at 85. Steiner, who also helped design the Boeing 737, which supplanted the three-engine 727 as the best-selling jetliner in aviation history Known for working such long hours that he had both a day secretary and a night secretary, Steiner helped design the PBB-1, a float bomber the B-29 Superfortress, 707, 727,737 and 747. A Seattle native, Steiner earned a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering at the University of Washington and a masters degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but that field was not his first choice. His first love was boats. He wanted to design boats, Boeing Co. historian and archivist Michael Lombardi said. The airplane business was booming, and there was a lot more work for airplane engineers. Believing Boeing needed a smaller model than the 727, he and Joseph Sutter designed the two-engine 737 to which he held the patent. Steiner didnt care much for being called the father of the 727 because he viewed airplane building as a team effort, but Sutter said the term was apt. He was really the engineering spark plug behind the 727, said Sutter, who went on to become chief designer of the 747, not only to develop the airplane but to work with the management to get it offered out to the airlines and inspire them to buy it. He was really the main guy on developing the airplane and pretty much the same thing on the 737. Especially on the 727, he was the guy that gave it the push and made sure everything happened. Years later, though, when Boeing was considering a three-engine version of the 777 and airlines showed little interest, Steiner was quoted as saying, Three engines Thats the optimum worst He retired in the mid-1980s as corporate vice president and chairman of the aeronautical policy review committee. For a description of Jacks design work on the 737 see History amp Variants page. 13 Jun 2003 - Boeing Next-Generation 737 Fleet Reaches 10 Million Flight Hours in Record Time The worldwide fleet of Boeing NYSE: BA Next-Generation 737s this week surpassed 10 million flight hours, a feat equal to one airplane flying more than 1,141 years nonstop. The worldrsquos fastest-selling airplane family is the first and only commercial jetliner to reach this milestone in record time -- five short years. The newer 737 family, which includes the 737-600, 737-700, 737-800 and 737-900, entered service in 1998. Since then, it has logged almost half the hours accumulated by its aging competitor, the 16-year-old A320. This milestone is a tremendous achievement for the newest 737s, said Carolyn Corvi, 737757 vice president and general manager. It underscores the durable and efficient design of the 737, and the value the airplane brings to our airline customers. Although the current and earlier 737 models (737-100 through ndash500) share the same name, there are key distinctions between the two families. The 737-600-700-800-900 models incorporate an advanced wing design and blended winglet technologies that help increase fuel capacity, efficiency and range. The new 737s also offer leading-edge display and flight-management software that reduces flight delays and enhances safety and flight-crew efficiency. Examples of these technologies include Head-Up Display, which provides pilots with eye-level flight and safety information, and the recently certified Vertical Situation Display, which shows the current and predicted flight path of the airplane and indicates potential conflicts with terrain. Powered by new CFM56-7 engines produced by CFM International, a 5050 joint company between Snecma of France and General Electric Company, the newer 737s meet community noise restrictions well below current Stage 3 limits and below expected Stage 4 limits. The engines also provide lower fuel burn, lower maintenance costs and lower overall cost of ownership compared to the CFM56 engines powering the 737-300-400-500 series. The success of this program has been overwhelming, said Pierre Fabre, president and CEO of CFM International. We are honored that Boeing and the airlines made us such an integral part of this team, continuing to put their confidence in our people and our product. Through the Working Together Team, wersquove been able to develop and refine an airplaneengine combination that provides exceptional reliability and operating economics for our customers. More than 1,300 Next-Generation 737s are in service today. As of April 2003, the newer 737s have won orders for 2,080 airplanes. 6 May 2003 - Boeing Business Jets Names Lufthansa Technik An Authorized Service Center and Warranty Repair Facility Boeing Business Jets today signed an agreement with Lufthansa Technik that designates the company as an authorized warranty repair facility and service center, providing Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) operators another service option in Europe. The contract allows Lufthansa Technik to perform warranty work on the BBJ on behalf of Boeing. In addition, the Hamburg, Germany-based company will provide other maintenance, repair and overhaul services as required. The agreement was announced ahead of the third annual European Business Aviation Convention amp Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva. A BBJ is on display at the show, which runs May 7-9 at the Palexpo convention center adjacent to the Geneva International Airport. With extensive experience both inside and outside the cabin, Lufthansa Technik can provide BBJ operators with nose-to-tail service, said Lee Monson, president of Boeing Business Jets. Wersquove worked with Lufthansa Technik for a number of years and are pleased to further that partnership. Lufthansa Technik, a skilled VIP interior completion center, has wide-ranging experience maintaining Boeing Next-Generation 737 airplanes ndash the model that the BBJ is based on ndash for operators around the world. The company has installed interiors on 10 BBJs, including a number of the NetJets BBJs, and two BBJ 2s. One BBJ and two BBJ 2s are currently in work at Lufthansa Techniklsquos 172,000-square-foot (16,000- square-meter) Hamburg facility. August Henningsen, chairman of the executive board at Lufthansa Technik AG, said the agreement with Boeing Business Jets is another example of the working relationship between the two companies. That relationship has led to establishing new milestones in BBJ interior completions, and we anticipate the same result in this latest agreement, Henningsen said. As an authorized service facility we further expand our portfolio of services for BBJ operators. With the addition of Lufthansa Technik, BBJ operators can chose from three locations in Europe and two locations in the United States for authorized service and warranty work. Those include: Associated Air in Dallas, Tex. DeCrane Aircraft Systems Integration Group (PATS) in Georgetown, Del. and Jet Aviation in Basel and Geneva, Switzerland. Boeing Business Jets is a joint venture with General Electric launched in July 1996 to respond to market demand for a larger, more capable business airplane that can fly more than 6,000 nautical miles. The versatility of the BBJ, a version of the Boeing 737-700, allows owners to create a unique environment tailored to their specific needs and seating requirements ndash whether itrsquos for eight or 100 passengers ndash for private, corporate, or charter use or for government transport. There are more than 60 BBJs in service worldwide. 25 Feb 2003 - Boeing talking with airlines about new 737-900X SEATTLE (AP) -- Boeing Co. is talking with several airlines in Europe and Asia, looking for a launch customer so it can bring out a new version of the 737-900 jet. The proposed plane, known as the 737-900X, could carry as many as 220 passengers and would target competitor Airbus A321 jet. Airbus jet can carry that many passengers and has been popular with European tour operators. This plane will bring us into direct competition with the Airbus A321, Kenneth Hiebert, regional director of product marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It will give us head-to-head competition. Design changes -- including adding two emergency exit doors just behind the wings -- are key to helping the plane carry more passengers. Safety regulations limit the current 737-900 jet to no more than 189 passengers. Boeing has long been talking with airlines about a 737-900 that could carry more passengers and travel as far as 2,770 nautical miles. We are talking to customers who are very interested in the plane, Hiebert said. I cant say if something is imminent or not, but our hope is sooner rather than later. 28 Jan 2003 - Boeing Delivers New Leading-Edge Technologies for the 737 Boeing today delivered leading-edge display and flight-management software for the 737, the worlds best-selling airplane, that promise to reduce flight delays and enhance flight-crew efficiency. The new flight-deck technologies are the Vertical Situation Display (VSD), Navigation Performance Scales (NPS) and Integrated Approach Navigation (IAN). The Vertical Situation Display shows the current and predicted flight path of the airplane and indicates potential conflicts with terrain. The Navigation Performance Scales minimizes flight delays and increases airspace capacity by allowing the airplane to navigate through a narrower flight path with higher accuracy. NPS uses vertical and horizontal indicators to provide precise position awareness on the primary flight displays. The Integrated Approach Navigation enhances current airplane landing approach capability by simplifying pilot procedures and potentially reducing the number of approach procedures pilots have learned in training. These new features enable Boeing to continue its leadership role in offering technology that brings value to our customers and makes the 737 the most capable airplane in the worlds single-aisle market, said Carolyn Brandsema, 737 chief engineer. The three features were part of a suite of new and emerging flight-deck technologies unveiled last year on the 737-900 Technology Demonstrator airplane. One of the features, NPS, was certified on a Malev Hungarian Airlines 737-700, which is due to begin operating tomorrow. Boeing is committed to providing the capabilities across its product line. Timing will be dependent on both market interest and airplane model development plans. In addition, Boeing Commercial Aviation Services offers after-market solutions for these features on the newer 737s only. The 737 family alone has won more orders than exists in the entire product line of its biggest competitor. As of December 2002, Boeing had orders for 5,177 737s and had delivered to 214 operators in more than 100 countries around the world. 18 Nov 2002 The Connexion by Boeing service for commercial airlines is now less than three months away following stringent review by government agencies in each country that has the responsibility for allocating radio frequencies. To support those efforts, Connexion by Boeing has used a dedicated Boeing 737 aircraft for research, testing, validation and demonstrations to ensure the service can operate within its allocated spectrum without causing radio interference with other spectrum users. In a parallel effort, the Connexion by Boeing regulatory team has worked extensively with countries that are members of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for the global spectrum allocation. 1 Nov 2002 - First 737 Wedgetail Rolls Out of Boeing The first Australian Wedgetail aircraft was rolled out Oct. 31 during a ceremony at the Boeing plant in Renton, Wash. The 737-700 will be transformed into a platform for an Airborne Early Warning amp Control System, or AEWampC. Modifications to the aircraft begin in 2003. Project Wedgetail is named after Australiarsquos native eagle. The Australian Minister for Defence, members of the Royal Australian Air Force, The Boeing Company and its industry partners celebrated today as the first Project Wedgetail aircraft, a Next Generation 737ndash700, rolled off the factory line during a ceremony in Renton, Wash. The plane is one of four that will be transformed into an Airborne Early Warning amp Control, or AEWampC, system for the Commonwealth of Australia under a program called Wedgetail in honor of Australiarsquos native eagle. Both Australia and Turkey have signed billion-dollar contracts with Boeing Integrated Defense Systems to develop AEWampC systems. AEWampC is part of Boeingrsquos vision for an integrated battlespace where real-time information is quickly and simultaneously accessible to aircraft and forces and commanders on the ground, at sea and in the air. Patrick Gill, Boeing vice president of 737 AEWampC programs, said, ldquoThe rollout is the latest in a series of major Wedgetail milestones achieved on schedule. They include design reviews of the state-of-the-art Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array radar, the airborne mission system, identification friend or foe, electronic support measures, electronic warfare self protection, navigation and communication systems. ldquoBoeing looks forward to continuing this progress as we move toward modifications of the aircraft and flight testing next year. Our thanks to Boeing Commercial Airplanes for building this state-of-the-art aircraft while keeping to its quality, cost and schedule commitments for Project Wedgetail. rdquo Air Vice Marshal Norm Gray, head of Australiarsquos Airborne Surveillance and Control Division, said, ldquoProduction of aircraft number one ahead of the contracted schedule reflects well upon the work of the combined Boeing and Commonwealth team. Australia looks forward to employing the versatile Wedgetail system as a key element of its upgraded surveillance system. rdquo Following the completion of delivery and flight test activities, the plane will fly to Delaware in January for installation of auxiliary fuel tanks, which should take approximately eight weeks. It will then fly back to the Northwest where crews will modify the plane at the Boeing Military Flight Center in Seattle. The modifications include installation of a reinforced fuselage section that will hold the Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array radar. Provisions for the mission system equipment also will be installed. All of this is part of preparations for FAA Airworthiness Certification. Flight testing is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2003. Delivery of the first two 737 AEWampC aircraft is expected in 2006. 9 Sep 2002 - Boeing Business Jets Offers Customers New Cabin Altitude for Improved Passenger Comfort Boeing Business Jets today announced the availability of a lower cabin altitude modification for Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) operators. The new feature will offer 6,500-foot cabin altitude instead of the standard 8,000-foot cabin, providing passengers with an improved level of comfort. The lower cabin altitude feature, available in early 2003 from Boeing Commercial Aviation Airplanes Technical Servicesand Modifications in early 2003, will be sold as a kit that can be installed after delivery of a green airplane or as a retrofit on in-service BBJs. Its all about passenger comfort, said Lee Monson, president of Boeing Business Jets, at a media briefing during the 55th annual National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Annual Meeting and Convention in Orlando, Fla. A 6,500-foot cabin means less cabin pressure change on climb and descent, as well as more oxygen in the cabin during cruise. The lower cabin altitude, combined with 807 square feet (75 square meters) of cabin area, results in the most comfortable business jet available. The retrofit kit will include new cabin pressure controller boxes with revised software, a new cabin altitude indicator and two pressure-relief valves. Revised operations and service manuals will show new parts and the structural maintenance program. The kit can be installed by certified maintenance personnel, completion centers or Boeing. No structural changes will be necessary and no increase in maintenance will be required until the airplane surpasses 30,000 flights. The average BBJ flies approximately 225 flights per year. A BBJ currently is on static display at Orlando Executive Airport for the NBAA show, which runs September Sept. 10-12. Boeing Business Jets also has an exhibit in the Orange County Convention Center. Fifty-two Boeing Business Jets now are fully completed and in service, including the first BBJ in Latin America. The fleet has generated more than 38,000 flight hours to date and 16,000 flights, with 99.9 percent dispatch reliability and no major technical issues reported. Boeing Business Jets was launched in 1996 as a joint venture between Boeing and General Electric. Designed for corporate and VIP applications, the Boeing Business Jet is a high-performance derivative of the Next-Generation 737-700. The BBJ 2, announced in October 1999, is based on the 737-800 and has 25 percent more cabin space and twice the cargo space of the BBJ. Both provide unsurpassed levels of space, comfort and utility and are backed by a global support program with dedicated field service representatives. 26 Jun 2002 - Boeing Business Jet Introduces New Era for Australian Leaders SYDNEY, Australia, June 27, 2002 - The first Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), shown publicly in Australia for the first time today, introduces a new era of capability for long-distance international travel. The Canberra-based Air Force 34 Squadron will operate two BBJs under a lease managed by Qantas Defence Services. Able to fly nearly anywhere in the world from Australia with only one stop, the two BBJs, in slightly varying configurations, will be used by Australian government leaders and senior executives traveling on official business. The Australian BBJs, outfitted with a VIP cabin and business class style seating for 36 passengers, were completed by Ozark Aircraft Systems in Bentonville, Arkansas. Approximately 200 government transport and head-of-state airplanes are in operation worldwide. More than half are large airframes - the size of a Boeing 737 or larger - and 80 percent are Boeing products. Many governments are finding the BBJ platform a valuable tool for international transport. In addition to the Australian government, the government of South Africa will begin operating a BBJ later this year. The U. S. Air Force will put its first C-40B, based on the BBJ, into service this fall. And the U. S. Navy operates a C-40A, which is based on the same platform as the BBJ, a Boeing 737-700. The BBJ is a version of the popular Boeing 737, similar to those already in service in the South Pacific region with Qantas Airways, Virgin Blue, Air Pacific and Polynesian Airlines. The Australian Air Forces Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning amp Control (AEWampC) airplanes, currently under development, also are sister platforms to the BBJ. Were honored that the Commonwealth of Australia has chosen the BBJ for its VIP transportation needs. It is also great to see the first Boeing Business Jet based in the South Pacific region, said Lee Monson, president of Boeing Business Jets. The capabilities of this airplane make it ideal to meet the long distances facing any traveler from Australia. And because it is based on the best - selling jetliner of all time, the BBJ brings unparalleled reliability and cost-effectiveness. The BBJ continues to meet market demand for an executive airplane that can fly passengers more than 6,000 nautical miles (11,100 kilometers) in a comfortable, spacious cabin. Fifty BBJs now are fully completed and in service. The BBJ platform is flexible enough that operators - such as private individuals, governments, corporations and fractional programs - can have a passenger seating area as well as an executive lounge, a private suite and a bedroom, if required. Boeing Business Jets was launched in 1996 as a joint venture between Boeing and General Electric. Designed for corporate and VIP applications, the BBJ is a high-performance derivative of the Next-Generation 737-700. The BBJ 2, announced in October 1999, is based on the 737-800 and has 25 percent more cabin space and twice the cargo space of the BBJ. Both provide unsurpassed levels of space, comfort and utility and are backed by a global support program with dedicated field service representatives. 10 Jun 2002 - Boeing checking why part was left off wing on 737 Seattle PI -- The Boeing Co. is investigating an embarrassing lapse in its quality-control procedures that allowed a new 737 to be delivered to a Chinese airline without a part that helps move the wing flaps. The plane was delivered to China-based Xinjiang Airlines in August and had been flown, but it was not until last month that the airline discovered the part, known as a push rod, was missing. 5 Jun 2002 - Boeing sells Turkey specialized 737s By JAMES WALLACE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER Some strange-looking airplanes have taken flight from Boeing Field over the years, and by this time next year, a 737 with a Top Hat could be ready to take its place among them. The plane is a militarized version of the most popular commercial jetliner. It is designed for foreign countries that cant afford or dont need the capability of the much bigger 767 Airborne Warning and Control System planes that Boeing built for Japan a few years ago, or the 707 AWACS planes operated since the 1970s by the United States and later by NATO. After about 18 months of tough negotiations, Boeing signed a deal with Turkey on Tuesday for four of the 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control planes, plus options for two more. The deal is worth about 1 billion without the options. This is a strong vote of confidence in our platform, a tired but happy Patrick Gill, Boeings vice president of the 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control program, said in a telephone interview from his hotel room in Ankara, Turkey. In its business plans, Boeing has forecast an international market for as many as 50 of the 737 jets, which will be built on the same Renton assembly line as the commercial version of the plane. South Korea and Italy could be the next international customers. The Australian military was the programs launch customer. Like Turkey, it ordered four jets with options for two more. Gill noted that the engineering work will remain in Seattle, as will the modification work on the four Australian planes. The first of the four 737s for Turkey will be modified in Seattle, at Boeing Field. The remaining three will be modified in Turkey as part of offset agreements worth about half the value of the Turkey contract, Gill said. The Boeing agreement with Turkey must now be approved by the State Department and by Congress. The first of the four planes would be delivered to Turkey from 42 to 48 months after the contract is approved by the U. S. government, Gill said. The first of the Australian 737s will begin rolling down the Renton assembly line later this year, with modification work to begin in January. First flight is expected by mid-2003. The base plane is essentially a Boeing Business Jet, which has the 737-700 fuselage with the stronger 737-800 wing to support its extra weight. The design takes advantage of technological advances that allow an airborne early-warning and control system to be mounted on a jet the size of the twin-engine 737. The original airborne early-warning system developed by Boeing was a modified 707. In the late 1990s, Boeing built four 767 AWACS planes for Japan. Those bigger 707 and 767 jets were needed to support a heavy rotordome that turns mechanically on top of the fuselage. The 737 will use whats known as a phased-array radar Top Hat sensor developed by Northrop Grumman and mounted in a small, dorsal-like fin on top of the 737. The radar does not turn. Boeing started looking for a smaller and cheaper airborne early-warning system about 10 years ago and decided the 737 was the right plane for international markets to keep the cost down. A 737 airborne early warning plane costs from 150 million to 190 million, compared with about 400 million for the 767 AWACS. Turkey picked Boeing in November 2000 to enter negotiations to supply its military with six of the specially designed 737s. Boeing and Northrop beat a proposal by Raytheon, which was offering its airborne early-warning system on an Airbus A310. A contract like this typically runs many thousands of pages, Gill said, explaining why it took about 18 months to complete the deal. It takes a lot longer than people might expect. Its not like going in and buying a car from your local dealer. One complicating factor was a financial crisis in Turkey. A number of defense procurement programs in the country were suspended. Defense funds for the 737s will come primarily from a national lottery and gambling, as well as taxes on alcoholic beverages, tobacco and gasoline. 28 May 2002 - Milestone for Boeing Business Jets: 50 BBJs now in service GENEVA, May 28, 2002 -- The Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) continues to meet market demand for an airplane that can fly passengers more than 6,000 nautical miles (11,100 kilometers) in a comfortable, spacious cabin. Fifty Boeing Business Jets now are fully completed and in-service, including the first BBJ in Latin America. The fleet has generated more than 31,400 flight hours to date and 13,800 flights, with 99.9 percent reliability and no major technical issues reported. We continue to see a wide range of applications for the BBJ, said Lee Monson, president of Boeing Business Jets, at the second annual European Business Aviation Convention amp Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva. The versatility of the airplane allows owners to create a unique environment tailored to their specific needs and seating requirements, whether its for eight or 100 passengers for private use, corporate, charter or even government transport. The BBJ platform is flexible enough that customers can have a passenger seating area as well as an executive lounge, a private suite and a bedroom, if required. The spacious interior makes it possible for passengers to be fully productive during travel. When people spend as many as 14 hours on one leg of a flight and are expected to be ready to work on arrival, it is important that onboard facilities allow them to be productive en route, and refreshed and ready to work when they arrive. The following are examples that highlight the many applications for the BBJ: - A BBJ designed for medical evacuations and charter operations recently flew the farthest distance yet for a BBJ: 6,854 nautical miles (12,694 kilometers). - An all-business class 48-seat PrivatAir BBJ will soon begin operating as a scheduled Lufthansa flight from Duesseldorf, Germany, to Newark, N. J. in the United States. - An intercontinental VIP transport BBJ will begin to be used by South African Air Force starting later this year. - A BBJ 2 soon will be available for charter operations through Multiflight Ltd. in the United Kingdom, the first BBJ 2 to be based in Europe. Boeing Business Jets was launched in 1996 as a joint venture between Boeing and General Electric. Designed for corporate and VIP applications, the Boeing Business Jet is a high-performance derivative of the Next-Generation 737-700. The BBJ 2, announced in October 1999, is based on the 737-800 and has 25 percent more cabin space and twice the cargo space of the BBJ. Both provide unsurpassed levels of space, comfort and utility and are backed by a global support program with dedicated field service representatives. 14 May 2002 - Pemco Aviation Group Starts New 737-300 Conversion Program Tuesday May 14, 10:02 am Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: Pemco Aviation Group Inc. Pemco Aviation Group Starts New 737-300 Conversion Program BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 14, 2002--Pemco Aviation Group announced today that it has inducted its first aircraft for the new 737-300 cargo conversion program at its Dothan, Alabama facility following the recent certification of its 737-300 Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) by the Federal Aviation Administration. Bluebird Cargo, based in Iceland and lead by Chairman Einar Olafsson, has signed a contract with Pemco to be the first customer under the new certification. Bluebird is a former customer of Pemcos conversion program, having the company modify an aircraft last year as part of the STC development process. Frank Tucci, President of Pemco World Air Services, Inc. Pemcos Dothan facility, states, Pemco has always been a leader in the cargo conversion industry and we are very pleased to be able to carry on the tradition as we hold the only FAA-approved STC for 737-300 conversions. We are working with several potential customers and look forward to expanding our capacity to meet the needs of todays market. Ron Aramini, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pemco Aviation Group said, Now that we have accomplished our first goal of upgrading the 737-300 conversion program, we will be focusing on new modification opportunities such as the BAe 146 and B-757. The market is wide open for those aircraft conversions and we intend to pursue them vigorously. 13 May 2002 - Boeing 737 may be Enlisted as a Warplane Seattle PI -- Flying off the Washington state coast recently, a Boeing 737 suddenly swooped low above the dark waters of the Pacific. When the jet was just a couple hundred feet above the waves and banking sharply, power was cut to one of the two jet engines - a maneuver that no commercial pilot would deliberately make with a planeload of passengers. But this was no commercial flight. It was a demonstration for the U. S. Navy. Boeing wants the Navy to select the worlds most frequently flown commercial jetliner as a replacement for the aging fleet of Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and the EP-3C planes that gather intelligence. 29 Apr 2002 - 717 amp 737 to Lose Their Eyebrows Seattle PI -- The Boeing Co. s 717 jetliner is about to get a face lift. And the 737 could be next. Nobodys trying to improve the look of either jetliners, which in the case of the 717 is not all that old. Rather, the issue is reducing costs, for both Boeing and the airlines. And one way to do that, Boeing has determined, is to get rid of the so-called eyebrow windows just above the cockpit windshield -- a feature that has been on some models made by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas since the dawn of the jet age. 20 Apr 2002 - F. A.A. Investigating 737-800 Emergency Landing NYTimes -- WASHINGTON, April 20 - The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into an emergency landing on Thursday by an American Airlines plane. The plane developed vibrations in its tail, which had been repaired right before the flight. Botched repairs that require emergency landings are rare, but the tail was de-iced just before takeoff, which the agency recently discovered is linked to severe vibration. The agency said Friday that it ordered that planes of the type involved in the incident fly slower on takeoff if they have been de-iced. On Thursday, the flight bound from Reno to Chicago, was delayed two hours for repairs to the stabilizer, the horizontal part of the tail. The tail problem was discovered in an overnight inspection. Because snow was falling at the airport, the plane was also delayed for de-icing. Shortly after takeoff, at 12,000 feet, the pilot declared an emergency because of the vibration and landed at Sacramento, which has a long runway and no high terrain in the area. The plane, carrying 99 passengers and a crew of 6, is a Boeing 737-800. At the factory, a spokeswoman, said that some late-model 737 models had had tail vibrations because a part was not stiff enough. The company will begin installing a redesigned part this summer, she said. 24 March 2002 - Boeing Unveils Safer 737 Cyber Cockpit The company recently unveiled the new 737-900 jetliner with cutting-edge cockpit technology during a two-hour demonstration flight over Washington state. One of the new technologies on the aircraft, which is still considered experimental, allows pilots to see the terrain below them, even if surrounding clouds totally obstruct the view. Boeing test pilot Ray Craig demonstrated the vertical situation display (VSD) feature by steering the plane toward the side of Mount Rainier. I can put the airplane where I want to put it, said co-pilot Mike Carriker, showing how the high tech cabin maximizes his ability to safely navigate through the skies. Extra Eyes for Flight Crew Boeing packed the flying machine full of features designed to detect and predict almost any hazard found in the not-always-friendly-skies. We can see hills off to the left and right that are above our altitude right now, Craig said during the demo, pointing out areas otherwise invisible to the pilot and information usually not found on a standard instrument panel. The vertical situation display continued to work on the ground in zero visibility. Its not very new technology, Carriker said. Its been around for quite a while but nobodys been able to put it all together into one airplane, especially one that people are familiar with. Some of the navigational and safety features onboard include: Vertical situation display (VSD) indicates the presence of terrain in a flight path. Global positioning landing system (GLS), is a new satellite-based landing system. Head-up display (HUD) enhances safety by providing conformal flight path information to crews. Enhanced vision system (EVS) gives pilots an accurate and clear view of all obstacles, traffic, and potential incursions at night or with reduced visibility. Synthetic vision system (SVS) provides a computer-generated view of the outside world during takeoff, landing, and on the runway. We get the rap that we are low, youre not with the program. This dispels that myth completely, said Ken Hiebert, of Boeing product marketing. We are jumping out ahead, the tip of the arrow. Headed For Your Flight Soon Hiebert predicts the technology highlighted on the experimental 737 will be standard issue on future aircraft. In three to five years, these features are going to be embedded in Boeing technology. Its that short, Hiebert said. The Federal Aviation Administration still considers the 737 experimental because some of the onboard systems have yet to be certified. FAA representatives will soon board the plane to see the new equipment working both in flight and on the ground. But Boeing did not design every feature just for safetys sake. One advance that will have homeowners that live near airports smiling is a system that senses when the plane approaches noise-restricted zones. If it detects a noise-sensitive area, the plane automatically cuts back on engine power during landing and takeoff. Copyright 2002 TechTV, Inc. All rights reserved. 31 October 2001 - USAF Orders Aeromedical 737 Seattle Post -- The House Appropriations Committee yesterday earmarked 85 million for the purchase of a specialized Boeing 737, to be used by the Air Force for aeromedical evacuation. The provision was part of a 317.5 billion defense-spending bill that was approved unanimously by the committee. 17 October 2001 - Raisbeck Engineerings Hardened Cockpit Security System finds first home with Alaska Airlines 737 fleet Raisbeck Engineering and Alaska Airlines today announced the installation of the first of 70 Raisbeck-designed hardened cockpit security systems for Alaskarsquos fleet of Boeing 737s. The system called The RAISBECK ARMOURED COCKPIT SECURITY SYSTEM, developed over the last twelve months, meets all current FAA requirements, as well as those envisioned to be implemented by April 2003. Patents are pending. Alaskarsquos 737 fleet of 70 aircraft, are scheduled to be completely hardened by November 15th of this year. According to John Kelly, CEO and Chairman of Alaska Airlines, The security and safety of our crews and our customers is paramount. After reviewing all options, we chose Raisbeck Engineeringrsquos system because of its availability, cost, simplicity, and the fact that it meets all safety certification regulations including rapid decompression and pilot emergency egress. It is unique, elegant, and simple. Current FAA regulations with which this system complies are: ndashFAR 25.365 Pressurized Compartment Loads ndashFAR 25.807 Emergency Exit ndashFAR 25.809 Emergency Exit Arrangement ndashFAR 25.831 Ventilation ndashFAR 25.853 Compartment Interiors ndashFAR 25.772 Pilot Compartment Doors ndashFAR 121.587 Closing and Locking Flight Compartment Door Additional FAA requirements will be incorporated in the next 18 months. They are already a part of the Raisbeck System and include a bullet-proof cockpit environment which meets NIJ-III (National Institute of Justice) standards, as well as increased cabin awareness for the flight-deck crew. The latter is initially satisfied by the incorporation of two 1-14 thick bullet-proof glass windows in the hardened cockpit door, and can be augmented by an available video system. The bulletproof cockpit door lockingunlocking mechanism is remotely operated by the flight crew from their center pedestal. Raisbeck Engineeringrsquos CEO, James D. Raisbeck added: We had a head start on our system, since we realized over a year ago the day would come when an immediate need for such a cockpit hardening and crew protection would be necessary. We are gratified to be able to be making such an important contribution to airline safety. It is only sad that it had to come about as a result of the national WTC tragedy. With the first of its Raisbeck-Equipped 737s ready for full passenger service, Alaska Airlines becomes the first United States carrier to meet the long-range Phase II cockpit-hardening regulations, currently scheduled to be required by the FAA deadline in 18 months. Raisbeck Engineering is producing 737 kits at the rate of 100 per month. It expects to be able to meet the Phase II demands of the other major airlines for its system, after completion of the Alaska Airlines fleet. 7 Aug 2001 - Ryanair swoops on weak market with ad to buy 737s LONDON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Irish no-frills airline Ryanair Holdings Plc swooped on the weak market for airliners on Monday with an advertisement to buy up to 50 used Boeing 737s. The airline, which has hoarded cash to exploit exactly the sort of aircraft glut that global aviation is now experiencing, said it needed no financing. With used 737s typically valued between 13 million and 40 million Ryanairs acquisition campaign is worth something like 1 billion. Following the formula of successful Southwest Airlines of the United States, Ryanair operates only 737s. 9 July 2001 - Singapore Airline Sues Boeing SINGAPORE (AP) - Singapores regional airline SilkAir is suing Boeing Co. and other aircraft parts manufacturers over the 1997 crash of a SilkAir passenger jet, a report said Sunday. A SilkAir Boeing 737 crashed into an Indonesian river on Dec. 19, 1997, killing all 104 people on board. The cause has not been determined. In the suit, SilkAirs insurer Singapore Aviation and General Insurance Company or SAGI claimed Boeing and other companies supplied a defective and dangerous commercial airplane. 7 June 2001 - Boeing Investigates Wire Sabotage at 737 Plant. RENTON, Wash. (CNN) - Boeing Co. inspectors have discovered intentional wire damage on at least seven Boeing 737s at a company assembly plant in Renton, Wash. the company confirmed to CNN Thursday. The damage was found during routine service testing over the past two weeks. Boeing says it notified the FAA of the sabotage Tuesday. The company also said an additional three aircraft also may have had sabotaged wiring, but evidence is not conclusive. A 737 jet is assembled at the Boeing plant in Renton, Wash. The company is investigating sabotage of wiring on 7 jets under construction there. There are no suspects at this time. No airplane is delivered until it has met rigorous testing starting with Boeing, the FAA, and the airlines, spokesman Sandy Angers told CNN. The fact that we found the damaged wires proves our quality system works. The Federal Aviation Administration said it is looking into the matter, but could not elaborate on details. Boeing employs about 12,000 people at the Renton plant, where the narrow-body 737 jet is assembled along with the 757, another narrow-body jet, and the Boeing business jet. The worlds largest aircraft manufacturer announced in March that some of the 757 assembly work now done in the Renton plant would be shifted to its plant in Wichita, Kan. although the fuselages of the planes will still be shipped by rail from Wichita back to Renton for final assembly. About 500 workers at the Renton plant are affected by the shift of work, which is to take place over the next two to three years, although the company said all the employees would be shifted to other jobs with the company and there would be no layoffs as a result of the shift. The company is cutting jobs in the area, though, as it shifts its corporate headquarters to Chicago this summer. About half of the 1,000-person corporate staff will be cut in the move, with the other half relocating. That move shook the Seattle area, which has been associated with the company since its founding. Last year the company saw a surprisingly bitter strike by the engineering and technical workers who inspect aircraft during and at the end of the assembly process. The strike, the first by the union to last more than a day, won support of many employees who performed the same jobs but did not belong to the union. 5 June 2001 - FAA wants old Boeing 737s inspected SEATTLE (AP) - More than 1,000 older Boeing 737s should be inspected for potential damage from excessive vibration reported by some carriers in a backup tail control mechanism, the Federal Aviation Administration says. In one case, the vibration caused a piece of the elevator tab mechanism to break off in flight and damaged the plane, FAA officials said. The tab assembly is a backup hydraulic system that is used to move the elevators, control flaps on the horizontal stabilizer that change the up-and-down angle of the aircraft. The stabilizer resembles a small wing at the rear of the plane. A pilot would resort to the tab assembly only if the primary and secondary hydraulic systems failed, Boeing officials said. The proposal covers older 737 models that are out of production and is not intended to become mandatory for several months. Airlines have until July 16 to comment before the FAA issues an air worthiness directive that makes inspections mandatory. An FAA inspection order would directly cover about 1,080 commercial jets in the United States. Civil aviation authorities in other countries typically follow the FAAs lead in such cases, potentially affecting another 1,690 older 737s. Boeing issued a service bulletin in January 2000 recommending such inspections and follow-up checks from time to time. The FAA estimated the cost at about 1,100 per plane for the first inspection and 540 to 840 for succeeding checks. A similar problem on newer 737-600s, -700s and -800s was the subject of an FAA emergency air worthiness directive earlier this year. The problem was more critical and thus needed quicker action on the newer models because of design differences, officials said. The problem apparently is the result of parts wearing out faster than expected. The wear takes longer for the older (737) models, but it is still sooner than what we expect, Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter said. An FAA statement said the agency had received several reports indicating high-frequency airframe vibrations of the elevator tab on older 737s in flight. In one incident, a portion of the elevator tab separated from the airplane, causing damage to the elevator tab, elevator, and horizontal stabilizer. In another incident there was severe damage to the airplanes elevator and elevator tab assembly. Several incidents resulted in severe structural damage to the elevator tab assembly, the statement added. No dates, airlines or other details of the incidents were given in the statements. No crashes or injuries linked to the problem were reported. 21 May 2001 - Boeing 737 Advanced-Technology Winglets Make World Debut Boeing Next-Generation 737-800 advanced-technology winglets made their world debut in revenue service last week with German carrier Hapag-Lloyd Flug. The new winglets on the Boeing 737-800 curve out and up from the wingtip, reducing aerodynamic drag and boosting performance. They add about 5 feet (1.5 meters) to the airplanes total wingspan and allow the airplane to fly up to 130 nautical miles (240 kilometers) further. 16 May 2001 - Alaska Airlines Receives First Boeing 737-900 During a festive celebration in Seattle, The Boeing Company delivered the first 737-900 to launch customer Alaska Airlines. The new airplane, posing at right with another 737-900 destined for Alaska, is the first of 11 such airplanes Alaska will receive between May and April 2003 and the first of three the airline will receive this month. At 138 feet 2 inches, the 737-900 is the longest of the four Next-Generation 737 models and seats the most passengers. As configured by Alaska, the airplane carries 172 passengers in a two-class configuration, 52 more passengers than their 737-700s and 34 more than their 737-400s and MD-80s. 10 Mar 2001 - BOEING 737-900 IN FLIGHT TESTS By Sebastian Steinke After 260 flying hours, Boeings 737-900 programme manager, Jon Robinson, and his director of flight testing, John Corrigan, are extremely pleased. Flight trials of the 737-900, whose fuselage has been stretched to an impressive 42.1m, are proceeding as hoped, and despite the significantly longer fuselage as of half-way through the test programme there had been no unpleasant surprises, as the two Boeing experts explained in an exclusive interview with FLUG REVUE. The aircraft rotates a little more slowly than an -800, pretty much like a -400, but it flies completely smoothly and also achieves all the expected performance data, enthuses flight test director Corrigan. Fears of tailstrikes, i. e. where the tail comes into contact with the runway on take-off or landing due to the unusually long fuselage, have proved unfounded in practice. As a precaution we have strengthened the tail skid somewhat, but up to now tailstrikes have not been a problem, explains Corrigan. The changes in flying behaviour tend to be more subtle, he explains. We did have a problem with vibration during trimming of the elevators, which meant we had to change the trim tab. But we have already successfully modified a component on the prototype aircraft, which will now need to be certificated for the series. As the fourth member of the family of Next Generation 737s, the 737-900 is already like an old friend to us, says programme manager Robinson. The overwhelming majority of the certification data it has been possible to calculate, and during flight testing we are just finding those calculations confirmed. For this reason Boeing is using only a single prototype, with the second test aircraft already earmarked for delivery to a customer later on. Following the maiden flight on 3 August 2000, the prototype and its production mate are required to spend a total of 438 hours in the air plus another 120 hours undergoing ground tests before joint FAAJAA certification can be achieved as planned by the middle of March. Since January the second test aircraft, with full cabin furnishings, has therefore been supporting the flight programme for a month. In particular, it has been used for smoke alarm tests, cargo tests and to check other cabin systems. The prototype on the other hand, crammed full of test equipment, spends most of its time attended by between 12 and 20 flight test engineers, often operating out of Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert of California. For flight trials with higher levels of risk, as a precaution we often take only a basic team of eight engineers on board, explains Corrigan, adding, while on some other flights, for example to LAX the international airport of Los Angeles - Ed., even customer airline crew were allowed to control and land the -900. The extra length on the 737-900 is not the only record likely to be achieved on this programme, but, according to Boeing, the expected savings should also be of record proportions. The manufacturer is hoping that its latest offering will not only undercut the seat mile costs of the other Next Generation 737s the 737-600, -700 and -800 but also those of the A320 family of arch-rival Airbus. If it succeeds, then the -900 will be the most economical short - and medium-range jet around. Boeings latest baby jet is almost 11m (35.7ft) longer than the 31.2m (102.5ft) short 737-600, and can accommodate 177 passengers in a typical two-class configuration, rising to a maximum of 189 seats. With a maximum cruising altitude of 41,000ft or 12,500m, the 737-900 outdoes all its older predecessors, the 737-300, -400 and -500, as in fact all the Next Generation 737s do, in the present case by 4,000ft. And even the sophisticated A320 family cannot climb higher than Flight Level 390. With a maximum number of passengers of 189, Boeing has reached the final upper limit for the 737, whose basic design dates from the 1960s. In those days a 737-100 carried only 103 to 115 passengers. The 189 passengers permitted today is the maximum number able to pass quickly enough through the doors and evacuate the relatively narrow emergency exits over the wings. All Next Generation 737s are already routinely fitted with improved, automatically outwardly opening escape hatches over the wings to enable todays larger passenger complements to exit the aircraft rapidly in the event of an emergency. From the certification viewpoint, 189 seats are actually already permitted in the 737-800, which is only moderately stretched However, only in the larger -900 can they be transported in real comfort. The new aircraft offers 9 more cabin floor space, 18 more cargo space and 15 seats more than a normally configured -800. Even if from the structural viewpoint it were feasible to consider yet another stretch, a 737-1000, the evacuation requirements rule this out, explains Jon Robinson, adding, Instead, we are already thinking about a possible ERX version of the -900 with a particularly long range. The -900 can be supplied today with blended winglets, if a customer so wishes. And of course we are playing theoretically with all the possible variants, for example, variants with increased take-off weights or a -900 business jet, in fact with all the growth options that are possible. However, according to Robinson, there are currently no plans to use the alluringly large fuselage for a pure freighter, although it would appear naturally suited to that role. The main decks of the 48 aircraft which have been ordered to date will thus be carrying passengers. And their customers are certainly intent on filling 177 to 189 seats right away with fare-paying passengers. The first airline customers, Alaska Airlines, Continental, Korean Airlines and KLM, are all looking primarily to increase their short - and medium-range fleet capacity economically with their giant babies, for all members of the Next Generation 737 family have the same cockpit, the same engines, the same wings and the same systems. They can therefore be flown by pilots with a common type rating. This means savings in training and personnel and increases the flexibility of 737 operators in the event of fluctuations in demand. Maintenance is also simplified, and already in the Boeing factory all 737 family members, in their mixed colours, roll out off a single final assembly line in Seattle. Even the -900 prototype is a product of that line. Apart from its length, the -900 does actually have a few other differences: the cockpit is the first 737NG flightdeck to have state-of-the-art flat panel displays rather than CRTs. The screens are programmable, so that they can be made to look exactly like previous 737NG screens, which is important as far as the pilots common type rating is concerned, or, alternatively, as in the Boeing 777, they can be easily adjusted so as to display additional information and alter the presentation. The design of the passenger cabin has also undergone a major revamp and reminds one strongly of the design of Boeings giant twin, the 777. Meanwhile prototype N-737X is flying test runs between Washington State and California. This includes at present flying different speed ranges, calculating the minimum speed on take-off and landing and ground clearance, plus flight stability tests. The next item on the test programme agenda will then be fine tuning of the autopilot, especially for range optimisation, automatic thrust control and various cruise profiles. If certification is plain sailing as expected and all the indications are that this will be the case Jon Robinson and John Corrigan plan to then deliver their giant baby to its launch customer, Alaska Airlines, in April. From page 24 of FLUG REVUE 32001 18 Apr 2001 - 737-900 gets FAA approval BOEING CO. on Tuesday said its next-generation 737-900 received approval from the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is expected to earn validation from Europes Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) by April 20. The certification indicates the airplane has passed the FAAs and JAAs stringent design and testing requirements, clearing the way for passenger service. The certification clears the way for the first 737-900 to be delivered to launch customer Seattle-based Alaska Airlines in mid-May. Three other airlines, Continental, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Korean Airlines, also have placed orders for the airplane. (Reuters) 20 Feb 2001 - U. S. Air Force orders C-40B jet from Boeing The U. S. Air Force said late on Tuesday it had ordered one C-40B jet from BOEING CO. and taken options on six others in a deal that could be worth 800 million, including a 10-year support contract. In a release the Air Force said it had allocated 59 million for the single C-40B, a military version of Seattle-based Boeings 737-700, a commercial jetliner which seats up to 149 passengers. The C-40B will carry high-ranking military and government officials to deploy immediately on matters of national security, the Air Force said.(Reuters 06:51 PM ET 02202001) 3 Jan 2001 - Navy Orders 6th Boeing Airlifter Wednesday January 3 6:20 PM ET Navy Orders 6th Boeing Airlifter SEATTLE (AP) - The U. S. Navy has ordered a sixth Boeing 737-700C jetliner for use as a cargo and passenger plane, Boeing Co. said Wednesday. The Navy is buying the 121-passenger jets, which it designates as C-40A Clippers, to replace its fleet of C-9 airlifters. No value was given for the order, but Boeings list price for a 737-700 is 43.5 million to 51.5 million, depending upon configuration. The C-40A can be used as an all-passenger plane, all-cargo, or to carry a combination of cargo and people. The U. S. Naval Reserve is the first customer for the aircraft. Four of the planes will be based at Naval Air Station Carswell Joint Reserve Base, Fort Worth, Texas, with the first to be delivered in April. Two others will be based at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla. 14 Dec 2000 - SilkAir crash probe yields no answers SINGAPORE, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The investigation into the mysterious crash of a SilkAir passenger plane in Indonesia in 1997, which killed 104 people, has been unable to determine the cause of the disaster an official report said on Thursday. Flight MI 185, cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet, was en route from Jakarta to Singapore when it plunged into the Musi River near Palembang in southern Sumatra. The report by Indonesias National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) released by the Singapore government, said the probe was hampered by extensive damage to the Boeing 737-300 when it crashed on December 19, 1997. Due to the highly fragmented wreckage and the nearly total lack of useful data, information and evidence, the NTSC has to conclude that the technical investigation has yielded no evidence to explain the cause of the accident, the official report said. Nov 2000 - Stowaway In Wheel-Well Causes Gear Retraction Problem MUNICH, Germany (AP) - A stowaway was found hidden inside the wheel-well of a Boeing 737 that was forced to return to Munich after the pilot couldnt retract the landing gear, police said Thursday. The 27-year-old was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia when he was found Wednesday evening by a mechanic under the Berlin-bound aircraft operated by Deutsche BA. The Romanian is registered as a resident of Berlin and has been seeking asylum in Germany. It was unclear why he had stowed away in the plane. The man endured temperatures that dropped to below freezing for the 22 minutes before the plane landed again, but suffered no serious injuries. He was arrested after being examined. Prosecutors were considering charges of endangering air traffic, police spokesman Hans-Peter Kammerer said. He could also be charged with violating laws requiring asylum seekers to remain in the part of the country where they were granted asylum. 26 Sep 2000 First Boeing 737-800 Flies With Blended Winglets - Boeing SEATTLE, Oct. 23, 2000 - German carrier Hapag-Lloyd Flug has earned another page in the aviation history books by being the first airline to fly the Boeing 737-800 with blended winglets. The test flight took place Sept. 26 in Seattle. The flight is the latest of several significant events involving Hapag-Lloyd and the Boeing 737-800. The airline was the airplanes launch customer in 1998, with 16 orders, and it operates the largest 737-800 fleet in Europe, with 17 airplanes in service and nine more on order. Hapag-Lloyd provided one of its 737-800s as a certification-test airplane for the blended winglet technology. This airplane is expected to go into service early next year, which will make Hapag-Lloyd the first airline to commercially fly a 737-800 with blended winglets. Additional winglets are being retrofitted on Hapag-Lloyds current fleet of 737-800s through a contract with Aviation Partners Boeing, a joint venture that offers blended winglet technology for in-service Boeing commercial airplanes. Unlike traditional winglets typically fitted at abrupt angles to the wing, this new advanced blended design gently curves out and up from the wing tip, reducing aerodynamic drag and boosting performance. Some of the performance improvements resulting from blended winglets on a 737-800 include: An extended flying range of more than 150 miles. Improved cruise fuel mileage of up to six-percent, resulting in nearly a five - percent reduction in gate-to-gate fuel consumption. A payload increase of up to 6,000 pounds. More efficient climbing while at the same time using less thrust - creating less noise and emissions, and providing lower engine maintenance costs through greater engine utilization. Improved take-off performance at high-altitude airports, in hot climate conditions and at obstacle-limited airports. (The 737-800 already is well below the current environmental standards for emissions and the winglets will even further enhance the airplanes environmental performance.) Blended winglets are offered by Boeing on new 737-800s as an option and are installed during production. For Hapag-Lloyd and other customers electing to retrofit winglets, the procedure involves removing the 737-800s wingtip and performing minor structural modifications to the wing before attaching the winglet. The modifications take about two weeks. Hapag-Lloyd Flug is one of the leading German charter airlines serving mainly destinations around the Mediterranean, in the Canary Islands and the Caribbean. The Hanover-based airline is part of Preussag AG, one of the worlds leading travel groups. 5 Oct 2000 - FAA considers order to check fuel tank wiring - Seattle Post Thursday, October 5, 2000 FAA considers order to check 737 wiring The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed asking operators of some Boeing 737 jets to inspect a portion of the fuel-quantity measuring system for a potentially dangerous electrical fault. The FAA said in a notice placed in the Federal Register on Tuesday that it had received two reports of wires chafed down to the conductor in the fuel-measuring system in the right main fuel tanks of the 737s. The FAA said its proposed airworthiness directive, giving six months for the work to be done, would apply to about 800 U. S.-registered 737-300, -400, and -500 jets. Boeing played down the safety hazard, saying there was not enough voltage in the line to pose an immediate risk. In response to 747 ignition concerns in 1997, Boeing maintained that aircraft was designed to eliminate all ignition sources from the fuel system and that even if a spark were created, the energy would not be enough to ignite a center wing tank. 4 Oct 2000 Boeing partners with BFGoodrich to convert 737 - Reuters SEATTLE, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) said on Wednesday it has agreed to form a partnership with BFGoodrich Co. (NYSE:GR - news) and InterContinental Aircraft Services to develop a passenger-to-freighter conversion programme for the 737 aircraft. The 737 is the best-selling jetliner of all time and is an ideal airplane to meet the needs of the feeder and niche freighter markets, said Joe Gullion, president of Boeing Airplane Services. The worldwide fleet of freighter airplanes is expected to double during the next 20 years with more than 2,600 airplanes added, Boeing said. Nearly 70 percent of the additions will come from modified passenger and combination airplanes. Boeing expects this will include about 250 737s. Both BFGoodrich Aerospace and InterContinental, an alliance of major Taiwanese companies -- including Air Asia, China Airlines. Evergreen Aviation Technologies, and Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. -- are members of Boeing Airplane Services international network of modification and engineering facilities. Representatives from the three companies are jointly developing the configuration and engineering statement of work for modifying both the 737-300 and -400 model airplanes. In addition, a quick change option is being evaluated, which allows airlines to convert from freighter to passenger operations in a short period of time. 3 Aug 2000 Boeing facing fine over failing to act quickly over cracks - Seattle Post Boeing faces huge fine 1.24 million urged for poor supplier oversight, failure to report bad parts Thursday, August 3, 2000 By JAMES WALLACE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER The Federal Aviation Administration yesterday proposed a record 1.24 million in fines against The Boeing Co. for inadequate supplier oversight and for failing to quickly report cracked parts on two older jetliners. In one case, Boeing waited 415 days -- instead of the required 24 hours -- to report that an operator had found a crack in the aft pressure bulkhead of an older 737, the FAA said. Cracks in that area, if they grow, can cause rapid decompression of the flight deck and cabin. The FAA requires immediate reporting of such damage, in order to alert airlines of potential problems that might require inspection and repair. All the incidents occurred two to three years ago, and the proposed fines are unrelated to a recently completed special FAA audit of Boeings quality control and manufacturing processes. A Boeing spokeswoman said the company has taken steps to fix the problems noted by the FAA and is in informal talks with the agency that could lead to a settlement. We are talking to them about closing this out, said Boeings Liz Verdier. Whether they reduce their fine is up to them. Should the 1.24 million in fines stand -- and that is unlikely, based on past practices in such matters -- it would be the largest in Boeings history. Larger penalties have been levied against airlines, however. The FAAs biggest previous proposed fine against Boeing was 392,000 in July 1999. The FAA said then that Boeing had failed to report a manufacturing defect on its 757s within 24 hours, as required. Boeing waited more than a year to notify the agency, the FAA said. Verdier said Boeing and the FAA have not yet settled the 1999 case, and the proposed fine has not been paid. In the latest case, the FAA proposed separate penalties of 500,000 and 741,000. The smaller of the proposed fines is for failing to report cracks in critical airframe structures within 24 hours, as required by law. In August 1997, the FAA said, Boeing was notified by the operator of a 737-100 that three cracks had been found in the horizontal stabilizer (the winglike structure on the tail). The cracks were 1.1 inches, 2.3 inches and 12 inches long, the FAA said. The stabilizer is a critical flight control surface, and the cracks, in a worst-case scenario, could have posed a safety risk, the FAA said. The 737-100 is the oldest of Boeings 737 models and was built in the late 1960s. There are only a few still flying. Boeing did not notify the FAA of the cracks until July 1998, nearly 300 days after first learning about them, the FAA said. The FAA also said that in September 1997, Boeing was notified by the operator of a 737-200 (a 1970s model) that a 3.5-inch fatigue crack was found in the aft pressure bulkhead. Boeing waited until late November 1998 to notify the FAA. There are more 737-200s flying than 737-100s, but few are still in operation in the United States. In both cases, Verdier said, Boeing delayed making reports to the FAA because it had to wait to obtain the parts in question from the 737 operators so they could be tested. Our procedure is to make a report within 24 hours of determination of a potential problem, she said. We could not make such a determination until we got the parts. It took months. She said Boeing has improved its reporting methods in response to the FAAs findings. We average about 100,000 messages a year from our operators, she said. We try and make a determination so that the safety-related ones get passed to the FAA. That process has been tightened and improved. The FAA noted Boeings efforts. Since the time of the alleged events, Boeing has cooperated with the FAA in developing an improved reporting process that exceeds the requirements of the regulation, the agency said in a statement. The FAAs proposed 741,000 penalty is related to Boeings oversight of its suppliers and subcontractors. Boeing failed to assure that they adopted and adhered to the companys quality control policies and procedures, the FAA said. The supplier actions occurred more than two years ago, the FAA said, and did not directly affect aircraft safety. In four separate cases, the FAA said, suppliers did not follow Boeings quality control practices. Failing to do so might have resulted in Boeings use of non-conforming materials to build airplanes, the FAA said. The violations came to light during FAA inspections of Boeings suppliers in late 1997 and early 1998. The contractors and suppliers are: Parker Control Systems of Ogden, Utah Aerospace Technologies of Port Melbourne, Australia Northrup Grummans Grand Prairie, Texas, plant and Kayaba Industries of Tokyo. They were cited for a total of 17 different violations, including improperly heat-treating products, failing to periodically check tooling machines, failure to keep up with certification for quality control workers and failing to make corrections identified in past audits. Boeing said no substandard parts ever made it onto aircraft from the contractors in question. Most of the violations were training and procedural issues, Verdier said. She said Boeing continues to work with its suppliers to improve practices and to make sure the companys quality control procedures are followed. Boeing has more than 3,500 suppliers worldwide. The FAA and Boeing also continue to talk about the findings of the special audit that was started in December. The audit also found lax supplier oversight by Boeing. It was sparked by a series of embarrassing production and quality control problems that resulted in defective parts being installed on Boeing airplanes. Boeing and the FAA are currently developing an action plan to address problems discovered during the audit. The findings wont be made public until the action plan has been approved by the FAA. An FAA spokeswoman said yesterday the proposed plan is under review at the agencys headquarters in Washington, D. C. Since the audit, Boeing has increased scrutiny of its suppliers and added more people to a unit that works with suppliers and monitors the quality of parts. 21 Mar 2000 United 737 experiences aileron control system malfunction - NTSB NTSB: United 737 experiences aileron control system malfunction NTSB Identification: LAX00SA132 Scheduled 14 CFR 121 operation of UNITED AIRLINES, INC. Incident occurred MAR-21-00 at LAS VEGAS, NV Aircraft: Boeing 737-300, registration: N328UA Injuries: 100 Uninjured. On March 21, 2000, at 0836 hours Pacific standard time, United Airlines flight 2701, a Boeing 737-300, N328UA, experienced an aileron control system malfunction during the landing roll on runway 25L at the Las Vegas Nevada, airport. The airplane was operated by United Airlines, Inc. as a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight under 14 CFR Part 121. The airplane was not damaged. None of the 5 crewmembers or 95 passengers were injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and an IFR flight plan was filed. The flight originated from Denver, Colorado, at 0816 mountain standard time as a nonstop flight to Las Vegas. The flight crew reported that all aspects of the flight were normal until the landing roll. The crew disconnected the autopilot about 3,000 feet agl and hand flew the approach through touchdown due to turbulence. After touchdown, the captain was holding about 30 degrees of right control wheel input for the existing crosswind condition and as the airplane slowed below 100 knots, the wheel smoothly moved to a full right aileron deflection. A detailed examination of the lateral control system is in process. 19 Feb 2000 Winglets boost to Boeing 737--800 performance SEATTLE, Feb. 18, 2000 - The Boeing Company announced today that it is offering Next-Generation 737-800 customers a new, advanced-technology winglet as a standard option. The winglet will allow a new airplane that already flies farther, higher and more economically than competing products to extend its range, carry more payload, save on fuel and benefit the environment. The first Boeing 737-800 with winglets is expected to be delivered in the spring of 2001. All subsequent 737-800s will be equipped with structurally enhanced wings that will make it easier for owners of standard 737-800s to retrofit those jetliners with winglets. The key to product leadership is to create a superior product, then continually improve it in ways that add value to customers, said John Hayhurst, vice president and general manager, 737 programs. With this new winglet, the Next-Generation 737 will remain the most advanced airplane family in its class for the 21st century, just as it was for the 20th. A Next-Generation 737-800 equipped with the new winglet will be able to fly farther, burn 3 percent to 5 percent less fuel, or carry up to 6,000 pounds more payload. Other benefits include a reduction in noise near airports, lower engine-maintenance costs, and improved takeoff performance at high-altitude airports and in hot climate conditions. The winglets weigh about 120 pounds each. They are made of high-tech carbon graphite, an advanced aluminum alloy and titanium. The winglet is eight feet long and tapers from its four-foot wide base to a width of two feet at the tip. Unlike traditional winglets typically fitted at abrupt angles to the wing, this new advanced blended design gently curves out and up from the wing tip, reducing aerodynamic drag and boosting performance. The 737-800 winglet was developed initially for the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), which also features the state-of-the-art 737-800 wing. This winglet will be available initially as an option on the 162-passenger 737-800. Formal availability of the winglet will follow quickly on other models that feature the 737-800 wing, including the 737-700C and the 737-900. The applicability of the winglet to Next-Generation 737-600 and 737-700 models is being assessed. The blended-winglet technology was developed by Aviation Partners Inc. of Seattle. In 1999, during the design of the BBJ winglet, Aviation Partners and The Boeing Company formed Aviation Partners Boeing (APB), a joint venture that completed and owns the design. APB is developing the capability to make the winglet available as a retrofit for airplanes already in service. 27 Jan 2000 Popular Boeing 737 Surpasses New Aviation Milestone - Boeing SEATTLE, Jan. 27, 2000 -- The Boeing 737, the worlds most widely used jetliner, has become the first jetliner in history to soar beyond 100 million flight hours - a testament to the jetliners popularity and to The Boeing Companys continuing commitment to enhance the airplanes design, performance, comfort and value. The Next-Generation family, which entered service in 1998 inaugurated the third generation of Boeing 737s. The Next Generation 737 family consists of the 110-passenger 737-600 the 128-passenger 737-700, the 162-passenger 737-800, and the 177-passenger 737-900. The Next-Generation airplanes feature a new wing - the most aerodynamically efficient in its class new, more powerful yet quieter engines a new, more spacious and comfortable interior and a state-of-the-art flight deck. The overwhelming market success of the Boeing 737 is one of the ironies of aerospace history. When the program was launched in 1965, the 737s prospects looked questionable. Competitors were two years ahead of the 737, with 300 orders between them. The 737 had to compete for product-development budget and engineering talent with several other major programs in development - the 747, a stretched 727, the C5 transporter and the supersonic transport. But compete it did, leading to the most successful jetliner program of all time. 9 Dec 1999 - Classic 737 line to close, ends era of Boeing lows, highs. - Seattle Times Wednesday December 08 07:57 PM EST Classic 737 line to close, ends era of Boeing lows, highs. By Polly Lane Seattle Times aerospace reporter Boeings final 737-400 will be rolled out of the Renton factory tomorrow, ending a 32-year era that produced the best-selling airplane model in aviation history. The jet is to be delivered to CSA Czech Airlines in February. With the rollout, Boeing will close out production of the last of five classic versions of the twin-engine airplane, the dominant jet of the hub-and-spoke system at U. S. airports. Boeing will concentrate in the future on new 737 models - the -700, -800, -900 and a business jet that incorporates features of the -700 and -800. The 737-700 was launched by Southwest Airlines in 1994. Production of the classic 737s surpassed that of the former top seller, the Boeing 727, in February 1990. Boeing delivered 1,831 727s in all. The 737 has continued to be the front-runner in sales ever since. Boeing has booked orders for 4,349 737s, including the new-generation models. The last 737-300 will be delivered Monday to Air New Zealand, while the last 737-500 went to Air Nippon in July. Like many airplane models, the 737 had a shaky start and faced oblivion a couple of times when orders dwindled. In 1972, during the famous Boeing Bust, only 14 were sold. But the company said 1,970 classic models remain in service today. Boeings 737 was two years behind the Douglas DC-9 in the marketplace in the mid-1960s. And after fierce debate by the companys board of directors, Boeing moved into production of the first 103-seat 737 with only one order, from Lufthansa German Airlines. Boeing was confident United Airlines also would order the jet and it did, a few months later. But it wanted more seats so the 737-100 was stretched more than six feet and dubbed the -200. A more advanced -300 made its debut in 1981 when start-up Southwest Airlines decided to make the 126-seater its airplane of choice. The earlier two models were phased out. The larger 147-passenger -400 followed in 1988, first ordered by Piedmont Airlines. Then Southwest launched a smaller 110-passenger -500 model in 1990. The earliest 737 was alternately dubbed FLUF (Fat Little Ugly Fella) and Fat Albert because it was short and fat, almost square. Later, the 737 was renamed Little Giant because of its ability to land and take off on short runways, even unpaved strips, features that attracted customers from Africa, Australia, South America and Asia. The earliest 737 had some problems, including thrust reversers that didnt work properly, and a shimmy in the landing gear, but it was a good airplane from the start, recalls Brien Wygle, its chief test pilot. The 2 12-hour maiden flight was uneventful, he said. Wygle had worked with pilots and engineers on the plane for months before he and co-pilot Lew Wallick took it up the first time from Boeing Field on April 9, 1967. It was the first Boeing airplane was designed for a two-man crew, rather than three. While that concept took a while to prove to pilots and safety experts, Wygle said he had no problems with only one assistant in the cockpit. The 737 had two engines under the wings instead of near the tail, as on the DC-9s. The 737s new Pratt amp Whitney engines were designed to be quieter than the competitors. The 737 classic series has been a key player for growing airlines and for leasing companies, including Boullioun Aviation of Bellevue, which owns 35. Boullioun truly grew up with this aircraft, said John Willingham, chief operating officer. Its been a very successful airplane for us. He cited reliability, efficiency and ease of maintenance. Willingham said his company will be keeping the classic models in its fleet for some time because officials believe their value will hold up. Peter Jacobs, aerospace analyst with Ragen MacKenzie in Seattle, agreed. Jacobs said the 737 classics still are among the most widely flown aircraft and join the DC-3, the 707 and 727 as real workhorses. At tomorrows noon rollout, Boeing Chairman Phil Condit will recall his role in producing the first 737 while he headed the Renton division. Alan Mulally, the Boeing Commercial Airplanes president, and John Hayhurst, the 737 vice president and general manager, will discuss how the past shaped the 737s future. Its a future in which the 737 must compete with a strong Airbus Industrie family of similar A320 airplanes that have attracted hundreds of orders this year. But competition is nothing new for the 737, considering it began in the shadow of a successful DC-9 and prevailed. 11 May 1998 Mandatory inspections reveal widespread damage in fuel tank wires on the Boeing 737 - Las Vegas Review Journal By Glen Johnson Associated Press The government on Sunday grounded older models of the Boeing 737, the worlds most popular jet, after mandatory inspections of some aircraft found extensive wear in power lines running through their wing fuel tanks. The order affected 15 percent of the 737s operating domestically, causing scattered flight cancellations as the business week began. United Airlines alone canceled 54 flights. But with a typical inspection taking about six hours, the effect on the flying public Sunday apparently was minimal. A number of flights also were canceled at Philadelphia International Airport, but ticket clerks attributed most of them to the weather. The few passengers affected by inspection delays seem to take the developments in stride. At Reagan National, just outside Washington, Doug Clowers said his United flight to Chicago was canceled, but they made sure they didnt mess up my plans too much. They made sure I was on the next available flight. The emergency inspections, the broadest FAA order for commercial aircraft since McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s were grounded in 1979, came three days after the Federal Aviation Administration gave airlines up to a week to inspect their oldest 737s for signs of wear in the wiring or the pipes that carry the wires through the fuel tanks. A recent inspection of a Continental Airlines 737 found both exposed wires and holes in the piping believed to have been caused by electrical sparks. Officials feared the mixture of fuel, air and electricity could spark an explosion such as the one that downed TWA Flight 800. By Saturday afternoon, 14 more aircraft had been inspected and mechanics found chafing in half of the bundles examined. One wiring bundle in a United Airlines 737 showed signs of sparking in one spot and a second area where the wires had been worn bare, most likely from vibration over the planes 50,000 hours in flight. That prompted the FAA to revise its original order, ordering all Boeing 737-100 and -200 series aircraft immediately out of passenger service until they could be inspected and repaired. The planes have cigar-shaped engines mounted directly under their wings. There are 179 such aircraft operated by U. S. carriers. The FAA also ordered inspections over the next two weeks for 737s with between 40,000 and 50,000 flight hours, generally the newer generation Boeing 737-300, -400 and -500 aircraft. Those models have oval-shaped engines mounted on pylons that extend in front of the wings. There are 118 such planes in the United States and 282 worldwide. Based on the early inspections, the FAA also allowed airlines to discontinue inspections of another set of pipes and wires leading to the aircrafts center fuel tank. In all, 14 aircraft inspected, there were no signs of chafing found in that wiring. While we are concerned about (the inspections) and the disruption it may have on the system, the No. 1 concern of the FAA is safety, said Thomas McSweeny, the FAAs director of aircraft certification. Boeing supported the action, which followed its own service bulletin to aircraft owners on April 24. Were doing everything we can to minimize any schedule disruptions to affected 737 operators and we will continue working with the FAA to monitor the inspection results and take any other action that may be advisable, said Boeing spokesman Russ Young. The manufacturer said it was rushing repair kits to the airlines. Southwest Airlines, United and US Airways were most affected. Southwest has an all-737 fleet, though only about 35 of its aircraft were the type covered by the grounding. The inspections took three-person teams about six hours for each plane, a spokeswoman said. United had to cancel 54 flights on Sunday as its 18 older-model planes were inspected, but the airline said it would have all the planes back in the air by today. This is not impeding our operation anywhere near the level a severe weather condition would at Denver or OHare, said United spokeswoman Mary Jo Holland, referring to the airlines two major hub airports. A US Airways spokesman said his airline had to pull four planes out of service. Investigators still do not know what caused TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747, to explode off Long Island in July 1996. They suspect fumes in the center fuel tank were ignited by electricity. Since then, they have been examining the wiring configurations on similar planes and ordering inspections. Last week, the FAA ordered inspections for Boeing 747 and 767 aircraft to make sure they had the necessary protection around their fuel tank wiring. The airlines have 60 days to complete that work. The agency is also considering inspections for McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed aircraft. Planes made by Airbus Industries are not affected because they have a different wiring configuration. There are 1,088 Boeing 737s in the United States and 2,716 registered worldwide, making it the most common passenger aircraft in use. While the FAA action does not apply to foreign aircraft, most countries follow its lead on safety matters. The FAA grounded the DC-10 fleet in May 1979 after an American Airlines plane lost a wing-mounted engine at takeoff and crashed. All 273 aboard were killed. The planes were not allowed to fly until their engine mounts were inspected and repaired as needed. 11 Mar 1998 Germania Breaks Distance Record In Boeing 737-700 - Boeing SEATTLE, March 11, 1998 -- German tour operator Germania Fluggesellschaft mbH today helped The Boeing Companyrsquos newest jetliner -- the 737-700 -- set a new distance record, flying the single-aisle plane nonstop from Seattle to Berlin. The 737-700, the first of the Next-Generation 737 family to enter service, weighed in at 62,248 kilograms before takeoff. The plane departed Seattlersquos Boeing Field at 4:26 p. m. PST (0026 Universal Takeoff Time), Tuesday, March 10 and arrived in Berlin at 10:53 a. m. local time (1053 UTC) Wednesday, March 11. The 9 hour 27 minute flight spanned 4,511 nautical miles, breaking the international record in the 60,000-80,000-kg weight class. The previous record -- 3,385 nautical miles -- was set in 1993 by another Boeing jetliner, the MD-83. The airplane, painted in TUIGermania livery, was fully configured for passenger service, with 144 seats. Among those participating in the record-breaking flight were Germania Managing Director Peter Kiessling, team leader Germania Director-Flight OperationsChief Pilot Thomas Scheel along with accompanying crew and staff representatives from Boeing and engine maker CFMI. The official observer aboard the flight was Jack Sweeney, a board member of the National Aeronautical Association, USA. Aviation authorities from the United States, Germany and France are expected to accept the flight as a new international record for its weight class. This record-breaking flight is a testament to the design and quality of the Next-Generation 737-700 -- and to the Boeing workers who make it, said Germaniarsquos Kiessling. In terms of range, new passenger-interior appearance, efficiency and reduced emissions, the -700 is perfect for us. Germaniarsquos delivery marks the first of 12 737-700s the airline has ordered. Its all-Boeing fleet also includes 13 737-300s. We have had a good relationship with Germania and are pleased they continue to choose Boeing airplanes, said Jack Gucker, vice president ndash 737757 Derivative Programs. We have a lot of confidence in the -700 and wersquore happy to see it accomplish what we expect of it. Based on their needs, the 737-700 will serve them well. The Next-Generation 737 family -- the 737-600-700-800-900 models are designed to fly higher, faster, farther and quieter than previous models and continues to be the fastest-selling jetliner model in history. The Next-Generation 737 models are particularly popular among environmentally conscious carriers because of lower noise and emissions than competing aircraft. The 737-700 is powered by new CFM56-7 engines produced by CFMI, a joint venture of General Electric of the U. S. and Snecma of France. 27 Jan 1998 Boeing rolls Out 3,000th 737 - Aerotech News Journal of Aerospace and Defense Industry News SEATTLE - Boeing Commercial Airplane Group Monday night achieved a significant manufacturing milestone when employees rolled the 3,000th Boeing 737 out of the manufacturing facility in Renton, Wash. where the popular twinjets have been manufactured since 1970. The historic rollout occurs 31 years after Boeing rolled out the first 737-100 Jan. 17, 1967. That rollout took place at the companys Plant 2 facility in Seattle, the initial site of 737 production. Through three decades of hard work and commitment, Boeing employees have built an unmatched legacy of success with the 737, said Gary Scott, vice president and general manager of 737757 Programs. With roughly 900 more 737s currently on order, we can look forward to extending this legacy for future generations of employees. The 3,000th 737 is a 146-passenger 737-400 model, scheduled for delivery to Alaska Airlines. Last November, the Seattle-based carrier became the launch customer for the 737-900 - the fourth model in the Next-Generation 737 family - when it announced an order for 10 737-900s, with 10 options. At the same time, the airline also announced orders for two 737-400s and three 737-700s. 15 Jun 1997 CFM56-3 Engine sets new World Record for time on-wing - CFMI June 15, 1997 CFM97-11 LE BOURGET - A CFM56-3 engine powering a Boeing 737-500 with Braathens S. A.F. E. reached 19,855 cycles without a single shop visit, setting a new worlds record for time on wing. The previous record of 19,841 cycles was held by a CFM56-3 engine in service with Southwest Airlines. The CFM56-3 is produced by CFM International, a 5050 joint company between Snecma of France and General Electric of the United States and the worlds largest supplier of commercial aircraft engines. The CFM56-3C1 engine, which entered Braathens fleet in October 1991, was removed after nearly six years of service due to life-limited parts in the core. The airline may soon break its own record as there are six additional -3 engines in its fleet that have logged more than 18,000 cycles without a shop visit. The Norwegian flag-carrier currently operates 27 CFM56-3-powered Boeing 737-400s and -500s and will begin taking delivery of the first of 16 firm and option Next-Generation 737-700 aircraft, powered by the CFM56-7, in 1998. A CFM56-3 engine in service with Germania Flug is poised to set yet another time-on-wing record by years end. The engine has been in service with the German charter and regional carrier since 1988 and has logged more than 28,000 engine flight hours without a shop visit. If the engine stays on wing for 30,000 hours, Germania will have set a new worlds record. Germania operates a fleet of 13 CFM56-3-powered Boeing 737-300 aircraft, and three additional engines in this fleet have logged more than 16,000, 18,000, and 22,000 hours, respectively, without a shop visit. When it takes delivery of the first of 12 Next-Generation 737-700 aircraft later this year, Germania, along with Maersk Air, will be the first European carriers to place the CFM56-7 into revenue service. Since entering service in 1984, the CFM56-3 has established itself as the standard against which all other engines are judged in terms of reliability, durability, and cost of ownership. The fleet of nearly 1,800 CFM56-3-powered 737s in service worldwide have logged more than 61 million hours and 44 million cycles while maintaining a 99.98 percent dispatch reliability rate (one flight delayed or canceled for engine-caused reasons per 5,000 departures), a .070 shop visit rate (one unscheduled shop visit per 14,286 flight hours), and an in-flight shutdown rate of .003 (one incident per 333,333 hours). 17 Nov 1995 Next Boeing 737 Program Sets Two-Year Order Record - Boeing The next Boeing 737 program has set a new aviation record: More 737-600, -700 and -800 airplanes have been sold in the first two years that they have been offered than any other commercial jetliner. Since the airplane program was launched two years ago today, 214 airplanes have been ordered by 11 different customers. We knew when we launched this program that this airplane would be popular, but sales have exceeded our expectations, said Ron Woodard, president of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. We expect these airplanes to extend the 737s record as the best-selling jet in history, he added. As the program marks its second anniversary, the first of the three airplanes -- the 737-700 -- continues to meet its design and build milestones. About 70 percent of the engineering drawings for the -700 have been released to the factory and thats right on schedule, said Jack Gucker, director of the 737-600-700-800 program. With the release of the drawings, more than 100,000 parts are being scheduled for fabrication. All three models of the next 737 twinjet will be powered by the new CFM56-7 engine, which is being developed by CFM International, a joint venture of Snecma of France and General Electric of the United States. Design, assembly and testing of the engine also remain on schedule. Weve released 93 percent of the drawings for the engine, the auxiliary power unit and their major related parts, said Gucker. Boeing has designed and built engine struts and thrust reversers to support extensive engine ground and flight tests in France and the United States. The testing is aimed at validating the new engines integrity as well as greater thrust capability and improved performance over the CFM56-3, which powers todays 737-300, -400 and -500 fleet. In January, the CFM56-7 engine is scheduled for first flight on a GE-owned Boeing 747 flying test bed. Plans for supporting airline customers who will be flying the -700 also are on schedule. The first portion of a computer-based flight and maintenance training course that will be available on CD-ROM has just been completed and a general familiarization course on the 737-600, -700 and -800 program already is being taught to employees of airline customers who have purchased the airplanes. Development of maintenance manuals for the -700 and the engine also are well under way. The first -700 is due to be delivered to Southwest Airlines of the United States in October 1997, the first - 800 is slated for initial delivery to Hapag Lloyd of Germany in early 1998 and the first -600 will go to SAS in late 1998. This site has had visitors to date.