CINCINNATI Several leading U.S. airlines are rearranging flight schedules at major hub airports in experiments aimed at improving efficiencies of aircraft, facilities and personnel. The outcome of various approaches to “depeaking” flights, spreading them out over a span of time, may affect every airline operation in North America and the growing use of hub-and-spoke systems across the world.

LOS ANGELES A 10-12-in. fatigue crack has been found in the center wing box of the firefighting Lockheed C-130A that crashed June 17, along the line where the right wing separated from the body. Other smaller fatigue cracks were also found along the parting line on the lower wing skin.

WASHINGTON A stronger commitment to unmanned aircraft and better access to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems are needed for the U.S. Air Forces in the Pacific to overcome shortfalls they have experienced in recent months, according to USAF’s commander for the region.

SAN FRANCISCO A contract worth a potential $4.5 billion over the next 16 years has given TRW Inc. the lead in producing U.S. civil and military polar-orbiting weather satellites. Called the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the spacecraft are to satisfy the daily operational needs now filled by NOAA’s Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite (POES) Program and the Defense Dept.’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).

WASHINGTON Scientists and engineers from the Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour) spacecraft team have started planning a replacement for the probe that was almost certainly lost at the end of a critical solid-fuel rocket burn on Aug. 15, targeting a 2006 launch date to one and perhaps more of the same comets.