From Satellites to Subway Cars : U.S. Likes French Touch in High Tech
Mention France and Americans usually envision fine wines, stylish fashions and gourmet meals. But it’s high technology, not haute cuisine, that dominates the French-American connection.
In the United States, French industries are coming on strong, especially in aerospace, communications and transportation. Americans ride in French trains, airplanes and subway cars; launch their satellites with French rockets, and do a host of chores with French-inspired computer wizardry.
“Aircraft and aircraft engines and systems bring the most dollars back to France,” says Daniel Gagneux, a commercial counselor at the French Embassy in Washington. “More than $2 billion worth were sold in the United States last year.”
That trend is likely to continue as American carriers welcome new generations of Airbuses that feature “fly-by-wire” systems designed largely by the French. Replacing standard mechanical links, fly-by-wire gives pilots a handy side stick instead of a wheel. Control of the plane flows from the stick through wires to five computers that control crucial components in the wings and tail.
Airbus Industrie, the consortium of French and other European manufacturers that planned the new 150-passenger jetliners, already has sold 191 of them in the United States.
Launches Satellites
Helicopters and smaller French-manufactured aircraft are also flying American skies. The U.S. Coast Guard operates the largest fleet: 96 French helicopters and 41 small French jet planes.
The French influence extends far above U.S. airspace. Managed by France and supported by a consortium of European governments, Arianespace regularly launches commercial satellites from a site in French Guiana. Since 1984, Arianespace has put 14 U.S. telecommunications satellites in orbit, and two or three more will be lofted this year.
Few satellites launched by Arianespace have had more impact than SPOT, a spacecraft that beams back high-resolution images of Earth from space. Owned and operated by France’s space agency, SPOT can produce clear images of an area measuring only 10 meters--about half the size of a tennis court.
“Customers in the United States range from farmers and government agencies to urban planners,” Pierre Bescond, president of Spot Image Corp., told National Geographic.
American urban planners also are turning to French people-movers to alleviate some of their problems.
At O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, an elevated, dual-track French rail system will link four major terminals with remote parking lots. The computer-controlled, driverless robot trains, scheduled to begin operation next year, initially will carry as many as 2,400 passengers an hour at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour.
Transportation in other cities, including Atlanta and New York, gets a boost from French-manufactured subway cars.
But it is on intercity rail runs that French technology soon may be making its biggest impact in the United States.
High-Speed Trains
Reaching speeds of 110 m.p.h., French turboliner trains, powered by motors adapted from helicopter engines, have cut travel time between New York and Albany from three hours to two hours and eight minutes. A new version of the trains, proposed between New York and Boston at speeds of up to 125 m.p.h., would make the trip in three hours, cutting 45 minutes off existing travel time.
The Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV)--train of great speed--would carry passengers even faster if approved for Florida service between Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando and Tampa. Flashing through the Florida countryside at speeds sometimes reaching 185 m.p.h., the new-generation TGV would be operated by a lone driver in the cab and controlled by a system of computers in each car.
The Gallic touch in computers revolutionized videotex, a method of sending and receiving text and graphics, usually over telephone lines, between a central computer and a terminal or personal computer. Known as Minitel in France, the system consists of a keyboard, a screen and a modem, an instrument that translates telephone signals into computer-readable graphics.
In France, 4.4 million subscribers can use Minitel to bank, shop and read their morning newspapers. Some even use the system as a kind of lonely-hearts service, tapping out messages to one another’s pseudonyms.
“These chat services are very popular in the United States, too,” says Terry Ribb, marketing director for Minitel Services of Purchase, N.Y., which is marketing French Minitel technology in the United States.
Houston is one of the hottest current markets for the American version of Minitel. Systems have been distributed to almost 10,000 households--the eventual target is 60,000--in a mass-market test financed by two U.S. companies, Videotel and Southwestern Bell Telephone.
