Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Farmingdale, N.Y.-based Telephonics Corp. has won three contracts worth more than $4.1 million to provide maritime surveillance radar systems to firms in France, Puerto Rico and the Netherlands, the company said Nov. 30. In France, Reims Aviation Industries picked Telephonics' RDR 1500 radar for the Namibia Fishery Department's Reims-made F406 aircraft. The radar will be used in fisheries patrol, Telephonics said.

Virtual training systems maker FATS Inc. of Atlanta has won a $1.7 million contract from the U.S. government to provide law enforcement training systems to the Baghdad police academy, the company said Nov. 30. The police training systems contain multi-user configurations and scenarios and can monitor weapon diagnostics for instructional feedback, the company said. FATS' Bluefire Glock 17, a sensored, wireless firearm simulator, also is included in the contract.

General Dynamics Land Systems of Sterling Heights, Mich., has won three delivery orders worth $206 million to provide the U.S. Army with 95 additional Stryker armored combat vehicles, the company said Dec. 2.

More than 5,000 military rotorcraft worth about $84 billion will be produced through 2013, Forecast International said in a new report. This includes new helicopters and major modifications, such as Boeing's AH-64D and Sikorsky's UH-60M, Forecast said. A total of 1,668 such modifications, worth about $14.3 billion, are expected.

Despite the Stryker vehicle's requirement that it be transportable within a C-130 cargo aircraft, so far Stryker brigades in Iraq have not used the aircraft for intra-theater movement, according to Col. Peter Fuller, the Army's Stryker project manager. "I'm not saying it's always faster [than a C-130], but they find that it's very fast because it's a wheeled vehicle," Fuller said during the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's Light Armored Vehicles conference in Washington Dec. 2.

The U.S. Defense Department is studying whether the B-2 bomber, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and four other weapon system programs should pursue a relatively new, more flexible approach to logistics aimed at increasing equipment reliability.

MV-22 MONEY: The Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office was awarded an additional $10 million for the development program of the MV-22, the Marine Corps variant of the Osprey tiltrotor. The work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and Ridley Park, Pa., and is expected to be completed in October 2005. Initial fielding of the MV-22 is scheduled to begin in 2007 (DAILY, July 9).

The Defense Information Systems Agency has awarded Melbourne, Fla.-based Harris Corp. a contract worth up to $175 million to provide maintenance and engineering for the agency's Crisis Management System, the company said Dec. 2. CMS is a secure voice, video and data network that allows senior U.S. government officials to communicate during emergencies, the company said. The system operates over a dedicated Internet protocol backbone.

Eleven reports by 122 authors detailing the discovery by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover that areas of the red planet were wet and possibly habitable in the past have been accepted for publication in the journal Science, NASA announced Dec. 2. The Opportunity rover discovered evidence in Mars' Meridiani Planum region that a shallow, salty sea once existed in the area (DAILY, March 24.). Certain characteristics of the rocks there suggest that water came and went repeatedly, as it sometimes does in shallow lakes and deserts on Earth.

CHINOOK PARTS: Arkwin Industries of Westbury, N.Y. has been awarded a $760,800 delivery order from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Ala., as part of a $10.1 million contract for Chinook helicopter spare parts, the Defense Department said Dec. 2. The work will be performed in Westbury, N.Y., and is expected to be completed in 2009.

Aerojet will build an attitude control system (ACS) for the second and third stages of the Kinetic Energy Interceptor's booster for Orbital Sciences Corp., the company said Dec. 1. The ACS will stabilize the booster during ascent. The second-stage ACS is scheduled to be delivered for a test flight in 2007. Aerojet, owned by GenCorp Inc., also is building a divert and attitude control system for the KEI kill vehicle under a contract from Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Engineers for St. Louis-based Boeing Integrated Defense Systems have successfully completed the first series of wind tunnel tests for the 737 Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) program, the company said Nov. 30. The low-speed tests, conducted on an 11% scale model of a 737 MMA, began on Oct. 28 and concluded Nov. 5 at Boeing's subsonic wind tunnel facility in Philadelphia.

James H. Tate has been appointed to the board of directors. Tate is senior vice president and chief financial officer of Thermadyne Holdings Corp. of St. Louis.

JSF WING: Lockheed Martin Corp. has finished building the skeleton of the wing for the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flight test jet. The wing structure, which was assembled in Fort Worth, Texas, will undergo more work before being mated with the fuselage. First flight is planned for August 2006.

Brig. Gen. Daniel L. Montgomery (USA-Ret.) has been appointed corporate lead executive for the Huntsville, Ala., region. Dennis Averyt has been named vice president, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Maureen Heath has been appointed vice president, civil space. Peggy Nelson has been named vice president and project manager, Prometheus 1. David Rosener has been appointed vice president, subcontracts. Ron Smith has been named vice president, Six Sigma.

Dianna Mauer has been named director of operations for homeland security. Susan Hotsenpiller has been appointed director of legislative affairs.

Eric Dermond, founder and chairman, will retire effective Dec. 31. Max Dermond, president, will retire effective April 30, 2005. William Ochsner has been appointed Derco's next president.

Although the U.S. Marine Corps is concerned about the survivability of its Light Armored Vehicle (LAV), there currently isn't funding for upgrades to improve it, Marine Corps officials said Dec. 1. The LAVs are vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), said Col. Len Blasiol, director of the Materiel Capabilities Division at Marine Corps Combat Development Command. He spoke at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's Light Armored Vehicles conference in Washington.

DELTA IV HEAVY: Boeing has scheduled the first launch of its Delta IV Heavy rocket for 2:31 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 10 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The flight is a demonstration mission for the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. Capable of lifting up to 28,950 pounds (13,130 kilograms) to geosynchronous transfer orbit, the rocket is the most powerful developed since the Saturn V, according to Boeing. It will stand 235 feet (71.7 meters) high when fully stacked.

Zora Ljoljic has been named vice president and general manager.

Herley Industries Inc. of Lancaster, Pa., has been awarded $7.2 million in contracts to provide microwave hardware for several U.S. defense programs, the company said Dec. 1. Herley has won a $1.1 million contract to produce integrated microwave assemblies for F-16 aircraft; $2.8 million in contracts to provide microwave hardware for missile test applications; and a $3.3 million contract to provide avionics system hardware for the Air Force Security Assistance Training program, the company said.

President Bush's vision for space exploration is "winning" on Capitol Hill, but is likely to progressively eat into NASA's space science budget as the years pass, according to Bob Palmer, Democratic staff director for the House Science Committee.