Navy officials on Aug. 14 announced that Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics have been awarded an $8.7 billion block-buy contract for the construction of six Virginia-class submarines between 2003 and 2007.
CP-140 WORK: Telephonics Corp. will develop, build and deliver its APS-143B(V)3-MPS OceanEye Surveillance Radar for the Canadian Air Force's CP-140 Aurora modernization program, the company said Aug. 14. The work is expected to be worth more than $60 million over the life of the program, and will be done under a contract from MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates of Richmond, British Columbia.
NORFOLK, Va. - The Navy is striving to find the right balance of live training versus simulation for fighter pilots in the coming era of network-centric operations, according to Rear Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, director of air warfare at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV). "I will tell you that the screaming that comes from Washington is 'We're spending too much money on training,'" Fitzgerald said during a presentation at the National Training Systems Association's Fighter Training Symposium here Aug. 14.
Final demonstration firings of the High subsonic, Optically guided, Tube launched anti-tank missile (HOT) missile from a Tiger helicopter were conducted last month and the HOT firing post has been qualified for the Tiger helicopter, EADS/LFK of Germany said this week. In a series of 39 firings since 1997, stationary and moving targets were engaged at ranges between 600 and 4,000 meters (1,968-13,000 feet). The Tiger engaged targets both from a hovering position and from forward flight, EADS/LFK said.
A U.S. senator is seeking to bolster federal efforts to monitor and limit certain defense trade contracts that he believes are killing American jobs. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), whose state is home to such major aerospace firms as Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky, recently won Senate approval of legislation that would require the Defense Department to assess the impact of offsets on the U.S. industrial base.
NEW DELHI - The Indian air force plans to use an Israeli-built Phalcon radar as part of a communications platform to help steer military aircraft away from heavily defended areas, a defense ministry official said. India plans to mount the radar on an Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft, which would be able to transmit images in real-time to other military aircraft. "Pilots transit long distances and may suddenly enter heavily defended areas, which can be notified on [a] real-time basis with the new platform," the official said.
LOCKHEED MARTIN has successfully demonstrated an automatic air collision avoidance system on a U.S. Air Force F-16, the first time such technology was used on a production F-16, the company said. Five pilots made 287 test runs using the system during six F-16 flights originating from Fort Worth, Texas in June. Simulated targets representing other aircraft were generated by a ground station and datalinked to the aircraft. The system is a cooperative effort between the U.S.
SALE COMPLETE: Lockheed Martin has completed the sale of $1 billion worth of 30-year convertible bonds, $150 million more than it had expected, the company said Aug. 13. Proceeds will be used for "general corporate" purposes, such as debt reduction, working capital, capital spending or acquisitions, the company said.
ANTEON INTERNATIONAL, Fairfax, Va. Lt. Gen. Michael A. Canavan (U.S. Army, ret.) has been appointed group senior vice president for homeland security. FLIR SYSTEMS, Portland, Ore. John D. Carter, a principal at the consulting firm Goldschmidt Imeson Carter, has been elected to the board of directors. HERLEY INDUSTRIES, Lancaster, Pa.
Two pre-development studies designed to define the U.S. Air Force's technical and planning needs for launching the Airborne Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Cluster 4 program next year have opened for bids. The deadline for responses to the Electronics Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., is Sept. 10 at 3 p.m., according to Air Force acquisition documents posted Aug. 13 announcing the competition.
U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command wants industry input on the idea of using guided interceptors to protect light armored vehicles against attack by kinetic energy (KE) penetrators. The interceptors, which would be fired from the vehicles themselves, would be part of an "active protection system," or APS, according to the command.
NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) successfully launched the $40 million Scientific Satellite Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (SCISAT-1) spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Aug. 12. Canada's first new scientific satellite since 1971, SCISAT-1 is intended to help a team of international scientists improve their understanding of the depletion of Earth's ozone layer, with a special emphasis on the changes occurring over Canada and in the Arctic.
The U.S. Navy has launched the flight test phase for Raytheon's new APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, according to an Aug. 13 announcement. AESA is being tested on the program's first customer, Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Naval Air Systems (NAVAIR) Command staged the first flight of the advanced radar on July 30 after integrating the system on the next-generation F/A-18.
EDO Corp. of New York will support AN/ALQ-161 defensive systems on the B-1B bomber under two contracts totaling $10 million, the company said Aug. 13. The first award, valued at $7.2 million, is for developing an upgrade to the digital radio-frequency memory to help counter advanced threats. The second award, worth $2.9 million, is to continue development on the next generation of AN/ALQ-161 preprocessor flight software. Both contracts were awarded by the Air Logistics Center at Robins Air Force Base, Ga.
Large unmanned aircraft flying in formation could help address the U.S. Defense Department's chronic airlift shortfall, according to a study by Lt. Col. Chad Manske, special assistant to the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va. A former C-17 pilot, Manske wrote a study exploring the unmanned airlift concept last year while attending the Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Power Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.
The Missile Defense Agency has released a report highlighting 24 examples in which MDA-funded technology has been commercialized. One example is the WindTracer Coherent Doppler Lidar system, which uses pulsed laser energy to detect air currents created by large commercial aircraft. The system was developed by CLR Photonics, the commercial products division of Coherent Technologies Inc. (CTI), which has received MDA funding to develop laser-based technology for missile tracking, discrimination and kill assessment.
PROWLER TRAINER: Lockheed Martin will provide the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps a two-seat EA-6B Operational Flight and Navigational Trainer under a $16 million contract, the company said Aug. 12. The Prowler trainer will use some of the design the company is developing for the aircraft's weapons system trainer, which it is developing under a contract awarded in 2000.
DEMONSTRATOR: United Defense Industries has built a concept demonstrator for the U.S. Army's Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) and will begin firing assessments of it at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., late this month. The self-propelled, 155mm howitzer demonstrator is to serve as a testbed for the Army and its industry partners as they develop a technical approach for NLOS-C, the company said. The demonstrator is a modified BAE XM777 towed howitzer mounted on a platform developed by the company's Ground Systems Division, of San Jose, Calif.
NEW DELHI - U.S. officials have "no objection" to Israel's sale of the Phalcon airborne early warning system to India, State Department deputy spokesman Philip T. Reeker said Aug. 11. "... We have been discussing this potential sale with Israel for several years," he said at a Washington briefing. "And in the past, we have expressed concern that heightened tensions between India and Pakistan made the transfer inadvisable. It was really an issue of timing. But we feel that recent developments in the South Asia region have eased some of those concerns.
