An income squeeze at Boeing and the cost of an A3XX program at Airbus will shift the competitors' priorities from market share to profit and create "a truly duopolistic market ... with higher prices" in the second half of the coming decade, the consulting firm Avitas predicts in a soon-to-be-published study, "Global Outlook for Air Transportation."
SANDERS, a Lockheed Martin company, is working under a $12.9 million contract from the U.S. Navy to provide its AN/USQ-113 (V)2 Phase III communications jamming system for upgrade of the EA-6B Prowler aircraft. Sanders, of Nashua, N.H., said it will provide 33 systems and two improved operator panels.
An agreement establishing a partnership between NASA and the FAA to pursue improved aviation safety, airspace system efficiency and aircraft environmental concerns, was signed Friday by the heads of both agencies.
The helicopter inventory of the USAF's Air Combat Command will peak around 105 next year, Comer says. That will be the highest level ever, but will precede an almost immediate decline. In the not too distant future, Comer says, the AF will have no helicopters, relying instead on the V-22 and other aircraft. The AF's Special Operations Forces will have eliminated all their helicopters by 2008.
The board of directors of Aerosonic Corp., Clearwater, Fla., authorized the repurchase of up to 10% of the outstanding shares of the company's common stock, or about 390,000 shares.
Boeing has begun assembling the forward fuselage of its second Joint Strike Fighter concept demonstrator, the X-32B, more than two months ahead of schedule. "Our use of lean design and manufacturing processes is definitely paying off in terms of time and cost savings on this program," Frank Statkus, vice president and general manager of JSF, said in a statement. "... We believe we will continue this aggressive pace throughout the program." Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing in the JSF program.
The U.S. Air Force awarded a $1.3 billion contract to Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., to complete production of 40 Titan IV space launch vehicles and provide launch services for 39 missions through 2002. The modified contract also covers the launch of five Titan IIs, and the 40th vehicle will be a spare. Lockheed Martin has refurbished 14 decommissioned Titan II ICBMs for use as space launch vehilces, with the first seven of those already successfully launched.
The U.S. Air Force will use the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft as its future search and rescue system, says the AF's highest ranking helicopter pilot, Brig. Gen. Richard L. Comer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low intensity conflict policies and missions. The Air Force requirements council has approved a need to go farther and faster for rescue missions and the V-22 meets that need, he says. However, the AF isn't quite ready to commit to the shift, he tells the American Helicopter Society.
After being told by members of Congress that approval for additional rounds of base closings would come much more easily in FY '99 than last fiscal year, Hamre says the Pentagon wants to see if they are true to their word. The next round would take place in FY '01, and the second in FY '05. Hamre notes that the closings are needed despite the impending topline increase.
An article in The DAILY of Sept. 10 misspelled the name of a Canadian Space Agency engineer who described the "Space Vision System" that will be used to assemble the International Space Station. The engineer is Francois M. Terrillon.
The Senate on Thursday gave final congressional approval to the fiscal 1999 NASA appropriations conference report which contained $13.7 billion for the space agency, including $2.270 billion for the International Space Station. The vote in the Senate was 96-1. The House approved the compromise bill last Tuesday by a vote of 409-14.
The Bell-Boeing industry team building the V-22 Osprey is issuing a solicitation for a nose-mounted, turreted gun. The U.S. Marine Corps has been interested in a self-defense gun for the tiltrotor plane for some time, but funding has been elusive so far. The solicitation will help develop installation and integration concepts, according to Naval Air Systems Command.
Paravant Computer Systems Inc. acquired Engineering Development Laboratories Inc. (EDL) and Signal Technology Laboratories Inc. (STL) of Dayton, Ohio, Paravant reported Friday. Both were privately held companies and were affiliated with each other.
PCC Structurals, a division of Precision Castparts Corp. in Portland, Ore., won a multi-million dollar contract from Boeing Co. to supply investment castings for the F-22. PCC said the contract involves the production of six large, titanium castings for installation in fracture-critical applications to qualify as an F-22 production source. PCC will make two sets of flightworthy hardware, with first deliveries scheduled for mid-1999.
An instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has imaged what may be the most distant objects ever detected in the sky, dim galaxies that could be as far as 12 billion light years away. The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) detected the galaxies, which NASA termed the faintest ever seen, in a long exposure in the same region of the sky where what is known as the Hubble Deep Field was imaged in visible light.
Hellenic Aerospace Industries has signed an agreement with Northrop Grumman to join the company's airborne early warning team if Greece selects the E-2C Hawkeye 2000 in a $380 million competition for an AEW aircraft. HAI would be responsible for system modification, subcontracts and transfer of technology to assist HAI in acquiring export projects, Northrop Grumman said. HAI joins a team that includes Intracom of Greece as its main team member, and a number of other Greek companies.
Raytheon Co. has won three contracts from Greece potentially worth nearly $1.5 billion to provide the country with the Patriot air defense system, 45 primary trainer aircraft - designated T-6A by the U.S. - and Hawk missile system upgrades. Final terms of the contracts, from the Hellenic Ministry of Defense and Hellenic Air Force, are still being negotiated, but Raytheon said the Patriot contract potentially is worth more than $1.1 billion, the trainer contract is worth more than $200 million, and the Hawk contract is worth $145 million.
GEN. HENRY H. SHELTON, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that he couldn't explain why the Navy's aircraft accident rate "has continued to go off the screen." He noted that the Air Force "has had a good year," and Army and Marine Corps aircraft accident rates are within "historical norms." The issue was raised by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) at a hearing last week. He noted that the Navy rate has doubled this year.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) negotiated with House and Senate leaders Friday afternoon for a plus-up of as much as $1 billion in the $3.5 billion Ballistic Missile Defense appropriations in the defense portion of the fiscal 1999 supplemental, congressional sources said.
The Pentagon next year will make another push to try to expand responsibilities of the Director for Defense Research and Engineering to include counterproliferation, according to Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre. The new title would be Director for Technology and Counterproliferation.
The U.S. Air Force, in a rare rejection of a General Accounting Office recommendation, awarded a $1.6 billion contract to a team of the Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB, Utah, and Boeing for the depot workload now being conducted at the Sacramento Air Logistics Center at McClellan AFB, Calif.
The U.S. Air Force's UAV Battlelab will demonstrate the ability of fighter aircraft to use unmanned aerial vehicles in an expanded Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) role next January. Lt. Colonel Tom Toltzien, deputy commander of the Battlelab, said at a conference here last week that the demonstration will show how aircraft can control UAVs in gathering information on enemy assets, receiving information from the UAVs, and then commanding the UAVs to jam those assets.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Aircraft and Logistics Centers, Greenville, S.C., said it has launched the sale of a new auxiliary power unit upgrade kit for the C-130. The first five kits are slated to be installed on C-130Es of the Brazilian Air Force. Lockheed Martin said the kits replace original gas turbine compressors and air turbine motors in pre-1974 C-130s. It said the modification will help C-130 operators in efforts to upgrade C-130B, E and early H model aircraft.
