SUNDSTRAND CORP. has purchased business planning software applications of Tucson-based Industrial and Financial Systems for use at its Electronics Operations business in Rockford, Ill.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. The deal may lead to installation at other Sundstrand units, encompassing more than 2,000 users as Sundstrand Aerospace decentralizes, the companies said.
Sensis Corp., DeWitt, N.Y., has won an FAA contract worth up to $2.5 million to develop an identification system for transponder-equipped aircraft operating on airport taxiways and runways.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin has instructed the government to include the Russian-Ukrainian An-70 aircraft project in the federal program for development of Russian aviation, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.
RMI Titanium Co. said 504 employees went on strike at its Niles, Ohio, plant at midnight Sept. 30. The company said it failed to reach agreement with Local 2155 of the United Steelworkers of America on a new contract with production and clerical employees. RMI said it had offered increases in wages, pensions, benefits and profit sharing, as well as job security for current workers in exchange for greater flexibility in work rules and compensation of future employees.
The fiscal 2000 Pentagon budget will include a substantial boost to counter weapons of mass destruction, deputy defense secretary John Hamre said yesterday. Funding in the FY '99 budget to deal with WMD is "not enough," Hamre said. "We are going to be increasing funds in this general area," he said during a briefing on the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which was officially established yesterday.
Thomas A. Corcoran has been named president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin's Space&Strategic Missiles Sector, replacing Melvin R. Brashears. Brashears is leaving the company after 26 years. Corcoran will be succeeded as president and COO of Lockheed Martin's Electronics Sector by Robert B. Coutts, president of Lockheed Martin Government Electronic Systems.
RUSSIA launched a Cosmos satellite on a Molniya-M rocket from the Plesetsk complex at 03:41 Moscow time on Tuesday, according to the Itar-Tass news agency. It said the satellite went into an orbit with parameters as follows: inclination 62.8 degrees; apogee 40,860 kilometers in the northern hemisphere; perigee 457 km in the southern hemisphere; period 12 hours and 17 minutes. The satellite was launched by the Strategic Missile Troops and is intended to support the defense ministry.
A congressional cut of more than 8% in the U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser program will prompt delays of six months to a year in some portions of the development activity, Col. Mike Booen, the AF's program director, said yesterday. Appropriators cut the $292 million request by $25 million to $267 million, although they were initially considering a $57 million cut. The cut was made to reduce testing and development concurrency. "One thing for sure, the $25 million hit will force a restructure of the contract," Booen said in a telephone interview.
Raytheon Systems Co. said it has been given approval to proceed on $26.2 million U.S. Air Force contract to deliver four F-16 simulators to the Egyptian Air Force. The award for the Unit Training Device (UTD) was released under a contract that Raytheon received from the Air Force in 1996. Under that contract umbrella, Raytheon previously received awards to deliver F-16 unit training devices to South Korea, Bahrain and Jordan. The company is now under contract to deliver 12 F-16 unit training devices to Egypt, South Korea, Bahrain and Jordan.
A plan to subject non-structural systems of U.S. commercial transport aircraft to the same rigid inspections required of major structures was unveiled yesterday by top U.S. government officials. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said that the FAA's Aging Transport Non-Structural Systems Plan grew out of Gore Commission recommendations, and that "we are on target for completing 80%" of those recommendations.
House and Senate conferees yesterday settled on fiscal 1999 appropriations of $2.270 billion for the International Space Station, the Clinton Administration's requested amount, which was much closer to the Senate's $2.3 billion than the $2.1 billion in the House bill. The conference thus rejected the House demand for a $170 million cut. Conferees approved $3.028 billion for Space Shuttle operations and upgrades, which was $1 million more than the House figure. The Senate had appropriated $3.059 billion.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN said that Richard A. Milburn, vice president of plans and policy for Northrop Grumman International, has been named managing director and vice president of ASTOR United Kingdom operations, based in London. He will be responsible for the strategic direction and coordination of the "Wizard" marketing and business development activities in the U.K., as well as follow-on opportunities with NATO. Northrop Grumman is teamed with British Aerospace, Computing Devices, Gulfstream and L3 in offering the candidate ASTOR system known as Wizard.
NASA hopes to spend its second 40 years developing aerospace technology that enables two-hour flights between Washington and Tokyo and floating "transportation nodes" at the Lagrangian point for interstellar travel, but first it must get the International Space Station off the ground.
IBM has won a $2 billion, five-year information technology contract from Boeing Co. The companies said yesterday that the outsourcing agreement builds on an existing 10-year contract with McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing, that was signed in 1993.
The first U.S. Air Force E-3 AWACS aircraft has been retrofitted with a Radar Systems Improvement Program (RSIP) kit, Boeing Co. said yesterday. Eight of the kits are on order and the AF has an option for five more. Additional kits to retrofit the fleet will be contracted separately, Boeing said. The company also said that installation of an RSIP kit on the first of seven U.K. AWACS aircraft has begun. Retrofit of the rest of the U.K. fleet will be completed in 2001. And, Boeing said, Germany's DASA has installed RSIP kits on two NATO AWACS aircraft.
The U.S. State Dept. yesterday gave Boeing Co. the green light to proceed with the international Sea Launch venture, but not before fining it $10 million for violating export control laws.
The U.S. Navy plans to spend $16.5 million for a three-year supersonic sea-skimming target (SSST) development program which will be competitively awarded this fiscal year. The Navy is readying release of the request for proposals and has laid out funding plans for the engineering and manufacturing development phase. Funding this fiscal year is set at $3.5 million, with $7 million set for FY '00 and $6 million in FY '01. Four one-year production options are planned, although no funding has been set against those buys.
A total of 73 commercial communications satellites, valued at $9.5 billion, are planned for launch for Asian and Pacific Rim customers between 1999 and 2008, according to the Teal Group of Fairfax, Va.
FLIGHT SCIENCES, Sarasota, Fla., will organize a comprehensive fuel conservation project for Sabena Airlines and its subsidiaries, Delta Air Transport and Sobelair, all based in Brussels. Flight Sciences said it has helped airlines achieve overall savings of 3-8% on annual fuel costs. Its clients include Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Swissair.
As U.S. government aviation officials planned to release a new inspection plan for aging aircraft systems today, the FAA yesterday said the electrical wiring of the Fuel Quantity Indication System (FQIS) of all older Boeing 747s must be made safer. Both actions were prompted by the crash of TWA 800 in July 1996.
Verification testing of the Hellfire Shore Defense System has been completed with successful firing of four missiles in northern Norway, according to Boeing, the Hellfire prime contractor. "We are very pleased with the results of the system verification test," Cmdr. Arild Roen, program manager for Norway's material command, said in a Boeing statement. "The entire Hellfire shore defense system demonstrated that it performs in accordance with our coastal defense requirements."
U.S. Air Force command and control (C2) planners are faced with the challenge of ensuring that Air Expeditionary Forces operate smoothly in each of their several phases. The AF's new Expeditionary Aerospace Force (EAF) concept calls for establishment of about 10 AEFs from separate units. Two will be operationally ready at any one time. "The rotation readiness cycle creates a unique C2 challenge for AEF leadership," Maj. Bryan Bearden of the Aerospace Command and Control Agency (AC2A) said in a paper on the role of C2 in the EAF.
J&H MARSH&MCLENNAN, New York, has developed an insurance facility to protect satellite and aerospace manufacturers and selected defense contractors from losses associated with the contractual risk of on-time delivery. The company said yesterday that the new facility, called Aerospace Financial Assurances, "insures ... against any event that triggers a penalty or liquidated damage clause, unless otherwise excused under the terms of the manufacturing contract." It said the facility provides up to $300 million in coverage.
Boeing Co. yesterday identified the six core suppliers for its Joint Strike Fighter engineering and manufacturing development bid, four of which are U.K. companies. "We don't think it's prudent to limit our supplier base to one country," Frank Statkus vice president and JSF program manager said in a company statement. "Top-notch engineering and manufacturing expertise exist throughout the world, and we can leverage that expertise to develop" JSF, he said.
U.S. AIR FORCE Space Command will recognize three men who played prominent roles in early U.S. space and missile programs in a ceremony at Peterson AFB, Colo., on Oct. 2. They are Ivan A. Getting, the late Gen. Samuel C. Phillips, and the late Karel "Charlie" Bossart. Getting set the foundation for what would become the Global Positioning System; Phillips developed and transitioned the Minuteman ICBM to operational use, then led a team of 400,000 through the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission; Bossart was known as the "father of the Atlas" ICBM.
