Raytheon Aircraft Co. is preparing for the first flight of its T-6A Texan II Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) aircraft following completion of high speed taxi tests Monday in Wichita, Kan. The flight is expected to take place this week, possibly as early as today, a Raytheon spokesman said. The T-6A is based on the Pilatus PC-9 Mk. II.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), in an interim report of the Senate's investigation of U.S. policy on satellite exports to China, charged yesterday that Administration export controls for satellites are "wholly inadequate," and that "sensitive technology related to satellite exports has been transferred to China."
SEN. TED STEVENS (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is having a tough time convincing his colleagues they need to lift the caps on the fiscal year 1999 defense appropriations bill to cover the costs of maintaining U.S. troop presence in Bosnia. If the cap is not lifted to include the funding, appropriators may have to cut funding for defense programs now in the bill, Stevens told reporters yesterday. Neither House nor Senate appropriators included the funding in the bill during their individual markup of the bill (DAILY, July 14).
RMI TITANIUM CO., Niles, Ohio, signed a letter of intent to acquire Sierra Alloys Co. Inc., Irwindale, Calif., for a combination of cash and stock. Sierra makes specialty metal products, including stainless and alloy steels, high temperature alloys and titanium. The company's 1997 sales were more than $50 million. Joseph Augustyn, Sierra's founder, will remain as CEO, and the company's capacity expansion plans, already underway, are expected to continue as planned.
The Defense Dept. would rather settle its dispute with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman over the proposed merger than go to court, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said yesterday. If the two companies submit a new proposal which is acceptable to DOD, he said, there would be no need for an anti-trust suit. He also said, however, that DOD remains willing to take the companies to court if they don't change their position.
ECC INTERNATIONAL CORP., Wayne, Pa., is moving its corporate headquarters, staff and Instructional Systems Development Group from Wayne to the company's principal Systems Design and Production Center in Orlando, Fla. The relocation is expected to be complete by Sept. 30.
Northrop Grumman is combining the Logicon Inc. units it bought last year with its existing Data Systems and Services Div. under the Logicon banner, and unlike similar defense-company combinations in the past, this one isn't expected to yield facilities cuts or job losses. Instead, the reshuffle is part of Northrop Grumman's efforts to "grow its information technology and services businesses," the company said yesterday in a prepared statement detailing the move. By 2002, Northrop Grumman expects sales to double in IT and services to about $2 billion.
Lockheed Martin has teamed with Belgium's Delft Sensor Systems to build and sell the Close Air Support Integrated Targeting System, designed to allow air controllers to pass targeting information to aircraft or fire support systems.
The Pentagon has set up an advisory council for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to address congressional concerns about how the agency is being created. DTRA will absorb the functions of the Defense Technical Security Agency, Defense Special Weapons Agency, On-Site Inspection Agency, and nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons control issues formerly managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The organization was established as part of the Defense Reform Initiative.
General Atomics has completed the first relief-on-station demonstration of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, a U.S. Air Force pre-planned product improvement. The final flight in a series of missions to demonstrate the hardware and software for one ground station to control two Predators took place earlier this month from the San Diego company's flight test facility in El Mirage, Calif. The UAVs operated in the airspace of Edwards AFB, Calif.
Chromalloy Turbine Airfoils Division, Harrisburg, Pa., was awarded on July 7, a $26,366,175 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 99,000 (estimated quantity) First Stage Vanes for the TF33 engines applicable to the B-52, C-141, E-3 and KC-135 aircraft. Funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued. There were 12 firms solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began January 1998; negotiations were completed May 1998. The work will be completed December 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
The Aerospace Industries Association has chosen John W. Douglass as its new president and chief operating officer. AIA said Douglass, 57, who has been assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, will succeed Don Fuqua on Sept. 18. Fuqua has been president of AIA since January 1987 and will remain with the Washington-based trade association through November. Fuqua had served 12 terms as a U.S. Congressman from Florida.
TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $10,214,865 face value increase to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for design and long lead materials for the Uncooled Resonator effort in support of the Space-Based Laser program. This effort seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of a resonator comprised of low-absorption materials. The resonator is a component that deflects the beam and directs it to the front of the laser. The work will be completed November 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Boeing Co. has won an initial $10 million contract from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop two competing hypersonic missile approaches, one of which will be chosen in about 18 months.
LOCKHEED MARTIN on Friday received a $13 million contract from the U.S. Navy for six additional Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared For Night (LANTIRN) pod systems for use on F-14 fighters. The Navy has already bought 52 of the systems. Navy LANTIRN pods differ from the U.S. Air Force systems in that they feature a global positioning system/inertial navigation system. The pods are to be delivered by December 1999.
First fuel tank drop test in the Eurofighter program took place recently at an Italian air force base in Sardinia, the consortium said yesterday. It said Italy's DA7 Eurofighter successfully released the tank while flying at 350 knots and 5,000 feet. The jet carried the 1,000-liter tank on the right center wing station. The test was the third in a series of separation tests. The earlier tests involved an AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air- to-Air Missile.
Raytheon Systems Co., Defense Systems, El Segundo, Calif., was awarded a $5,000,000 increment of a $10,000,000 "other transaction for prototypes" on July 1, 1998, for phase II of the Situation Awareness System to provide individual warfighters and small units the capability to communicate and operate as a coordinated team. Work will be performed in Fort Wayne, Ind. (28%); Plano, Texas (20%); Falls Church, Va. (21%); and El Segundo, Calif. (31%). The agreement estimated completion date is June 1999. Agreement funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Lockheed Corp., Lockheed Martin Tactical Defense Systems, St. Paul, Minn., is being awarded a $58,440,439 cost-plus-incentive-fee, firm-fixed-price contract for the non-recurring engineering and production of three pre-production P-3C block modification upgrade kits. The upgrade will provide color displays at tactical crew stations and modern avionics to address obsolescence issues in the mission computer and acoustic signal processor system. Work will be performed in Eagan, Minn. (50%), Manassas, Va. (23%), Greenville, S.C. (9%), Anaheim, Calif. (7%), Santa Clara, Calif.
NASA has established business "incubators" at three more of its field centers to provide support for schools and start-up or small high- technology companies that apply NASA technology commercially. Goddard space Flight Center, Md.; Langley Research Center, Va., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will house the three new incubators. NASA's Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., will work with JPL on its incubator effort.
ITT Aerospace/Communications Division, Fort Wayne, Ind., was awarded a $5,000,000 increment of a $10,000,000 "other transaction for prototypes" on July 1, 1998, for phase II of the Situation Awareness System to provide individual warfighters and small units the capability to communicate and operate as a coordinated team. Work will be performed in Menlo Park, Calif. (20%); Cedar Rapids, Iowa (15%); Fort Wayne, Ind. (25%); Clifton, N.J. (25%); and Cambridge, Mass. (15%). The agreement estimated completion date is June 1999.
TRW Inc., System Integration Group, Carson, Calif., was awarded on July 2, 1998, a $400,000 increment as part of an $11,300,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for development of the Air and Missile Defense Workstation (AMDWS). Work will be performed in Carson, Calif., and is expected to be completed by July 2, 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on June 2, 1998. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. (DAAH01-98-C-0219).
The U.S. has laid out a number of non-proliferation objectives for both India and Pakistan and the lifting of sanctions is not imminent, a State Dept. official testified yesterday. Karl F. Inderfurth, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs that "our discussion of these matters should not leave India and Pakistan with the impression that a lifting of sanctions is imminent."
