The Royal Air Force, depending on findings of the Strategic Defense Review, is planning a major structural upgrade of more than half of its approximately 140 British Aerospace Hawk advanced jet trainers to fix fuselage fatigue problems.
The Export-Import Bank yesterday ceased issuing new financing approvals for U.S. exports to India. The action, one of a series of sanctions resulting from India's tests of nuclear devices this week, threatened Boeing's bid for $2 billion in widebody aircraft orders from Air India.
British Aerospace Defense Systems Ltd. has revised its operational structure to reflect developments in technology and the demands of the marketplace. The new Communications and Data Systems Div. will be centered at the company's Christchurch facility and will operate alongside the existing Cowes-based Air Defense Div. Ron Clarke will manage the new division, reporting to Clive Dolan, managing director of BAe Defense Systems.
France took a major step toward consolidation of the French aerospace industry yesterday, announcing a decision to transfer its 46% stake of privately-controlled Dassault Aviation to state-owned Aerospatiale. The "moving closer" of the two companies is intended to "further the implementation of a concerted strategy for the French aerospace industry in prospect of alliances with the main European manufacturers which seem necessary in the short term," the French Ministry of Defense said.
Boeing completed ground vibration and pneumatic testing of the first 717-200 airplane. The aircraft continues moving toward a June 10 rollout ceremony and first flight this summer at the Douglas Products Div., Boeing said yesterday. Ground vibration testing was finished in less than four days, sooner than expected. The T-1 airplane also completed pressure-pit testing, which began on schedule, Boeing said.
British Aerospace received the formal contract worth more than 350 million pounds ($571.4 million) to supply 18 Hawk jet trainers for the new NATO flight training program in Canada. The contract covers initial spares and through-life support, BAe said. Bombardier Inc., the industrial prime contractor for the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) program, has an immediate option on eight more Hawk 100s, which, if exercised, would increase the contract value to more than 450 million pounds ($734.7 million).
Astronauts and cosmonauts face an "EVA wall" as they set out to build the International Space Station, but they have some new spacewalking tools to help them scale it when work begins in earnest as early as September. Greg Harbaugh, the veteran spacewalker who heads the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Project Office at Johnson Space Center here, compares the task facing Station assemblers to roughly 30 Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions over the next five years.
Sweeping economic sanctions being imposed on India by the U.S. in response to New Delhi's nuclear tests this week - three on Monday and two Wednesday - could affect commercial aviation programs, industry analysts. They cited Air India's plan to buy widebody aircraft, noting that the sanctions could restrict financing. Wolfgang Demisch of BT Securities said that if any impact is felt it would be in the commercial aviation business.
International Space Station operations are already underway here, at least in the eyes of Station ground controllers running simulations of the real thing, but even as managers struggle to pin down launch dates for the first three Station modules, they are keeping a wary eye on how their Russian partners are doing getting ready to build critical hardware that won't be needed until later in the assembly process.
RAYTHEON SYSTEMS CO., Lexington, Mass., said it has won a $113 million contract from the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command for transmitter equipment used in the Aegis Weapon System's SPY-1 phased array radar and MK99 Fire Control Systems. The equipment will be used aboard four DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers. The first two ships will employ SPY-1D phase array radars, while the second two ships will mark the introduction of an upgraded radar known as SPY-1D(V). Work will be done primarily in Andover, Mass., with deliveries scheduled to completed in 2001.
Northrop Grumman Corp. will develop a small synthetic aperture radar/moving target indicator (SAR/MTI) payload for use on the Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The company said it received a $7.3 million U.S. Army contract that could reach a total value of $12.4 million for the three-year development program. The TUAV initially is being equipped with an electro- optical/infrared payload, but a SAR/MTI system would all targets to be tracked even in bad weather.
North Island Naval Aviation Depot beat private sector companies to win an award for quality and customer service. The San Diego depot is the first government entity to win the California Council for Quality and Services U.S. Senate Productivity Award, according to Robbins-Gioia of Alexandria, Va., which provides program management services to the depot.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's unusual action of adding $72 million to the fiscal 1999 request for the E-8C Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) for either future production or termination cost amounted to a "negotiated settlement" with the Pentagon, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said. Lieberman told The DAILY in a brief interview Tuesday that backers of the program "are pleased" because the decision keeps the line open until the Pentagon decides what it wants to do.
President Boris Yeltsin has directed Russian agencies to ensure implementation of the country's obligations for the International Space Station. He signed a directive on May 8 addressed to chiefs of the Russian Space Agency, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The key addressee is said to be the Ministry of Finance, which must ensure complete and timely financing of Russia's participation in the ISS.
Boeing Co. said it is considering starting a production line for new- generation 737 airliners at its plant in Long Beach, Calif. The move, on which a decision will be made this summer, would help even out workloads in Seattle, which is striving to meet high production rates, and Long Beach, where the rates are declining.
Only eight days after orbiting the Cosmos 2350 geosynchronous early warning satellite, Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces have launched another satellite that is intended to monitor U.S. missile launches from a highly elliptic orbit. The new satellite, named Cosmos 2351, was sent aloft by a four-stage Molniya-M rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 12:53 p.m. Moscow Daylight Time (4:53 a.m. EDT) on May 7. It was inserted into semisynchronous inclined orbit, which after final adjustment will ensure monitoring of the continental U.S. from its apogee.
The annual report from the U.K. National Audit Office (NAO) confirms continuing cost and delay overruns in 25 of the U.K.'s major equipment programs, with a combined value of nearly 37 billion pounds (more than $60 billion). These now are running on average almost 10% over budget and about three years behind schedule, most having slipped by a further three months in the past year, the report said.
Viktor Galkin, first deputy director for air traffic management for the Federal Aviation Authority of Russia, acknowledged here that the Russian Glonass system, which is part of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), is suffering because of the country's economic woes.
LT. GEN. CHARLES T. ROBERTSON is being promoted to four star rank and assigned as commander-in-chief U.S. Transportation Command and commander, Air Mobility Command. Robertson, who heads the 15th Air Force at Travis AFB, Calif., replaces Gen. Walter Kross, who is retiring.
Northrop Grumman Corp. received a $17 million contract from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to upgrade an imagery processing system. The Semi-Automated Imagery Intelligence Processing (SAIP) system, developed by the company, will be improved by the end of September, Northrop Grumman said. The system is used as a target recognition aid and has false alarm mitigation algorithms to improve the work of imagery analysts. The system was demonstrated last year following an initial $14 million development effort.
Clinton Administration officials yesterday expressed uncertainty that economic sanctions against India would work even as the U.S. began to impose sanctions and joined other nations in condemning New Delhi's five underground nuclear tests in the past three days. U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, and said sanctions could work "if they are multi-national." If only the U.S. and one or two other countries are involved, "the impact will be marginal," he said.
BRITISH AEROSPACE won a contract to train all of Australia's military pilots for the next 10 years. Recruits will undergo basic flight training at BAe's Tamworth Facility in northern New South Wales. The contract is worth about 40 million pounds ($65.3 million). The company also won, through its BAe Defense Systems Ltd. business unit, a 17.9 million pound ($29.2 million) contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense to provide full technical and systems support for the next five years for the PTARMIGAN area communications system.
Aerospace and defense companies continued to post increases in sales and earnings, and many credited strong commercial business. Among them were: -- AlliedSignal Inc., which earned a record $300 million in its first quarter on sales of $3.6 billion, up from $259 million on sales of $3.3 billion in the same period a year ago. Sales in the aerospace businesses of the company grew 23% to a record $1.7 billion, while income jumped 51% to $149 million.
