General Electric Aircraft Engines, General Electric Co., Lynn, Mass., is being awarded a $189,646,240 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-97-C-0114 to provide additional funding for the FY 98 Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) II of 46 F414-GE-400 engines for the F/A-18E/F aircraft, including related modules, devices, and engineering services. Work will be performed in Lynn, Mass. (58%), Evendale, Ohio (25%), Rutland, Vt. (4%), Albuquerque, N.M. (4%), Madisonville, Ky. (4%), Hooksett, N.H. (3%), and Wilmington, N.C.
The contractor losing the Pentagon's competition for the Joint Strike Fighter program may still have an important role in the program, according to the Congressional Research Service. The report, dated March 2 and written by Bert H. Cooper, tactical air specialist in CRS' national defense division, said that sharing of production "would preserve some degree of competitiveness in development and production of fighter aircraft" although at additional cost.
Tracor Inc., Austin, Texas, is being awarded an $8,300,000 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for twelve Full Scale Aerial Targets, associated warranty, data, support, and spares. The work will be performed at Tracor facilities in Austin, Texas (50%), and Mojave, Calif. (50%). The work is expected to be completed June 1999. There was one proposal received. Solicitation began April 1997; negotiations were completed April 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Lufthansa ordered 10 Airbus A340-600s, becoming one of the launch customers for the aircraft, which has a range of 7,500 nautical miles. In Lufthansa configuration, the stretch aircraft, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, will carry 330 passengers in three classes. It will be used on routes to Asia and the Americas when deliveries begin in early 2003. The German flag carrier now operates 16 A340s and is Airbus' largest airline customer. Lufthansa also is Airbus' largest A340 operator, and has 30 on order.
Following successful completion of the critical design review of the AIM-9X Evolved Sidewinder earlier this year, the U.S. Navy has opened discussions with other parts of the Defense Dept. about upgrades to the missile. Before the CDR, discussions about an AIM-9X pre-planned product improvement (P3I) program were kept on hold so they wouldn't interfere with the development program. AF officials in particular have repeatedly stated their desire to field the Raytheon short-range air-to-air missile as quickly as possible.
Jordan has told U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen it wants to buy an unspecified number of A-10 close-support aircraft from the U.S. Air Force, Cohen told reporters while traveling to Amman, Jordan. Jordan is interested in the A-10's anti-armor capability, Cohen told reporters after an April 18 meeting with Jordan's Prime Minister Abdul- Salam al-Majali. Years after the A-10 production line closed, Jordan would become the first international customer for the aircraft, which was made by Fairchild.
TRW set records for sales and earnings in its 1998 first quarter, posting profits of $129.4 million on sales of $3.1 billion, the company reported yesterday. In the first quarter of 1997, TRW earned $119.2 million on sales of $2.7 billion. The company said 1998 earnings were boosted by a $31.5 million benefit from the settlement of patent litigation but this was offset by $21.8 million in charges for litigation and contract reserves severance costs related to the acquisition of BDM International Inc.
Lockheed Martin Corp., is being awarded a $31,500,000 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for acquisition and installation of a Software Maintenance Facility in support of the F-16 aircraft. The work is expected to be completed September 2001. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began February 1997; negotiations were completed March 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah., is the contracting activity (F42620-98/C-0029).
McDonnell Douglas Corp., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $27,750,000 face value increase to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 72 Tangential Weapons Retrofit Kits applicable to the F-15S aircraft. These kits allow six bomb racks to be attached to the two conformal fuel tanks on each aircraft. The work is expected to be completed December 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This effort supports foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia.
Late delivery of key hardware and an overambitious software testing schedule have conspired to force a delay in the planned July launch of Deep Space 1, NASA's first New Millennium technology validation spacecraft. NASA said Friday the 475-kilogram spacecraft will be launched in October instead of July, which means its original flyby targets will have to be changed. Originally Deep Space 1 was to have visited an asteroid, a comet and Mars between January 1999 and June 2000, but new targets now will be announced by the end of May.
Discussions between International Lease Finance Corp. and Boeing on the 100-seat 717 airliner "slowed considerably in March and thus far in April," and ILFC is looking now at the Airbus competitor, Steven Udvar- Hazy, ILFC president, told The DAILY.
The U.S. Navy, worried about a shriveling missile and weapons propulsion industrial base, is launching an Energetics Strategic Thrust (EST) "investment plan" for industry to preserve and enhance "the national energetics capability," the service says in an April 17 Commerce Business Daily notice.
INTO THE SUNSET: The U.S. Air Force EF-111 standoff jamming planes are one step closer to retirement at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz. The AF recently pulled the electronic warfare airplanes out of the Persian Gulf, marking the end of what may be their last operational deployment. With the EF-111s gone, the AF will rely on Navy and Marine Corps EA-6B Prowlers for jamming support.
NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia soared into cloudless Florida skies Friday en route to a 16-day mission to study the nervous system in microgravity. Liftoff of the STS-90 mission came on time at 2:19 p.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center, following a one-day delay to replace an on-board signal processor that failed (DAILY, April 17).
FORCE PLANNING: Six months into the latest massing of forces in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon is going to start thinking about the level of forces it wants to keep in the theater. "The analysis is just beginning and it will probably be several weeks before a recommendation goes to the president," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon says. Still in the Persian Gulf, among other assets, are B-1s, F-117s and two aircraft carriers.
Hughes Electronics Corp. reported banner results in its first full quarter as a satellite and wireless communications company, doubling earnings and increasing sales 26%. The company earned $53.7 million on sales $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 1998, compared to earnings of $23.9 million on sales of $1 billion in the same period a year ago.
LSI HOMESTRETCH: Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, says he is slated this week to receive the final pre- downselect briefings from the contractors competing to become Lead System Integrator (LSI) for the National Missile Defense system. Boeing and United Missile Defense Co., a joint venture of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW, are competing for the ten-year, multi-billion dollar program. The National Missile Defense Joint Program Office will announce the winner the first week of May.
A comfortable majority of Senators - 57 of 100 - supports President Clinton's decision to lift restrictions on U.S. arms sales to Latin America. A letter to Clinton from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), sent last Tuesday, before his departure on a trip to Latin America,
OR DON'T BUILD AT ALL: Despite recent calls from the National Defense Panel and a long-range air power panel for the Pentagon to begin looking at a future bomber, referred to as "B-X" or "B-3," DOD is cool to the idea. "It's not something that we are intensively investigating," Gansler says.
TOLD YOU SO: House Republicans waste no time jumping on NASA over delays with the control software for the first Earth Observing System satellite, but they're glad the U.S. space agency is pondering commercial-off-the- shelf fixes to the problem (DAILY, April 13). House Science Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) says the problems "vindicate this committee's calls to decentralize the program and make greater use of [COTS] capabilities." Sensenbrenner and Rep.
GROWING WINGS: The long-range air target being planned by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization will be a winged vehicle - not for performance reasons but to be compliant with arms control treaties. "It's not a major change to the overall program, and it does avoid any questions related" to treaty regulations, Gansler says.
A sea-based national missile defense (NMD) system that could serve as an adjunct to the currently planned ground-based NMD system is the subject of a classified report that will soon be sent to Congress by the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, top officials of BMDO said Friday.
Cosmonauts aboard Russia's Mir orbital station Friday completed the second of three spacewalks planned to replace a spent attitude control thruster at the end of a 45-foot boom on the Kvant module. Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin spent six hours, 34 minutes outside removing the new engine from the Progress resupply capsule that delivered it and positioning it for final installation in a spacewalk scheduled Wednesday. If that activity goes as planned, it will be the fifth excursion outside for the two cosmonauts in the past month.
THE COAST GUARD has concluded a series of tests of the "Eurofix" system, which sends Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) corrections on Loran-C radionavigation signals. Megapulse Inc., Bedford, Mass., which was contracted to provide the modulator and support services for the test (DAILY, April 8), said preliminary results indicate a 24-hour accuracy of three meters. During periods of Eurofix transmission, no message failures were recorded.
...WHEN ONE PLACE IS CHEAPER? Gansler is more sanguine about how JSF will shake out. Competition on that program "will force the market to try to achieve efficiencies," he says. "And if it's more efficient for [contractors] to combine [production], they'll suggest it." That attitude, however, conflicts with a wide spread belief among DOD observers that the Pentagon will never eliminate one of its major fighter makers. The going assumption remains that to keep the fighter industrial base healthy, both Lockheed Martin and Boeing will eventually build parts of the JSF.
