DME Corp., Orlando, Fla., was awarded on February 27, a $5,804,711 firm- fixed-price contract to provide for redevelopment of twelve Intermediate Level Test Program Sets applicable to the Radio Frequency and Analog Digital Automated Test Station in support of the B-2 aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed March 2001. There were six firms solicited and five proposals received. Solicitation began January 1998; negotiations were completed February 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.), vice chairman of the House Science basic research subcommittee, will act as subcommittee chairman in the absence of Rep. Steve Schiff (R-N.M.), who is battling cancer, committee Chairman Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner announced Friday. Meanwhile, committee Democrats announced their full roster of ranking members on the panel's subcommittees. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) will take the ranking position on basic research, while Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) will fill the slot on the space panel.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE: The annual Roving Sands air defense exercises will be smaller this year than initially planned because of the deployment to Southwest Asia. The Pentagon says this became necessary because some of the command and control equipment that was to have been used at Rovings Sands is now in the Persian Gulf area.
Pratt&Whitney Canada formed a $27 million joint venture with China- National South Aero-Engine Co. (SAEC) to make gas turbine engine components for P&WC. SAEC will have a 51% stake in Southern Pratt&Whitney Aero-Engine Co. Ltd., which will be located in Zhuzhou in the province of Hunan, China, Pratt&Whitney said. SAEC is the leading Chinese manufacturer of small gas turbine engines and makes the HS-6 radial piston, the WZ-8 turboshaft and the WJ6 turboprop engines and industrial and marine gas turbines.
C-17 AND TCAS: Ryan says he will report back soon to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on plans to retrofit the C-17 with with TCAS, the traffic alert and collision avoidance system. USAF passenger planes are currently slated to get the system before the C-17, and Stevens is not satisfied the AF is moving fast enough to get it installed on the airlifter.
Russia's new Commander of Long Range Aviation, Lt. Gen. Mikhail Oparin, has called for increased capabilities of airborne intelligence-gathering systems. In an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, the recently appointed commander said that while the number of dedicated reconnaissance aircraft has significantly decreased, Long Range Aviation is making a significant effort to supply combat aircraft newly adopted for service with equipment for airborne intelligence gathering, especially for strategic purposes.
WILLIAM F. TOWNSEND, until recently acting associate NASA administrator for Earth science, has been named deputy director of Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., effective March 23. A 30-year NASA veteran, Townsend will take the place vacated by A.V. Diaz, who was named Goddard director in January. He spent almost two years at agency headquarters directing the Earth science program, for which Goddard is the lead field center.
FAA's air traffic control computer software will be successfully modified well before the year 2000, Administrator Jane Garvey told skeptical members of the House Transportation aviation subcommittee. The subcommittee was also told Thursday by officials of the General Accounting Office and the Dept. of Transportion's Inspector General that despite cost overruns and schedule delays on a few major programs, FAA appears to have resolved many of the problems that led to such disasters as the Advanced Automation System program.
R&D TRENDS: Defense research and development will consume less than half of total U.S. federal R&D spending beginning in fiscal year 2000, and keep on shrinking as a percentage of federal R&D funding after that, if President Clinton's FY '99 budget is adopted this year.
NORTH KOREAN MISSILES: Subcommittee chairman C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) tells Lyles at same hearing that the Clinton Administration's three-plus- three National Missile Defense development and deployment plan may not be quick enough "if something pops up," and remarks that North Korea's No Dong missile is "getting more range all the time." Lyles replies that the key is "sound intelligence" so the U.S. can get out ahead of the threat, but acknowledges that "there obviously has been some growth" in both the No Dong and Taepo Dong.
THE 38TH C-17 AIRLIFTER was delivered to the U.S. Air Force Friday in a ceremony at Boeing Co.'s Long Beach, Calif., plant. It was to Charleston AFB, S.C., by Maj. Gen. William S. Hinton, commander of the Third Air Force at RAF Mildenhall, U.K., and a flight crew from the Defense Contract Management Command.
U.K. Defense Secretary George Robertson explained his ideas for using Britain's defense technology to benefit the whole U.K. economy in a paper titled "Getting the Most Out of Defense Technology." Defense technology has been advanced largely through investment by the Ministry of Defense, Robertson said, and "spreading the technological processes and skills developed for defense into new markets can strengthen the industrial base of this country and contribute to improving Britain's economic performance."
MODERNIZING LIGHT FORCES: The U.S. Army is looking to the Rapid Force Projection Initiative to see how it should modernize its light forces. The 18th Airborne Corps has been designated the first organization to be modernized, says Lt. Gen. Paul J. Kern, the Army's top acquisition officer. The goal is to provide an early entry into combat anti-armor capability. The weapons that are part of the initiative include the Javelin anti-tank missile, the Enhanced Fiber Optic Guided Missile (EFOGM) and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.
UPGRADING F-15As: U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan says the service is evaluating whether to extend the life of F-15A fighters for some Air National Guard squadrons. While the budget may not allow for such an effort now - it would cost between $11 million and $15 million per aircraft - Ryan says the Air Force continues to look at it.
COST CONSCIOUS: Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) notes at a House Appropriations national security subcommittee hearing on Ballistic Missile Defense Organization programs that the cost of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program has increased from $4.3 billion to $7.7 billion over two years. He tells BMDO director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles,"I think you're going to have some problems with that."
Litton Industries Inc. said earnings climbed 12% to $40.6 million in its 1998 second quarter. It cited strong performance by the commercial electronics group and improved margins in defense electronics. Litton, Woodland Hills, Calif., earned $36.2 million in the second quarter of 1997. Over that same period, sales climbed from $960.5 million to $973.8 million. John Leonis, chairman and chief executive officer, said performance of the commercial electronics group was driven by high demand in the telecommunications and computer industries.
The U.S. Air Force has changed a plan to install a developmental precision landing system on its fleet of C-17 aircraft after coming under fire from the Pentagon's Inspector General. The IG said only one C-17 should get the system initially, and that it should be thoroughly evaluated.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency today will formally kick off its Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) effort with release of a solicitation for the first part of a demonstration program.
MiG Moscow Aviation Production Assn. (MAPO) will take a loan of about FF400 million ($65 million) to buy French engines and avionics for its new MiG-AT jet trainer. The Russian government has approved proposals from the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finances and Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations to borrow the money from France to finance purchases by MiG MAPO. MiG MAPO itself will be responsible for advance payments, refinancing of the basic loan and any interest and commission fees associated with the credit agreement.
LUNAR COMMERCE: A Long Island company, Applied Space Resources Inc., reacted to the news of lunar ice with a proposal of its own to go get some and sell it. The company says it was already developing a "Lunar Retriever" to return lunar samples from the Mare Nectaris for sale to researchers and the general public.
The Sensor Fuzed Weapon and the AGM-154B Joint Standoff Weapon are being scrutinized as part of a U.S. Air Force review of munitions requirements and affordability, according to service officials. The analysis is essentially a follow-on to the Pentagon-wide Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS) of last year that was supposed to identify weapon programs that could be canceled because of redundancies. DAWMS, however, made only marginal adjustments.
LUNAR SPLASHDOWN: Last week's confirmation of water ice at the lunar poles was a shot in the arm to the European Space Agency's Euromoon 2000 project, which would send a lander to the moon's south pole in 2001. Planned as an ESA/industry collaboration, Euromoon would start with an orbiter in 2000 and then try to land on the rim of the Shackleton South Pole Crater in 2001 for an in situ survey of the area as a possible lunar base site.
EAGLE EYE unmanned aerial vehicle flew Friday at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., site of a U.S. Navy vertical takeoff and landing UAV demonstration. The land-based portion of the demonstration is being conducted at Yuma. The Eagle Eye, built by Bell Helicopter Textron, was the first to fly of three systems participating in the demonstration. The others are the SAIC Vigilante and the Bombardier CL-327.
Aerospatiale said its net income jumped to $236 million in 1997, up 75% from the previous year's results. The French company said all business segments shared in the performance. Sales increased 11%. The order book is at an all-time high of $26.8 billion.
