COMSAT INTERNATIONAL, a unit of Comsat Corp., has been licensed to provide advanced voice, data and multimedia communications networks in Lima, Peru. Comsat Peru will also provide links through other carriers to extend its business customers' networks across Peru and internationally. With operations in China, India, Russia and Turkey as well as Latin America and revenues of $90 million in 1997, the digital networking business was Comsat's fastest growing segment for the year.
Japan is seeking replacements for two of its trainer aircraft, the T-3 and the Learjet 36A. The Air Self-Defense Force's likely choice to replace the T-3 is a turboprop version of the T-3 to be developed by Fuji Heavy Industries, but the U.S. Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) also is a candidate. The first 10 replacements will be bought in the next year. Japan acquired 50 T-3s between 1976 and 1980.
CHINA WILL LAUNCH another 10 satellites before the end of the century, and is developing a high-capacity telecommunications satellite of its own, according to Xu Fuxiang, director of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology. The 10 satellites will include a joint platform with Brazil for Earth resources monitoring, other remote sensing satellites and navigation and positioning satellites. China is developing an advanced communications satellite it calls Dongfanghong-4 (DFH-4), Xu told China Daily.
The eight F-16s heading to Bahrain will be Block 40 aircraft and will cost about $204 million, Lockheed Martin said. The fighters will form Bahrain's second F-16 squadron as a follow-on to 12 delivered in 1990. A letter of acceptance includes an amendment for two additional aircraft, all of which are powered by GE F110 engines (DAILY, March 4). The Block 40 F-16 carries the LANTIRN system, and Bahrain's aircraft will carry the AIM-7 missile. Production of the new order will span three years with deliveries beginning in 2000.
Three companies have won contracts, each valued close to $1 million, to provide theater missile defense targets to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. The three companies, selected from 22 bids, are Coleman Research Corp., Orlando, Fla.; Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, Huntsville, Ala.; and Orbital Sciences Corp., Chandler, Ariz. Coleman's contract was worth $958 million, Lockheed Martin's was valued at $879 million and Orbital Sciences was put at $1.1 million.
HAMILTON STANDARD's Worldwide Customer Support business unit established a spare parts distribution center in Singapore. The facility will be managed by UPS Worldwide Logistics and serve airlines from China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
French aerospace manufacturers had a record year in 1997, with sales increasing to FRF 130.2 billion ($20.8 billion), up 19.4% compared with the previous year. The industry's professional association, Groupement Industriel Francais Aeronautique et Spatial (GIFAS), also said orders jumped by 33.5% to FRF 157.9 billion ($25.26 billion). This prompted expectations of another strong rise in sales in 1998.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) has told the Senate Budget Committee that "at a minimum" the Senate leadership should "seriously consider" boosting the fiscal 1999 defense budget ceilings to $272 billion in budget authority and $270.2 billion in outlays. In a letter sent Tuesday to Budget Chairman Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R- N.M.) and ranking Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Thurmond in effect requested an increase of $1.2 billion in budget authority and $4.4 billion in outlays.
Military cutbacks in Asia are cutting interaction between the U.S. and some of its allies and threatening to reduce the ability of the air forces to work together. Deferral of military procurement programs by Asian nations "limits the interoperability of our forces in times of crisis," U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, commander of Pacific Air Forces, told the Air Force Association here last week at its annual Air Warfare Symposium.
United Airlines has placed firm orders for 30 narrowbody aircraft from Airbus Industrie as part of a strategic plan which eventually will add 68 aircraft to the fleet. Chairman Gerald Greenwald said the order consists of 20 A320s and 10 A319s, and that they would be delivered in 2000 and 2001. The aircraft will bring United's Airbus narrowbody fleet to 111. The total fleet will grow from 571 at yearend to 639.
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles said yesterday that he wants to salvage at least $50 million of a proposed $140 million theater missile defense increase in the current year - fiscal 1998 - to deal with the expected threat posed by the Iranian Shahab-3 1,300 kilometer-range missile. Lyles told a House Appropriations national security subcommittee that he assigned priority to testing the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) and Navy Lower Tier theater systems against a surrogate for the Shahab-3.
TRIMBLE, Sunnyvale, Calif., has created a systems integration business. Bruce Peetz, former general manager of the land survey business, has been appointed general manager.
THE WHITE HOUSE is expected today to name Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle, as the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission. Collins is U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who has flown twice as Shuttle pilot, first on STS-63 in February 1995. She also piloted the Shuttle Atlantis to a rendezvous and docking with the Mir orbital station on STS-84 last May. Collins was to be named commander of an upcoming Shuttle mission at a White House event today.
Three key program decisions to be made in the next five or ten years will have a huge impact on the aviation industry, according to The Teal Group of Fairfax, Va. The Joint Strike Fighter, superjumbo jetliner and military strategic lift replacement aircraft will account for more than 20% of the aircraft market between 2012 and 2016 and will be important for the first third of the next century, the consulting firm said in its annual world aircraft production forecast, released last week.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to develop technology that will allow airborne platforms with synthetic aperture radars and moving target indicators to receive information from the ground via low cost, miniaturized radio frequency tags that would provide improved targeting capability and better situational awareness. The RF Tags program would allow covert transmission of still video, ground sensor data and alert data. It would eliminate the need for long-
The U.S. Navy expects software adjustments and changes to a porous wing fairing to solve a buffeting problem that has appeared on some test flights of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The fairing is seen as the solution to a wing-drop phenomenon in which asymmetric lift causes uncommanded banks. One of the issues being worked is the number of holes in the fairing, their size, and their location, according to a Navy official. Testing of various configurations is underway at NAS Patuxent River, Md.
U.K. defense exports were up 10% to 5.5 billion pounds ($9 billion) in 1997, allowing Britain to maintain its ranking as the second largest defense exporter in the world, George Robertson, secretary of state for defense, told industry leaders at the Defense Export Services Organization Symposium in London Tuesday. Robertson also said that remaining competitive in the future global defense market would depend on success of European industry consolidation.
The U.S. Navy is planning in the next couple of years to buy a terminal guidance seeker for the Joint Direct Attack Munition which will increase the weapon's accuracy from ten feet to three feet. Rear Adm. J.M. "Carlos" Johnson, chief of Navy aviation plans and requirements, said in an interview that "we think we'll have it in our hands in a very short time period." First JDAMs with the new seeker would be fielded around 2001 or 2002. Lot I JDAMs are going into the inventory now. They are guided by GPS/INS.
U.S. Air Force acquisition officials and the service's Air Combat Command has approved a plan to combine the Small Bomb System and Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS) into a single program designated Miniature Munition Capability. The program isn't expected to start until FY '03. Both LOCAAS and SBS will continue on separate development tracks until then. Details of the acquisition strategy are still being worked on, officials said.
A newly configured ballistic missile target was tested in a launch Monday from Fort Wingate, N.M., to White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The Modified Ballistic Reentry Vehicle (MBRV-3) was launched by a Hera Block IIB rocket, according to U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. It described MBRV-3 as a "non-separating or unitary target" and said it flew on a "shaped ballistic trajectory." The mission covered 344.5 kilometers, reached an altitude of 98.5 km, and lasted 415 seconds.
The Clinton Administration yesterday sent Congress an emergency defense supplemental budget request asking an additional $1.84 billion in fiscal year 1998 and $1.85 billion in FY '99 to cover the cost of extending the U.S. presence in Bosnia and building up forces in Southwest Asia.
BVR Technologies of Israel signed an agreement with Bodenseewerk Geraetetechnik GmbH (BGT) of Germany for marketing, development, production and maintenance of rangeless air combat training systems (ACMI) for European countries. The companies believe the trend of European air forces training together will continue, and have jointly identified the benefits of working together to supply the systems, BVR said. BGT will act as prime contractor, with BVR acting as main subcontractor and providing technological backup.
LUCAS AEROSPACE, Aurora, Ohio, won a contract from Embraer, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, for the electric power system for the EMB-314 ALX aircraft. The contract value was not disclosed.
