The Senate voted 70-20 Wednesday night to override President Clinton's decision to line item veto $287 million for 38 military construction projects. The House, also by a two-thirds majority, voted to override the line item veto earlier this month. Among the items vetoed by Clinton was the B-1 bomber avionics shop at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. Speaking against the line item veto, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) said the avionics shop is needed not only to support the B- 1, but also for F-15 and F-16 avionics repairs.
The Air Force is ready to hear from enginemakers with turbofan ideas for the third phase of the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) initiative, and expects to award Joint Technology Demonstrator Engine (JTDE) program contracts in August.
AlliedSignal Engines' advanced core demonstrator is due to make a full-power run within days, following a successful first run in December. The core run (AP, Dec. 19, 1997) paves the way for a future family of business jet engines, executives say, with plans to enter a market niche now occupied by Pratt&Whitney's PW300 series and the Allison AE3007.
New GE Aircraft Engines chief Jim McNerney believes the big GE90 turbofan will bounce back in 1998 with significant orders, following a 1997 marked by sluggish sales and capped with a writeoff. "It was driven by the fact the market didn't grow as fast as we thought it would," McNerney tells AP affiliate Show News here. "But that was cleaned up in 1997. And that leaves us in a position to reinvest in the engine."
Explaining one of the main reasons behind the Pentagon's decision to appeal the Court of Federal Claims ruling on the A-12 aircraft case, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre said the Pentagon's argument on the issue was never seriously examined. "The case we make and the case we tried to make but weren't allowed to make is that the manufacturers failed to comply with the terms and agreements in the contract," Hamre said at a breakfast meting with reporters in Washington. "They were supposed to deliver an airplane that could fly."
Boeing Co. will sell its single-engine commercial helicopter business to Bell Helicopter Textron, the companies announced yesterday. Boeing said two weeks ago that it would sell its commercial helicopter business, and observers speculated that Textron would be the buyer (DAILY, Feb. 13). Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the companies said it includes all variants of the MD 500 Series and MD 600N single-engine helicopters, plus the technology that eliminates the tail rotor.
Despite Asian economic and currency troubles, Daimler-Benz Aerospace remains "highly interested" in the region and believes it has good long- term potential. DASA, Germany's largest aerospace company, actually is intensifying its efforts in the region, both in expanding existing business relationships as well as fostering new ones, according to the company.
Saudi Arabia favors the Lockheed Martin F-16C/D to replace its fleet of Northrop F-5E/Fs, Lockheed Martin F-16 program Vice President Robert T. Elrod told Aviation Week Asian Aerospace '98 Show News. A Royal Saudi Air Force order for up to 90 new Fighting Falcons meeting USAF Block 50 standards is expected, although the contract time- scale has still to be finalized.
NASA is considering the development of two free-flying spacecraft that would accompany the International Space Station on orbit as a way to increase its scientific "take" in the long run, but some members of Congress are unhappy that NASA needs to pull more money from science in the short run to get the Station off the ground.
Asia's economic problems are hurting the regional airliner market there, according to Jim Robinson, president of Fairchild Dornier, the parent of Fairchild Aerospace. "We've spent a lot of time talking to potential Asian customers, but I would have to say that it is difficult to get them to focus right now," he said.
LITTON INDUSTRIES said its LTN-101 navigation system, with the LTN-2001 GPS receiver, has been selected by China Southern Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, Silk Air of Singapore and Zheiang Airlines for their A319, A320 and A321 jets.
Sabena Belgian Airlines ended three months of speculation with announcement here yesterday of a choice of engine for its 34 new Airbus aircraft: the CFM56. The order, worth up to 15 billion Belgian francs ($420 million), took few industry observers by surprise since the CFM International engine is used by Swissair, Sabena's partner and major shareholder. Swissair has applied increasing pressure on Sabena to harmonize the two fleets, despite misgivings by unions representing Sabena's technical maintenance and repair staff.
Japan's National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) will begin development of an unmanned and non-powered experimental vehicle for aerodynamic tests for a future SST. The program will costs about $21.1 million. The 11 meter-long, 1,800-kilogram aluminum vehicle will be placed at altitudes between 13,000 and 18,000 meters by a launch vehicle and will then glide back to its home base. The NAL plans four tests in 2001-2002, and while no launch vehicle or site has been determined, the likely scenario will be to use J-1 launch vehicles at the Woomera, Australia, range.
Singapore Technologies may introduce an unmanned aerial vehicle as it strives to demonstrate capabilities of its newly restructured core businesses. ST Aerospace makes up about half the revenues, profits and manpower of a five-part Singapore Technologies Engineering Group that resulted from merging Aero, Automotive, Marine, Electronics and New Businesses last December into $2 billion-capitalized, publicly traded company that earned profits of $60.2 million during the first half of 1997.
Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is taking another look at whether military aircraft should be equipped with Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS), Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre told reporters yesterday. Following a report on the CBS news show "60 Minutes," in which the Air Force was criticized for not incorporating TCAS into its fleet, Defense Secretary William Cohen on Monday told Ralston to give the matter another look, Hamre said at a breakfast meeting in Washington.
Boeing will double production of the Next-Generation 737 this spring, while recovery from production problems on this aircraft continues to outpace the schedule the company announced last fall, Boeing executives said yesterday. Production of Next-Generation 737s will go from seven to 14 per month this spring (with Aircraft No. 53), and to 21 in the fall. Boeing is also refurbishing the 28 Next-Generation 737s built during the certification process.
The Pentagon over the past two weeks has suffered its most widespread and sophisticated cyber attack to date, giving it a "wakeup call" to put better security fences in place, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre said yesterday. "It was in many ways a wakeup call and we've been turning out some dramatically accelerated Department plans to get on top of this problem, which is a very serious problem," Hamre said at a breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay L. Johnson said yesterday that a porous wing fairing is "probably the leading candidate" for eliminating the F/A-18E/F's wing-drop problem. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen warned earlier this month that he would not approve release of $2.39 billion in fiscal 1998 procurement funding for the Lot II buy of 20 Super Hornets until he is satisfied that problem - uncommanded bank angles because of asymmetric lift - is fixed (DAILY, Feb. 6).
The Bell Boeing industry team building the MV-22 Osprey projects $330 million savings if it is allowed to build almost 150 of the aircraft under a multi-year procurement arrangement early next century. The multi-year would begin with the first lot of full-rate production in fiscal 2001 and run through FY '05, Gregory McAdams, the team's requirements chief, said here yesterday. The total cost to buy the 143 planes in annual procurement lots would be around $7 billion.
NASA yesterday terminated the troubled Clark mission "for the convenience of the government," shutting down the once-trailblazing small satellite project Orbital Sciences Corp. inherited when it bought CTA. Orbital had struggled to pull the spacecraft together, but was unable to convince NASA that it could keep the project within the 15% cost growth cap that normally triggers a termination under NASA's policy of holding contractors accountable for costs. With the "convenience of the government" approach NASA took, Orbital avoided a default termination.
The U.S. Air Force may deploy a limited number of AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles with conventional warheads. These non-nuclear types would be for use against certain high-value targets, a Pentagon official said. All the AGM-129s in the operational U.S. inventory carry nuclear warheads, but a small number were never equipped with warheads. These could be fitted with non-nuclear penetrator warheads for deeply buried targets and fielded as "silver bullet" weapons, the official told The DAILY. About 20 could be built in this configuration, he said.
The U.S. Army is working to complete a series of tests of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) Block IA to better demonstrate effectiveness of the weapon's main submunition. The tests precede a decision, slated for next month, to enter full rate production. Last year the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation office deemed the M74 bomblet "marginally effective." And, during the fiscal year 1998 budget debate, lawmakers cut funding for the program and directed the Army to further test the M74 and report back to the defense committees.
BFGOODRICH'S Aerospace Maintenance, Repair&Overhaul (MRO) Group and Southwest Airlines Co. signed a three-year contract for all Southwest 737 maintenance. MRO, announcing the deal Monday, did not disclose financial terms.
