American Eagle finalized a $1.4 billion order for Canadair Regional Jets and Brit Air converted one of its options, Bombardier announced. It said American Eagle finalized an order for 25 firm and 25 optioned 70-seat Regional Jet Series 700 aircraft. The transaction, originally announced during the Paris Air Show, was subject to completion of definitive aircraft purchase and financing agreements. Deliveries are set to begin in early 2001.
One of the missions for the single E-8C Joint STARS aircraft being sent to Southwest Asia by the Pentagon would be to help find Iraqi Scud missile launchers, according to Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Defense Dept. "dropped the ball" by not getting involved early in the development of "Big LEO" low Earth orbit satellite constellations that carry global mobile voice communications, according to a senior systems engineer for Motorola.
The U.S. Army projects a cost of about $289 million to make its fixed- wing aircraft compliant with the Pentagon's Global Air Traffic Management initiative, but is still determining the cost to do the same for its helicopters.
SATELLITE STATUTES: Lawmakers over the next two months will be tackling a number of issues related to competition and the regulations currently imposed on the commercial satellite industry. Some lawmakers, particularly Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), have hinted a new bill may be introduced that would overhaul the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which governs regulation of commercial satellite services. One big issue is how to allow for better competition between satellite television services and cable companies.
AGING NUKES: The U.S. Air Force is looking to begin an Aging Surveillance program for its AGM-129A Advanced Cruise Missile. The effort is to monitor the state of aged components after exposure to operational environments. The major components to be looked at are the arm/disarm device, the impact sensor assembly, the separation switch, and warhead mounts.
Russia has been talking to European countries about cooperating in defense and space programs. The Russian Space Agency signed a general agreement with the Italian Space Agency, an ISA official confirmed. The agreement covers all areas, including human space flight, communications and life sciences. Details of each project would be worked out in advance, but the official said there were no ideas of specific projects yet.
SECURITY CONCERNS: The U.S. Air Force has concerns about revealing details of competitors' Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) designs. Boeing was planning to unveil its design today, but the AF said no, citing security. Boeing is competing against Lockheed Martin, whose design also has yet to be unveiled. A winner for continued development and eventual production of the weapon will be picked in April.
STILL GOING UP?: Russian President Boris Yeltsin has fired a top aide who has been training for a mission to the Mir orbital station. The Kremlin press office told reporters last week that Yuri Baturin was one of four Yeltsin aides fired in a downsizing move, but said nothing about Baturin's future plans. The 49-year-old Kremlin bureaucrat - considered by some a contender to take the Russian Space Agency away from Yuri Koptiev - has been training as a cosmonaut since September and has been assigned a week- long stay on Mir next August (DAILY, Sept. 22, Dec.
READY TO GO: The Alliant Techsystems Outrider UAV is about to enter the military utility assessment phase, which will be instrumental in determining whether the program transitions from an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration to production. In the next few days, the first Outrider operators will graduate from their training program and begin the assessment at Ft. Hood, Tex. The evaluation will run from March until May.
After repeated criticism in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week over failure of the U.S. to get Saudi Arabia to allow air strikes against Iraq from its territory, an obviously annoyed U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan lectured Senators not to sell the Air Force short. Today, he said, the AF has the capability to handle "about four Libya raids." This was a reference to the 1986 air strike against Libya conducted by F-111s based in England with fighters from carriers in the Mediterranean flying cover.
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the likely chairman of the House Appropriations national security subcommittee next year, is probably best known to the Pentagon as a combative fighter for local interests. House Appropriations Chairman Robert Livingston (R-La.) is expected to announce before the March 7 Louisiana Republican convention that he will not run for re-election. National security subcommittee chairman Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.), next in line, has said that he will fill the expected vacancy.
Aviation Sales Co. (AVS), Miami, signed an agreement to merge with Miami-based Caribe Aviation Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary Aircraft Interiors Inc., AVS announced. The purchase price was not disclosed. Caribe Aviation is an FAA-licensed repair station specializing in the maintenance, repair and overhaul of hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical and electro-mechanical aircraft components as well as avionics and instruments on Airbus and Boeing aircraft.
U.S. NAVY completed development testing of its Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response. It said the missile exceeded its range requirement, flying more than 100 n.m. in the Thursday test before hitting a target on San Nicolas Island off southern California. The missile, launched off-axis from the target by an F/A-18 at 40,000 feet, hit eight navigation way-points and demonstrated for the first time its ability to strike at a steep angle. The Navy said the missile descended to 3,105 feet and executed an aggressive pop-up maneuver before entering the steep dive.
FURTHER DELAY: First flight of the Teledyne Ryan Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has been delayed until Feb. 21 at the earliest. The flight was scheduled for Feb. 14, but during a flight readiness review with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, several action items were identified and work on them must be completed before first flight, Teledyne Ryan says. The flight originally was to have been a year ago.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to help Boeing fund a demonstration of its Canard Rotor/Wing Air Vehicle concept, DARPA said in a Feb. 17 Commerce Business Daily notice. The cost of the program, expected to run about 40 months, will be shared equally by Boeing and DARPA. The Canard Rotor/Wing takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like a fixed-wing aircraft, according to Boeing.
A PRATT&WHITNEY team has pulled a PW4090 from an Egypt Air Boeing 777 for investigation following an engine surge on Feb. 8, shortly after takeoff from Singapore's Changi airport, a P&W spokesman said Friday. Local newspaper accounts erroneously reported that the plane, Egypt Air Flight MS 861, suffered an engine fire. The aircraft was climbing out enroute to Cairo with 109 passengers and 15 crew when the right engine experienced three "explosions" at about 2,200 feet, the aircraft's captain reported. No one was injured.
Airbus Industrie said it has shifted the target date for entry into service of the 500-600 seat A3XX airliner from late 2003 to the third quarter of 2004, citing design issues. "Our decision for the schedule shift was made in concert with the carriers involved in the project," Airbus said. "Meanwhile, we are still on target as far as the working schedule for the A3XX."
MARS ROCK?: NASA's newly named Mars Polar Lander, scheduled to set out for the Red Planet's South Pole next January, will carry a tiny microphone in one of its instruments that will listen for any ambient sounds at its landing site, including wind-borne dust and thunder. Privately funded by donations to The Planetary Society, the "Mars Microphone" will also listen as the lander's arm digs in the Martian soil for traces of subsoil water.
John H. (Jack) Gibbons will resign in March as White House science advisor, leaving a post he has held for five years to return to private life. President Clinton said he would appoint Neal Lane, the director of the National Science Foundation, to take over as his science advisor and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. To replace Lane at NSF, Clinton picked Rita R. Colwell, president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.
Airbus Military Co. (AMC) received invitations to tender from the defense ministries of the seven countries involved in the Future Large Aircraft (FLA) program. The deadline to submit firm price and performance proposals to each air force is January 1999.
GOING UP: Sen. John Glenn will have some experienced hands at the wheel - and two physicians aboard - when he heads aloft for his second trip to orbit in October aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery (DAILY, Jan. 16). NASA has named Curt Brown, an Air Force lieutenant colonel making his fifth space flight, as commander of the STS-95 mission. Joining him on the flight deck will be AF Maj. Steven W. Lindsey as pilot, making his second flight. Rounding out the veteran crew will be Mission Specialists Dr. Scott E. Parazynski, a specialist in emergency medicine; Steven K.
'WHAT'S REALISTIC': U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the AF is counting on industry responses to a request for proposals on the Space Based Laser program to tell it "what's realistic" in this area. Ryan says in a SASC hearing that responses are expected by this summer. The RFP asks what can be done with current technology by 2005, what can be done with current technology by '08, and what future technology can do. Ryan says $95 million is in the program, $35 million of which comes out of the AF budget.
CORRECTION: The Hyper-X propulsion system is being built by Long Island, N.Y.-based GASL. The DAILY mistakenly reported in the issue of Feb. 12 that the job is being done by Boeing. Boeing's involvement centers on avionics and integration. Both companies are members of a team led by MicroCraft Inc.
