Boeing has won a $333.4 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for the F-15C Contractor Training Simulation Service program. The award is part of the Air Force's planned Distributed Mission Training (DMT) capability, which will allow pilots at separate locations to perform simulation training together, Boeing said yesterday. If all options are exercised, Boeing will supply 46 simulators for 14 Air Force bases. Boeing will initially provide two four-ship sets of F-15C full-mission trainers with high fidelity 360-degree visual integrated display systems.
A congressional increase of $11.3 million will allow the U.S. Army to jump-start an effort that could enable AH-64 Apache helicopters to fire air-to-air Stinger missiles around the year 2000. Each digitized Universal Launcher, which would be used on Apache and later on the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, would be capable of firing two Stingers. Most of the fiscal '98 Universal Launcher money will be for development of software for the Apache's Longbow fire control radar.
American Airlines, which has General Electric CF6 engines on over 100 widebody aircraft now in its fleet, has switched to Roll-Royce powerplants for four Boeing 777-200s and four 767-300ERs, orders for which were announced yesterday. Robert Crandall, American chairman, said the carrier has been "very pleased with the performance and reliability of the other Rolls-Royce engines we use" on Boeing 757s and Fokker 100s.
Lockheed Martin Aircraft Center, Greenville, S.C., is being awarded a $12,216,150 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for phased depot maintenance for all type/model/series P-3 aircraft and related technical and administrative data. Work will be performed in Greenville, S.C., and is expected to be completed by September 1998. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured with 17 proposals solicited and four offers received.
Lockheed Martin Federal Services Corp., Colorado Springs, Colo., is being awarded a $38,826,626 cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for FY 1998 hardware and software maintenance for the Command and Control Segment of the Air Force Satellite Control Network. Contract is expected to be completed October 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles, Calif. is the contracting activity (F04701-96/C-0033, P00020).
MICROVISION INC., Seattle, delivered a high resolution helmet-mounted display to Saab and Ericsson Saab Avionics for use in aircraft simulators. The delivery is part of a joint effort among the companies to develop VRD technology for use in fighter aircraft.
The composite yoke that supports a troublesome solar array on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor apparently has fractured, but controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have settled on a plan for aerobraking the probe into a circular orbit despite the damage and then capturing most of the images and science data in the original mission design. Glenn E.
Litton Applied Technology, San Jose, Calif., is being awarded a $9,406,694 firm-fixed-price contract to procure 24 AN/ALR-67B(V)2 countermeasures receiving sets for the Spanish Air Force F/A-18 Program under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program. Work will be performed in San Jose, Calif., and is expected to be completed by August 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-97-C-0123).
McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $7,282,448 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-97-C-0082 to procure 10 Harpoon Missiles, 17 launch kits, 5 shipping containers, integrated logistics support, and depot support equipment engineering services for a classified country under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program. Work will be performed in the classified country (35%); St. Charles, Mo. (25%); McKinney, Texas (20%); Toledo, Ohio (10%); Owego, N.Y. (5%); and Cheshire, Conn.
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORP., Falls Church, Va., won an eight-year, $13.2 million contract from Lockheed Martin Corp. to support development of an Aegis combat system for the Spanish F-100 frigate class. CSC will provide requirements support, computer program design, program development, integration and test and demonstration for the program.
NATO has decided to focus its future armaments efforts on increasing interoperability. The decision was spelled out in the "NATO Armaments Review," approved last week by the alliance's Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD), held in Brussels. The purpose of the review was to decide how the alliance should focus its armaments efforts, and whether to concentrate on increasing arms cooperation, standardizing military equipment, or enhancing interoperability.
A six-month review of Pentagon operations released yesterday set out a slew of changes to save money in coming years, including establishment of a top-level office to oversee intelligence and realignment of responsibility for space policy. The Defense Reform Initiative aims to eliminate some 30,000 of 141,000 positions and save about $6 billion per year, including about $2.8 billion from two more rounds of base closings in 2001 and 2005.
Alaska Airlines became the launch customer for Boeing's 737-900 airliner yesterday. It placed firm orders 10 737-900s to be delivered in 2001 and 2002, two 737-400s to be delivered in 1998, and three 737-700s to be delivered in 1999. The orders include the conversion of five previous options. The 737-900s will have 174 seats, the 737-400s 140 seats and the 737- 700s 122 seats. All will have coach and first-class seats.
AAR CORP. said it will be Delta Airlines' only source of engine parts and bare engine accessories, except for parts from original equipment manufacturers. It said the contract includes a joint marketing program in which it will help the carrier dispose of excess engine parts. Delta engine overhaul facilities service more than 700 engines a year from all the major manufacturers.
The fiscal year 1998 intelligence authorization conference agreement, passed by the Senate and House last week, strips the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO) of its program management authority. The House had proposed doing away with DARO altogether, but in the end accepted a compromise that removes its authority to manage programs and execute budgets, but allows it to remain in an oversight role. Program management of airborne reconnaissance programs will now be solely in the hands of the individual services, one intelligence committee source said.
Esterline Technologies, Bellvue, Wash., has acquired Fluid Regulators Corp., an Ohio-based designer and manufacturers of hydraulic controls and components for the commercial aerospace and defense industries. The purchase price wasn't disclosed Esterline,which makes engineered products for the commercial aircraft, aerospace and defense industries, said Fluid Regulators will operate as a U.S. division of its Auxitrol, S.A. unit, based in France. Auxitrol produces sensors for aerospace and other industries. Esterline Chief Executive Officer Wendell P.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said Friday he was negotiating with Democrats and the congressional leadership to try and save all or a portion of his $325 million theater missile defense plus-up bill, disowned by Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles despite BMDO assistance in compiling the package. "It's under negotiation," Weldon told The DAILY. Weldon, chairman of the House National Security research and development subcommittee, said that he and Rep. Owen Pickett (Va.), ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, met Thursday with Sen.
FUTURE PARTS PROBLEM: The F-22 fighter could already be facing parts problems with systems relying on older technologies, according to Jim Emahiser, acting principle assistant to the deputy under secretary of defense for logistics. Speaking at a recent Electronic Industries Association conference in McLean, Va., he said that as companies stop making parts for systems that are lasting longer than originally projected, the military could be facing shortages by 2001.
Taiwan's Royal Aerospace Industry Co. has signed a joint venture agreement with U.S. company NAFCO under which aerospace fasteners will be produced in Taiwan. The project, concluded with the assistance of Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau and Committee for Aviation and Space Industry Development, is expected to result in Asia's first facility for the production of aerospace fasteners.
EVA Air of Taiwan has selected Airbus Industrie for the first time as an aircraft supplier, becoming a launch customer for the consortium's A340- 500/600 series long-range aircraft. EVA ordered six of the four-engine A340s and took options on six more of the type, which is slated to enter commercial service in 2002. EVA today has an all-Boeing fleet - 12 747- 400s, five 767-300s, one 767-200, six MD-11s and one MD-90. Other launch customers for the A340-500/600 are Air Canada, which has ordered five -500/600s, and Virgin Atlantic which has ordered 16 -600s.
Top executives of Europe's Arianespace launch services consortium Friday declared themselves well-pleased with the second launch of the new Ariane 5 vehicle last month, even though it left its payloads with an orbital apogee more than 2,000 miles short of the target. Jean-Marie Luton, chairman and chief executive officer of Arianespace, told reporters in Washington Friday the vehicle performed exactly as designed, even when confronted with the anomaly that caused the shortfall.
COMMERCIAL HEAVY LIFT: Preserving heavy lift was seen as one of the reasons for the Air Force to pay for development of an EELV. The argument was that commercial users were more interested in smaller payloads, and that market forces therefore wouldn't necessarily have led to development of a heavy lifter. But McKinney says that has changed. Now, he says, "There is much greater possibility commercial users will use heavy lift."
RAISING THE CURTAIN: The Pentagon this afternoon plans to unveil recommendations of the Defense Reform Task Force that are supposed to lead to a revamping of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the defense agencies. Among the parties who will be watching closely will be the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, which has been under attack for most of the year by various factions in Congress. The Pentagon has told Congress repeatedly to leave DARO alone until the task force could present its findings.
