Concerned about losing its military edge, Israel wants to modernize air force aircraft and other weaponry, but must first answer some difficult budget questions, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. said yesterday. "When the United States says they will do everything in order to safeguard Israel's qualitative edge, they also ought to take into consideration that this edge has diminished with time," Eliahu Ben-Elissar said at a breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington.
Alliant Techsystems has resumed flight testing of the Outrider unmanned aerial vehicle after a brief hiatus for maintenance on the prototype air vehicle. The Outrider flew for 22 minutes on Saturday at Hondo, Tex. The Pentagon's UAV Joint Program Office quoted the flight test director as saying that all systems operated normally. This was the seventh flight in the test program and the second to last more than 20 minutes. It focused on exploring the envelope of the vehicle, which flew in the same configuration as before the interruption.
COMPOSITE STRUCTURES LLC, Monrovia, Calif., signed a three-year memorandum of agreement with Bell Helicopter Textron, Fort Worth, Tex., to supply fuselage panels and tail rotor blades for Bell 412, 212, 206 and CH-146 helicopters.
President Boris Yeltsin released more funds for Russia's portion of the International Space Station during a visit to the M.V. Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center, which earlier lagged in building the critical Station Service Module because it wasn't paid by the Russian government for the work.
The Pentagon's Inspector General said the U.S. Air Force should seek an independent estimate for the cost of the Minuteman III Guidance Replacement Program (GRP) because it has been restructured twice. The IG, however, generally approved of AF's management of the program. The GRP is intended to lengthen the life of the ICBMs to the year 2020. It is in the engineering and manufacturing development phase, and is slated for a low-rate initial production decision in March 1998. The AF has budgeted $1.9 billion for the effort through 2003.
DynCorp, Reston, Va., won a 10-year contract valued at more than $1 billion from the U.S. Air Force for modification, maintenance and repair work on Dept. of Defense systems and support equipment. The award, which brings the company's 1997 backlog to a record $3.8 billion, is for a two-year base period valued at $210 million with four two-year option periods. It is part of the Contract Field Teams (CFT) program, under which DynCorp has held contracts continuously since 1951.
The U.S. Air Force plans to install a specialized lighting system on all its F-16C/D fighters that will allow pilots to use night vision goggles. The AF wants 65 kits in fiscal 1998 - 64 for F-16Cs and one first article demonstration kit for F-16Ds, the AF said in an Aug. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice. Kit production would run through FY '02. They would be installed on active Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard aircraft.
The U.S. Army intends to award a follow-on contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. for four more payload launch vehicles (PLVs) and spare parts for integration and testing with exoatmospheric kill vehicles (EKVs), according to an Aug. 14 Commerce Business Daily notice. The company provides PLVs and related services to launch EKVs in a series of national missile defense (NMD) flight tests.
A few early projects under the Gore Commission-inspired and NASA-led Aviation Safety Program could be launched as soon as October, although formal new starts won't begin until next April at the earliest, NASA's top aviation safety program manager told industry representatives yesterday.
The General Accounting Office said the FAA implied to Congress a level of precision about the costs of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) that "cannot be supported, particularly in light of the uncertainties existing early in the system's development cycle." GAO said in a report released last week that the program grew from $507.9 million in December 1994 to $957.4 million in April 1997, "a cost growth of over $400 million or almost 90%."
Engineers on the ground took control of the Japanese robotic arm in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery yesterday, putting the prototype hardware through its paces in an important test of procedures that may one day ease crew workload on the International Space Station.
Was selected by Rohr Inc. to lead its new $150 million credit facility. CIBC will act as administrative agent and as one of two co-syndication agents along with PNC Capital Markets.
GALAXY AEROSPACE CORP. will build a 143,00 square-foot, $12 million headquarters complex at the Alliance Airport, Fort Worth, Tex. The complex will include corporate and marketing offices, an aircraft completion center, the company's first factory service center and a parts depot/logistics support center. It will employ about 200 by the third quarter of 1998.
After three straight congressional elections that produced above average turnover on the House National Security Committee, the House appears to be headed toward an incumbents' year in the 1998 congressional elections. As of now, no more than 4 of the 56 HNSC members appear to be in races that could be considered marginal.
The U.S. Army plans to lease a DeHavilland DHC-7 to train pilots for the Airborne Reconnaissance Low intelligence-gathering plane, which is based on the DHC-7 airframe. The lease would run from October 1997 through the end of fiscal 1998 with a six-month option, the Army said in an Aug. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice. The aircraft is to be equipped for day/night, VFR/IFR flight into known icing conditions.
SOUTH KOREA plans to award Raytheon Texas Instruments a contract to upgrade radars on its P-3 aircraft, according to a Aug. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice. Raytheon TI built eight AN/APS-134(V)6 radars that are flown only by South Korea on its P-3C maritime surveillance planes. Under the foreign military sales agreement, the system's inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) capability would be enhanced through hardware and software changes.
Budget cuts in the Titan IV program recommended by the congressional defense authorizers for fiscal year 1998 would put the nation's space launch program at risk, the Pentagon said. The Senate reduced the Titan procurement budget by $100 million, anticipating that it wouldn't be needed because of a recent restructuring of the program.
U.S. ARMY Communications and Electronics Command plans to award Northrop Grumman a contract for six synthetic aperture radar payloads for the Air Force's Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, according to an Aug. 12 Commerce Business Daily notice.
U.S. Astronaut Michael Foale may join a Russian cosmonaut in a spacewalk outside the Mir orbital station early next month to inspect damage to the depressurized Spektr module, but NASA engineers consider it unlikely Spektr can ever be recertified for human habitation even if it is repaired on orbit.
Boeing Co. said yesterday it has made $11 million investment in China's Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Co. Ltd. (TAECO), and drew strong criticism from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which said the deal violates the relationship between Boeing and American workers. The company said IAM's complaints that it wasn't notified in advance are false, and that its fears about the loss of job security are unfounded.
A hover test yesterday of a prototype kinetic energy anti-satellite (KE-ASAT) kill vehicle at Edwards AFB, Calif., cuts the risk of any future flight test, the U.S. Army said. In the test, the 94-pound device designed to destroy hostile satellites by impact leaped into the air, acquired and locked onto a distant light that simulated a moving target, and maintained a precise position, according to the Army Space and Strategic Defense Command.
A plan by House authorizers to accelerate the U.S. Navy variant of the Joint Strike Fighter by adding $20 million to the fiscal 1998 budget request won't work, the Pentagon has told Congress.
Announced an initial public offering of 2.75 million shares of common stock, all being issued and sold at $10 per share. The offering is made through an underwriting group managed by PaineWebber Inc. and Unterberg Harris. The stock will trade under the symbol "GCOM." Globecomm designs, assembles and installs satellite ground segment systems and networks.
Royal Air Force trials with reserve pilots will be extended through September 1998 to evaluate the feasibility of recruiting and training volunteers for part-time service with the RAF's six squadrons of Tornado F-3 fighters. U.K. Armed Forces Minister Dr. John Reid has told Parliament that he was prompted to extend the program because of successful trials with reserves operating C-130K airlifters, Nimrod patrol planes and SA-330 helicopters.
