Northrop Grumman Corp. will produce major components for 80 additional U.S. Air Force C-17 airlifters under a $1.9 billion, six-year agreement with McDonnell Douglas Corp. Northrop Grumman said yesterday that the deal calls for it to produce engine nacelles, tail sections and other aerostructure components of the C- 17 in Dallas, Tex.; Milledgeville, Ga., and Stuart, Fla.
TASC, Reading, Mass., is being awarded a $517,139 increment as part of a $5,655,897 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for enabling technologies for multi-resolution Synthetic Natural Environment (SNE) Scenario Creation management, Joint Simulation System (JSIMS) environmental tailoring services, and framework of reusable objects in the synthetic natural environment for the Advanced Simulation Technology Thrust Program. Work will be performed in Reading, Mass. (84%); and Arlington, Va. (16%), and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 1999 (if options are exercised).
The U.S. Air Force, following a two-year evaluation, has decided not to buy Israel's Light Defender air-to-surface missile. The decision was made "for operational and cost considerations," according to Maj. Stan VanderWerf of the AF's Foreign Comparative Test program office. The AF began evaluating the Light Defender in fiscal 1995 with $78,000 and continued in FY '96 with $2.7 million. The testing, in captive carry mode only, was conducted at Eglin AFB, Fla., with an F-15.
F-22 prime contractor Lockheed Martin and F119 engine maker Pratt&Whitney this week want to complete high power engine tests as they ready for first flight of the aircraft this month. Low-power engine tests have been largely completed, with only one more series to go. But the focus this week will be on high-power runs, a Lockheed Martin spokesman said. The runs began yesterday and will continue Wednesday and Friday, with today, Thursday and Saturday set aside for data analysis.
Alloys specialist RMI Titanium signed a deal with Canton, Ohio's Galt Alloys that will give RMI 90% of the company while allowing Galt to launch an $18 million expansion, including a new scrap preparation facility, a plasma consolidation furnace capable of five million pounds annually, and a plasma hearth furnace with a seven-million-pound annual capacity. The scrap line should be up and running by the middle of next year. The consolidation furnace will open by the end of 1998 and the hearth furnace will follow in early 1999.
The U.S. Coast Guard awarded a $20.1 million contract to Rolls-Royce's Allison Engine Co. to upgrade T56 turboprops powering 10 four-engine HC- 130H Hercules aircraft to reduce their operating costs. Allison will provide kits to convert the existing T56A-7Bs to T56A-15s, which involves new improved turbine and other components, along with engine replacement parts on an as-needed basis.
The Federal Communication Commission issued licenses to Constellation Communications Inc. and Mobile Communications Holdings Inc. (MCHI) to construct and launch two satellite systems. The license terms for both systems is 10 years, according to the agency. The systems will operate according to the rules of "Big LEO" service. The two companies were rejected in two years ago when the FCC granted licenses to Motorola's Iridium, Loral/Qualcomm's Globalstar and TRW's Odyssey (DAILY, Feb. 1, 1995).
MAYBE A FEW: Although the USAF has basically taken all the money out of the pre-planned product improvement program for JDAM that might have led to a terminal seeker, Schulte says some work could still be done. But, he says, even if a terminal seeker were developed, it would only be for a few JDAMs. The Navy and Air Force are buying more than 80,000 JDAM kits.
McDonnell Douglas' offering to fighter competitions in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is the F/A-18, not the F-15 as reported in The DAILY of June 30. The F-15 is being offered to Israel.
Only about six months after signing its agreement with Rolls-Royce last November, Garrett Aviation's Airwork unit received and completed two mid-life inspections of Tay 611-8 turbofans for its first customer. In just a couple of months, the company had to expand its facilities, calibrate a Tay test cell and send its technicians to Rolls' East Kilbride, Scotland, facility for training, as well as acquire rental engines and rotables for fast turns - an investment of some $7 million, Airwork says.
Lufthansa Technik AG's Irish maintenance and repair subsidiary, Lufthansa Shannon Turbine Technologies (LSTT), signed an exclusive five- year deal with Braathens S.A.F.E. covering repair of CFM International CFM56-3 combustor assemblies. The decision comes after 12 months of testing by Braathens of LSTT's services. Lufthansa Technik also renewed a contract to overhaul Asiana Airlines' 66 GE CF6-80C2 engines, powering Boeing 747- 400s and 767-300s. The agreement extends the two partners' cooperation until mid-2001.
NEXT MOVE: Ranking House National Security Committee Democrat Ronald Dellums (Calif.) wants to confer with Republican leaders of the House drive to derail unrequested funds for more B-2 bombers before deciding his next move. A Dellums aide notes that some 20 Republicans who opposed a B-2 add- on in 1995 wound up supporting it in last month's unsuccessful 209-216 vote to knock out the $330 million add-on.
Williams International, engaged in a $37 million turbine development program with NASA to build a small jet engine using low-cost manufacturing techniques, says it's "on schedule" to demonstrate its "all-composite, turbofan-powered V-Jet II light aircraft" at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association convention next month in Oshkosh, Wis. A prototype of the V-Jet II, built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif., began flying recently powered by two 550-lbst. FJX-1 turbofans previously developed by Williams.
BMW Rolls-Royce, the Chinese Gas Turbine Establishment and the German Aerospace Research Institute agreed to explore the aerodynamics of high- pressure turbines in advanced jet engines. The main goal is to identify the influence of the shape of HP turbine blades on aerodynamic performance, with an eye toward refining turbine aerodynamics for better fuel consumption and reduced emissions. The project will involve wind tunnel tests in China and analysis of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics.
AlliedSignal Aerospace has been chosen to supply the vehicle management system (VMS) for the Kistler Aerospace K-1 reusable launch vehicle. AlliedSignal Electronic Systems, based in Teterboro, N.J., said it will supply the VMS, including hardware, software and technical support for five planned launch vehicles. The value of contract wasn't disclosed.
Mars exploration planners at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here are working with their counterparts at Johnson Space Center in Texas to meld JPL's program of Red Planet robotic probes with the needs of future human explorers.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. on July 2 marked 25 years as prime contractor for aircraft maintenance and base operations support at the Air Education and Training Command's Vance AFB, Okla. It said its most recent contract renewal with AETC for work at Vance was signed in 1995.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS AND GENERAL TECHNOLOGY CORP. began a mentor-protege relationship June 30. MDC will help GTC develop the expertise to fabricate and test electronic equipment. GTC, Albuquerque, N.M., builds flight test and support equipment for the F/A-18E/F. The program will run through December 1998.
ADEOS RECOVERY: Loss of Japan's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS), possibly to orbital debris, has deprived scientists of a wide-field view with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer aboard, but there may be a fallback. NASA's TOMS/Earth Probe spacecraft has enough fuel to raise itself from a 500-kilometer orbit almost to the 800 km orbit occupied by ADEOS, and the U.S. agency is considering the move to give its sole surviving TOMS instrument a better view of ozone concentrations at the poles.
United Airlines ordered eight more Boeing 767-300s for delivery over the next three years, boosting the Pratt&Whitney PW4000 Series orderbook by another 16 firm engines worth about $150 million at list prices. Four aircraft are due in 1998, with one more in 1999 and the remaining three in 2000.
FOLLOWING AMRAAM'S LEAD: The AIM-9X missile now in development will likely at some point enter a pre-planned product improvement program, Schulte says, noting that "you might need to add electronic counter-countermeasures techniques." ECCM is being added now to the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to- Air Missile (AMRAAM). "You are always going to have threats that evolve," Schulte notes.
Delta's Engine Maintenance Dept. has cut the time to rebuild Pratt&Whitney JT8D-219 engines to 30.6 days from the industry average of 50 to 60 days. In the three months ending May 31, Delta's shop turned out 193 engines when the plan called for 171, a 12% increase in production, which Delta says "already leads the industry for turn times."
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s plan to acquire Northrop Grumman Corp. for $11.6 billion, announced Thursday, would create an even bigger gap between the top three companies in the industry and all others, analysts said. The deal would yield a company with revenues of $37 billion, putting it in second place behind $48 billion Boeing Co. Raytheon Co., after the addition of Hughes' defense businesses, would be third with $27 billion.
Cannon Muskegon, a major alloy supplier to the aircraft engine industry, acquired Cleveland, Ohio-based Lake Erie Design, which specializes in high-precision ceramic cores for both the industrial and aerospace gas turbine industries.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s stock swap deal with Lockheed Martin Corp. signals an abrupt about-face of Kent Kresa's stated goal of keeping Northrop Grumman independent, analysts said. "What has happened here is Kent Kresa has been extremely aggressive for the past four or five years, trying to keep Northrop Grumman independent and up with the big guys, and he just ran out of ideas in this area," said Paul Nisbet of JSA Research. "The others went too far too fast" for Kresa, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Northrop Grumman.
