Signal Technology Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif., says it expects that lower than anticipated shipments in the Arizona and Keltec Operations will cause second quarter sales and earnings levels to fall below expectations. Dale L. Peterson, chairman and CEO, said in a prepared statement that while second quarter sales and margins will be below first quarter results, backlog remains strong and Signal expects solid performance in the third and fourth quarters of 1997.
THE 747-400 dubbed Air Force One will be refitted with new flat-panel EFIS displays by Rogerson Aircraft Corp., company officials said at the Paris air show. The contract covers supply, installation and certification of two flat-panel electronic attitude direction indicators, four horizontal situation indicators and individual control panels for the pilot, copilot and navigator/observer. It also covers similar equipment for U.S. Air Force C-18B aircraft, military derivatives of the 707.
Northwest Airlines has signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus Industrie for 50 firm and up to 100 option A319 aircraft to be delivered between 1999 and 2003. Michael Levine, executive VP-marketing for Northwest, said the 125- seat A319s "complement our 150-seat A320s and can serve as the foundation for our future needs for replacement and growth." The carrier now operates a fleet of 50 A320s and will get 20 more in 1998 and 1999.
Continental Express exercised options for 25 more Embraer EMB-145 regional jets, picking the longer range version. The order, announced last week, brings the number of 50-seat jets on firm order by Continental Express to 50, valued at about $750 million, and Continental has 150 options remaining. With this order and the orders placed earlier in the week by American Eagle, Embraer now has 132 firm orders and 194 options for the EMB-145.
The House International Relations Committee's panel on trade on Thursday is slated to mark up legislation amending Title 18 of the U.S. Code to relax export controls on encryption. The Senate Commerce Committee last week passed a bill easing restrictions on some products that protect electronic communications from attack and intrusion.
The House National Security Committee boosted funding for several Pentagon electronic warfare programs, including the U.S. Navy's ALQ-165 Airborne Self-Protection Jammer, for which it added $75 million to the Administration's $32.9 million fiscal '98 request. The committee said it realizes the Navy only has systems for 72 aircraft out of about 500 that could use ASPJ. And because of the shortage, systems can't be used for training or other combat requirements. The additional systems are intended to mitigate the shortage.
The Senate this week intends to try to complete work on the fiscal year 1998 defense authorization bill that provides $268.2 billion in budget authority in defense funding. Although the Senate started work on the bill late last week not much was accomplished, and a number of amendments are expected to come up when work resumes. The Senate is slated to take up a budget reconciliation before moving back to the defense bill on Tuesday. Congress is scheduled to leave for the week-long July 4 recess at the end of the week.
THIOKOL CORP. appointed D. Larry Moore to its board of directors, increasing the number of board members to 11. Moore has served as president and CEO of Honeywell Inc. since April 1993. He joined Honeywell in 1986 after it acquired Sperry Aerospace Group. He will retire from Honeywell at the end of June.
Details of a new missile for Russia's Sukhoi Su-32FN naval fighter were released at the air show here. Only sketchy descriptions of the Alfa, or ASM-MS, weapon have been known in the West since the program was first mentioned in 1993, but a display filled in the blanks. The missile, under development by NPO Machinostroenia, is expected to be available within five or six years, its airborne application being matched later by submarine-, land- and ship-launched variants.
American Eagle has placed orders and options for up to 117 regional jet aircraft valued at $2.5 billion list price. Airline President Dan Garton, acknowledging that the carrier was behind competitors in opting for regional jets, said last week that Eagle ordered 42 Embraer EMB-145 50-seaters plus 25 options, and 25 Canadair CRJ Series 700 70-seaters plus 25 options from Bombardier.
CONSTELLATION COMMUNICATIONS INC., Reston, Va., elected Malcolm M. Currie to chair its board of directors. Currie was chairman and chief executive officer of Hughes Aircraft from 1988 to 1992, and is past president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
VICKERS INC., Maumee, Ohio, won a $70 million contract from McDonnell Douglas' Military Transport Aircraft Div. to support the C-17 airlifter. Vickers said it will supply the throttle quadrant, cargo delivery system actuators, elevator, rudder and aileron flight controls and the ram air turbine deployment actuators. The contract begins in 1998, and parts for 80 aircraft will be procured over seven years. The contract is in addition to the $40 million already won by Vickers and sister company Aeroquip Corp. for the C-17.
TAM OF BRAZIL plans to order five A330-200s and place options on five more, all powered by Pratt&Whitney engines. The airline plans to operate the aircraft on routes to the U.S. initially.
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin says working with the Russians on the Space Shuttle-Mir program has taught NASA that it's in the wrong science mode. "We've been doing task-oriented science and we're finding from the Russians we need to be going to skill-oriented science, so we're redesigning our whole science program and a lot of our facilities based on our finding from the Russians."
HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE plan to add nine B-2 bombers to the U.S. Air Force's fleet of 21 would cost $21 billion over the next 20 years, according to Defense Secretary William Cohen. The defense bill before the House includes $330 million in FY '98 for funding to reopen the B-2 line to buy nine more. But Cohen said this would require about $14 billion in production, mostly between 1999 and 2003.
McDonnell Douglas is negotiating with Central Leasing of Taiwan for the potential sale of 11 new and used twin-jet aircraft. The company said Douglas Aircraft's commercial aircraft division and Central Leasing signed a letter of intent for the deal earlier this month. It said final negotiations will be subject to completion of a new joint venture by the companies, finalization of terms and raising of capital.
MONARCH AIRLINES has ordered two Airbus A330-200 and two A321 aircraft. The A330s will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines and the A321s by IAE V2533 engines. The British holiday carrier now operates seven A320s, one A321 and four A330s.
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee has ended the earmark of $1.3 billion in foreign military financing grants for Egypt, but an effort is being made to revive it in the full Appropriations Committee. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee, ended the earmarking in his subcommittee's fiscal 1998 bill last week to show his displeasure with Egypt's overtures to Libya and to protest its lack of support of the Middle East peace process.
Disparities on F-22 cost estimates and lack of explanation of the program's $2.2 billion overrun led to the Senate Armed Services Committee to slash the U.S. Air Force's fiscal year 1998 request for the program by $420 million, the committee says in the report accompanying its FY '98 authorization bill.
MTU, the engine unit of Germany's Daimler-Benz, has set its sights on becoming the world's largest provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul services, says MTU President Ranier Hertrich. MTU is already heavily in the business and intends to expand, boosted by the recent pledge by FedEx to use only MTU's facility at Hanover's Langenhagen airport for heavy engine mantenance.
The U.S. Air Force F-22 air superiority fighter would require few alterations to become the replacement aircraft for the F-117 and F-15E interdiction planes, Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Co. President Micky Blackwell said at the air show here.
Even if the Senate Armed Services Committee recommendation to slash $420 million from the F-22 fighter's fiscal 1998 budget request survives, the Pratt&Whitney F119 engine development program could survive relatively unscathed thanks to its ties to the Joint Strike Fighter.
An improved variant of the U.S./German Rolling Airframe Missile will undergo operational evaluation (opeval) next year following a year-long engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) program. The Block 1 configuration will add helicopter/surface mode target engagement capability to the current anti-missile capability. Prime contractor Hughes Aircraft Co. is slated to receive a request for proposal for EMD in the next few weeks, according to a June 19 Commerce Business Daily notice.
George J. Kourpias, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), announced support this week for the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger. The combination is "a big step forward in maintaining U.S. leadership in this vital modern industry," Kourpias said in a prepared statement Monday, adding that it "offers a much needed chance to meet the mounting international competition head on."
JURGEN H. RAHE, a key official in NASA's planetary exploration effort, was killed Wednesday evening when a 40-foot tree fell on his car and crushed it as he drove through a thunderstorm near his home in Potomac, Md. Rahe, 57, was the science program director for solar system exploration in the Office of Space Science at NASA headquarters in Washington. He was responsible for overall planning, budgeting and managing the U.S.
