Lockheed Martin is working overtime to deliver the first C- 130J airlifters to its lead customers, but deliveries are going to be late. The Royal Air Force was due to receive its first aircraft next month- and the company will incur some financial penalties.
NEW DETAILS of the Vympel R-77 air-to-air missile are revealed at Paris. The weapon has a launch weight of 175 kg (385 lb) and measures 3.6 m (142 in) long with a wingspan of 0.4 m (15.7 in). It carries a 22 kg (50 lb) continuous rod/fragmentation warhead. The R-77 can defeat targets capable of 12 g maneuvers. Maximum launch range is 100 km (54 nm). With its short wings and forward-folding lattice tailfins, the Vympel R-77 appears to have been designed for internal carriage on the now-abandoned MiG 1.42 fighter.
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles supports an add-on for the Nautilus tactical high energy laser, but he wants to make sure that any funding for Nautilus does not impact spending on basic U.S. theater missile defense programs. In a June 10 letter to Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), Lyles said BMDO supports the Defense Dept.'s requested funding increase of $31.7 million for the laser effort, provided "any funding for THEL not impact our basic U.S.-only TMD programs."
The partners of the European Airbus consortium, meeting last week-end at the Paris Air Show, have agreed that the consortium's activities should not be limited to civilian aircraft. But the grouping of defense and space manufacturing will take some time to achieve, as it will depend on government projects, according to Manfred Bischoff, chairman of Germany's Daimler Benz Aerospace AG (DASA).
The House Appropriations Committee Friday set the national security appropriations ceiling at $248.140 billion, some $5 billion over the budget request.
MODERNIZED UPGRADE of the C-5 transport is still on offer to the U.S. Air Force, according to Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems vice president Richard Kirkland. The C-5M would have more powerful, off-the-shelf engines, boosting payload and range from hot-and-high runways. Avionics would be modernized and systems overhauled to improve reliability. Kirkland said here that the C-5 airframes are good to 2050 without major rework. The C-5M modifications would cost $33 million per aircraft.
The Czech Republic ordered 72 L-159 fighters from Aero Vodochody worth about $720 million, a company spokesman confirmed Friday. A consortium composed of Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Czech Airline CSA own a 34% stake of Aero Vodochody.
Smith Industries Aerospace, Product Support (SIAP), Clearwater, Fla., is being awarded a $5,200,508 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for repair of spare assemblies in the F402-RR-406A/408A engine used in support of the AV8B aircraft. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $9,020,986. Work will be performed in Clearwater, Fla., and is expected to be completed June 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
DASSAULT ELECTRONIQUE will upgrade the Barax self-protection jamming pods deployed with the French Air Force Mirage F1 fleet. The upgrades will include conversions of major systems to digital technology and the use of modern microelectronics to cope with new-generation threats. The updated Barax is cleared for export under the designation EWS-A.
China's Chengdu FC-1 fighter, which made an unexpected debut in model form at the 1995 Paris show, is back here again in the form of a full-scale cockpit mock-up that includes a Martin-Baker ejection seat and Western avionics, apparently from GEC Marconi. The program started after the Bush administration withdrew support from the CATIC/Grumman Super-7 program-based on a highly modified J-7/MiG- 21-in 1989. The FC-1 is similar in size to the Super-7, but different in design, resembling in some respects the Northrop F-20 Tigershark.
ISRAEL'S AAI CORP. will supply Shadow 600 UAVs to the Romanian Army under a contract worth about $20 million. The deal is financed by a defense export loan guarantee program granted by the U.S. in 1996. AAI will also deliver motion simulation and training systems to Romania within 18 months. The Shadow 600 system includes UAVs and their associated ground support elements, and payloads of various types. The Shadow has a takeoff weight of 600 pounds, an endurance of 14 hours, and a payload of 100 pounds.
Boeing Co. is stepping up its effort to segment the airliner market with release this week of eight new concepts. The product development programs, to be revealed at the Paris Air Show, are derivatives that offer either greater range, capacity or weight. They are in addition to seven other aircraft that are in varying stages of development, including three versions of the 737, the larger 777-300 and recently launched 767-400.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, in its fiscal year 1998 defense authorization bill, directs the secretary of defense to structure and fund the national missile defense (NMD) program to preserve the option of deploying a limited system in FY '03. The committee, adding $474 million to the president's request for NMD, also instructs the defense secretary to conduct an integrated NMD system test by FY '99.
HONEYWELL has signed an $8 million contract with Yokogawa Electric for the first year of production it its programmable display generator (PDG) for Japan's F-2 fighter. Deliveries are expected to continue over the next 10 years with the first in 1998. Follow-on contracts for the remaining years should yield approximately 25 deliveries per year. The initial contract covers production startup activities and initial PDGs along with test equipment and support. Honeywell began development work on the PDG in 1992 and completed it in 1996.
MALAYSIA, BRUNEI and THAILAND are among Asian customers for Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawks and Seahawks. Malaysia will take two S-70A Black Hawks configured for executive transport in early 1998. The Royal Brunei Air Force already has accepted the first of four Black Hawks, and the Thai Navy this month will take the last of six S-70B Seahawks fitted for search and rescue, maritime patrol and coastal surveillance.
The House National Security Committee zeroed the U.S. Navy's $150 million fiscal year 1998 request for the Arsenal Ship program, and directed the service to consider a protoyping strategy for the development of the next-generation surface combatant, the SC-21. The Navy's plan has been to integrate the Arsenal Ship into SC-21.
DEFERRED IMPACT: The National Defense Panel's alternative to the force structure proposed by the Quadrennial Defense Review isn't expected to have an immediate effect on the Pentagon's program and budget plans. Maj. Gen. David Heebner, who heads U.S. Army program analysis and evaluation, believes the NDP plan, slated for completion by mid-December, will be too late to affect the fiscal 1999 review. The FY '00 through '06 program "will be the watershed," incorporating the NDP recommendations, he says.
Defense Secretary William Cohen said the desire by some in Congress to withhold the most-favored-nation status from China could hurt U.S. security. In addition to engaging China, Cohen said the U.S. should increase cooperation with ASEAN nations. "It will be in our mutual interest for Southeast Asia to take additional concrete steps to facilitate our military presence," he said.
THAILAND wants to buy 107 excess tanks with 105mm guns and thermal sights from the U.S. Army, the Pentagon said. The $100 million deal, which must be approved by Congress, would complement 253 tanks Thailand bought earlier from the U.S. The tanks would be upgraded with machine guns, engines, radios and support equipment in the U.S. before delivery. No offset agreements are attached.
LOCKHEED MARTIN picked MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. of Los Angeles to help make next-generation product development tools being integrated under the Lockheed Martin Virtual Product Development Initiative. MSC will provide software capabilities, including design/simulation integration, multi- disciplinary conceptual designs, analysis knowledge engineering, computer- aided engineering data management and Intranet/Internet applications, Lockheed Martin said. MSC will also provide real-time links among different Lockheed Martin facilities.
NOT SO FAST: A National Reconnaissance Office decision to take the unprecedented step of declassifying the names of some of its suppliers isn't without critics. An official says that although the NRO is ready to release the names of six competitors for its $1 billion program to develop a new constellation of imagery satellites (DAILY, May 1), at least one competitor has asked that its name be kept in the black. The declassification process isn't expected to be completed for several more months.
The Senate Armed Services Committee recommendation to slash the budget request for the Air Force's F-22 fighter by almost $500 million could add $8 billion to the total $66.8 billion program, according to the U.S. Air Force. It says in a white paper, obtained by The DAILY, that the cut would force an all-out restructuring of the program, not just a rephasing. The projection is based on a $500 million cut, slightly more than SASC's approved $420 million cut.
NO PLATFORM DECISION: Although the U.S. Navy plans to address the question of developing a follow-on to the EA-6B standoff jammer as part of its fiscal 2000-2006 program objective memorandum deliberations, that doesn't equate to an airframe decision, Navy officials say. The early focus will be on identifying the technology for the new system. Picking the platform won't come until a few years later.
HOUSE READY: The House National Security Committee hopes to have the fiscal 1998 national security authorization that it approved last week on the House floor next week. The separate Defense Reform Act, also approved by the committee, would be appended on the House floor. The reform bill makes a number of organizational, structural, business practice, acquisition and policy changes, all intended to increase the efficiency of the Defense Dept.
