FAA has chosen Booz-Allen&Hamilton to conduct a congressionally mandated review of its new acquisition system. The firm, under a $156,837 contract, will also review FAA efforts to promote full and open competition for contracts above $50 million, said George Donohue, associate FAA administrator for research and acquisition. "We see this independent assessment as one way to evaluate our progress and identify areas that may need improvement."
GDE Systems won a $15.5 million contract to develop and build three deployable Tactical Exploitation Group ground stations for the U.S. Marine Corps. GDE, a Tracor Inc. subsidiary based in San Diego, said the contract will run 18 months. The TEG, housed in three Humvee-mounted shelters, will provide real-time exploitation capability of F/A-18 imaging pods.
AIRCRAFT BRAKING SYSTEMS CORP., Akron Ohio, said it will provide main wheels and carbon brakes Asiana Airlines' 18 new Airbus A-321 aircraft, the first of which is slated for delivery in January 1998. All the single aisle airliners are scheduled to be in service by 2005. ABSC said its selection by Asiana maintains its status of having wheels and carbon brakes on over 70% of A-321s ordered by airlines.
SHAREHOLDERS of Messier-Bugatti and Carbone Industrie agreed last week on a merger between the two companies. The new company will be known as Messier- Bugatti, and will be headed by Messier-Bugatti Chairman Yves Leclere.
France's prospects of shifting state-owned aerospace and other companies to the private sector, and of participating in such multi- national projects as the European Future Large Aircraft (FLA), may be dimmed by the challenges of merely working together that will now be faced by new Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and right-wing President Jacques Chirac.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEM'S OUTRIDER unmanned aerial vehicle completed its third flight yesterday. It flew for 7 minutes and 20 seconds in good weather at Alliant's Hondo, Tex., facility. The flight, intended to assess handling qualities, was the first using Outrider's full-up 13-foot wing. The landing went smoothly after changes to the gear were incorporated following the second flight several weeks ago. The company hopes for another flight as early as today.
Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va., won a contract from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center for four Pegasus-derivative launch vehicles for the Hyper-X program, the company announced yesterday. Major modifications to the standard three-stage Pegasus include elimination of second and third stages as well as the fairing which protects satellite payloads, and changes in the thermal protection system.
LANCHILE announced a $300 million order for three 767-300 extended range aircraft powered by General Electric engines. Deliveries will begin next April.
Britain's new Secretary of State for Defense, George Robertson, says he will use his first visit to German counterpart Volker Ruehe today in Bonn to lay out the U.K.'s view that production of the four-nation Eurofighter, or EF2000, should begin soon. Robertson has scheduled the meetings with allied defense ministers about a month after taking office as part of Britain's new Labor government. He replaced Michael Portillo, who last year announced the U.K.'s commitment to fund EF2000 production.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to spend about $35 million between fiscal year 1997 and FY '00 to design and build Micro Air Vehicles, and to develop the enabling technologies for an advanced MAV.
Heads of the space agencies involved in the International Space Station program, meeting in Japan during the weekend, endorsed the recent decision of the Space Station Control Board to rebaseline a new assembly sequence and schedule. While acknowledging that the delay embodied in the new sequence has an adverse effect on each of the participating nations, the heads of agencies collectively confirmed that the move is "logical and necessary...," according to a joint statement released following the meeting in Japan on May 31.
Jet Airways Ltd., an Indian domestic airline, will acquire two Boeing 737- 400s from Malaysian Airline System BHD for $63 million, according to reports from India. The hire-purchase transaction was arranged through ANZ Grindlays Investment Bank, which bought the aircraft from Malaysian on behalf of Jet, the reports said. ANZ will finance $12.6 million of the total and raise the remainder from other international banks.
Esterline Technologies, Bellevue, Wash., sold its Angus Electronics subsidiary to Westronics Inc., Kingwood, Tex., for an undisclosed price, Esterline announced. Wendell P. Hurlbut, CEO of Esterline, said in a prepared statement that the divestiture allows the company to increase emphasis on its core businesses of engineered products for the commercial aircraft, aerospace and defense industries.
GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., Cincinnati, Ohio, is being awarded a $235,058,275 firm fixed price contract to provide for 790 (best estimated quantity) TF- 39-1C High Pressure Turbine Kits applicable to the TF-39 engine on the C-5 aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed October 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began November 1996 ; negotiations were completed May 1997.
BBN SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES, Cambridge, Mass., is being awarded a $29,404,593 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research and development of integrated signature-reduction systems. Work will be performed in Cambridge, Mass., and is expected to be completed by June 2002. Contract funds in the amount of $570,421 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured under a Broad Agency Announcement with one offer received. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity (N00014-97-C-0075). May 29, 1997
Hughes Aircraft Co. said its air traffic division has completed integration acceptance tests on a new flight and radar data processing system and workstations at Jarkarta's Area Control Center. The tests, completed a month ahead of schedule on May 7, will be followed by a demonstration of operational readiness in June. The equipment is part of a wider automated ATC system that Hughes is installing in the Jakarta region. It features 70 workstations and computers, radar systems, communications towers and meteorological equipment.
Hughes Electronics Corp., Los Angeles, has filed a motion requesting a federal appeals court to reaffirm its earlier decision awarding Hughes Aircraft Co. a $114 million judgment against the U.S. government in a decades-old patent infringement lawsuit, Hughes announced yesterday. Hughes filed the motion on Friday with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.
Lockheed Martin's Space&Strategic Missiles Sector and the Intersputnik International Organization of Space Communications have formed a joint venture company to provide worldwide communications services. The new company, Lockheed Martin Intersputnik Ltd., or LMI, will be headquartered in London with a marketing office in Moscow.
BOEING NORTH AMERICAN, INC., Canoga Park, Calif., is being awarded a $7,467,673 cost plus fixed fee contract to provide for development of an advanced liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen thrust chamber in support of the Phase II Integrated High Payoff Rocket Propulsion Technology effort. Contract is expected to be completed February 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were five proposals received. Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04811-97/C-0034).
GDE SYSTEMS INC., San Diego, said it won a five-year, $27.2 million contract under the Image Product Library (IPL) program from the U.S. Air Force Material Command, Rome Laboratory, Rome, N.Y., to provide imagery and imagery product archives in support of tactical users. Other members of the GDE team are PAR Government Systems, BTG and Request Technologies.
The House National Security Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, bolstered by a $2.6 billion increase in the fiscal 1998 U.S. national security request, will mark up defense authorizations next week. A SASC spokeswoman said the committee will mark up next week although definite dates have not been set.
CMS DEFENSE SYSTEMS, INC., Titusville, Fla., is being awarded a $9,670,000 fixed-price contract for production of the Shoulder Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW) Common Practice Encased All-up Round for the U.S. Marine Corps. This contract contains options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $78,179,318. Work will be performed in Titusville, Fla. (10%), and Camden, Ariz. (90%), and is expected to be completed by September 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Cubic Defense Dystems, San Diego, has won a $10.5 million contract from Northrop Grumman to supply Air Data Terminals and spares for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), Cubic said. The award raised the value of Cubic Corp.'s total Joint STARS related work to $128 million since 1993.
A White House memo to the State Dept. clearing the way for U.S. companies to submit bids in Turkish military competitions doesn't signal the U.S. government's intent to allow hardware to be delivered, as stated by an article in The DAILY of June 2 (page 343). Government officials said yesterday that the waiver is almost routine and has been issued in similar instances the past. The decision on whether to allow a specific piece of military equipment - such as attack helicopters - to be delivered will still be made on a case-by-case basis, officials said.
