Electronic Warfare Associates, Inc., Herndon, Va., is being awarded a $10,000,567 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to provide for labor, supplies, materials, special equipment, and facilities required to support electronic warfare/electromagnetic test operations performed by the Army Test and Evaluation Command, Directorate of Applied Technology, test and Simulation, Big Crow Program Office, Kirtland AFB, N.M. Contract is expected to be completed May 2002. At this time, $100,022 of the contract funds have been obligated.
The U.S. Air Force said it will insert commercial technology into six projects with the goal of cutting operations and support costs. If the effort is successful, it said, the same will be done for other projects. The projects are as follows: -- F-15E Commercially Based Processing. Under this project, the display and core computer processors in the F-15E dual role fighter will be replaced with commercially based processors and software. McDonnell Douglas is teamed with Honeywell and Computing Devices International.
Newly elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair surprised many political and industrial observers by nominating George Robertson as defense secretary. They expected the nominee to be David Clark, who has been Labor's shadow defense minister for the past several years. Robertson, who was the shadow Scottish office secretary, has expressed no previous interest in defense affairs; his pre-parliamentary experience was mainly as a trade union official. He opposes unilateral nuclear disarmament and is pro-United States and pro-Europe.
DEBT-WATCHER MOODY'S Investors Service yesterday confirmed Baa3 and Ba2 ratings on some $1.6 billion worth of Northrop Grumman debt following announcement of the company's plans to acquire Logicon, citing both the strength of the deal and Moody's belief that Northrop Grumman's future acquisitions will be "prudently funded."
The U.S. Navy gave limited production qualification status to General Electric Aircraft Engines' F414 engine, powerplant of the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The Navy plan calls for 2,300 engines through the year 2017. The Super Hornet is slated to enter the fleet in 2001. The engine is also being evaluated for potential export after 2000, GE said.
Alliant Techsystems will record a one-time, non-cash charge of $17.4 million against operating income in the fourth quarter representing estimated future costs related to environmental monitoring and maintenance activities, the company said.
The U.S. Army's Special Operations Forces have started the procurement process on Pictometry Inc.'s map-and-image system for tactical use, following demonstrations of the system at the FOSE '97 government information technology expo in Washington last month, company executives reported.
The U.S. Air Force announced across-the-board changes in force structure that apply to bases throughout the U.S. and that affect aircraft, people and organizations. The service said Friday that the moves are "the result of changes in mission, adjustments for efficiency and [will] meet congressional directives." Among the many changes are: a cut A-10s at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.; retirement of C-141Bs at Travis AFB, Calif., and McChord AFB, Wash.; and reduction of six F-15C/Ds at Eglin AFB, Fla.
The Justice Dept. intervened in a lawsuit filed Thursday against Boeing Co. that said Boeing gave the U.S. Army helicopters with defective parts. The suit claims it knowingly provided defective gears for Chinook helicopters for more than seven years. A government investigation confirmed that two gears failed in flight due to cracks and faulty manufacturing, causing two separate Chinook crashes.
The Clinton Administration and the congressional Republican leadership reached agreement on a federal budget resolution package that adds $2.9 billion to the fiscal 1998 budget authority (BA) request for the Pentagon and for nuclear weapons accounts of the Dept. of Energy, congressional sources said Friday. They said it would provide $268.2 billion in BA, which the House National Security Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee wanted. The Administration requested $265.3 billion.
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin has told Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles the space agency will provide funding so the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) can continue operation, according to Lyles. The fate of the program has been up in the air over the past few months as BMDO has been scrambling to find funds to keep the data analysis and satellite operation up and running (DAILY, April 1). The program runs out of money this summer, Lyles told reporters here during a briefing on April 29.
Boeing's announcement that it will enter the aircraft maintenance business could be a positive for BFGoodrich, according to Paul Nisbet of JSA Research Inc. BFGoodrich's Tramco facility, Everett, Wash., sits across the runway from the Boeing plant. In the past, BFGoodrich has faced serious labor problems due to defections to Boeing, but talks have been underway between the companies on various possible arrangements.
General Dynamics and Rockwell International seem prepared for acquisitions, according to Byron Callan, aerospace and defense analyst at Merrill Lynch. He estimates that GD's cash and securities could total $878 million at the end of 1997 and says it has virtually no debt. In addition, he says, GD's past acquisition strategy has been conservative, but it has built strong market positions. Rockwell International, meanwhile, has about $800 million in cash with another $400 million coming from the spinoff of its automotive business, Callan says.
The Senate today is supposed to take up the Appropriations Committee-approved supplemental which rescinds $1.799 billion in defense funds for fiscal 1997 and prior years. The House is scheduled to act Thursday on its Appropriations Committee version, which rescinds $2.034 billion in defense appropriations. Offset are to pay for contingency operations in Bosnia and Southwest Asia.
Brig. Gen. Robert Magnus, Marine Corps assistant deputy chief of staff for aviation, tells the American Helicopter Society that "we're doing a great job of defending the operational need for the Joint Strike Fighter"in the Quadrennial Defense Review.
U.S. arms exporters appear to have dodged a bullet for now with defeat in the House International Relations Committee of an amendment that could have changed the process required to approve international sales of weapons. The amendment, which Rep. Cynthia A. Mckinney (D-Ga.) sought to tack onto a foreign assistance bill, lost by just two votes. It would have required the State Dept. to get clearance from Congress any time it decides to go ahead with an arms sale to a nation that fails to meet certain human rights standards.
Callan sees no problems for Northrop Grumman from the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review. One suggestion was that the QDR's Information and Operation panel favored an Air Force buy of only 12 Joint STARS aircraft instead of the planned 20, but Callan thinks this is unlikely because of the high priority placed on the system by the U.S. and NATO. He also says the QDR could recommend cuts in the Navy's F/A-18E/F program, but that the service will fight hard for the program in the five- year defense plan.
A McDonnell Douglas Delta II rocket carrying a $43 million Global Positioning System satellite failed Jan. 17 because the composite case of one of its nine solid rocket motors (SRMs) split open as the result of undetected impact damage, but U.S. Air Force investigators said Friday they were at a loss to pinpoint the source of the damage.
Despite the AH-64D Apache's ability to use its millimeter wave radar for reconnaissance, the RAH-66 Comanche is better suited for the scout mission and would reduce the chance of friendly casualties, Army acquisition chief Gilbert Decker insists. "I think the casualty rate of [Apache] shoot-downs in that armed reconnaissance environment would be five or six times what it would be for Comanche," he predicts.
The U.S. Army is getting better at detecting and shooting down the Scud missiles used in the Gulf War but still needs improvement, Army and Ballistic Missile Defense Organization officials told reporters here last week. In recent wargame exercises, U.S. troops were "better, but we ain't great yet," said Army Space and Strategic Defense Command Chief Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson.
Even if Tony Blair's New Labor Party has an Old Labor heart and soul, neither the British armed forces nor industry has a clear idea of his government's policies. Blair moved into No. 10 Downing Street Friday after a landslide victory over John Major on Thursday that ended 18 years of Conservative rule in Britain. Few details have emerged about the new prime minister's plans for the future, including how he would fund a number of new social programs without increasing taxes.
U.S. and Russian human spaceflight engineers have emerged from what has literally been a baptism by fire on the Shuttle/Mir program with a much better understanding both of each other and what it will take to keep the International Space Station flying, top officials of the two programs said Friday.
U.S. Army Comanche program director Brig. Gen. James R. Snider may finally become the Army's program executive officer for aviation, officials at the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference said. Two years ago, Maj. Gen. Dewitt "T" Irby, who was the PEO at the time, said Snider was his top pick to replace him. The aviation PEO traditionally has been headed by a military officer, although a civilian, Paul Bogosion, has been in charge for more than a year now.
The National Reconnaissance Office has five top research and development priorities, according to Keith R. Hall, director of the organization. He told reporters during an interview in his Pentagon office last Tuesday that when NRO engineers brief him on a new R&D project, "they have to tie it back to one of those five, because [they] are things that my customers can understand." He said the priorities are:
