The U.S. Air Force's B-2 stealth bombers were declared operational yesterday for nuclear as well as conventional missions. Certification for the conventional role was achieved on Jan. 1. Tests in recent weeks led to the nuclear certification, an AF spokesman said. The service has received 13 of 21 planned B-2s. The first of the Northrop Grumman bombers was delivered in late 1993, and the rest are slated to be delivered by 2000.
Computing Devices International (CDI), Minneapolis, and British Aerospace Systems&Equipment (BASE), Plymouth, England, signed an agreement to jointly market a Digital Terrain System (DTS) for military aircraft, the companies announced last week. The system includes BASE's software-based TERPROM and CDI's PowerPC avionics computer. The primary markets for this upgrade are existing AN/AYK-14 platforms, including F/A-18, F-14, AV-8B, EA-6B and V-22 aircraft. A BAe representative said that could mean 350-400 aircraft.
Rep. John Kasich (R-Ohio) and a bipartisan group of 30 lawmakers have introduced legislation terminating funding for the U.S. military mission to Bosnia at the end of FY '97 on Sept. 30. "We want our military men and women out of Bosnia by Sept. 30," Kasich said. House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), one of the co-sponsors of the bill, said the time has come to draw the line and force the Administration to withdraw troops. "Today, our troops remain in Bosnia in support of a policy that still lacks a credible exit strategy," Spence said.
March 24, 1997 Hughes Missile Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $7,000,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-94-C-0257 for 20 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles Remanufacture of Block II to Block III Submarine Torpedo Tube Launch Missiles. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by September 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity.
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW as early as this week are expected to announce they have formed a new joint venture to develop and integrate a national missile defense (NMD) system. While the contractors planned to make public the joint venture sooner, it took longer than expected to work through all the details, industry sources said.
The next few weeks could be critical for the future of the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) as the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) scrambles to find funds to keep data analysis and satellite operation up and running. BMDO's fiscal year 1998 budget request contains only $4.5 million for MSX, but program officials say it will take much more than that to finish the huge amount of analysis on data collected from launches over the past year.
The Pentagon should provide management reserves to its acquisition programs to mitigate the effects of unpredictable funding, Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski said yesterday. Having championed acquisition reform as a way of bringing down cost, Kaminski said instability is "the single biggest issue" facing Pentagon programs. The Defense Dept. should, therefore, think about establishing "some degree of reserves for programs," Kaminski said during a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon.
Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fla., won a subcontract from McDonnell Douglas to provide the U.S. Navy with an advanced digital map systems (DMS) in support of the Tactical Aircraft Moving Map Capability (TAMMAC) program, Harris announced. Harris Government Aerospace Systems Div. will be responsible for the engineering, manufacture and development of the modular DMS. The program is for the F/A-18E/F, plus the fleets of F/A-18C/D, AV-8B, V-22, AH-1W and UH-1N aircraft that will receive upgraded systems.
The U.S. Air Force wants to develop a software tool to assist commanders in executing attack operations and planning allocation of weapons. Funding for the Attack Operations Decision Aid (AODA) program is still in flux, but the AF's Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., expects to have between $5 million and $10 million for prototype development of one system, Robert Columbus, AF program manager, told The DAILY in a telephone interview yesterday. The program is still in the pre- milestone 1 phase.
NASA has completed proof pressure tests to verify the design of the aluminum lithium lightweight external tank developed to help the Space Shuttle carry heavy modules to the 51.6-degree orbit of the International Space Station. In tests completed March 25 at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, the liquid oxygen section of the 154-foot tank was given a hydrostatic test under simulated launch conditions, while the liquid hydrogen portion was filled with gaseous nitrogen.
GEN. WESLEY K. CLARK will replace Gen. George A. Joulwan as head of U.S. European Command, Stuttgart, Germany, and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the Pentagon announced yesterday. Clark currently heads U.S. Southern Command. Joulwan, who served for three years as SACEUR, announced earlier he would retire this summer. Clark's successor at Southern Command hasn't been named.
A coordinated network of shipboard missiles to attack land targets proved to be one of the items most worth pursuing, according an initial assessment of a warfighting experiment jointly conducted by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The "ring-of-fire" concept includes several off-shore missile and gun shooters and a collaborative planning and fire control network (DAILY, March 11). It was played for the first time as an add-on to the Marines' "Hunter Warrior" exercise at Twentynine Palms earlier this month.
Northrop Grumman's Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Ship Systems business unit, Melville, N.Y., won a $45.8 million contract from the U.S. Navy to upgrade an airborne ASW simulator system, the company announced. The Generic Acoustic Simulation System (GASS) contract calls for development and manufacture of an acoustic shallow-water simulation upgrade to four existing trainers.
FAA officials are denying industry assertions that the Wide Area Augmentation System is more than $100 million over budget and likely to climb even higher. But they have not denied that capabilities of the GPS satellite-based system, intended to aid aircraft landings, are being relaxed.
JOHN DEUTCH, former Director of Central Intelligence, should be put in charge of the Administration's efforts to form an encryption export policy, says Senate Intelligence Committee Ranking Democrat Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.). Accusing diplomats and bureaucrats of "dithering," he says Deutch is well qualified to find a way to help law enforcement while keeping U.S. information technology competitive.
March 28, 1997. Boeing North American, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., is being awarded a $20,925,336 face value increase to a cost plus fixed fee contract to provide for interim contractor support from April 1997 through March 1998 for the AC-130U aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed March 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-94/C-0047, P00024).
A U.S. Navy decision to have McDonnell Douglas start building the Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expanded Response system in fiscal 1996 will allow the service to take first deliveries next April, almost a year ahead of schedule, according to Bob Krieger, MDC's general manager for missile systems. The Navy was going to begin remanufacturing SLAM missiles into the SLAM-ER configuration in 1997. But it decided not to use funds requested and appropriated in FY '96 for regular SLAMs and instead to build the newer version immediately.
The Marines have one more hurdle to overcome before the Bell/Boeing V-22 can enter low-rate initial production - a Defense Acquisition Board meeting next month. But H. Lee Dixon, director of the Resources Div. in the Marine Corps Programs and Resources Dept., is optimistic. "We've passed all four of our exit criteria," he says. The most visible of those included flying the V-22 from Bell's Fort Worth, Tex., facility to Naval Air Station Patuxent River for flight testing.
Europe should take the money intended to buy Lockheed Martin C-130Ks and sink it into building a transport with the same efficiencies, Auque tells the Aviation Week Group Aerospace Finance '97 conference in Washington last week. "Lockheed Martin's strategy is clear," Auque says. "They want to prevent the building of the FLA (Future Large Aircraft) to have a monopoly. It's a sound strategy."
