Boeing's market forecasters believe the jetliner recovery now underway may mark one of the industry's longest upswings, perhaps as long as seven years, Marketing VP Bruce Dennis told reporters as his team prepared to release the 1997 Current Market Outlook annual aircraft forecast today. "If we look at the cycle right now it looks very, very positive," Dennis said. The typical aircraft ordering cycle spans anywhere from two to seven years, "and we're hopeful that this cycle is going to be a seven-year run."
A Pentagon assessment of capabilities in the field of air superiority is flawed because it doesn't support program and budgeting decisions, the General Accounting Office says in a new report. The Defense Dept.'s "methodology...had significant limitations and did not address key issues confronting the air superiority mission," the GAO said in "Combat Air Power: Joint Assessment of Air Superiority Can be Improved" (NSIAD-97-77). One failing, GAO said, is that DOD doesn't "identify the extent of overlap among air superiority systems."
Lockheed Martin rolled out the first two F-16 Block 50 aircraft for Greece - a single-seat F-16C and a two-seat F-16D - on Jan. 28, the company announced. "To roll out two pilot aircraft on the same day is quite a feat and a first for the company," Steve Rambin, program director for the F-16 Greece Program, said in a prepared statement. "We usually have a spread of a month or two between the initial one- and two-seat versions of any new F-16 configuration."
Northrop Grumman Norden Systems, Inc., Melville, N.Y., is being awarded a $45,844,876 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to design, develop, fabricate, and tes t the Generic Acoustic Stimulation System. Work will be performed in Melville, N.Y., and is expected to be completed by February 2003. Contract funds would not have expired at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured by a request for proposals with 43 proposals solicited and two offers received.
Reps. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) and Bernard Sanders (Ind.-Vt.), who succeeded last year in restricting the writeoff of merger costs in U.S. defense contracts, expect to have about 25 sponsors when they introduce their bill today to prohibit the Pentagon from permitting defense contractors to recover any merger-related costs.
Northrop Grumman Corporation, Pico Rivera, Calif., is being awarded a $29,345,315 face value increase to a cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for CY 1997 Interim Contractor Support for operational B-2 aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed December 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Oklahoma Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., is the contracting activity (F34601-94/C-0070, P00076).
The Congressional Budget Office offers five alternatives to the Administration's plan strategic mobility plan to combine an all-C-17 airlift force with sealift, all but one of which are less costly. The Administration plan, already in effect, calls for buying the remaining 72 planes in the 120-plane C-17 program between fiscal years 1998 and 2003, and 11 large, medium speed roll-on, roll-off ships. The plan would cost $21.5 billion in the '98-'02 period. Two heavy brigade sets would be prepositioned, one in the Persian Gulf and one in South Korea.
RAYTHEON CO. won a $44.3 million U.S. Air Force contract for the National Air and Space (Warfare) Model, a simulation system for battlestaff training, education and readiness.
A spokesman for Daimler-Benz Aerospace yesterday denied reports from Europe Friday that DASA had plans to put its LFK missile division up for sale, and that it had already received a provisional bid from Matra BAe Dynamics. "We never said that," the spokesman said in a telephone interview. "It was the chairman of British Aerospace [Robert Baumann] who said that."
McDonnell Douglas, Fairchild Aerospace Fasteners and General Electric Engine Systems will divide $6.8 million awarded by California's Employment Training Panel (ETP) for reimbursement for retraining their employees, ETP announced Thursday. Some of the employees were laid off in 1994 due to a downturn in the industry. McDonnell Douglas Space and Defense Systems, Huntington Beach and Monrovia, Calif., received $992,600 for retraining 1,626 employees.
McDonnell Douglas Corp., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $106,256,057 face value increase to a firm fixed price contract to provide for four F- 15E aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed January 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-96/C-0003, P00005).
Alliant Techsystems completed the sale of its Marine Systems Group (MSG) to Hughes Electronics Corp. for $141 million in cash, Alliant announced yesterday. Alliant expects the sale, announced in December (DAILY, Dec. 24, 1996), to result in an after-tax gain of about $20 million in its fourth quarter, which ends March 31. Richard Schwartz, chairman, president and CEO, said most of the proceeds would be used for debt reduction. MSG, based in Mukilteo, Wash., employs about 650 people in six states.
A European Ariane 44P launch vehicle orbited the first Intelsat 801 telecommunications platform in a launch Friday delayed one day by poor weather at the European launch center at Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff of the rocket and its 3,420-kilogram payload came at 8:07 p.m. EST Friday, placing the satellite in its proper geostationary transfer orbit.
India's 1997-98 budget doubles its allocation for science and technology from the previous year, according to reports from New Dehli. The budget presented to parliament proposed to increase the country's science and technology spending by three billion rupees ($84.51 million). The defense outlay will be 356.2 billion rupees ($10 billion), an increase of 66 million rupees ($1.86 billion) over 1996-97 figures.
Parker Hannifin Corporation, Andover, Ohio, is being awarded a $6,873,500 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 232 Spraybar Modification Kits applicable to the F-101 engine on the B-1B aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed April 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began September 1996; negotiation were completed October 1996. Oklahoma Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., is the contracting activity (F09603-96/G-0020-SD02).
Continuing development problems with the advanced Space Shuttle Main Engine liquid hydrogen turbopump under development at Pratt&Whitney will delay first flight of the complete SSME Block 2 engine about six months, until the middle of next year, NASA and company officials say.
Although the Defense Dept. has made progress in reducing the value of its secondary inventory, about $41.2 billion of inventory valued at $67 billion isn't needed, a draft General Accounting Office report concludes. In some cases, GAO said "Defense Logistics: Much of the Inventory Exceeds Current Needs," NSIAD-97-91, the Pentagon had 100 years or more of unneeded inventory on hand and in some cases was ordering additional inventory for items with 20 or more years of unneeded inventory in place.
Raytheon E-Systems and the Australian Defense Dept. reached an agreement in principal to establish a marketing support and information exchange agreement to market upgrades and modifications of the P-3 patrol aircraft to other countries, the two announced. The AP-3C upgrade was developed by E-Systems for the Royal Australian Air Force's 18 AP-3C maritime patrol aircraft.
McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $283,210,869 firm fixed price contract for definitization of long lead contract for 25 F-15I aircraft and related effort for the Government of Israel and the Israeli Air Force. Contract is expected to be completed in May 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of current fiscal year. The solicitation was issued in May 1994 and negotiations were completed in Oct. 1996. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is the contracting activity F33657-94-C-2195-P00014.
Hughes Missile Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $6,500,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00024- 94-C-5434 for completion of the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Block 1 Guided Missile Launching System (GMLS) development effort. This contract includes two options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of the entire contract to $8,576,466. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by September 1998. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
LOCKHEED MARTIN/NORTHROP GRUMMAN joint venture producing the Longbow Hellfire missile and its launchers received a $234.9 million contract from the U.S. Army for about 1,000 missiles and 200 launchers.
Accountants for the C-17 airlifter program say a new rivet coating can save $2.2 million on construction of each new Globemaster III, according to McDonnell Douglas. A pre-coated dry sealant for titanium pins and aluminum rivets has been developed by the McDonnell Douglas' Military Transport Div., along with suppliers Hi-Shear Corp. and Aerospace Rivet Manufacturing Corp. MDC said the new sealant reduces the process variability factor in installing 590,000 titanium pins and 733,000 rivets each C-17.
PRB Associates, Inc., Hollywood, Md., is being awarded a $8,157,153 cost plus award fee contract to develop an automated tool that aids the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC), the Area Air Defense Commander (AADC), and their staffs in the Joint Air Operations Center (JAOC) in campaign planning for joint theater air and missile defense. Contract is expected to be completed in Jan 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of current fiscal year. The solicitation was issued in December.
Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $5,675,000 firm-fixed-price delivery order against a basic ordering agreement for the fabrication and installation of 11 Night Targeting System/Cockpit Canopy Modifications into 10 USMC AH-1W Helicopters and one USMC Composite Maintenance Trainer. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed by May 1999. Contract funds would not have expired at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
