Evergreen Helicopters of McMinneville, Ore., beat out two bids by Kaman Corp. for the third in a series of U.S. Military Sealift Command vertical replenishment demonstration. Evergreen won a $4.5 million contract on Friday to use two Sikorsky SH-3s to demonstrate the feasibility of resupplying U.S. Navy ships at sea, Military Sealift Command said. The helicopters will be deployed in the Mediterranean aboard the USNS Saturn. MSC is trying to determine if commercial resupply can be a permanent solution for the Navy.
FAIRCHILD FASTENERS, a division of Fairchild Corp., Chantilly, Va., acquired an exclusive call option to purchase Mines de Kali Sainte- Therese's majority interest in Simmonds SA, a European fastener company, for approximately $21 million and the assumption of approximately $35.5 million in debt.
ROBERT V. DAVIS, the U.S. deputy under secretary of defense for space, said yesterday at a National Security Industrial Association conference in Arlington, Va., that he will leave the Pentagon effective March 1.
Delivery of 60 Dassault Mirage 2000-5 air superiority fighters to Taiwan has been moved up several weeks, according to reports from Taipei. They said the first batch of fighters, ordered in 1992, will be shipped this week, well in advance of French President Jacques Chirac's planned visit to mainland China in May.
Clinton Administration space and science officials face sharp questioning today on Capitol Hill as the newly organized House Science Committee gets down to brass tacks on Russia's role in the faltering International Space Station.
A team lead by AAI Corp., Hunt Valley, Md., won a $750,000 contract from the U.S. Air Force for an eight-month study of the depot maintenance workload at Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan AFB, Calif., AAI said. The team, which includes Tracor Flight Systems Inc., Austin, Texas, and GEC-Marconi Avionics Inc., Atlanta, will analyze the current approach to performing the hydraulics, avionics, electrical accessories and program depot-level maintenance for A-10 and KC-135 aircraft.
Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and its chairman when the House was under Democratic control, said Monday he won't run for re-election in 1998. Hamilton has served in the House since 1965. He became a national figure in 1987-88 when he chaired a special House committee looking into the Iran-Contra affair, and this led him to be considered for the 1988 Democratic vice presidential nomination.
General Electric Aircraft Engines failed to work out a financial deal with Airbus Industrie to develop an engine to power the European consortium's hoped-for A340 stretch, clearing the way for rivals Pratt&Whitney and Rolls-Royce to re-enter the fray.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense denied reports from Persian Gulf states that Qatar is scaling down its plans to buy British military equipment. Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding for an $800 million arms package last November. The original package included an unspecified number of British Aerospace Hawk advanced trainers, two Vosper Thorneycroft missile-armed, fast-strike vessels, 90 GKN Piranha armored personnel vehicles and 15 Shorts Starburst close-range surface-to-air missile systems.
Santa Barbara Research Center, Goleta, Calif., is being awarded an $8,080,208 cost-plus- fixed-fee contract to provide for Development of Advanced Very Long Wavelength Infrared Detectors (DAVID). Contract is expected to be completed February 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were four firms solicited and three proposals received. Solicitation began October 1996; negotiations were completed December 1996. Phillips Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is the contracting activity (F29601-97/C-0042).
The House National Security Committee, announcing subcommittee memberships for the new Congress, revealed substantial changes on the procurement and R&D panels. Fourteen of the 27 procurement subcommittee members will be new. Two were senior members of the research and development subcommittee, but they will obviously play a lesser role on procurement. They are James V. Hansen (R-Utah), who has the thankless task of chairing the Standards and Conduct Committee, and John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), who is now ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee.
Russia launched a two-man replacement crew to the Mir space station yesterday, accompanied by a German cosmonaut along as a paying customer. Liftoff of the Soyuz-U booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome came at 5:09 p.m. local time (11:09 a.m. EST), and the capsule separated as scheduled. Aboard were Russian Cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin, and German Cosmonaut Reinhold Ewald. Ewald is to remain aboard Mir performing experiments for about three weeks, returning to Earth with Cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Alexander Koleri. U.S.
An improved Patriot missile defense system intercepted a tactical ballistic missile target in a test in the Central Pacific Ocean on Friday, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization reported yesterday.
U.S. AIR FORCE TRAINING FLIGHTS off the East and Gulf coasts were suspended yesterday following incidents last week involving Air National Guard F-16 fighters and commercial airliners. The stand-down affects active duty, Reserve and Air National Guard training operations on the two coasts. The procedural review is slated to be finished today, the AF said.
Robert T. "Tom" Marsh, former chairman of the board of Thiokol Corp. and a retired U.S. Air Force general, has been designated head of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection by President Clinton. The Commission will review eight infrastructures critical to the security of the nation for economic or national defense reasons: telecommunications, transportation, electric power, oil and gas delivery and storage, banking and finance, water supply systems, emergency services and continuity of government services.
Bombardier's second Global Express business jet made its first flight on Feb. 3 from the company's de Havilland facility in Montreal. During the flight, which lasted about three hours, the plane, No. 9002, reached an altitude of 16,150 feet and a speed of 240 knots, Bombardier said. The aircraft will fly in the Toronto area for about three weeks and then join No. 9001 at Bombardier Learjet's Flight Test Center in Wichita, Kan. The prototype Global Express had logged 127 hours in 45 flights as of Feb. 6.
GEC-Marconi Avionics Limited, United Kingdom, is being awarded a $24,830,521 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-96-C-0105 to exercise an option for Digital Flight Control System (DFCS) test articles, 80 DFCS production units, integrated logistics support, spare and repair parts, flight test support, a reliability and maintainability program, a system safety program, test sets, and associated technical data to address F-14 safety of flight issues. Work will be performed in Rochester, Kent, England, and is expected to be completed by April 1999.
A group of Democrats on Capitol Hill is lobbying the White House for continued production of the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber. They say in a letter to President Clinton that they are disappointed that the Pentagon's Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study hasn't reevaluated the merits of a larger B-2 force for consideration in the fiscal year 1998 Dept. of Defense budget. "Our information is that the DOD has essentially abandoned the specific analysis you directed," the Jan. 17 letter says.
Lockheed Martin Aerostructures said it signed an agreement with Romania's Romaero S.A. to establish an international aerostructure overhaul and maintenance facility. The new facility, located in Bucharest, will perform overhaul and maintenance for large engine thrust reversers throughout Europe, South Africa and the Middle East, Lockheed Martin said.
Frank C. Weaver, associate FAA administrator for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (OCST), will leave his post Friday to take a job in the private sector. Weaver has been head of OCST since 1993, when the office was a part of the Dept. of Transportation. He will become director of Distance Learning Services at Computing Devices International of Arlington, Va. Patti Grace Smith, Weaver's deputy, will become acting head of the office until a permanent replacement is picked, FAA said.
Boeing Co.'s new 737-700 flew for the first time Sunday, taking off from Renton Municipal Airport and landing at Boeing Field in Seattle after a three hour and 35 minute flight. Boeing Capts. Mike Hewett and Ken Higgins conducted tests on systems and structures, the company said. It said data from the tests and the pilots' verbal information will be analyzed. Since launching of the Next Generational 737 line in 1993, Boeing said, 24 airlines have ordered a total of 523 737-600/-700/-800 airliners.
About 300-400 older model Hawk jet trainers in service around the world were grounded briefly last week by British Aerospace pending inspection of the hydraulic power control units (PCUs) for their horizontal stabilators. The inspection was required for Hawks with more than 600 hours of flight time.
CTA Space and Telecommunications managers see a "void" in geostationary communications satellite market coverage that they hope to fill with a line of satellites less than half the size of the newest GEO platforms. The subsidiary of Rockville, Md.-based CTA Inc. rolled out its first lightweight GEO satellite in McLean, Va., near Washington yesterday. At 3,054 pounds, Indostar-1 is so much lighter than other state-of-the-art GEO platforms that CTA believes it can offer its customers two satellites for the price of one they might buy elsewhere.
