The merger of state-owned Aerospatiale and private Dassault Aviation should occur in the first half of the year, according to reports from France. After the merger, the new company will be privatized as a holding company with a supervisory board and a board of directors, according to a statement from Dassault and the French government. The government has asked the independent privatization committee to set the terms of the merger.
Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, Fort Worth, Tex., and representatives of the Dept. of Defense have formed a Joint Management Council to expand efforts to streamline defense contracting procedures, Lockheed Martin said.
Reversing a trend of several years, U.S. airlines in 1996 ordered nearly twice as many aircraft from Boeing Co. as foreign carriers, the manufacturer said. In reporting orders and deliveries for 1996 this week, Boeing Commercial President Ron Woodard said that of the 717 aircraft ordered, 479 came from U.S. carriers and 238 from non-U.S. carriers. In 1995, U.S. carriers placed orders for 76 aircraft, while non-U.S. airlines ordered 270 ; in 1994, 37 orders came from U.S. carriers and 83 from foreign airlines.
HUGHES INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS will upgrade the satellite master control station for Indonesia's P.T. Telecomunikasi Indonesia under a $10 million contract announced Jan. 3. The company's Space Systems unit will upgrade the facility with new computers and operational software, and provide a new baseband system, new antennas, in-orbit test equipment and training and support services. Work on the project will continue through April 1998.
NASA has picked 349 proposals from a field of 2,367 to negotiate for contracts in its $24 million 1996 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I program. The firms selected will be eligible for as much as $70,000 each for six-month feasibility studies. Those who complete Phase I successfully will compete for two-year fixed-price contracts worth as much as $600,000, NASA said.
The FAA has issued two emergency airworthiness directives concerning engine pylons on Boeing 747 aircraft, and a third emergency AD on possible electrical arcing of fuel tank wiring. An AD issued yesterday applies to 747s powered by Rolls-Royce engines. It requires an inspection for cracks and corrosion on all four pylons. Such conditions "could result in failure of the pylon and consequent separation of the engine from the wing." A Jan. 3 AD concerns "migration" of fuse pins on 747 engine pylons.
ASIANA AIRLINES, Korea, selected GE CF6-80C2 turbofan engines to power five Boeing jetliners - three 747-400 two 767-300s - scheduled to begin service in 1998. GE Aircraft Engines estimates the order value at $175 million. Asiana also placed options for three additional CF6-80C2-powered 747s and two more 767s.
Arianespace has opened a second office in Asia to focus on the growing number of satellite telecommunications operators in Southeast Asia. Richard Bowles, former director for sales and marketing in the region, will head the office in Singapore. The European launch consortium, which has won 29 launch contracts in Asia, already has an office in Tokyo.
Atlantic Southeast Airlines said it plans to acquire 30 Canadair Regional Jet aircraft, will place options for another 60, and that a definitive agreement is expected to be "concluded shortly." Value of the 30 firm aircraft - which will be the largest single order for the plane - is $600 million including spares. Deliveries to the Atlanta-based Delta Connection carrier will begin in August at a rate of one a month. Flight and maintenance crew training will begin in June, said John Beiser, ASA president.
LITTON'S DATA SYSTEMS DIV., Woodland Hills, Calif., won a $20 million contract from the Italian Air Force to manufacture, test and deliver enhanced air command and control function (CCTA) modules for its air command and control system. This will be the first international sale of Litton's AN/TYQ-23. Litton will work with Alenia, with equipment delivery scheduled in two years.
The Z-11 helicopter, the first developed by China, made its first flight on Dec. 26 in Jingdezhen, Jianxi Province. Development of the Z-11 began in 1991. The helicopter has a takeoff weight of 2,000 kilograms, a top speed of 240 kilometers an hour, and a range of 600 km.
Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces put one more regiment on combat duty as 1996, reflecting the shift away from silo-based ICBMs to land-mobile missiles. The new regiment is armed with nine road-mobile SS-25 launchers. The single-warhead SS-25 is becoming the core of the land-based component of the Russian nuclear triad after the retirement of the multiple-warhead SS- 11, SS-17 and SS-18.
Raytheon, Texas Instruments programs by market segment Raytheon Co., which plans to buy Texas Instruments' Defense Systems&Electronics unit, says programs of the two companies break down this way: Aircraft and Related Systems
The gathering and dissemination of intelligence by the U.S. must become "more sophisticated," Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The DAILY yesterday. He said in a telephone interview that the committee intends to pursue an aggressive agenda in the new Congress, delving into issues ranging from counter-intelligence to budgetary oversight.
One of the goals of the recent U.S. Air Force Air Staff reorganization is fixing problems the service has been experiencing in the command, control, communications, computers and intelligence arena, AF Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman said yesterday. "I've had tremendous frustration with our inability to get our act together in the C4I business," Fogleman said. He added, however, that the reorganization (DAILY, Dec. 18) could fix that problem.
Commercial aircraft deliveries are in a "moderate recovery" that started in 1996 and will continue through the remainder of the decade, Moody's Investor Service said in its annual report on global aerospace companies, 11 of which the agency rates. "Orders for commercial aircraft should continue being strong, but the present vigor of the delivery rates may ebb somewhat over the next 18 months," wrote Moody's VP Tassos Philippakos. Even so, he said, demand "will grow in the long term" because global airline traffic is expected to rise 5% annually.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said yesterday that "we could effectively use more money" for National Missile Defense, but added that he would settle for a fiscal 1998 appropriations at the '97 level if the Administration would spend the entire amount. The fiscal 1997 NMD appropriation was for $833 million - $325 million more than the Administration requested.
The U.S. Air Force estimates it will save $24 million by accelerating integration of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) on the B-1 bomber rather than pursuing another option to transition the plane to its new conventional combat role. AF Secretary Sheila Widnall last month informed the congressional defense committees that the service plans to use a $20 million fiscal year 1997 appropriations plus-up to accelerate JDAM integration on the Lancer.
Progress of Chinese industry under a strategy of revitalizing the economy through science and technology will be checked by China's State Statistics Bureau and government ministries. The investigations - affecting aviation, rail and water transportation, postal and telecommunication companies, and wholesale, retail and storage businesses - are part of an effort to improve information about the industrial use of science and technology.
The Indonesian Navy, which already has two submarines, plans to buy four more, according to Navy Chief of Staff Arief Kushariadi. Indonesia's Antara News Agency quoted Arief in a report from Jakarta as saying that the country would get two of the four subs from Germany this year. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Air Force expects to take delivery in March of five new jets it has ordered from the U.K. - a Hawk 100 and four Hawk 200s. China's Xinhua News Agency said from Jakarta that Indonesia now has eight Hawk 100s and 16 Hawk 200s.
HUGHES COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEMS, Fullerton, Calif., will begin building an air defense communication subsystem for NATO and the Portuguese Air Force under a $48 million subcontract from Thomson-CSF Airsys of France. Under the four-year contract, the Hughes systems integration team will design, integrate, test and operate the subsystem until the Portuguese Air Force takes control in 2000.
DASSAULT AVIATION received approval from the government of Taiwan to invest $3.63 million in Taichung-based Chenfeng Machinery Enterprise. Dassault plans to acquire 5.3 million shares of Chenfeng, 10% of the outstanding stock. Chenfeng supplies parts for Taiwan's IDF fighters, and Dassault is expected to help the company in research and development of parts and components for Dassault's Falcon 900 commercial jet.
The U.S. Air Force has begun drop tests of its 250-pound small, smart bomb and will carry out two live drops next month. The first inert drop test took place Dec. 23 at Eglin AFB, Fla. An F- 16 flying at 30,000 feet dropped the bomb on a three-foot, reinforced concrete target. Lt. Col. Ted Mundelein, program manager for the miniaturized munitions technology demonstration program, said the bomb hit the target within two meters of its aim point, beating its three-meter accuracy requirement.
RADA ELECTRONIC INDUSTRIES LTD. of Israel said it has received orders for its Commercial Aviation Test System (CATS), Autonomous Combat Evaluation (ACE) system, and maintenance simulator products. The U.K. and China placed CATS orders worth $2.4 million. An order for ACE came from a foreign air force that Rada didn't identify, and Israel's Ministry of Defense ordered a $3 million maintenance simulator.
