Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer says the service will save about $9 billion from fiscal year 1998 through FY '03 mainly because of more efficient logistics. Reducing shipping time could save up to $30 million per day, Reimer says. He also expects distance learning, more simulation, and acquisition reform to contribute to the total savings.
Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) will remain on the Senate Intelligence Committee in the next Congress, Senate aides told The DAILY. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is expected to grant Glenn's request to waive the rule preventing a senator from serving more than eight consecutive years on the committee, aides said. Glenn has a long-standing interest in intelligence issues and asked for the waiver because he feels he has more work to do on the committee, a Glenn spokesman said.
AAR SIGNED a multi-year agreement with Lufthansa CityLine (CLH), a subsidiary of Lufthansa German Airlines, to overhaul and manage all airframe rotable parts for the airline's 18 Avro RJ85 aircraft, AAR announced Friday. The Elk Grove, Ill., company has been supplying the airline with airframe spares inventory during the past year. "A critical factor in winning this new agreement with Lufthansa CityLine is our proven ability to overhaul and manage airframe parts inventory in support of their Fokker 50 fleet over the past two years," David P.
Some senior U.S. Army officials don't want to jump the gun on bringing an early MEADS capability to troops in the field. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles says Medium Extended Area Defense System program officials are considering deployment of some User Operational Evaluation Systems (UOES) around 2001-2003. But, Brig. Gen. Daniel L. Montgomery, the Army's PEO for missile defense, tells reporters he would like to see how the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system UOES effort goes before committing to a MEADS UOES.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) says the House National Security R&D subcommittee which he chairs will have a "major focus" in the new Congress on China's missile and technology developments. China has been aggressively selling conventional and nuclear weapon technologies, (Cont. p. 432) and its growing intercontinental missile capability rattled American officials earlier this year when tensions between China and Taiwan led one Chinese official to warn that U.S. military intervention might lead to a strike on Los Angeles.
BMDO has still hasn't decided whether it can afford to accelerate THAAD deployment from 2006 to 2004. The move is still being evaluated and will be decided before the Pentagon submits its fiscal year 1998 budget to Congress. BMDO wants to speed the program and has been studying the option for several months.
The U.S. Air Force plan to restructure F-22 engineering and manufacturing development (DAILY, Dec. 20) will come under scrutiny in early January when top Pentagon officials will have their say about how best to proceed with the program. Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski is convening a meeting of the Defense Acquisition Board members to review the program on Jan. 6.
UNITED SPACE ALLIANCE, the Lockheed Martin/Boeing North American venture set up to manage day-to-day Space Shuttle operations for NASA, has named Denton R. Hanford its president, the Houston-based company announced. A 35- year Boeing veteran with experience in space propulsion, Hanford was most recently vice president and general manager of Boeing Defense&Space Group's Helicopter Div.
CHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY, Cambridge, Mass., received an $11.1 million modification to a contract from the Navy's Strategic Systems Program to exercise an option to provide support for the Strategic Readiness/Technology Sustainment program for the Trident II (D5) missile Mk. 6 guidance system.
U.S. NAVAL SEA SYSTEMS COMMAND awarded increases to existing contracts held by Bath Iron Works Corp., Bath, Maine, and Ingalls Shipbuilding Inc., Pascagoula, Miss., for construction of two fiscal year 1997 Flight IIA DDG 51 Class Aegis Destroyers. Bath got $675.5 million and Igalls got $659.4 million.
A crew of 23 Dutch air force pilots training to fly McDonnell Douglas AH-64A Apache helicopters completed their course this week at Ft. Hood, Tex. The Netherlands Air Mobile Brigade is receiving 12 AH-64As as an interim capability until MDC can deliver the 30 AH-64Ds the country has ordered. MDC reported that the crews will return to The Netherlands in January to begin operating the AH-64As. The crew that makes up the 301st Squadron will be based at Gilze-Rijen air base. They are slated to perform armed escort and reconnaissance.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Government Electronics Systems, Moorestown, N.J., received a non-competitive $67.8 million contract from Naval Sea Systems Command for DDG 51 Class Aegis Combat Systems installation and testing. Options could bring the value of the contract to $183.3 million. The company also received a $44 million modification to a contract for production of the Aegis Weapon System Mk. 7 Mod 11 for DDG 85.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN Marine Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif., received a non- competitive $49.2 million contract from the Navy's Strategic Systems Programs for the fiscal 1997 Trident Launcher Backfit Program, including making process demonstration hardware. The contract also provides for U.S. and U.K. technical engineering services in support of the Trident I (C4) and Trident II (D5) launcher subsystem.
The U.S. Air Force and Boeing Co. have jointly tested an AGM-86C Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile guided with an improved Global Positioning System. The GPS system used in the Dec. 12 precision strike demonstration was better than the early generation, single-channel GPS receiver used during cruise missile strikes against Iraq in September. The improved system uses a new navigation model and algorithms to compensate for signal time delays caused by pressure and temperature changes in the Earth's atmospheric layers, Boeing said.
The U.S. Air Force will extend the Lockheed Martin F-22 engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) program by nine months and reduce the number of aircraft bought in low-rate initial production (LRIP) to offset a more than $2 billion EMD cost increase.
The U.S. Army plans to integrate components of the Longfog long-range fiber-optic guided missile in preparation for a virtual flight test by the end of next year. Longfog, being developed under the Multi-Mode Airframe program, is intended to attack high value targets at ranges of 70 to 100 kilometers, and would require an accuracy of about a meter, Army program manager George Landingham said in an telephone interview from Army Missile Command, Huntsville, Ala. It would be fired by the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS).
Defense Secretary-designate William S. Cohen has been a persistent critic of the U.S. government's computer buying practices, and has been identified with two pieces of procurement legislation notable for their unconventional approaches to competitive contracting, an examination of his 18-year Senate record has revealed. The Maine Republican's view of the way the U.S. buys computers can best be summed up by the title of his 1994 report - "Computer Chaos."
GENERAL ELECTRIC Engine Services received a $100 million contract from United Air Lines to overhaul and repair CF6-6 engines for DC-10-10 aircraft during the period the planes are transitioned to Federal Express. Bill Vareschi, president of GE Engine Services, noted that the company also performs engine maintenance for FedEx.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Aero&Naval Systems Div., Baltimore, received a $25.6 million modification to a contract from Naval Sea Systems Command for production of Mk. 41 Vertical Launch Systems, installation support and ancillary hardware. Lockheed Martin will award a subcontract to United Defense Limited Partnership, Minneapolis.
Testing on the thrust chamber and propellant injector for Rocketdyne's new RS-68 engine has been completed, with stable combustion demonstrated at a variety of throttle settings and temperatures on the components under development for McDonnell Douglas' "Delta IV" entry in the Pentagon's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle competition.
Boeing's acquisition of McDonnell Douglas reduces the number of major helicopter contractors in the U.S. from four to three, a move predicted by the Electronic Industries Association's recent Ten-Year Forecast and praised by industry analysts.
The U.S. Army will expand the number of airborne mine detection systems to be evaluated in a flyoff next spring. The move is being made to comply with direction from Congress, and follows failure of systems developed by Northrop Grumman and Raytheon to meet performance criteria. The Army wanted to deploy at least one of the systems to Bosnia, but Lawrence Nee, Army program manager for the Airborne Standoff Minefield Detection System (ASTAMIDS), said that neither met performance criteria in a demonstration at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., last month.
China has exported 20 hovercraft to Singapore, marking the beginning of an international market in Chinese hovercraft, according to the Dec. 11 edition of the China Daily newspaper. It said the craft are made by Tiantong Corp. of Nantong, Jiangsu Province, and are 12 meters long, 4.5 meters wide, and have a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. Tiantong, it said, has developed eight models of hovercraft since it was established eight years ago.
The U.S. Navy is planning a two-part effort to bolster shipboard anti- air electronic warfare capability. A draft request for proposal for the Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System (AIEWS) is slated to be released Jan. 13, the Navy said in a Dec. 19 Commerce Business Daily notice. It said AIEWS will be the Navy "next generation shipboard electronic warfare system." The program will be structured in two increments, the first to be fielded in 2001 and the second around 2004, the Navy said.
