Despite an acknowledged $1.45 billion cost increase in the F-22 fighter engineering and manufacturing development program, U.S. Air Force acquisition chief Arthur Money yesterday reported that the plane will still become operational as planned in November 2004, and that the production unit cost won't increase. Money said in a written statement that "the production unit cost will remain the same or may actually decrease due to producibility enhancements recommended."
LITTON INDUSTRIES signed an agreement to acquire the Racal Marine Group from Racal Electronics Plc. The transaction, expected to close early next year, would cost about $49 million, Litton said yesterday. Litton, which acquired Sperry Marine in May 1996, needed a low-cost radar for a Sperry system called the Integrated Bridge, which allows a reduction in manning requirements for ships, a Litton spokeswoman said yesterday. Since Sperry didn't have such a system, "buying Racal was a better way of obtaining it than developing it ourselves," she told The DAILY.
Scott C. Strode has been promoted to general manager of its Pueblo, Colo., manufacturing and assembly plant. He succeeds W.F. (Bill) Mulcahy, who is leaving the company after six years as Pueblo's general manager.
A PIONEER UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE crashed Wednesday morning near St. Inigoes, Md., and was destroyed, the U.S. Navy said. The cause wasn't immediately known. The Navy said there was no damage to private property. The Pioneer was being operated by the Fleet Composite Squadron Six Detachment, based at NAS Patuxent River, Md.
Dr. Barry Horton is joining SRA International, Inc., as a vice president and director of command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (IC4I) programs.
Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski yesterday signed off on the U.S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, setting the stage for a downselect next Monday from four contractors to two for the pre-engineering and manufacturing development phase. Following a Dec. 6 meeting of the Defense Acquisition Board, Kaminski also wrote in an acquisition decision memorandum that he approved the AF plan to use fixed-price EMD contracts - each expected to be worth about $60 million - and the acquisition program baseline.
The U.S. government is challenging European Union Commission officials over accusations that Washington unfairly subsidizes U.S. aerospace companies, even as the EC moved ahead this week with plans to set up what it calls a European "counterbalance" to the power of the Federal Aviation Administration.
William H. Falkenberg joins as senior GPS systems engineer. He is responsible for the management of all of the company's GPS related work, including system engineering, subsystems and several developmental activities.
Samuel L. Venneri has been named chief technologist at NASA headquarters, Washington, D.C. Venneri will report directly to Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, and serve as the principal advisor and advocate on matters concerning agencywide technology policy and programs.
GARRETT AVIATION SERVICES Michael Anderson has been promoted to the newly created position of director of avionics. He will have overall responsibility for the growth, coordination, monitoring and direction of all avionics initiatives and be the primary contact with the avionics Original Equipment Manufacturers for the Garrett Aviation hangar facilities.
The U.S. Navy is surveying industry for sources to provide an in- flight refueling capability to its Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, according to a Dec. 12 Commerce Business Daily notice. At this point, the notice said, the goal is only to determine what U.S. suppliers might exist for a non-developmental solution. Israel has already added a refueling capability to its E-2Cs, and an official said the Israeli company has approached the U.S. to modify its Hawkeyes.
Planners at the Johnson Space Center, looking beyond completion of the International Space Station early in the coming century, have started mapping out post-Station human missions to the moon and Mars that incorporate the faster-better-cheaper approaches already revolutionizing robotic exploration.
A "spaceplane" drawing on NASA technology work aimed at lowering launch costs but able to carry out many other missions as well could be the next big U.S. Air Force procurement after the Joint Strike Fighter, a senior space planner for the service told the American Astronautical Society here.
Pentagon Comptroller John J. Hamre told a recent closed session of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington that a balanced budget agreement between Congress and the Administration is inevitable and that it will probably require $500 billion in defense cuts between now and fiscal year 2003, according to several industry sources who attended the meeting. Cuts of this magnitude could put the defense budget, now at $265 billion, below $200 billion by 2003 and jeopardize planned modernization programs.
U.S. aerospace manufacturers are more profitable this year than they have been in the past two decades, and the "prospects for 1997 look even better," Aerospace Industries Association President Don Fuqua told reporters yesterday in Washington. The jetliner market's rebound has helped manufacturers boost revenue for the first time in five years, to a projected $112.4 billion in 1996.
HUGHES TRAINING INC., Arlington, Tex., received notice from the U.S. Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command to expand Phase I of the Fire Support Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (FSCATT) by developing and fielding an M109A6 Paladin howitzer crew trainer.
SOUTH KOREA plans to buy 111 Army Tactical Missiles (ATACMS) and launch assemblies, 29 Multiple Launch Rocket System launchers, 271 MLRS rocket pods with six missiles per pod, 168 reduced range pods, and 29 modified Bradley vehicles as MLRS launchers, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Under the proposed $624 million deal, Korea would also receive 9 MLRS fire control proficiency trainers, 54 Humvees, 4 M88 recovery vehicles, and 300 night vision goggles.
The U.S. Marine Corps is testing an unmanned glider for possible re- supply of troops. During a recent test at Camp Pendleton, Calif., the glider, a semi- rigid wing built by United Technologies, was lifted to about 5,000 feet by a CH-47 helicopter and successfully deployed, the Marine Corps said. For accurate delivery of a payload, a re-supply glider would be fitted with a Global Positioning System receiver and guidance electronics.
DPIX, Palo Alto, Calif, a Xerox New Enterprise company, won a $2.75 million contract from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop high-resolution reflective-mode display technologies that could provide battlefield participants with digital maps, real-time video and other strategic and tactical information.
The U.S. Navy is taking initial steps to prepare its Aegis radar system for the theater ballistic missile defense mission, still several years away, Navy officials said here. Capt. Gary A. Storm, who heads the Aegis training center, told reporters that he has been working with Rear Adm. Ron Rempt, the head of Navy theater air defense, to develop the doctrine for Aegis use in the TBMD role. The Aegis phased array radar system is deployed on U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers.
INTELSAT is calling for digital compression equipment makers to participate in the third round of interoperability testing at its Technical Laboratories, Washington, D.C., Feb. 18-26, 1997. All makers of MPEG-2/DVB codec equipment are invited to take part in the voluntary testing.
