The U.S. Navy has lifted restrictions on the use of afterburners in F- 14B and D fighters. The restrictions, which applied to all but emergency operations, were instituted after the crash of an F-14D off the coast of southern California on Feb. 24. The crash was attributed to failure of an afterburner on one of the plane's two General Electric F110 engines. It is believed to have been caused by "blockage of the local fan duct airflow by a rotated turbine frame turnbuckle" and oil, Vice Adm. John A.
Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch intends to leave his post within a week or two, an Administration official confirmed yesterday. Deputy DCI George Tenet will be the acting DCI until Congress approves Anthony Lake when it reconvenes in January, the official said, confirming an Associated Press report. President Clinton nominated Lake for the top intelligence post. He has been the national security adviser.
Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine), leaving the Senate and likely to be confirmed as President Clinton's new secretary of defense, may have to temper many of the views he held as a member of the Armed Services Committee. But an examination of positions he expressed last year in the "additional views" section of the committee's report on the fiscal 1997 defense authorization is nevertheless a useful guide to positions he's likely to take in the future.
Raytheon Co., Electronic Systems Division, Bedford, Mass., is being awarded an $83,384,155 modification to a firm fixed price contract (with two cost- type contract line items) for Radar Enhancement Phase III (ECP) and concurrent spares for the PATRIOT Weapon System. A portion of this contract is for the Netherlands ($22,864,304). Work will be performed in Andover, Mass. (28%); Waltham, Mass. (25%); Sudbury, Mass. (15%); Torrence, Calif. (13%); Tewksbury, Mass. (10%); Quincy, Mass. (5%); and Bedford, Mass. (4%), and is expected to be completed by Feb. 28, 2002.
Teledyne Ryan plans to continue using wings made by Boeing North American (formerly Rockwell International) on its entry in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's High-Altitude Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle competition. Boeing and the Federal Trade Commission agreed to a consent order following Boeing's move to acquire Rockwell's aerospace and defense businesses that gave Teledyne the option of replacing BNA as its wing supplier without incurring any significant costs or risk (DAILY, Dec. 6).
Astronaut James D. Wetherbee will command an international crew on Space Shuttle mission STS-86, targeted for a September 1997 launch. STS-86 is the seventh of nine planned missions to dock the Shuttle with Russia's Mir space station. Wetherbee's crew on the Shuttle Atlantis will be pilot Mike Bloomfield and mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Vladimir Titov of the Russian Space Agency, and Jean-Loup Chretien of the French Space Agency.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization plans to demonstrate a new laser communications technology next month designed to transmit data via laser from a low-Earth orbit satellite to a ground terminal. Astro Terra Corp., of San Diego, Calif., is slated to deliver a new laser communications (lasercom) transceiver next month to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., BMDO reports in its 1996 technology update report.
The 1995 National Intelligence Estimate did not specify its assumptions about the payload weight or weights the intelligence community used in forecasting the range of North Korea's Taepo Dong 2 ballistic missile, according to the General Accounting Office. "The payload weight directly affects the range of a missile - that is, a lighter payload allows any given missile to travel farther," GAO says in "Foreign Missile Threats: Analytic Soundness of Certain National Intelligence Estimates" (GAO/NSIAD-96-225).
Small ground force units of 10 to 20 people supported by unmanned vehicles, information systems and remote fire will be key to warfare in the next century, according to the Pentagon's Defense Science Board.
The four-nation European Trigat-MR missile, intended to defeat armored vehicles, has entered the operational test and evaluation phase following completion of industrial qualification trials, the Trigat consortium reported. Trigat-MR is in development for the German, Belgian, British and Dutch militaries. It is built by France's Aerospatiale Missiles, Germany's LFK-LenkflugkoerperSysteme and Daimler-Benz Aerospace, and the U.K.'s British Aerospace.
The DAILY of Dec. 5 (p. 341) incorrectly reported that former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey would not recommend that the U.S. propose an amendment to the ABM Treaty to allow for a two-site national missile defense system and cueing from space-based sensors. In fact, Woolsey supports such a proposal.
LOUIS TABOR has been named president of Litton's FiberCom division, Roanoke, Va., succeeding Robert Martinet, who resigned as general manager in June. Tabor had been at Lucent Technologies, where he was general manager, sales and programs for nationwide federal military accounts.
To bolster the potential for international sales of its AGM-142 standoff missile, Lockheed Martin has taken steps to qualify the weapon for the F-16 fighter. So far, the Electronics and Missiles unit, Orlando, Fla., has conducted two captive carry tests and one separation test with a mass simulation missile, Lockheed Martin's AGM-142 program office said Friday through a spokeswoman. She acknowledged that more testing would be required to fully qualify the missile on the F-16, but said that the tests begin the process.
Ministers from the four Eurofighter partner countries met in London last week and reaffirmed their "full commitment" to the program. Only the United Kingdom and Spain have allocations for Eurofighter production investment in their budgets, but German State Secretary Gunnar Simon said his country would compete approval processes early next year to start the next phases of the program.
When the Navy fields the Standard Missile Block 4 it will be able to fly farther, but that's not the only benefit, says Lt. William Brumbaugh of the Aegis Training Center at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va. SM-4 will be superior over earlier versions "close-in as well," he says. Because it can get to a target much quicker, it will enable ships to fire multiple missiles against high-speed, sea-skimming threats which previously could be engaged only by one missile.
Service Module is late because the Russian government has consistently lagged in payments to Khrunichev for the hardware. Brinkley says he believes that problem will soon be worked out at the highest levels, but until then Khrunichev may have found a way to keep the lights on. The big Russian rocket-maker has a loan of 60 billion rubles (about $11 million) from Unibest bank. The one-month loan is provided as a part of a credit line opened by the bank earlier and intended to cushion gaps in the budget financing of the Khrunichev Center.
Brinkley says the Russians themselves are studying whether a second functional energy block (FGB) could serve in the reboost role in lieu of the Service Module. Scheduled to be the first Station element launched, the initial FGB is undergoing final testing at the Khrunichev Control and Testing Center, and is on schedule for launch next November. Other possible interim Station propulsion systems include the one used on NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) and the Inertial Upper Stage from the Air Force's MX missile, Brinkley says.
There was some negotiating that took place before retiring Sen. William Cohen would consider accepting nomination as defense secretary, say some Capitol Hill aides close to Cohen. Aides tell The DAILY that one of Cohen's requests was for DOD Comptroller John Hamre to get a more senior post at the Pentagon, perhaps even the deputy defense secretary slot. Hamre, who worked for years on the Senate Armed Services Committee before moving over to DOD, is widely respected and well liked among both Republicans and Democrats.
BRITISH AEROSPACE, in a consortium with Rheinmetall AG and Badenwerk AG of Germany, acquired a 49% interest in Germany's STN Atlas Electronik GmbH. BAe said the 140 million pound ($229 million) deal is intended to improve its naval systems business.
The U.S. Air Force's Advanced Airbreathing Dual-Range Missile (AADRM) program will focus on use of a non-traditional missile body and could be a follow-on or upgrade of the Air Superiority Missile Technology (ASMT) program also in development.
Following a four-year development program, the U.S. Marine Corps says it has demonstrated the Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicle with a multi-spectral camera to detect land mines. The specially equipped UAV, known as Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis (COBRA), can identify mines, barricades and similar objects with 98% accuracy, the Marine Corps said. The UAV would be used before an amphibious assault.
NASA may revive an off-the-shelf propulsion system considered for the Space Station back in 1993 if a way can't be found to get work on the cash-starved Russian Service Module underway. Before the Russians joined the Station program, NASA engineers studied a Lockheed- built bus for a large classified payload, possibly the Advanced KH11 reconnaissance platform (DAILY, April 6, 1993). That was scrapped when the Russians showed up with the Service Module, but now that the module is eight months behind schedule (DAILY, Dec.
Despite delays in the Tier III Minus and Tier II Plus programs, the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration under which the systems are being developed won't have to be extended, says Charles Heber, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's high altitude endurance UAV program. But the ability to stay on schedule is dependent on the Tier II Plus first flight not slipping much beyond April and the program's ability to stay on "a reasonable pace."
The U.S. Air Force analysis into negative cost trends on the Lockheed Martin F-22 is delayed, an AF spokeswoman says. The AF has been trying to identify ways to control cost on the development program and was slated to announce results in late November (DAILY, Aug. 2). But the meeting of program executives was called off because of scheduling problems. That final meeting was supposed to determine what corrective action to take, including possible changes in total number of aircraft to buy.
