Though the Air Force is confident it can complete its current B-2 program within the estimated $29 billion pricetag, certain cost and schedule risks remain, the General Accounting Office reports.
The U.S. Marine Corps has been experimenting with the idea of using small unmanned aerial vehicles to deploy non-lethal weapons. The service said ExDrone, or Expendable Drone, UAVs dropped pepper spray, anti-tire spikes and whistles - all items that might be used "to disrupt the opposition if deadly force is not required." In a week-long series of tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., ExDrones, each weighing about 100 pounds fully loaded, were launched against simulated troop targets grouped in a 15-meter-diameter area.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS team developing the Outrider unmanned aerial vehicle has begun construction of an Integration and Training Facility for the system at Hondo, Tex. The 25,000 square foot hangar should be completed next summer.
Nonrecurring charges of $26.3 million for merger costs and restructuring hurt third quarter results for Allegheny Teledyne Inc., Pittsburgh, the company reported yesterday. It reported revenues of $45.9 million, before the nonrecurring charges, on sales of $878.5 million and revenues, down from $64.8 million and $878.5 million in 1995.
First guided launch of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) took place Tuesday at the Eglin AFB, Fla., test range, and preparations are underway for full-up testing using GPS-aided guidance, according to the U.S. Air Force.
The German Ministry of Defense is eyeing an anti-radiation missile that would use an infrared seeker to allow engagement of a radar even after the radar has been turned off, thus defeating a favored technique of foiling current anti-radar missiles, according to officials of the German company AEG Infrared Modules (AIM).
At least eight seats are up for grabs on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in the next Congress. Three members of the Senate Intelligence Committee - Sens. William Cohen (R-Maine.), Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.) and Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) - are retiring. And Senate Committee Chair Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) will be leaving the panel in accordance with a rule that no member can serve more than eight consecutive years.
The U.S. Air Force in fiscal 1996 recorded its second safest year ever, and hopes to prevent mishaps in the future through an expanding program to better understand and manage the human factors that cause crashes, Brig. Gen. Orin L. Godsey, the Air Force chief of safety, said yesterday.
American Airlines hopes to parlay reliable service experience on its Rolls-Royce-powered Boeing 757 narrowbody twins into a whole new class of extended twin operations, or ETOPS, routes, and executives familiar with American's plan tell AP the carrier believes it has enough data to launch daily 757 service between Los Angeles and Maui next month on the basis of analysis alone.
Four of United Technologies Corp.'s five operating segments, led by Pratt&Whitney and Flight Systems, achieved double-digit percentage gains in operating profit in the third quarter, the company announced yesterday. Flight Systems posted a 28% gain, while Pratt&Whitney recorded a 25% increase.
Technicians at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will move NASA's Cassini probe into position this week for two months of acoustic, vibration and thermal testing designed to ensure the spacecraft can survive the rigors of its upcoming mission to Saturn. A spokeswoman for JPL said the 35-foot-long probe will be moved to JPL's test facility this week for testing in flight configuration, including thermal blankets and a mockup of the European Huygens subprobe that Cassini will drop by parachute into the atmosphere of the moon Titan.
NASA's Ames Research Center is testing Global Positioning System-based technology that gives pilots a virtual view of fogged-in taxiways to reduce weather delays at the nation's airports.
Japanese trading company Marubeni Corp. joined Rolls-Royce's Trent very high-bypass turbofan program as a risk- and revenue-sharing partner last week, and will "cooperate on a range of activities to enhance the sales opportunities" of Rolls engines, particularly in the Pacific Rim, Rolls reports.
Medium turbofan specialist CFM International - a venture between General Electric and France's SNECMA - has launched another round in its aggressive new marketing counterattack to rival International Aero Engines, this time taking aim at IAE's fan technology.
The General Electric/Pratt&Whitney Engine Alliance is "within days or weeks" of working out an agreement with Airbus Industrie for a slightly larger version of the GP7000 series engine being developed for rival Boeing's planned large derivatives of the 747, top GE executives confirm. Engine Alliance chief Larry Scott told reporters earlier this week at an airshow in Seoul that the venture is very close to a deal covering a 78,000-lbst. engine dubbed the GP7277 to power Airbus's proposed 550-seat A3XX large aircraft.
Record sales and net income gains in the aerospace sector propelled AlliedSignal Inc., Morristown, N.J., to a net income of $253 million for the third quarter, a 17% increase over a 1995 record of $217 million, the company reported yesterday. Net income in the aerospace sector was $98 million, a 21% increase over 1995 levels. Sales finished at $1.5 billion, a 12% rise, and were up in all four industry segments - commercial and military original equipment and the commercial and military aftermarkets.
The U.S. Air Force wants to move away from reactive lethal suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and instead take the initiative by preemptively engaging targets, AF officials said.
GE Plans Investments To Boost Kuala Lumpur Shop General Electric is setting up an aircraft engine overhaul center at the Malaysia Airlines Aero facility in Subang, Malaysia, to service GE's Asia Pacific customers whose engines are serviced today in the U.S. and Europe.
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORP., Falls Church, Va., won a contract worth about $440 million from Lockheed Martin to provide logistical support for the U.K.'s Merlin helicopter program, the company said yesterday. It will provide technical and engineering support to the Merlin Support and Spares Availability System (MSSAS) contract won by Lockheed Martin Aerospace Systems Integration Corp. CSC will provide a spares modeling system, engineering data base and inventory tracking and control. Work will be performed at CSC's Portsmouth, U.K., facility.
Japan, Korea and Taiwan, with combined defense budgets of more than $80 billion, offer the best opportunities for defense electronics sales in the Far East, according to an Electronics Industries Association study. "They've got money and security concerns in the future that they want to take care of," said Maurice ("Bo") White, chairman of the "Asian Tiger" study, released last week at the EIA's annual Ten Year Forecast Conference in Washington.
The U.S. Air Force is adding another Cobra Ball reconnaissance aircraft to its inventory so it can have two of the planes constantly available for deployment, an AF official said.
The U.S. Air Force's Phillips Laboratory and Utah State University have entered an agreement to jointly develop and test a lightweight, inexpensive satellite laser communications system. The low power telemetry system would enable satellite sensors to transmit data to ground stations for processing. The technique eliminates the current need for a bulky, onboard transmitter and permits construction of smaller satellites with low power requirements, the Air Force said.
No matter what the overall outcome of the upcoming Senate elections, Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) will continue to lead the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense in the 105th Congress. Stevens and Inouye have swapped the chair of the defense panel before as their parties have lost and regained control of the Senate. The panel has a particularly strong reputation among Senate ranks for working in a bipartisan fashion despite disagreements over some weapons program specifics.
U.S. Naval Air Systems Command has decided to delay the schedule of the Joint Emitter Targeting System program by a year to offset a funding cut dictated by the Dept. of the Navy, according to Marine Corps Col. Nolan Schmidt, NavAir's program manager for tactical electronic warfare.
