McDonnell Douglas named James M. Sinnett to the new position of corporate vice president-technology. Sinnett, 56, is former senior vice president of the Advanced Systems&Technology-Phantom Works division of McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. Taking over as leader of that organization now, MDC said yesterday, is David O. Swain, 54, who has been vice president and general manager.
The preliminary design review for Lockheed Martin's X-33 Venturestar is scheduled for the first week of November, and first flight is planned for March 1999, according to Ken Mattingly, the company's program manager.
The Navy has yet to demonstrate an intercept using a Standard Missile II Block IV-A, and it may be a few more months before that happens, Rear Adm. Rodney Rempt, the service's program executive officer for theater air defense, said yesterday at a Surface Navy Association symposium in Arlington, Va.
The Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is beyond the point of meeting a 2000 deployment date, William C. Loomis, vice president of Lockheed Martin Defensive Missile Systems, told The DAILY in an interview Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army show in Washington. For technical reasons, the earliest THAAD could be deployed with reasonable risk would be in the 2002-03 timeframe, Loomis said.
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office is leaning against the option of upgrading a U.S. Navy mission recorder used on the S-3B aircraft for DARO reconnaissance and surveillance platforms, DARO Director Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. Israel has told the Senate and House intelligence committees. DARO, as requested by the congressional intelligence and defense panels, has assessed the possibility of upgrading the AN/USH-42 analog tape-based recorder to a digital-based tape recorder for DARO aircraft, Israel says in a memo sent to the committees last month.
National defense isn't getting enough attention in the run-up to the presidential election and is too focused in any case on Washington issues, according to John Hamre, the Pentagon's comptroller, and Dan Tellep, former chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp. In comments at the Association of the U.S. Army show in Washington Wednesday, they agreed that the public ultimately loses.
Although Democrats in the House and Senate this year have steadily improved their chances of winning control of Congress in the congressional elections next month, an analysis of aerospace political action contributions shows that these PACs continued to favor Republicans in 1996 with a majority of their campaign contributions as they did last year.
Estonian Air Navigation Services (EANS) awarded Raytheon Electronic Systems a $1.8 million contract to supply a monopulse secondary surveillance radar for Tallin, Estonia's capitol city, Raytheon said. The radar will be manufactured in the U.K. by Raytheon Cossor and will go into service on Jan. 1, 1998. Earlier this year, Raytheon signed a contract to supply an MSSR system for Martna in southwest of Estonia.
Despite a funding increase and a congressional directive to develop a second source of engines for the Joint Strike Fighter, the Pratt&Whitney F119 engine is getting more, by a ratio of almost 10-to-1, than the General Electric F120 in the pre-engineering and manufacturing development phase, congressional sources said.
The Department of the Navy has a continuing need for a vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle in addition to the Tactical UAV it's slated to receive if the on-going Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration is successful, a Marine Corps officer said yesterday. Maj. Gen. Edward Hanion, DON director for expeditionary warfare, said the service wants to put a UAV on frigates and destroyers in addition to the carriers and large-deck amphibious ships slated to receive the Alliant Techsystems' T-UAV, or Outrider.
Two robotic spacecraft NASA plans to launch to Mars before the end of the year are on schedule and under budget as the planetary launch window approaches, thanks to components left over from the ill-fated Mars Observer probe, greater use of off-the-shelf hardware, and the faster-better-cheaper approach touted by Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.
THE SECOND F/A-18F two-seat Super Hornet flew for the first time Oct. 11, McDonnell Douglas said yesterday. With company chief test pilot Fred Madenwald in the front seat and Dave Desmond, another MDC test pilot, in the back seat, the plane flew for 1.9 hours from McDonnell Douglas' facilities in St. Louis. It was the sixth of seven Super Hornets to fly. Three are in St. Louis and four more are at Naval Air Warfare Center Patuxent River, Md., MDC said. By December, it said, all seven will be at Pax River.
The lead system integrator for the national missile defense (NMD) system will have to share proprietary technical data with all other associate contractors working on the program, according to a draft request for proposals that Pentagon officials are reworking. The draft, released by BMDO last month, will be tweaked before a revised version is released. One of the areas that could change is the relationship between the lead systems integrator and the associate contractors.
McDONNELL DOUGLAS has opened a 22,500-square-foot facility in Huntington Beach, Calif., where it will prepare International Space Station components for shipment to Kennedy Space Center, Fla., for launch. The assembly and test building will be used for Station truss segments and other hardware McDonnell Douglas is building under contract to Station prime contractor BOEING. Among the first pieces of hardware to be prepared at the new facility will be the pressurized mating adapter that will connect the U.S. Station modules to those supplied by Russia, the company said.
GENERAL ELECTRIC set record third-quarter earnings, the company reported last week. Earnings per share increased 13% to $1.08, and earnings rose 11% to $1.788 billion. Revenues, including acquisitions, rose to a record $20 billion, up 15% over last year's quarter. In a prepared statement, Chairman John F. Welch attributed the increase to GE's "diverse mix of leading global businesses." Among the highlights, Aircraft Engines won more than 60% of the orders for large commercial engines in 1996.
Parker Hannifin Corp.'s aerospace segment turned in sales of $195.9 million for the first quarter ended Sept. 30, 1996, a 44.8% increase over the same quarter in 1995. The acquisition of Abex accounted for nearly 80% of the sales increase, the company reported.
The $12 million cut Congress made to the $38.9 million Aerostat cruise missile defense program in the fiscal 1997 budget doesn't mean the end of the effort, new commander of Army Space and Strategic Defense Command Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III. "It does not kill the program," Anderson told reporters at a briefing at the Association of the U.S. Army show in Washington yesterday. "The Aerostat is a very, very important program." Anderson, who has been in his new post a little over a week, said Aerostat must be pursued "very vigorously."
THE DELTA LAUNCH VEHICLE TEAM OF McDonnell Douglas won the 1996 George M. Low Space Transportation Award for "the achievement of making the Delta the most reliable U.S. launch vehicle, as demonstrated by a record of 49 consecutive launches without a failure and 24 out of 237 since 1960." The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics presents the Low Award each year.
The Pentagon will have to request a budget supplemental from Congress to cover the unanticipated costs of contingency operations but it won't make a formal request until early next year, Pentagon Comptroller John Hamre said yesterday. The Defense Dept. has finalized the form of a supplemental request but it isn't expected until at least January, Hamre told The DAILY after a speech at the Association of the U.S. Army's convention in Washington.
France will sell state-owned Thomson SA to Lagardere Groupe for a symbolic one franc, a Thomson spokeswoman confirmed yesterday. The government picked Lagardere, which owns the defense company Matra, over a rival offer from largely civilian industrial group Alcatel Alsthom SA.
Raytheon's Aircraft and E-Systems units enjoyed strong sales in the third quarter, but the performance wasn't enough to offset a profit slide at the hands of non-aerospace troubles, and the company finished the period earning $187.9 million net on 4% slower sales of a little more than $3 billion.
The Employees of Northrop Grumman Corp. Political Action Committee made its largest single congressional campaign contribution this year to a relatively unknown congresswoman - $9,000 to Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D- Tex.), a second term congresswoman from Dallas. The maximum contribution is $10,000.
CUBIC DEFENSE SYSTEMS INC., San Diego, will supply 12 Personnel Location Systems (PLS) to Eurocopter of Paris under a new contract valued at about $1 million.
The Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) program has experienced at least a 15% cost growth over the president's budget plan, Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall informed members of the Senate and House defense panels.
LOCKHEED MARTIN has gained another U.S. Air Force launch for its Atlas IIAS vehicle, the first of five launch options to be exercised under an Aug. 30 contract that also included one firm launch. Firm launch backlog for Atlas vehicles now stands at 29, six military and 23 commercial. The Air Force payloads will be launched either from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., or from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., set for its first launch in mid-1998.
