Hughes Electronics Corp.'s Aerospace and Defense Systems sector accounted for 39.9% of third quarter revenues as the company reported earnings of $252 million, down from $256.1 million in 1995, Hughes reported Monday. Revenues for the period were $3.823 billion, an increase of 11% from the third quarter of 1995. Operating profit (excluding GM purchase accounting adjustment related to acquisition of Hughes Aircraft Co.) was $389.3 million, a 5.2% increase from the same period in 1995.
Boeing Defense and Space Group, Seattle, Washington, was awarded on October 7, $17,054,820 face value increase to a firm fixed price contract to provide for flight operations and maintenance through September 1999 for the Test System 3 E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, and associated maintenance and test support for the E-3 Developmental Test Laboratories. Contract is expected to be completed September 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
FLIGHTSAFETY INTERNATIONAL will be acquired by Berkshire Hathaway through a merger of FSI into a wholly owned subsidiary, the two companies announced yesterday. FSI said its board unanimously approved the merger agreement which will close late this year or early next.
Alliant Techsystems and Valence Technology Inc. signed an agreement to establish a joint venture company to develop batteries for the military market, Valence announced Friday. The company, Alliant/Valence LLC, will manufacture, package and distribute advanced rechargeable solid polymer electrolyte batteries for the U.S. and international military markets. The battery fabrication facility will be at Alliant's Power Sources Center in Horsham, Pa. Valence is based in Henderson, Nev. The prototype is expected to be completed in 1997.
Since the end of the Cold War, international sales of conventional weapons have declined in value by more than half the average annual level of the 1980s, according to "The Military Balance 1996/97" published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. It said a new annual sales base of around $30 billion a year worldwide has been established.
Congressional sources see very little prospect of a major shift in the defense budget - up or down - whether the Republicans or the Democrats control the next Congress. They note that President Clinton's future years defense plan would provide $1.36 billion from fiscal 1998 to 2002 for the national security function, while the Republicans would fund it at $1.37 billion. The difference is less than $10 billion, or about two thirds of one percent.
The U.S. Air Force plans to use a C-5 Galaxy to transport the F-22 aft fuselage from Boeing's Seattle plant to Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., facility where the F-22 is being assembled. The option of using the Lockheed Martin C-5 will have greater appeal to workers in Marietta where the airlifter was built than the alternative - using a McDonnell Douglas C-17.
Pentagon Comptroller John J. Hamre has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a reduction in defense inventories over five years has freed up $11.1 billion. The funds were shifted to the military departments. Hamre told Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in an Oct. 7 letter that "reduction of inventories, as distinguished from reevaluation of inventories, generated assets of $11.1 billion."
The Pentagon will expand its Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration in 1997 to include a terrorism threat against the combined task force, according to an Oct. 9 Commerce Business Daily notice. During all phases of the exercise - pre-deployment, deployment, presence, hostilities, forcible entry, build up, decisive combat and redeployment - coalition forces will face a terrorism threat, the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) said in the notice.
President Clinton on Friday signed the fiscal year 1997 intelligence authorization bill, which calls for reform of the intelligence community (IC). Clinton said the bill closely reflects his budget request. While annual IC funding is classified, it is estimated to be close to $28 million.
China will beef up safety precautions at its Xichang space launch facility following last winter's fatal failure of a Long March 3B vehicle on liftoff (DAILY, Feb. 15, 16). Henceforth Chinese launch vehicles will carry range safety destruct systems, and local farmers who (Cont. p. 74) ) in the past gathered around the landlocked site to watch launches will be evacuated from their homes instead, Chinese space officials said last week in Beijing.
International Space Station managers at NASA face "a pretty major dilemma" as slow progress on the cash-starved Russian Service Module threatens the whole Station assembly schedule, and they have turned to the White House for help.
Federal Aviation Administration regulators are working with Kistler Aerospace on the Seattle-based company's application for a license to test fly its K-1 reusable launch vehicle, but Congress adjourned without giving FAA the authority to issue such licenses. A jurisdictional dispute over which committee gets to authorize activities of the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation blocked action on language giving OCST authority to license reentry vehicles, and with the 104th Congress gone for good Kistler will just have to wait.
An article in The DAILY of Oct. 11 (Page 67) incorrectly stated that Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) is trailing his challenger, Mark Warner, by 20 percentage points in recent polls. Sen. Warner is in the lead.
New Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles says he's satisfied with a briefing he recently received from intelligence officials on the national intelligence estimate (NIE). Just before leaving his post, Lyles' predecessor, Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill (ret.), blasted the intelligence community for what he said was an insufficient NIE, one that he said didn't take into account certain assumptions about the threat. Lyles says he felt the caveats and assumptions about threat were covered very well.
Lyles, former head of Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, is a big fan of the Airborne Laser. ABL is a "very viable concept" and the "technology has tremendous promise," he says.
The Pentagon has not yet certified that the Space and Missile Tracking System (SMTS) complies with the ABM Treaty, but new Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles told reporters he foresees no problems. Certification for SMTS is simply the next step in the certification process, Lyles said Tuesday in a meeting with reporters at the Pentagon.
Israel Aircraft Industries unveiled a commercial unmanned aerial vehicle designed to detect fires. The Firebird 2001 was shown for the first time last Tuesday at a demonstration in Stevensville, Mo., sponsored by the Dept. of Agriculture and the University of Montana. It gives fire fighters real-time information on a fire's speed, size, perimeter and movement using Global Positioning System technology, a forward looking infrared sensor, and Geographic Information Systems mapping, IAI said.
Samsung of South Korea is reducing its request for financial support from The Netherlands government in its bid to save bankrupt Fokker, a Dutch newspaper reported Friday. The business plan submitted by Fokker to the economics affairs ministry reportedly requests a 450 million guilder ($263 million) Dutch contribution for the development of a 130-seat airplane. The previous request was said to be nearly 700 million guilders ($408 million).
The U.S. Air Force this week plans to release a request for proposals for future buys of the AN/ALE-47 countermeasures dispenser, since language in the fiscal 1997 defense appropriations bill nullifies a protest on the program to the General Accounting Office.
Raytheon's E-Systems and Lockheed Martin are modifying four Beech Hawker 800XP aircraft for signal reconnaissance missions by South Korea. The companies have received foreign military sales contracts from the U.S. Air Force in recent weeks for the effort, known as Peace Krypton.
Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory will commemorate the first satellite navigation system with a symposium this week to mark the retirement of the Navy's Transit system at the end of the year. Scientists at APL will discuss the system's contribution to science, industry and military operations in the 32 years it operated.
The unrequested $13 million Congress provided for the Joint Strike Fighter competitive engine project is a signal to the Defense Dept. that there is unhappiness on Capitol Hill with sole-sourcing the engine on the projected 3,000 aircraft buy, congressional sources say. The planned engine would be a derivative of the Pratt&Whitney powerplant used in the Air Force's F-22 fighter.
Secretary of Defense William Perry, on his trip to Russia this week, doesn't plan to urge Moscow to exercise restraint in selling modern fighters to China and other countries. One Defense Dept. official said during a background briefing on the trip for reporters at the Pentagon Friday that those sales are likely to pose a greater security concern to Russia itself than to the U.S.
The U.S. Military Sealift Command has released a request for proposal for another demonstration of commercially-leased vertical replenishment helicopters similar to the demonstration now underway in the Persian Gulf on the USNS Niagara Falls. The RFP was released this week, and contract award is slated for early February, a contracting official for Military Sealift Command said yesterday. After a one-month preparation phase, the VERTREP helicopters would deploy on-board the USNS Saturn for about six months, with an option for additional six months.
