U.S. cruise missile strikes against Iraq yesterday set the stage for enforcement of an expanded no-fly zone in southern Iraq, top Pentagon officials said yesterday. Twenty-seven cruise missiles were fired during Operation Desert Strike, the Pentagon said. The guided missile destroyer USS Laboon and guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh fired 14 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Two B- 52Hs from the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale AFB, La., fired 13 Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (CALCMs). Navy F-14 fighters provided support to the B-52s.
The "two Yuris" who served five months on Russia's Mir space station with Astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth safely on Monday along with the French cosmonaut who traveled to Mir two weeks ago with a Russian replacement crew, but Hurricane Fran threatened to delay Lucid's return to Earth again. Cosmonauts Yuri Onufrienko, Yuri Usachev and Claudie Andre-Deshays, the first Frenchwoman to fly in space, landed safely Monday about 60 miles from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have signed a memorandum of understanding to offer the C-130J aircraft on the international market with an airborne early warning (AEW) capability.
Cessna Aircraft Co. and Executive Jet Aviation said EJA will buy 25 Citation X and 20 Citation VII business jets for more than $600 million. Deliveries will begin next year. The agreement is the largest ever booked by Cessna, surpassing a July 1994 agreement between the two companies in which EJA bought 25 Citation Ultras. The companies also said it's believed to be the biggest business jet purchase in history.
Lockheed Martin and Alenia of Italy will jointly develop and market a new airlifter called C-27J that will be based on Alenia's G 222 airlifter and technology from Lockheed Martin's C-130J, the companies announced yesterday. The team said during the Farnborough air show that the new aircraft is intended to provide customers with "enhanced performance and increased service while lowering operating, maintenance, and life-cycle costs." Lockheed Martin and Alenia will be equal partners in the deal.
Logistics and training support are the main areas through which Boeing's Aircraft and Training Operations Div. expects to triple the size of its business in this community near Tinker AFB, according to Paul A. Ray, director of the unit. Boeing said in June that it anticipated growth from 500 to 1,500 people at Tinker during the next three to five years (DAILY, June 12) and has already added 50, Ray told The DAILY during an interview here last week. He said he expects a growth period of about ten years, and an annual boost of 100 and 200 employees.
After evaluating a number of airborne sensor concepts for detection of attacking cruise missiles, the Pentagon leadership now believes the most cost-effective solution would be a mix of fixed-wing aircraft and aerostats, Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski has told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
A Russian Molniya-M booster, launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Aug. 29, has orbited a triple international payload - the second Interball ionospheric mission, with Russian and Czech components, as well as the first Argentinian satellite. The four-stage Molniya-M launcher lifted off from Pad 3 at Plesetsk's Site 43 a 1:22 a.m. EDT, carrying the Russian Interball-2 probe, the Czech Magion-5 subsatellite and the MU-Sat satellite from Argentina.
Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Tex., facility on Friday completed work on the first mid-fuselage section for the F-22 fighter and packed the assembly to be shipped to the company's Aeronautical Systems division in Marietta, Ga. In preparation for the arrival of the mid-fuselage, Lockheed Martin employees in Marietta are readying the forward section for final mate. Earlier this month, Boeing said it started major assembly of the aft fuselage, which it expects to complete in October (DAILY, Aug. 20).
Boeing Commercial President Ron Woodard announced here that the company is launching the stretched 757-300 and announced orders from seven customers for 68 jetliners valued at $6.3 billion. Woodard said the new 757, which will seat 20% more passengers, was launched on the basis of an accepted proposal for as many as 24 planes from German holiday carrier Condor Flugdienst.
World aerospace leaders interviewed at this week's Farnborough Air Show by McGraw-Hill Aviation Week Group reporters are optimistic but take a cautious approach in their view of the future. Mike Sears, president of Douglas Aircraft Co., said his company hopes to launch by year's end its MD-XX successor to Douglas's MD-11 widebody trijet - and to the MD-12, which never got started - and to develop a family of narrowbodies in the longer term.
Continental Express yesterday announced a firm order for 25 Embraer EMB-145 regional jets valued at $375 million and options for 175 more over the next 12 years. The carrier said the order is consistent with its previously announced five-year plan which calls for "flexible growth" out of its hubs in Newark, Houston and Cleveland.
Hamilton Standard has designed a digital engine control to improve the reliability and operability of the Atlas-Centaur rocket's upper stage. The company developed the Digital Electronic Rocket Engine Control (DEREC) as part of the U.S. Air Force's Atlas Reliability Enhancement Program. One of the new devices is planned for mounting on each of the upper stage's two Pratt&Whitney RL10E-1 engines as part of an updated control system for the venerable engines.
AlliedSignal received an order from American Airlines worth more than $20 million for Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems (EGPWS). It said American is the first airline to order the systems, and that it plans to install them on its fleet of 635 aircraft by mid-1999.
HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO. said William C. Bowes has joined the company in Washington, D.C., as a senior vice president and corporate vice president of Hughes Electronics Corp. The company said yesterday that Bowes, who retired from the U.S. as a vice admiral, will report directly to John C. Weaver, Hughes Aircraft president and chief executive officer. It said Bowes will also assist senior leadership in managing the company's affairs in the areas of radar and communications, electro-optical systems, weapons systems and information systems.
The U.S. Air Force has picked Rockwell International to compete against TRW for the pre-engineering and manufacturing development phase of the Space and Missile Tracking System (SMTS). The AF's Space and Missile Center awarded Rockwell a $179 million contract yesterday for the SMTS demonstration/validation program. Rockwell was under AF contract for a non-flying development contract for SMTS worth about $50 million. The company was unchallenged for the second dem/val contract.
Tracor Inc. will acquire Cordant Inc. for $65 million under an agreement announced by the companies yesterday. If the cash deal is approved by Cordant's shareholders and government regulatory agencies, it would be another in a series of acquisitions for Tracor. It would bring Cordant, a Reston, Va.-based information technology company, into the Tracor Information Systems Company, a new unit being formed to help strengthen the Austin, Tex., company's capabilities in the information arena.
A top Boeing executive says Airbus Industrie is much too optimistic in its projection of a worldwide market during the next 20 years of 1,380 airliners, each with 500 or more seats. The real number is 470, according to Ron Woodard, president of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group.
