McDonnell Douglas is trying to recover money it paid into a fund to settle claims arising from the crash of a General Electric-powered United DC-10 jetliner in Sioux City, Iowa, re-visiting allegations that the crash stemmed from a poor engine design and bad maintenance in a lawsuit filed this week in a St. Louis federal court.
A combination of operational growth and the contributions from newly acquired Loral helped swell second-quarter earnings and sales at Lockheed Martin, whose Electronics segment got the biggest boost - 82% better profits on 152% higher revenues.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program has won DOD approval to pursue three upgrade options that would enhance the system's command, control, communications and surveillance capability. Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski was briefed on the options late Tuesday, and a Defense Dept. official told The DAILY that the upgrade options were approved. They are the lightweight heavy fuel engine, the Common Automatic Launch and Recovery System (CARS), and the Common Data Link and lightweight synthetic aperture radar.
McDonnell Douglas' Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM ER) has completed a series of captive load flight tests aboard an F/A-18 Hornet. "SLAM ER continues to meet and, in most cases, exceed our highest performance expectations," Bob Krieger, general manager for missile systems at McDonnell Douglas, said in a prepared statement yesterday. "We're on schedule and on budget, and looking forward to rolling out the first flight test evaluation SLAM ER in late December this year."
Boeing engineers have twice demonstrated their concept for an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) by dropping a 20,000-pound propulsion module into the Gulf of Mexico from a helicopter, once at 4,700 feet and again Tuesday at 6,000 feet.
The U.S. Air Force Electronic Systems Center is asking for industry ideas for an adverse weather, adverse condition aircraft landing system to support a roughly year-long study to determine the best technical solution for the Joint Precision Approach Landing System (JPALS).
AlliedSignal second-quarter earnings were up 16% from 1995 levels excluding special items, and Chairman Lawrence Bossidy declared that the company is on track for full-year profits to wind up as much as 17% ahead of last year's pace. Most of the company's business units enjoyed a strong second quarter, but engines and aerospace equipment were among those business segments singled out for strong sales and net income gains.
House-Senate defense authorization conferees have agreed to fund add- ons for the Strategic Missile and Tracking Systems (Brilliant Eyes), Anti- Satellite (ASAT) technologies program and the Nautilus Tactical High Energy Laser, congressional sources said yesterday.
The Pentagon may reduce the number of Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets it plans to buy if the Joint Strike Fighter program proceeds without a glitch, the Pentagon's top acquisition official said yesterday.
Hughes Aircraft Co. is appealing a U.S. District Court decision to allow Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas to continue development of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile while the General Accounting Office is reviewing bid protest Hughes filed. A clerk for the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., told The DAILY that Hughes filed a notice of appeal with the court yesterday. A Hughes spokesman confirmed the notice had been filed.
The Pentagon cannot drive down the cost of the Medium Extended Area Defense (MEADS) system by abandoning the international joint effort and substituting it with a variant of a U.S. theater missile defense (TMD) system already in the works, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski tells lawmakers.
An independent review panel found a software design error triggered the chain of events that brought down Europe's new Ariane V booster on its debut flight last month, and program officials believe it could take until mid-1997 to fix the problem and mount a second test flight. Loss of the first Ariane V less than a minute after liftoff will necessitate another test flight beyond the next one, European space officials said yesterday, although that flight may carry a commercial payload if a customer can be found to take the risk.
McDonnell Douglas won't make any modifications as a direct result of the May crash of one of its MD 600N helicopters during its certification process, but is considering a still unspecified safety-of-flight change. A spokesman for McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems said that during the investigation into the accident "we didn't find any material failures" and added "we probably will not make any modifications to the fuselage or the aircraft as a direct result of the accident."
Finnish flag carrier Finnair will power a new fleet of four leased Boeing 757-200s with Pratt&Whitney PW2000 medium turbofans in a deal worth about $58 million to the enginemaker, P&W said yesterday. The agreement covers eight installed PW2040s plus spares, which will enter service in the fall of 1997 in the airline's charter and leisure travel operations. P&W won out over Rolls-Royce and its RB211-535 turbofan for the business.
U.S. companies Raytheon and Hughes Aircraft have signed an agreement with Norway's Kongsberg Group to sell an enhanced Hawk air-defense system internationally using the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile as a ground-launched interceptor. Several European countries are looking for near-term upgrades to their Hawk systems and are the most likely market for the Hughes-Kongsberg- Raytheon venture.
The U.S. Army is providing tactical reconnaissance and battle damage assessment for Air Force F-16s and A-10s in training to harmonize operations between fighters and UAVs. Tests using the Air Force aircraft and the Hunter UAV took place at Ft. Hood, Tex. It was designed to develop training, tactics and procedures, Col. Michael Howell, the Army's Hunter UAV program manager, told The DAILY here last week at the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's annual symposium.
HOUSE MEMBERS yesterday approved 353-65 the NATO Enlargement Facilitation Act, a relatively noncontroversial bill expediting the transition to NATO membership of former Warsaw Bloc states. The bill makes Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic eligible to receive assistance under the NATO Participation Act of 1994. It authorizes $60 million in military assistance for the three states and any other country designated by the president to aid their efforts to meet the specified criteria for joining NATO.
Worldwide spacecraft launches in the second quarter of 1996 are listed in the following table. A total of 20 launches with 29 spacecraft were attempted, including three launch failures. The United States performed nine launches, orbiting 14 spacecraft, including one satellite for Inmarsat and one for Italy. Russia made seven launches with two failures, orbiting five satellites, including one for Luxembourg-based SES. Arianespace performed four launches with a failure on the first flight of an Ariane V launcher.
NASA is scheduling a series of meetings with U.S. airframers, enginemakers, airlines and engineering schools in the next few months to sketch a plan of government support to help the U.S. aviation industry meet international competition in the coming century, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said yesterday.
China and McDonnell Douglas worked out final purchase agreements for 20 Douglas-built MD-90 jetliners, with deliveries starting this month and running through 1999. Under the deal signed by China Aviation Supplies Corp., airlines China Northern and China Eastern, and McDonnell Douglas, 11 of the 20 planes will go to China Northern and China Eastern will get nine, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN NORDEN has won a $13.7 million FAA contract for three full-scale development versions of the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS). The system is designed to alert controllers in time to prevent ground accidents. The contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to the company's existing contract. The three systems will be installed at St. Louis, Detroit and Atlanta. Field test completion dates are September 1997 for Detroit, November 1997 for St. Louis and February 1988 for Atlanta.
The U.S. Air Force is going to spend about $180 million over the next five years on 41 different science and technology programs as a direct result of the findings presented by the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board in its New World Vistas study. "We reprioritized the 6.1 [basic research] investment" as a result of New World Vistas, Helmut Hellwig, the U.S. Air Force deputy assistant secretary for science, technology, and engineering, told The DAILY in an interview.
