U.S. NAVAL SEA SYSTEMS COMMAND awarded contracts to Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding for construction of DDG 51 class Aegis destroyers. Each company will build one FY 1996 Flight IIA ship. Bath got $348.5 million and Ingalls got $329.5 million. The Dept. of Defense announced the contracts on June 20. The Navy has now ordered 34 Aegis destroyers.
The crash of the DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicle in April was caused by inaccurate ground effect modelling that prompted the vehicle to oscillate in pitch as it rolled toward takeoff, a program official said yesterday. Charles Heber, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's high altitude endurance UAV program, told The DAILY that an investigation of the April 22 crash at Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif., has concluded the air vehicle/ground interaction computer models used early in the program weren't detailed enough.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Tactical Defense Systems unit, Eagan, Minn., will produce AN/UYK-43 standard computers for the U.S. Navy under follow-on contract with an estimated value of $60 million. The company said yesterday that Japan, Spain, Australia and Germany are also expected to purchase UYK-43s under the contract through the Foreign Military Sales program. It said the award is a continuation of three earlier production contracts, and covers manufacturing and support services to 2002.
Sources to manufacture modification kits and install them on P-3 and S-3 aircraft are being sought by U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command. NavAir said in a June 27 Commerce Business Daily notice that it plans a competition for a contract that is expected to run from fiscal year 1997 through FY '98. "The contract will include aircraft modification kit manufacture and aircraft kit installation for several programmed modifications to domestic P-3, S-3 and foreign military sales (FMS) P-3 aircraft," the notice said.
U.S. NAVY said the first newly redesigned Radar Sonar Surveillance Center (RSSC) has been delivered to the fleet, and that it is expected to be deployed with a San Diego unit later this year. It said the updated Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare System consists of a van with an SPS-64 surface search radar, AN/SQR-17 sonobuoy processor and communications equipment. The Navy said the van carries Tripod-mounted Thermal Imaging/Visual Imaging Systems (TIS\VIS), and that personnel manning the unit are equipped with night vision goggles.
The 4BW upgrade to Bell Helicopter's UH-1N Huey helicopter is a much more cost-effective approach to modernizing the U.S. Marine Corps' attack helicopter fleet than buying marinized versions of the U.S. Army's AH-64D Longbow Apache, even though the Apache exceeds all Marine performance requirements, the Defense Dept. told Congress.
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is moving its Ontario, Calif.-based Aircraft Services business to new, company-owned facilities in Palmdale, cutting the Ontario workforce by about a third, the company reported. About 1,500 now work in Aircraft Services, but only 1,000 jobs will be transferred. The move will start right away, and be completed by late first quarter or early second quarter 1998, a schedule Skunk Works President Jack Gordon said should ease the pain of layoffs.
Lockheed Martin has already wrung out half a billion dollars in savings - and a few key wins - from its sweeping consolidation plan, only a year after launching the initiative, and could eventually wind up saving even more than originally projected, the company reported yesterday.
Two of the Pioneer UAVs flown by the Defense Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Training Center at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., were damaged in the last two weeks. A spokesman for the UAV Joint Program Office confirmed yesterday that a Pioneer crashed on Monday at Ft. Huachuca following a change in the performance of its engine. It isn't clear whether the engine surged or dropped in power, he said. The vehicle glided down range, and it took a full day to locate it.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) hinted yesterday that House Republicans plan next week to force the Administration to proceed with the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program on the schedule that applied before the Pentagon restructured its missile defense projects earlier this year. The restructuring was intended to save more than $2 billion on THAAD and a host of other programs. The funds would then be shifted to modernization accounts (DAILY, Feb. 20).
The House yesterday turned back minor challenges to a $13.6 billion fiscal 1997 NASA appropriation and sidestepped the one major proposal to substantially cut the funding. The dodged bullet was Rep. Tim Roemer's amendment to eliminate $2.1 billion for the Space Station. A spokesman for Roemer (D-Ind.) said late yesterday that Roemer would offer the amendment, but then withdraw it before a vote. He said Roemer's aim was to have the entire House debate the Station.
Acquisitive defense electronics specialist Tracor is selling off a piece of the AEL Industries business it bought only four months ago, because the unit - the 100-employee Instrument Services Div. - isn't in one of Tracor's strategic areas. SIMCO Electronics, Santa Clara, Calif., agreed to buy the division for $7.5 million, but needs to line up financing and get regulatory approvals. Tracor said in a prepared statement last week that it will use the money to pay down debt.
Textron Systems Div. will develop two-way communications capability for the Wide Area Munition as part of a pre-planned product improvement contract awarded by the U.S. Army. The company also received the first Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) contract for WAM. The Wilmington, Mass.-based unit of Textron Inc. on June 19 received an initial $2 million of a total $55 million P3I effort to develop the two- way communications capability for the XM93 mine. The development is slated to run about 48 months.
DIAGNOSTIC/RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS INC., Parsippany, N.Y., acquired the assets of Vikron Inc., St. Croix Falls, Wis., a manufacturer of magnetic data and recording heads serving markets that require products for complex electronic applications. Mark S.
Garuda Indonesia yesterday ordered a mix of 23 Boeing jetliners worth $1.6 billion, including six long-range 777-200s and 17 single-aisle 737- 300s and -500s, Boeing reported. While the 737s will be powered by CFM International CFM56 turbofans, Garuda hasn't chosen engines for the 777 widebody twins, thus launching a competition among Pratt&Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce that could be worth more than $120 million.
Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Allegheny General Hospital is replacing its fleet of MBB BK-117 LifeFlight helicopter ambulances with four no-tail- rotor McDonnell Douglas MD-900 Explorers, and said yesterday that the first NOTAR air ambulance will enter service next week. The hospital expects to get the remaining twin-engine MD-900s by September, and will station the aircraft at regional LifeFlight bases throughout the state.
BRITISH ROYAL MARINE helicopters are participating in Combined Arms Exercise 7-96 at the U.S. Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. The USMC said AH-1 Gazelle and AH-7 Lynx helicopters are being operated by 847 Naval Air Squadron.
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORP., Falls Church, Va., has received a contract potentially worth more than $15 million to provide software and hardware enhancements to support the U.S. Navy's Enhanced Naval Warfare Gaming System (ENWGS) in San Diego. CSC described ENWGS as a theater-level simulation of the naval warfare environment to support the Navy training community. CSC subcontractors will be Sierra Cybernetics, Yorba Linda, Calif., and Advanced Telecommunications Inc., San Diego.
The $245.2 billion fiscal 1997 House defense appropriations bill, already cut almost $1.3 billion since it was marked up, could take a third hit before conference or at the start of conference, the chairman of the House Appropriations national security subcommittee conceded yesterday.
A decline in the U.S. Defense Dept.'s information technology obligations will slow over the next five years and there will be some modest growth for the Air Force and the Defense Information Systems Agency in the amount of work that is contracted out, according to new a new Electronic Industries Association (EIA) forecast.
PRATT&WHITNEY'S Space Propulsion Operations won Lockheed Martin Astronautics' Supplier of the Year award. The P&W unit, based in West Palm Beach, Fla., shipped a 26 RL-10 rocket engines to Lockheed Martin in 1995 for its Centaur upper-stage vehicle for Titan and Atlas rockets, supporting a record 14 launches. This year, P&W said, 22 production RL1Os are planned for delivery. It added that two major development programs are in process to ensure the RL10's future.
MISSION RESEARCH CORP., Santa Barbara, Calif., won a $6.5 million contract to develop a Dynamic Infrared Scene Projector (DIRSP) Instrumentation System for the U.S. Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM). The Defense Dept. announced the contract June 20, saying it was awarded by the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Div., Orlando, Fla.
RAYTHEON CO.'S Electronic Systems unit will upgrade the Patriot Flight Mission Simulator under U.S. Army Missile Command plans. MICOM said in a June 13 Commerce Business Daily notice that Raytheon, as the intended source, will "provide additional capability to support the development and test of PAC-3 system improvements, which will consist of upgrading the FMS located at Bedford, Mass., Patriot Integration and Test Site and designing, developing, fabricating, and testing a mobile FMS for use at WSMR [White Sands Missile Range, N.M.,] and other locations."
U.S. AIRCRAFT deployed in Jordan for three months to help monitor Iraq are preparing to return to the U.S. F-15 fighters from Langley AFB, Va., and F- 16s from Mountain Home and Moody AFBs in Idaho and Georgia, respectively, as well as KC-135T tankers from Fairchild AFB, Wash., are preparing to depart June 28, according to the U.S. Air Force.
A PENTAGON TASK FORCE has completed a study of a global, evolutionary information system that ties together warfighters, their weapons and support systems, a senior Defense Dept. official said yesterday. Anita Jones, director of defense research and engineering, said the study defines ABIS, the Advanced Battlespace Information System, intended to link individual information technologies to increase their benefit to soldiers and commanders, and to therefore offset any ability of hostile forces to access individual information technologies that the U.S. might use.
