Even though the U.S. is only a little less than halfway through the sweeping Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology, or IHPTET, initiative, U.S. Air Force science advisors are pushing top brass to think seriously about laying the groundwork for a "Beyond IHPTET" program focusing on range and efficiency.
Sverdrup Technology, Incorporated, Beavercreek, Ohio, is being awarded a $7,371,981 cost plus fixed fee contract to provide tools, evaluation and modeling of Automatic Target Recognition systems. Contract is expected to be completed June 2003. Contract funds of $754,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Thirty-two proposals were received. Solicitation began February 1995; negotiations were complete June 1996. Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33615-96/C-1810).
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems, Mesa Arizona, is being awarded a $45,460,357 modification to a firm fixed price contract for procurement of 12 Apache Helicopters for the country of Egypt. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by August 30, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract solicited on May 1, 1995. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Missouri (DAAK01-92-C- A001).
LOCKHEED MARTIN Training&Technical Services, Horsham, Pa., will support Tactical Engagement Simulation (TES) equipment under a $30 million contract from the U.S. Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM). The program provides maintenance for U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps TES training devices.
The Senate approved an amendment to protect funds to buy three existing ships to enhance U.S. Marine Corps prepositioning force. The amendment, offered by Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho), was passed by voice vote last Wednesday.
The Defense Dept. could reduce the recurring flyaway cost of the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft between 3% and 7% by increasing the production rate to 36 a year from the current rate of 31 over four years, but a budget boost would be required now, Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski has told lawmakers. At the same time, he said, given fiscal realities, the Defense Dept. "would find it difficult to program funding for V-22 production at the higher rates."
LITTON INDUSTRIES said its Guidance&Control Systems Div., Woodland Hills, Calif., will produce several hundred AN/PPX-3B IFF interrogator sets for the U.S. Army under a $22.3 million contract. The units are slated for delivery to Japan, Greece, France, Portugal, The Netherlands and Italy under the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales program. Deliveries are slated to begin late this year and continue into early 1998, Litton said.
Only a few months after putting its General Electric-powered Boeing 777 widebody twins into service, GE90 launch customer British Airways is negotiating to convert its 15 option 777s into firm orders, the airline said in an internal publication. The four GE90-powered 777s delivered so far are in service between London and the Persian Gulf, and another 10 are due for delivery next year. "Plans are now firming for the options to be converted into firm orders for further deliveries in 1998," BA said in its Speedbird 2000 newsletter for flight crews.
High-level talks between the U.S. and Israel on the future of the Nautilus laser, intended to defeat short-range rockets, are slated to conclude in a few days and a contract will be awarded soon thereafter to TRW Space and Electronics Group, a senior official of the Israeli Ministry of Defense said yesterday. Aron Moss, head of the MOD's ballistic missile defense program office, said in Washington that the Nautilus advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD) will be in full swing before the end of the summer.
The Senate Appropriations Committee said the U.S. Army should launch the Improved Cargo Helicopter program, and recommended a $47.7 million addition to the service's fiscal year 1997 budget for the effort, which would upgrade aging CH-47 Chinooks. The committee said it is increasing the Administration's $7.8 million CH-47 modification request "to begin the development of the improved cargo helicopter." It provided an additional $4.7 million for an engine upgrade.
A U.S. AIR FORCE U-2S that was damaged following an in-flight emergency in mid-February would be fixed with $5 million that Senate appropriators are providing specifically for that purpose. In the Feb. 13 incident, the aircraft's engine flamed out and the pilot overshot the runway at Beale AFB, Calif., an Air Force official said.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) are collaborating to try to avoid the budget impasse Congress encountered last year when it became next to impossible to pass FY '96 appropriations bills that the White House would accept, Hill sources say. The leaders have been considering a blanket continuing resolution (CR) now so that if they encounter problems, the government can not shut down.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) hasn't given up on trying to get some of his concerns about DOD intelligence activities addressed during debate of the FY '97 defense authorization, congressional aides say. But the battle between the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee may not be as brutal a floor fight as initially expected, aides say. Some preliminary agreements have been made on the creation of a national imagery and mapping agency and budget authority for the director of central intelligence, they explain.
The Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program will try avoid development pitfalls by studying histories of other UAV programs, according to U.S. Army Col. Roger Duckworth. Duckworth, who heads the TUAV program, told The DAILY during an interview Friday that "accident investigations for all UAVs" will be studied to learn about mistakes and how to avoid them. This will "help us develop our concept of operations," he said.
Television viewers who enjoyed taped video of the astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia being strapped into their seats have something to anticipate when the Shuttle lands - live video shot through the pilot's forward window. A television camera has been mounted on Columbia's instrument panel, and its output will be broadcast as soon as the video S-band signal is acquired by the Merritt Island Tracking Station, Fla. At that point, Columbia will be about 300 miles from its landing strip at Kennedy Space Center, descending rapidly at about Mach 10.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) complained that the Administration is simply taking the word of Russian officials that they didn't know of a 1995 transfer of ICBM technology to Iraq, and that the pattern is familiar. He said Thursday that while "the U.S. government has finally issued a demarche on this transfer," Administration officials "contend, once again, that senior Russian officials did not know of the transfer and therefore we need not impose sanctions."
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER in Houston will host NASA's third annual Contractor Open Forum on Aug. 22. Deidre A. Lee, associate administrator for procurement, will brief contractors and field questions on performance- based contracting and new agency initiatives in the areas of cost control, source selection, change orders and other procurement issues. Doors to the Teague Auditorium at JSC Building 2 will open at 1:30 p.m. for the two-hour session beginning at 2 p.m. Reservations will not be accepted, and admittance will be on a first-come basis.
With the White House Office of Management and Budget veto threat to the Senate Appropriations Committee's fiscal 1997 defense appropriations bill, the Administration has completed the circuit - threatening to recommend a presidential veto of both House and Senate authorization and appropriations bills. In fiscal 1996, the Administration vetoed the first defense authorization conference report.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Rockwell International a $24.3 million contract for systems engineering and requirement planning to upgrade the B- 1B bomber's defensive systems. The work will be a prelude to the engineering/manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program. The defensive systems are part of the overall B-1B conventional mission upgrade (DAILY, June 13).
Senate Appropriations Committee says in its fiscal 1997 report that funding both the development of the AWACS EAGLE (Extended Airborne Global Launch Evaluator) for theater ballistic missile detection and the proposed transfer of Cobra Ball technology to Rivet Joint for long-range detection and tracking of missile launches is "unaffordable and unnecessary." The committee has cut the $19.8 million AWACS EAGLE request and added funds to a new project, airborne sensors for ballistic missile tracking.
GLOBAL ATMOSPHERICS INC. of Tuscon, Ariz., has signed a Space Act agreement with NASA to develop a Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR) system for commercial applications based on the system in use at Kennedy Space Center since 1992. Unlike present commercial systems, which offer only two- dimensional lightning maps, the NASA LDAR produces a three-dimensional presentation that includes in-cloud and cloud-to-cloud lightning as well as cloud-to-ground bolts. Potential commercial applications include aviation, atmospheric research, recreation and electric utilities.
Lott and Gingrich are busy trying to devise a good political argument to win support for the CR. They are expected to present the proposal as a mechanism that could free up to $1.3 billion in FY '97 spending. Deliberations are sure to stall floor movement on appropriations bills, sources say. The FY '97 defense appropriations bill is slated to move to the floor before the July 4th recess.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS named James R. Adams chairman and Thomas J. Engibous president and chief executive officer. The changes, announced Thursday, follow the sudden death of Jerry Junkins on May 29. Junkins was chairman, president and CEO. Adams is a former group president of SBC Communications Inc., and has been a TI director since 1989. Engibous was president of TI's Semiconductor Group. TI said an office of the chairman and chief executive will be responsible for the company's activities. Adams and Engibous, as well as vice chairman William B.
ASIA SATELLITE TELECOMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS Ltd. sold 121,095,000 shares of its stock June 19 in an initial offering on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges, including a full over-allotment option granted Goldman Sachs of 15.795 million shares. Overall, the offering garnered about $313 million for the Hong Kong-based holding company, which operates AsiaSat 1 and AsiaSat2 through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd.
The U.S. Air Force plans to evaluate a 600-gallon external fuel tank for the F-16 fighter to determine its operational utility. The plane now carries 370-gallon wing tanks. It can also carry a 300-gallon fuselage tank. A sole-source contract for a small number of the larger tanks is planned to be awarded later this year to Israel Industries Ltd., or TAAS. F-16 manufacturer Lockheed Martin has said 600-gallon tanks give the fighter a 35% increase in range/persistence over 370-gallon tanks.
