Ben Medley has joined Tracor Aerospace, Inc., as vice president of operations. Edward C. Rizzotti has been named vice president and general manager of the Cross Systems Division for Tracor Aerospace, Inc.
Goldin says NASA may try to act as anchor tenant for a new type of commercial remote sensing spacecraft, which uses laser radar (lidar) to measure wind direction and speed. Although first demonstrated on the Space Shuttle in 1984, Goldin says, earlier designs for a lidar satellite were deemed too expensive at a billion dollars a pop. Now the U.S. space agency has had feelers from "a couple of companies" that want to use the NASA technology in a commercial platform, with the government as the main customer.
William C. Hoover has been elected a corporate vice president of Litton Industries Inc. He will continue as president of Litton subsidiary PRC, Inc. Leonard Pomata was named president of PRC. He served most recently as senior vice president and general manager of PRC's system integration business unit.
Patrick C. FitzPatrick, previously senior vice president and chief financial officer at PRC, Inc., has been named vice president and chief financial officer.
The Navy's goal in the Joint Strike Fighter program is to get "an aircraft that is more survivable than the A-6 Intruder against Japanese air defense systems," jokes Rear Adm. Dennis McGinn, the service's air warfare director. He made the jest at a JSF briefing in Washington a day after a Japanese destroyer mistakenly shot down an A-6 during an exercise in the Pacific. The crew was rescued.
A series of procedural errors by commanders and pilots led to the fatal crash of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's CT-43 transport on April 3 in Croatia, accident investigators said in a report released Friday. No equipment faults were found, but investigators said the aircraft wasn't adequately equipped for the low-accuracy ground beacon approach.
Pratt&Whitney's growth version of the PW4000 engine for Boeing's 777 widebody twin, the PW4084, finished its first year of revenue service last Thursday, ending those first 12 months with "what I would call near-perfect performance," P&W Large Commercial Engines unit President Bob Wolfe told The DAILY. "We're at a dispatch reliability of 99.9%, and 100% on-time departures for the engine itself," Wolfe said. "It's setting a standard that makes us all shudder a little bit, because it can only go one way."
The U.S. Air Force is moving too slowly in upgrading the B-1B bomber to carry precision guided munitions, and isn't taking full advantage of alternatives to provide such a capability earlier than planned, the House Appropriations Committee says in the report accompanying its annual DOD budget package. The Air Force requested $84.4 million for B-1B modifications in its fiscal year 1997 budget. The committee nearly doubles the amount to $166.4 million, providing an increase of $82 million.
Saying it has learned that the U.S. Army is interested in doing a technology demonstration of the Depressed Altitude Guided Gun Round (DAGGR), the House Appropriations Committee directs the Army to provide it with a detailed analysis by Jan. 15, 1997. The analysis will include the cost of conducting a demonstration, the operational value, technical risks, schedule, projected development and production costs, and the priority the Army assigns to it compared to other warfighting systems.
NASA's DC-XA reusable launch vehicle testbed reached 1,950 feet on its second test flight Friday and returned to its pad is such good shape vehicle managers contemplated a fast-turnaround third flight later in the day to demonstrate the "airplane-like operations" that will enable an RLV to fly commercially.
William H. Lawler has been appointed vice president and deputy general manager of the company's Military Aircraft Systems Division. Scott J. Seymour succeeds Lawler as vice president and manager of the B-2 stealth bomber program.
Thomas M. Ripp, previously vice president and general manager, Power Semiconductor Division, Macroom, Co. Cork, Ireland, has been named vice president, operations for the company's San Diego-based organization.
TRW has delivered 46 Battlefield Combat Identification Systems to the U.S. Army at Ft. Hood, Tex., as part of the company's $56 million BCIS contract. It was the second set of BCIS units TRW has delivered. The systems will be used in the Army's Task Force XXI exercise next March.
The first-ever V-22 production contract was signed, a $1.385 billion low-rate initial production, or LRIP, agreement between Bell-Boeing and U.S. Naval Air Systems Command covering the first lot of four V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and options for the second and third lots, the team said. Under existing plans, Friday's contract would provide $44.1 million right away for long-lead items on the first lot, which will start assembly early next year with first deliveries to the U.S. Marine Corps in 1999. The Navy said Friday the total for the first four was $404 million.
The U.S. Air Force has informed Congress of its preference for a six- year multiyear procurement plan for C-17 airlifters that would fund the final five aircraft in the 80-plane buy, all in fiscal 1997, with an increase of $684 million. The plan was submitted to House Appropriations national security subcommittee chairman Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) and ranking Democrat Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.) by Pentagon procurement chief Paul G. Kaminski on May 22.
The Pentagon's acquiescence to the demand of Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) that the Joint Strike Fighter be made a major acquisition program won't have much effect, Pentagon officials think. Lt. Gen. George Muellner, the Air Force's top acquisition officer, for instance, says the ACAT I designation will merely result in more paperwork.
NASA's Ames Research Center stands to pick up some of the jobs that will be trimmed from the Space Shuttle program as its operations shift to the private sector, but they won't necessarily be government jobs. Administrator Dan Goldin says Ames will increase its national role in developing advanced information systems, driven by NASA's need for ways to archive, distribute and analyze the reams of data it expects to have flowing down from fleets of small satellites. "We don't intend to have a whole bunch of civil servants," Goldin tells AFCEA.
James P. O'Shaughnessy has been appointed vice president and chief intellectual property counsel. Prior to joining the company, he was a partner with the law firm of Foley and Lardner, based in Milwaukee, Wis.
UNITED TECHNOLOGIES named a McKinsey veteran, Stephen De Falco, as strategic planning director, to help uncover growth opportunities through "acquisitions, joint ventures, alliances, technology licensing and new product launches."
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS is in line to receive U.S. Navy contracts for two F/A-18 efforts - a study on upgrading Navy Reserve A/B model Hornets with AMRAAM carriages, and installation of a Digital Communications System (DCS) in C/D and E/F Hornets. The efforts were outlined in notices published in the June 7 issue of Commerce Business Daily.
NASA managers set a June 20 launch date for the Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-78, the Life and Microgravity Sciences (LMS) Spacelab mission. Liftoff is scheduled for a two-and-a-half-hour window opening at 10:49 a.m. EDT, with the flight initially planned to last 15 days, 22 hours and 20 minutes. However, if on-board consumables permit the mission will be extended by almost 24 hours, which would make it the longest Shuttle flight ever. With an on-time launch and one-day extension, Columbia will return to Kennedy Space Center, Fla., from its 20th flight on July 7.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin and his counterpart at the Russian Space Agency, Yuri Koptiev, discussed several International Space Station issues by telephone yesterday as U.S./Russian negotiations on Station cooperation enter the end game phase.
AEGIS DESTROYER COLE (DDG 67) is slated to be commissioned June 8 at Port Everglades, Fla., the U.S. Navy said. It said the ship, built by Litton Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding Div., is the 17th of 35 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers currently authorized by Congress.
