Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace transferred management of airframe unit Dornier Luftfahrt to San Antonio, Tex.-based Fairchild Aircraft Wednesday after top Daimler managers rejected Dornier family shareholders' veto of the move, a Daimler spokesman told The DAILY yesterday. Daimler "deemed [the veto] null and void," the spokesman said, because it "contravened agreements and constituted a gross breach of fiduciary duty on the part of the shareholders" toward Dornier.
EMIRATES AIRLINES on Wednesday became the first carrier in the Middle East to take delivery of a 777 airliner, Boeing said. "The 777 will enable Emirates to expand its route structures and become a more global airline," said Richard Albrecht, executive vice president of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group.
A revised Congressional Budget Office analysis of the cost of deploying a National Missile Defense, which came up with a pricetag of $6 billion to $13 billion for three variations, was released yesterday.
SIMULA INC., Phoenix, said the May 31 U.S. Air Force award of $16.2 billion to McDonnell Douglas and Pratt&Whitney for 80 more C-17 airlifters puts it in line for contracts of its own for centerline and sidewall seats worth $40 million to $60 million in revenues over the next eight years. "These seating systems will be in addition to Simula's current production of sidewall and centerline seating systems for C-17 aircraft," the company said.
Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center wants to break an agreement that would allow Germany's Daimler Benz Aerospace (DASA) to market the Rokot space launch vehicle, which is derived from the SS-19 ICBM. The Russian-German Eurokot joint venture was formed by an intergovernmental agreement on May 16, 1994, with a mission of developing and marketing the Rokot launcher, capable of placing as much as 1,800 kilograms in low Earth orbit.
Airbus Industrie is pitting a shortened version of its A330 twin against Boeing's 767 - five years late, according to a senior executive - and expects the downgrading of military airbases in the Northern Pacific to make its A340 more competitive against the Boeing 777 for service between North America and Asia.
The director of the team charged with implementing the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) said yesterday that he's uncertain how congressional differences about it can be overcome. Rear Adm. Joseph Dantone said that while NIMA is included in the Senate intelligence and defense bills, it's not included in either bill on the House side. He also said that while NIMA is in both Senate bills, the bills have taken different forms, although they "are converging."
The Design Bureau of Chemical Automatics (KBKhA) of Voronezh has reported significant progress in development of the engine for the third stage of the Rus launcher, planned as a follow-on to the venerable Soyuz and Molniya rockets. At the Engines-96 exhibit in Moscow, KBKhA displayed a scaled mockup of the engine and some of its real components. KBKhA officials said design of the engine is completed and preparation is underway for production at the adjacent Voronezh Mechanical Plant (VMZ).
A two-site national missile defense (NMD) system would cost about $20 billion in acquisition and operating support costs, according to Robert Bell, National Security Council senior director for defense policy and arms control.
The four European countries on the F-16 steering committee will be briefed next week on the Joint Strike Fighter program, Pentagon officials said. Rear Adm. Craig Steidle, the JSF program director, said Tuesday that he will present Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway with the same briefing he has given to Germany, France, Spain, Italy (DAILY, Oct. 23, 1995), Australia, Sweden, Canada, Israel and Greece.
Senate Commerce Committee members voted to fully fund the Mission to Planet Earth in its $13.7 billion NASA authorization bill yesterday, setting up another potential conference confrontation with the House, which cut $373.7 million from the Administration's $1.402 billion MTPE request.
Airbus Industrie will host an airline focus group during the Farnborough Air Show in September to help it decide whether to launch the A340-600 program and offer 27% more capacity and 4% more range. The plane would carry 375 passengers as far as 7,000 nautical miles, compared with the high-gross-weight -300's 295 passengers and 7,300 nautical miles.
Contending that "a minimum" of $8 billion could be saved by producing the V-22 aircraft at an efficient rate, the House Appropriations Committee directed that the Navy ramp up to 36 per year "not later than" fiscal year 2000. The recommendation was contained in the committee's report on the $245.7 billion fiscal 1997 defense appropriations bill.
DIAGNOSTIC/RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS, Parsippany, N.Y., said its DRS OMI unit has received a $2 million contract from Lockheed Martin Electro-Optical Systems for eye-safe laser rangefinders. DRS said it will provide the devices for the Army's Air/Ground Engagement System (AGES II) on the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) program's combat training and simulation devices.
The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants a command and control system for warfighters. Gen. Joseph Ralston said yesterday that he is "still frustrated by our lack of what I would call a command and control system for warfighters."
LOCKHEED MARTIN Space&Range Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif., is working under a $35 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide operations, maintenance, logistics and engineering support to the Space and Missile Systems Center/Space Test and Evaluation Directorate in Albuquerque, N.M. Lockheed Martin said the contract is a follow-on to the Space Test and Evaluation Support Extension award that it received in 1991.
Germany and France, the two biggest partner nations in Europe's Future Large Airlifter program, agreed this week to put the onus on industry to pay for full-scale development of the transport, German defense officials confirmed to The DAILY yesterday - a bill that could run into billions of dollars if the remaining partners go along.
EXTENDED RANGE MLRS program received approval May 21 to enter low rate initial production, U.S. Army Missile Command said yesterday. It said contract award is anticipated for August.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Aeronautical Systems Co., Marietta, Ga., yesterday began flight testing the first C-130J for the U.S. Air Force. The 6 hour, 14 minute flight from Dobbins Air Reserve Base followed the first flight, April 5, of the very first "J" model Hercules, a C-130J-30 for the U.K. Royal Air Force. Six more C-130Js will enter flight testing within a year, Lockheed Martin said.
A spurious computer command sent the first Ariane V booster heeling over sideways only 37 seconds into its inaugural flight, wrecking what had been shaping up to be a textbook flight and throwing Europe's civil and commercial space program into uncertainty over the long-term.
France's decision to pull out of the Medium Extended Range Air Defense System (MEADS) program means the effort will be reduced in scope, but that the U.S. portion will increase, a top U.S. defense official said yesterday. Noel Longuemare, the Pentagon's principal deputy under secretary for acquisition and technology, told The DAILY that "the total context of the program has gone down" since France quit. Germany and Italy, which are still in the program along with the U.S., won't have to pay more, he said.
COL. CHARLES L. JOHNSON has been appointed head of the C-17 System Program Office at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, the U.S. Air Force announced yesterday. Johnson, who has been selected for promotion to the rank of brigadier general, replaces Maj. Gen. T. Kadish, who will become special assistant to Air Force acquisition chief Arthur Money.
A MCDONNELL DOUGLAS-LED TEAM has produced the first two face gears for aerospace transmissions that MDC says promise to be 40% lighter in weight, smaller, quieter and more reliable than current transmissions typically used in helicopters, tiltrotors and fixed wing aircraft. "The use of face gear transmissions will benefit each of these applications by allowing the aircraft to carry heavier payloads without increasing engine power," MDC said.
A report from International Space Station prime contractor Boeing on pressure test anomalies in Station node structures will be delivered on Friday to George Abbey, director of Johnson Space Center, not to Marshall Space Flight Center Director Wayne Littles as reported in The DAILY of May 31.
President Clinton yesterday nominated Adm. Jay L. Johnson to be Chief of Naval Operations, replacing Adm. Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, who committed suicide on May 16. Johnson became vice CNO in March and has been acting CNO since Boorda's death. The nomination coincided with Johnson's 50th birthday.
