It's "essentially true" that the U.S. Air Force changed specifications for the F-22 fighter rather than fix a weight problem, "but it's not that cut and dried," said AF Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman. He was responding to Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee last Thursday. Warner, who heads the SASC airland forces subcommittee, noted that there was a weight problem on the F-22 last year and, as far as he knew, it wasn't fixed but the specs were changed.
A RADAR SYSTEM designed to detect terminal-area wind shear was unveiled Friday at Boston's Logan Airport by the FAA and Raytheon Co. The Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TWDR) system "warns air traffic controllers of wind shear in the terminal area where it is most dangerous, and is designed to predict the kind of violent wind shifts that caused several airline incidents over the past decade," Raytheon said. It said the Logan system is one of 47 being installed at major U.S. airports under a $270 million contract with the FAA, and the seventh to be commissioned.
Honeywell Inc. said it has signed a letter of intent to acquire the fiber optic gyroscope business of Smiths Industries Aerospace located in Grand Rapids, Mich. Honeywell said yesterday that it will acquire fiber optic gyroscope design and manufacturing patents and related technology, equipment and services from Smiths, and that the two companies "will work together to assure that all expectations of Smiths Industries' current and prospective inertial product customers will be fully met."
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin visited the factory where Russia is building hardware for the International Space Station (ISS) after Vice President Gore and key House Republicans warned that schedule slips caused by slow payouts from the Russian federal treasury could endanger U.S.-Russian space cooperation on Capitol Hill.
The military needs to take a three-tiered approach to its readiness requirements so more money can be freed up for critical modernization programs, Senate Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said yesterday. "Although Congress will likely add some amount to the defense budget again this year, the fiscal realities of our debt-ridden federal government will make future increases very difficult," McCain said at a hearing where the service chiefs testified on the state of military readiness.
WHITE PAPERS on battle damage assessment (BDA) technology are being sought by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, in collaboration with the Joint Warfare Analysis Center. A March 11 Commerce Business Daily notice said papers under the broad agency announcement can be submitted until May 10.
Senior Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee scolded U.S. Air Force executives yesterday for what they said was an end run around the committee that puts the seven-year C-17 multi-year procurement program in the supplemental funding bill now before the Senate. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said he would offer an amendment on the Senate floor returning MYP jurisdiction to the SASC.
LOCKHEED MARTIN's Ocean Radar and Sensor Systems unit, Syracuse, N.Y., has received a $42.4 million contract for research and development of a Lightweight Broadband Variable Depth Sonar (LBVDS) demonstration prototype. Naval Sea Systems Command awarded the contract March 13 after evaluating 36 offers that responded to a broad agency announcement. The work is to be completed by December 2001, according to the Dept. of Defense.
MEMBERS of the IAM union yesterday rejected a proposed three-year labor agreement with Lockheed Martin Corp. The IAM said the vote, by 6,700 workers in Marietta, Ga., and Palmdale, Calif., means union and company officials must "continue negotiations towards an acceptable, new agreement." It said a date for resumption of talks hasn't been announced.
NASA has demonstrated a small, automated satellite tracking station that can monitor the health of a low Earth orbit (LEO) platform and schedule uplink activities without human intervention, using commercial off the shelf (COTS) technology to hold the cost below $1 million. Dubbed the LEO Terminal, the miniaturized antenna station was built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and tested with NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE).
The planned buy of Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) and Corps SAM missiles isn't enough to support the Pentagon's strategy of being able to fight and win two near-simultaneous regional contingencies, the U.S. Army says in its modernization plan.
Comsat Corp., the U.S. signatory to the Intelsat satellite communications consortium, yesterday sued Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and PanAmSat for $250 million in damages alleged from cancellation of a News Corp. contract to provide direct-to-home broadcasts to Latin America over the Intelsat system.
The National Reconnaissance Office has formed an organization to keep better track of its budget. The head of the Resource Oversight and Management Office, John Nelson, has been to Congress several times to describe how NRO is improving its accounting processes, an NRO spokeswoman said. The agency was criticized, and its two top managers were fired, after its unexpended balances grew to more than $1 billion.
Defending the need for the F-22 next-generation fighter, U.S. Air Force leaders warned Senate defense appropriators of new fighters and missiles that will be operational in potentially hostile nations soon after the turn of the century. The AF expects over 3,000 modern fighters to be operational in 37 nations by 2004, Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall and Chief of Staff Ronald Fogleman told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.
Europe's Arianespace consortium launched an Intelsat telecommunications satellite toward geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic early yesterday, a flight that should ease Intelsat's loss of a similar satellite when a Chinese Long March rocket failed on launch last month.
Appropriators halved the White House's $140 million request to transfer 12 F-16 fighters to Jordan because Administration officials didn't consult with Congress before promising the deal to the Jordanian government, International Relations Committee Chair Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) said. The Administration's "clumsy handling" of Jordan policy is a "good example of what not to do," Gilman told Administration officials testifying on the F-16 deal before the committee on Wednesday.
The U.S. Air Force is asking for $51.7 million in its fiscal year 1997 budget to station C-17 airlifters at McChord AFB in Tacoma Wash., according to a listing of Defense Dept. construction program released yesterday.
COMPUTER SYSTEMS CENTER INC., Alexandria, Va., will develop electromagnetic compatibility computer modeling and simulation for Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) airborne platforms under a sole source contract, the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center said in a March 11 Commerce Business Daily notice. "The contract shall task the contractor to develop tEMC Modeling, concept of operations (CONOPS) Modeling and Simulation, and system integration in support of the CEC Program," the notice said.
DEVELOPMENT of a Remote Minehunting System (V)3 is the subject of solicitations from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command. It said in a March 8 Commerce Business Daily notice that the system will consist of "a remote vehicle, mission control and display subsystem, DD 963 launch and recovery subsystem, variable depth sensor, forward look sonar, maintenance support subsystem, and transportation support subsystem," the notice said.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center plans an industry workshop March 22 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore to describe plans for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), a huge deployable mirror that will be launched in the next decade as part of the newly focused "Origins" program at the U.S. space agency.
The Clinton Administration's 2.2% defense budget inflation rate from fiscal years 1996 to 2002 is almost 25% below the Congressional Budget Office's soon-to-be-released preliminary inflation estimates, according to a Senate Republican Policy Committee paper made public yesterday. The Republican Policy paper notes that CBO's inflation estimates by the fiscal year will be as follows: 1996, 2.6%; 1997, 3.1%; 1998, 3.1%; 1999, 2.9%; 2000, 2.9%; 2001, 2.9%; 2002, 3.0%.
The Army could use some funding beyond its $60.1 billion fiscal year 1997 budget request to plug holes in modernization accounts, Army Chief of Staff Dennis H. Reimer told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. If Congress, like last year, bolsters the Army request, added dollars should be used to accelerate existing programs, rather than introduce new ones, Reimer said.
Senate Armed Services Committee member John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday that he plans to release a report next week on military readiness, and make recommendations for force structure requirements.
A Northrop Grumman official warned that failure of the U.S. to meet competitive challenges posed by other nations' export financing institutions would mean that American exporters "will be crippled" in their attempts to develop and maintain market share and preserve and create jobs.
House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), armed with each military service's wish list for add-ons of up to $3 billion per service, said yesterday that he was aiming to add $12 billion to $13 billion to the Clinton Administration's $242.6 billion fiscal 1997 defense request.
