LITTON INDUSTRIES said yesterday it has been hit by a work stoppage at its Ingalls Shipbuilding unit following failure of company and union representatives to agree on new labor contracts which expired Feb. 11. It said talks are continuing and that "another vote on a ratification proposal has been scheduled by the union leaders for Feb. 23."
Joint U.S.-Russian aeronautics research projects set up under the aegis of Vice President Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin have fallen prey to schedule slips caused by technical and funding problems, according to U.S. engineers on the projects.
CAE Inc., Toronto, reported third quarter earnings of 17.8 million Canadian dollars ($13 million U.S.), up from a loss a year ago of 16.2 million ($11.9 million). Revenues were also up 26% to 221.4 Canadian dollars ($128.1 million U.S.)
Naval Air Systems Command is releasing a formal RFP for a competition to procure P-3C trainer devices for the Anti-Surface Warfare Improvement Program (AIP). NavAir said in a Jan. 30 Commerce Business Daily notice that the Partial Aircrew Coordination Trainer (PACT) "will add the Anti-Surface Warfare Mission capabilities to existing capabilities in order to perform designated missions."
The Defense Dept. is cutting some $700 million out of fiscal 1996 procurement, plans to shift $1 billion out of the fiscal 1997 defense budget, and is scrutinizing outyear programs to pay for various ongoing peacekeeping operations, congressional sources said yesterday. They said the Pentagon, which previously cut the 2.8% '96 inflation rate to 1.7% (DAILY, Feb. 8), has now lowered it further to 1.2%. The net effect of these inflation offsets is to reduce the $44.4 billion '96 procurement appropriations total by about $700 million.
NASA has picked eight space technology ideas, ranging from inflatable structures to fusion propulsion, for further study with grants of as much as $250,000 under its Advanced Concepts Research Projects (ACRP) program.
Beech Aircraft Corp., Wichita, Kans., was awarded $43.9 million by the U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, for Lot II production of three Beech Mk. II Joint Primary Attack Training System (JPATS) aircraft, the Dept. of Defense said yesterday. The contract calls for the work to be completed in December 1998.
Congress and the Defense Dept. will have to decide whether to support a U.S. Navy and Marine Corps amphibious operations modernization plan that is expected to cost about $58 billion over the next 25 years and that will compete for funding with other big projects, the General Accounting Office said Tuesday.
A Chinese Long March booster failed on launch from the Xichang space center yesterday, destroying a large Intelsat telecommunications satellite intended for service over the Atlantic. Intelsat 708 was lost in the failed launch, which came at about 2 p.m. EST yesterday. Details were sketchy, but witnesses said the launch vehicle exploded. Intelsat said the launch "failed seconds after liftoff."
Lockheed Corporation Lockheed Corporation, Marietta, Georgia, is being awarded a $17,444,939 face value increase to a cost plus award fee contract to provide for a Stores Station Tester applicable to the F-22 aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed July 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-91/C-0006, P00233).
The Canadian Army will buy 1,600 Aerospatiale Eryx short-range, anti- tank missiles, increasing to 6,100 the number of the missiles it has bought to date, the French company said yesterday. The first 4,500 missiles and 425 firing posts were delivered in 1994. Aerospatiale said Canada's buy of the missile, which operates at ranges of 50 to 600 meters, is part of an overall effort to modernize the army's short-range anti-armor capability.
AIL Systems, Deer Park, N.Y., will supply nine Band 5 transmitters and six system power supplies for the B-1B bomber's AN/ALQ-161 electronic countermeasures system under a $5.2 million contract from the U.S. Air Force's Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga. The award was announced by the Dept. of Defense on Feb. 8.
Czech aircraft producer Let Kunovice could be coming a critical step closer to launching series production of its L-610 transport aircraft. Company officials acknowledge that they are in discussions with a Russian business group whose interest in acquiring large amounts of Czech technology includes purchase of a number of the aircraft.
Last fall's flight of the Wake Shield Experiment aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour set a "world record" for purity in the semiconductor material it produced, possibly paving the way for fabricating the first devices with ultra-pure material grown in the vacuum created behind the 12- foot stainless steel disk.
E-Systems has teamed with AAI Corp. to compete for the Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program, replacing Raytheon's Electronic Systems Div. E-Systems was acquired by Raytheon last year. E-Systems Falls Church Div. has overall systems integration responsibility for the TUAV bid. It said it will provide a derivative of its Common Ground Segment being built to support the two high altitude endurance UAVs - DarkStar and Global Hawk.
Korea's Hyundai Group will be McDonnell Douglas' wing-building partner on the MD-95 airliner program, not Halla Engineering, another Korean company that was named last November for the job, a Douglas Aircraft spokesman said yesterday. Because of the change, he said, Douglas' traditional wing supplier, McDonnell Douglas Canada, will build the "first few wing sets" for the MD- 95 to keep the program on schedule.
The U.S. Air Force and Navy have begun work on a modification to the Operational Requirements Document (ORD) for the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) that is likely to result in increased numbers of aircraft and related training systems, a Navy official said yesterday. The number of airplanes being bought "is changing even as we speak," said Cdr. Lance Anderson, deputy on the JPATS program for the Ground Based Training System. "An ORD modification is in process."
Nichols Research Corp., Huntsville, Ala., received a $4 million contract Jan. 16 from U.S. Army Missile Command for threat simulator management office engineering services.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry yesterday warned against making relations with China "hostage to any single issue." Perry's remarks, at a symposium in Washington, appeared to put him on the side of those in and outside the Administration who favor the relatively mild action of imposing and then waiving sanctions against China for violating U.S. non-proliferation law by selling cruise missiles to Iran.
TRW has begun moving the 400 employees of its Strategic Systems Div. into Norton AFB, San Bernardino, Calif., which was closed in 1994. The company said it will be the first occupant of new office space being developed at the former base by Inland Valley Development Agency. The division provides systems engineering and integration on major defense and space programs, and has branched out into other businesses, such as environmental services and integrated health care information systems.
Costs of developing, procuring and supporting avionics for U.S. military aircraft will hopefully be cut by as much as 30% if a plan to focus industry and government efforts is successful, according to a Defense Dept. official. Charles H. Kruegger, chairman of the Pentagon group overseeing the work, said in an interview that an initial version of an avionics plan is being presented to industry, which is expected to respond by March to allow release of a final report in April.
For the first time since World War II, the Russian army is considering buying Western weapons systems for a new upgrade program launched for its vast fleet of Mil Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters. Gueorgi Sinelchikov, first deputy general designer at Mil, told The DAILY last week that while his group is going ahead with building two prototypes of the next-generation Mi-28N heavy attack helicopter in competition with the Kamov Ka-52, its rotors and transmission systems will now be retrofitted to upgraded Russian Army Aviation Mi-24Ms.
