Preliminary captive-flight tests of the Automatic Landing Flight Experiment (ALFLEX) have been completed, clearing the way for free- fall tests of the 6.1-meter vehicle in Australia this May.
Demonstration of a low-cost upgrade of the Navy's Tactical Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS) is being planned for this spring, and deployment on F-14 fighters is seen as early as this year.
Europe's Future Large Aircraft, or FLA, military airlifter has undergone subtle changes since Airbus Industrie was brought into the program in June at British insistence, two large models on stands at the Asian Aerospace show reveal. In addition, program officials said that two FLA derivatives are already under consideration - a dedicated tanker variant and a maritime patrol aircraft capable of an eight-hour mission.
Dowty Aerospace, Yakima, Wash., will begin delivering hydraulic volumetric fuse packages at mid-year for the new 737-600/700/800 aircraft under a contract from the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. The new contract, which covers six types of fuses, brings the total value of Dowty's contribution to the 737 program, which started in 1968, to $765 million.
France's Aerospatiale has sold three of its Exocet NM 40 Block 2 anti-ship missile batteries, but declined to identify the customers. Aerospatiale said at the airshow here that the Block 2 missile features enhanced electronic counter countermeasures (ECCM), a new homing head for better target identification and a new guidance computer. The sea-skimming missile, with a range of 70 miles, automatically adapts to various sea states and features improved maneuverability in the attack phase.
U.S. NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND plans to award a contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. for three engineering development models of the Mission Computer Upgrade for the E-2C aircraft. The command said in a Feb. 2 Commerce Business Daily notice that Northrop Grumman is the only company able to do the work.
A.T. Kearney, Boston-based management consulting team, and the Douglas Aircraft Div. of McDonnell Douglas have developed a computerized system to update aircraft configuration every 24 hours and make the information available simultaneously to customers, manufacturers and suppliers. The system is called Configuration Definition and Management System (CDMS), and it allows secure, interactive online access.
Officials in Russia's Ministry of Defense responsible for the Angara booster are concerned that low financing and reluctance by the Russian Space Agency to substantially commit to the project will hamper development of the new heavy-lift vehicle. Materials for a second phase of the draft design of the Angara heavy space launcher were discussed in December at a scientific-technical conference at the M.K. Tikhonravov Central Science and Research Institute of the Russian Space Forces in Yubileyny, Moscow Region.
Despite dismal 1995 sales and the loss of major competitions at Malaysian and Singapore Airlines, Airbus Industrie retains leading market shares in the Asia-Pacific region and is nearing launch of several new aircraft versions, the consortium's senior VP-Commercial, John J. Leahy, insisted during a briefing at the Asian Aerospace show here.
The U.S. Air Force got an apparent boon when Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski said it could apply to its own programs the more than $800 million in savings achieved through C-17 multi-year procurement, but the money is going instead towards covering about $6 billion lost to the USAF in current and future funding when the Defense Dept. revised its inflation figures downward earlier this year.
AlliedSignal Aerospace Canada has completed the first production units of an auxiliary power unit (APU) that offers both alternating current (ac) and direct current (dc) start capability for the 131-9(B) APU, currently under development for the next generation Boeing 737 aircraft. The start system consists of an ac starter/generator, start control unit and a start power unit that can start the APU using either ac or dc power. Once the APU is started, the system switches modes to provide up to 90 kilovolt amps of electrical power to the aircraft.
BFGoodrich Aerospace, Troy, Ohio, will supply wheels and brakes for Korean Air's fleet of 12 Boeing 777 aircraft, and has an option for eight more aircraft. The airline is the sixth to select BFGoodrich Aerospace for 777 wheels and brakes.
Israel's air force is operating a new ground-based air defense system optimized to shoot down low-flying targets, Israel Aircraft Industries announced at the Singapore air show. The system, known as Machbet, uses a Vulcan gun and Stinger missiles to engage targets such as helicopters and aircraft. IAI didn't say whether it would also counter cruise missiles. Machbet operates between 500 meters and the Stinger's maximum range of about 3 miles.
Air Canada has selected the AlliedSignal Aerospace 36-300 APU for its order of 35 A319 aircraft in a contract valued at more than $25 million, AlliedSignal announced at this week's Asian Aerospace show in Singapore. The carrier uses AlliedSignal APUs throughout its Airbus fleet, and the APU is standard equipment for the A319, A320 and A321 aircraft.
Ranking Senate Armed Services Democrat Sam Nunn (Ga.) said yesterday that fiscal 1997 funding for additional B-2 bombers should come out of "all service lines," and not just from to U.S. Air Force programs.
The U.S. Air Force would like to add a built-in satellite communications capability to its Joint STARS aircraft but the effort hasn't been funded, an AF official told The DAILY. "If we get some money, we hope to put SATCOM on" Joint STARS, the official said. As possible pre-planned product improvement (P3I) efforts for the E-8 go, "SATCOM is number one on the list," he said.
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft, the first built under the U.S. space agency's "faster-better-cheaper" Discovery program, is on schedule and under budget going into its launch to the asteroid 433 Eros next week. Total cost of the one-off science mission will be $210 million in real-year dollars, including the Delta II launch vehicle and about $40 million in operations and science costs, according to Andrew Cheng, NEAR project scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL), which built the spacecraft for NASA.
ARIANESPACE launched Japan's N-Star B telecommunications satellite aboard an Ariane 44P booster early Monday, the European launch consortium reported. Liftoff from the European space center in Kourou, French Guiana, came at 2:19 a.m. EST, placing the 3,420-kilogram satellite in a 35,952- by 199.7-kilometer geostationary transfer orbit. Built by Space Systems/Loral, the satellite will provide C, Ku, S and Ka-band services for Japan from an orbital position over New Guinea. It will be operated by NTT and NTT/DoCoMo.
BRITAIN'S ROYAL AIR FORCE is considering the purchase of 30 excess U.S. Navy P-3A/B ASW aircraft to replace its aging Nimrod patrol planes at an estimated price of $110 million, the Defense Dept. told Congress yesterday. The deal would include removing the aircraft from storage, readying them for ferry, flight testing, and ferrying to Britain. "The United Kingdom would have no difficulty absorbing these aircraft into its armed forces," the Pentagon said. Nor would any U.S. government or contractor personnel be assigned to the U.K. as a result of the potential sale.
AIRBUS is threatening Boeing with legal action if it continues to use what Airbus calls misleading competitive information about the A330/340 in its 777 advertising. Airbus has drafted a letter to Boeing Chairman and CEO Frank Shrontz asking it to withdraw promotional material that says the A330/340 cruise speed is 0.78 Mach. Typical A330/340 cruise speed is in fact Mach 0.82 to 0.83, Airbus says. Overall A330/340 cruise performance is within 1% of the 777's, according to John Leahy, Airbus' senior commercial VP.
Under a joint program involving ARPA and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the Bosnia peacekeeping mission is putting together an $88 million command and control (C2) system that has the bandwidth equivalent to 1 million telephone lines - an order of magnitude greater than in any previous overseas deployment, such as Desert Storm.
The U.S. Air Force, having overcome obstacles at the Pentagon in the way of an aggressive multi-year buy of C-17 airlifters, now faces resistance to the idea in Congress, where new legislation for such a buy is required. "There are some hurdles" to overcome, Brig. Gen. James Richards III, the chief of the Air Force's Global Reach directorate, said yesterday. The main hurdle, he told The DAILY during an interview in his Pentagon office, is getting MYP approved for seven years.
United Technologies' Pratt&Whitney engine unit agreed to buy The Nordam Group's Propulsion Systems Div., the first outright acquisition under a nearly two-year-old plan to triple P&W's overhaul work from a then- $300 million sideline into a $1 billion core business by 1998.
Led by the Navy's $1,468,800,000 contract to General Dynamics's Electric Boat unit, Groton, Conn., for the lead ship in the New Attack Submarine (NSSN) program, U.S. defense procurement for January totaled $3.9 billion, a sharp drop from the $7.3 billion awarded the previous month, and now stands at slightly more than $17 billion for the first four months of the current fiscal year. That single contract accounted for 37% of total DOD awards for the month.
The Senate is in the process of choosing sides in a volatile legislative battle developing over the future of the B-2 bomber, which also has the potential for setting up sharp divisions within the Clinton Administration.
