Westinghouse and Raytheon, competing in a development effort to provide the U.S. Army with the Airborne Standoff Minefield Detection System (ASTAMIDS), are eying the prospect of the most promising system being tested this summer going to Bosnia for additional evaluations. The opportunity comes at a time when Congress, spurred by deployment of U.S. troops to the former Yugoslavia, is prepared to generously fund anti-mine programs. As of late last week, there had been 11 mine incidents in Bosnia, but no deaths, since deployment of U.S. forces.
With the Pentagon trying to figure out how to do standoff jamming, U.S. Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall says "I don't think it will be a separate aircraft, that's my own personal view." Instead, she tells The DAILY in an interview, "my guess is it would be pods and other kinds of add-ons." She points out that although the Air Force will retire its EF-111 standoff jammers and rely on Navy EA-6B Prowlers, the add-on variants would allow the Air Force to maintain the jamming mission.
A 16-foot-long graphite composite liquid hydrogen tank has passed ground tests at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and will be installed in the McDonnell Douglas DC-XA reusable launch vehicle (RLV) prototype for flight testing in May, the U.S. space agency reported. Dan Dumbacher, NASA's DC-XA project manager, termed the ground tests "a breakthrough."
Nuclear disarmament proceeds apace, Perry said at the same session. "Thousands" of missiles have been removed from the former Soviet Union, he said, and Kazakhstan is now non-nuclear. Dismantling is ahead of schedule in Ukraine and should be finished this summer, and Belarus will join the non-nuclear club before year's end. And Russia and the U.S. are "well ahead" of schedule on START 1, Perry says.
The U.S. Navy had planned to neck down from its current nine Pioneer UAV systems to five - each with multiple air vehicles - but is reconsidering that option, Barry Dillon, deputy program executive officer for UAVs, says at the same conference in Arlington, Va. Still to be determined is where the money for such a move would come from. Service life of the Pioneer has been extended because its follow-on, the Hunter, has been capped.
Top NASA managers are pondering another big agency shakeup that would see the Office of Space Flight moved to Houston and headquarters staff cut by almost two-thirds. Under a plan floated at headquarters last week, the Washington-based staff would drop from about 1,400 to 500 by the end of 1998, with management of most agency programs shifted to the field centers and headquarters left to deal with Congress and other federal agencies. Administrator Dan Goldin has told associates he wants to see deep cuts at headquarters as an alternative to eliminating a field center.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) has definitized Thrust 3 of its Microwave and Analog Front End Technology (MAFET) advanced development program and is issuing a broad agency announcement (BAA) today soliciting full proposals for two focus areas - low-cost, high performance microwave technologies and millimeter wave integration - and white papers for a third - demonstrations and validations.
The U.S. Army wants to upgrade the forward looking infrared system on its AH-64 Apaches and is considering a modified RAH-66 Comanche FLIR as the replacement system. The Army is planning to award Lockheed Martin's Orlando, Fla.-based Electronics and Missiles Div. a proof-of-principle contract for testing a FLIR Pilot Night Vision Sensor (PNVS) on an Apache, a Jan. 24 Commerce Business Daily notice said. Lockheed-Martin developed the FLIR through an independent research and development effort.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry was enigmatic at a breakfast meeting with reporters last week on whether he would stay on if President Clinton is re-elected, saying only that he expected Clinton to run again and to win - and that he had promised him to serve throughout his first term. But he has spoken in the past of the good life in Silicon Valley, and he has a good shot at walking away with two accomplishments that eluded his predecessors: successfully completing an overseas military operation on his watch and achieving genuine acquisition reform.
The U.S. general aviation industry in 1995 delivered 1,077 units - up 16.1% from the previous year and the most since 1990, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Total dollar billings jumped 20.6% over 1994 to $2.8 billion.
Although weapons such the Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) and the Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles have received much attention, mission planning and weapons controls for those systems "is an area we're just starting to get into," says Rear Adm. Bart Strong, the program executive officer for cruise missiles and UAVs. He also tells industry reps during a conference that "if you find a way to do those cheaply, you have a winner."
U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, vice chairman-designate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Friday that he has carried his case for correcting a shortfall in F-16 and F-15E fighters to Deputy Defense Secretary John White. Asked by The DAILY after a hearing on his confirmation for the JCS slot if he had any assurance from White that there would be increased funding to make up for the shortfall, Ralston replied, "No sir. That's something for him to go through."
Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle request for proposals will be released "on or about Feb. 1," according to a Jan. 26 Commerce Business Daily notice. The RFP will be released electronically via the Tactical UAV home page - www.redstone.army.mil/jtuav - and through an electronic bulletin board. Responses will be due 45 days after the release.
Alliant Techsystems, Minneapolis, will produce fuzes to upgrade the ammunition fired from the 40mm cannon onboard the U.S. Air Force's AC-130/U aircraft used for special operations under a $7 million contract the company says could increase by another $13 million if the Air Force exercises all its options.
Citing a lopsided military arms market that favors U.S. suppliers nearly 10-to-1, the European Commission moved last week towards requiring non- European countries to pledge "comparable and effective access" to their own military markets in order to bid on European defense work.
NASA field center directors would gain new authority if the headquarters cuts go through, with more responsibility for programs that fall within their centers' "strategic" specialties. Apparently in anticipation of the coming shift, Goldin has named three new center directors in the past few weeks. Two of them - Wayne Littles at Marshall and George Abbey at Johnson Space Center - suggest that regardless of whatever else happens, control of human spaceflight is shifting to Houston.
The Administration on Feb. 5 will probably submit to Congress only the top line Pentagon budget request for fiscal 1997. It would thus comply with a requirement that the executive branch send its budget to Capitol Hill by the first Tuesday in February. With its appropriations bill not enacted until December, and the outcome of the revised defense authorization not settled until earlier this month, the Defense Dept. will likely have only the top line available by then. The full budget probably won't arrive on the Hill until late February or early March.
Tom Halvorson was been named vice president-marketing. Halvorson joins the company after 15 years with Western Aircraft of Idaho where he served in various positions including director of flight operations, vice president marketing and company president.
A joint U.S.-Czech commission has completed a four-month study of options for modernizing the Czech air force, with the U.S. Navy and Air Force squaring off over whose aircraft will supply the Czech Republic and other former Warsaw Pact air forces in Central Europe. The joint commission completed its work earlier this month. At almost the same time the U.S. government, as one industry source put it, "for the first time put a definite offer on the table" for new and used fighter aircraft.
The Defense Dept. yesterday notified Congress that the government of Thailand plans to buy eight F/A-18C/D Hornets. A State Dept. spokesman said the deal won't include the AIM-120 air-to-air missiles that Thailand was seeking. U.S. Air Force and Navy officials had endorsed both the fighter sale and the export of the missile (DAILY, Sept. 28, 1995), but the State Dept. was resisting the missile portion because it argued against introducing such a capability into the region (DAILY, Oct. 5, 1995).
The company announced several changes in its board of directors and management: Byron Frank, formerly vice chairman of the board, was elected chairman. Frank is vice president of Family Partners, Ltd. Joseph M. Liebsack, previously chairman of the board and chief executive officer, continues as a director of the company. Gary L.Hokkanen, formerly president and chief operating officer, was named president and chief executive officer.
James B. Webb, formerly senior vice president, corporate operations, secretary and treasurer, and a member of the board of directors, has been elected president and chief executive officer. Webb succeeds Gerald J. Zobrist, Zonic founder, president and CEO, who retired at the end of last year.
An APG-71 radar operating in the medium pulse repetition frequency (PRF) mode enabled Navy F-14D aircraft to score hits on targets with two AIM-54C Phoenix missiles and a Sparrow missile, according to Hughes Aircraft, manufacturer of the radar. In the first Phoenix launch, against an augmented BQM-74 drone, the missile scored a direct hit using the PRF single target track mode. The second was performed in track-while-scan interleave mode and was judged a hit because it passed within lethal range of the target.
