Aerospace contractors would suffer minor inconvenience, at worst, under a shutdown of the federal government stemming from the spending impasse between the White House and the Republican leadership in Congress - "less than meets the eye," in the words of one contractor.
Saudi Arabia, which received its first F-15S aircraft in September, is due to get its first operational GBU-15 guided bombs for the planes in late 1998, according to a foreign military sales proposal estimated at $371 million submitted to Congress last Thursday. The sale would be the second to the region, following an earlier order from Egypt. The GBU-15 was used by the U.S. Air Force during Operation Desert Storm to take out bridges and to extinguish oil well fires that had been set by Iraq.
Senate signers of a letter to Defense Secretary William J. Perry warning against plans to cut back or slow down the Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) program were driven by concern that Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski this week may recommend a delay in THAAD production to permit a flyoff with the Navy Upper Tier, Senate sources said yesterday. The sources quoted unnamed officials in the Pentagon as saying that Kaminski will recommend the competition to Deputy Defense Secretary John White, with the winner going into production.
November 7, 1996 -- General Electric Aircraft Engines, Lynn, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $6,956,544 ceiling priced order contract for procurement of forward cooling plates used in F/A-18 aircraft engines. Work will be performed in Lynn, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed by January 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity (F34601-92-G-0010).
November 6, 1996 -- Lockheed Martin, Martin Marietta Government Electronics Systems, Moorestown, New Jersey, is being awarded a $73,100,889 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-94-C-5157 for DDG 51 Class AEGIS combat system installation and testing, and AEGIS backfit design integration. Work will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey (73%), Bath Maine (17%), and Pascagoula, Mississippi (10%), and is expected to be completed by March 1999. Contract funds in the amount of $500,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
November 6, 1996 -- Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Stratford, Connecticut, is being awarded a $6,790,200 firm fixed price contract for 150 Rotary wing blades (tail blades) used on the Black Hawk helicopter. Work will be performed in Stratford, Connecticut, and is expected to be completed by December 31, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on May 12, 1995. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Missouri (DAAJ09-92-D-0045).
November 8, 1995 -- Loral Vought Systems Corporation, Grand Prairie, Texas, is being awarded a $33,189,604 modification to a firm fixed price contract for FY 96 full rate production of the Army Tactical Missile System (TACMS) guided missile and launching assembly and associated warranty. Work will be performed in Dallas, Texas, 98.2%, and Horizon City, Texas, 1.8%, and is expected to be completed by August 31, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract solicited on April 2, 1991.
The Dept. of Defense will press on with its modernization program, raising procurement from $38 billion in the fiscal year 1996 budget to $67 billion by the end of the century, Deputy Defense Secretary John White told a joint meeting of the National Security Industrial Association and American Defense Preparedness Association yesterday in Arlington, Va.
November 6, 1996 -- AlliedSignal Engines, AlliedSignal Incorporated, Stratford, Connecticut, is being awarded a delivery order amount of $6,198,988 firm fixed price contract for direct support plus 248 phase II tool sets for the M1 Tank. Work will be performed in Stratford, Connecticut, and is expected to be completed June 30, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on March 3, 1995. The contracting activity is the U.S.
November 9, 1995 -- General Electric Aircraft Engines, Lynn, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $5,961,344 cost plus fixed fee contract for FY 1996 support services for the F-117A aircraft, including logistics support, sustaining engineering, engineering and technical data. Contract is expected to be completed September 1996. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began May 1995 and negotiations were complete September 1995.
November 7, 1995 -- STANDARD Missile Company, Falls Church, Virginia, is being awarded a $70,798,631 Not-to-Exceed (NTE) letter contract for R&D engineering support services. Work will be performed in Bedford, Massachusetts (45%), Tucson, Arizona (45%), and Falls Church, Virginia (10%). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N00024-96-C- 5301).
November 8, 1995 -- Raytheon Company, Equipment Division, Sudbury, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $9,408,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-94- C-5614 for production of five Medium Pulse Repetition Frequency Upgrade (MPU) Kits and two AN/SPS 49A(V)1 test fixtures for the AN/SPS-49(V) radar system. Work will be performed in Waltham, Massachusetts (68%), and Sudbury, Massachusetts (32%), and is expected to be completed by March 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
NATO's Conference of National Armaments Directors, or CNAD, last week accepted a steering committee recommendation to jointly buy a minimum number of airborne ground surveillance systems. The decision was supported by all participants, including the U.K., which originally wanted to delay a decision, according to a NATO official in Brussels. NATO's Defense Planning Committee will have the final say, at the end of November, on whether to accept the NATO-Owned Jointly Operated (NOJO) option.
NASA's Langley Research Center is looking for companies, universities and other government agencies interested in taking part in a feasibility and conceptual design study of a low-Earth orbit remote sensing spacecraft that would monitor the global effects of biomass burning.
SPACE IMAGING, Thornton, Colo., has received an FCC license to transmit remote sensing data over the 8 GHz Earth Exploration Satellite Services band. The company's satellite system, initiated by Lockheed Martin under the name Commercial Remote Sensing System, can provide 1-meter panchromatic, 4-meter multispectral and 1-meter color-enhanced imagery, according to Space Imaging.
GENERAL ELECTRIC's GE90 turbofan won its long-awaited certification on Boeing's 777 widebody twin Thursday, after final certification test issues with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration were resolved earlier in the week. Delivery of the first airplane, originally slated for late September, was expected sometime over the weekend to launch customer British Airways.
The CNAD moved to ensure that the related decision of which airborne platform to buy wouldn't be delayed unnecessarily, the NATO official said. The effort, which will include a platform selection and a draft memorandum of agreement, should be completed in 1997, the CNAD said. Completion of the job had been threatened earlier to be delayed until 1998.
House conferees trying to break the fiscal 1996 national security authorization deadlock Thursday sent over to Senate negotiators their compromise proposals on major issues which included new language on shipbuilding and national missile defense, congressional sources said.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) warned that adding on to current military aircraft programs would jeopardize funding for planned programs. "We have to modernize the right thing," he said. Levin, who as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is one of the conferees in the fiscal 1996 national security authorization conference, made it clear Thursday during a breakfast meeting with defense reporters in Washington that his targets were House add-ons for Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighters.
MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES has chosen Lucas Aerospace and Japan's Shinko Electric to supply electrically powered hoists for Japan's new UH-60JA helicopter, formerly designated UHX. Lucas said it will produce the hoists at its Cargo Systems plant in Brea, Calif. Shinko, with assistance from Lucas, will develop a power drive system using an integrated motor controller concept unique to Lucas hoists, according to Lucas.
Ironically, two of the four Tier 2 Plus "down selectees," Raytheon and Orbital Science Corp., had made a substantial effort to take advantage of the relaxed acquisition procedures. Raytheon, in particular, established a central organization to implement the 845 procedures if the company had won a Tier 2 Plus Phase 2 contract.
TITAN CORP., San Diego, reports production contracts totaling $10.2 million for its MULTIBUS and VME computer products from Loral Defense Systems, Lockheed Martin, the government of Taiwan and others. The equipment supports military data processing applications, including fire control and early warning.
Senate Democrat Carl Levin (Mich.) says there's "a learning curve, frankly," for House and Senate Republican leaders in coming to agreement on the fiscal 1996 defense authorization conference. Failure of the conferees to come up with a compromise bill has led to grumbling, both private and public, about the leadership of House National Security Committee Chairman Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.). A published report quotes congressional sources as saying he may be forced to step down next year and be succeeded by either Rep.
The team of Lockheed Martin Sanders and ITT, having won the competition for radio frequency subsystem of the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) system, outlined its duties under the new contract. Sanders, as team leader, said the $26.8 million engineering and manufacturing development contract awarded earlier this month (DAILY, Nov. 6, page 214) calls for it to provide 15 technique generators, 50 fiber optic towed decoys, and 50 decoy mass models for development flight testing.
Despite Defense Secretary Perry's June 1994 pronouncement that performance specifications are to replace mil specs in new programs and upgrades to existing ones, industry and DOD still haven't figured out how to get there from here. The two competing approaches are "top down," applying the procedures across the board (generally favored by DOD) and "bottom up," selecting specific processes and contractors (generally favored by industry). A proposed compromise is to select new programs embodying relatively low levels of technology.
