OLIN CORP.'S board of directors has elected Donald W. Griffin president and chief executive officer. Griffin has served as president and chief operating officer of the company since February 1994. He will assume his new post on Jan. 1, 1996, and succeed John W. Johnstone, Jr., who will remain chairman of the board, a post he has held since 1988.
The House Science Committee has approved a measure aimed at simplifying the negotiation of cooperative research and development agreements (CRADA) and speeding up the commercialization of resulting inventions. The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 was approved by a unanimous voice vote on Oct. 25, the committee said in a statement.
The U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser, proposed to knock down theater ballistic missiles during their boost phase, is no "golden B-B" and must work with other services' terminal defenses to negate the missile threat of expansion-minded third world countries, according to the ABL program manager.
Warning of the peril of Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles, the Heritage Foundation in a recent report recommended the U.S. place greater emphasis on theater missile defense and sell those systems to allies in the Pacific Rim. "[T]he U.S. should incorporate missile defenses into its strategy to deter aggression in Asia," the Heritage Foundation states in its report "Building a More Secure Asia through Missile Defense."
The two-day Defense Acquisition Board review of airlift issues slated to start today may become a three-day affair, and some sources now expect the review to run through Thursday. It isn't clear what - if anything - has been added to the agenda, although program sources told The DAILY that an extra day has always been held in reserve in case it was believed necessary. Sources said, however, that as of Monday that day appeared to be needed.
General Electric's 22,000 lbst. F414 fighter turbofan powering the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet won its preliminary flight qualification, or PFQ, clearing the new multi-role fighter to start three years of flight tests, GE reported yesterday. The Super Hornet will fly for the first time in December, powered by the first two of seven F414 flight test engines that will be delivered to E/F prime contractor McDonnell Douglas by year-end. Ultimately the flight test program will use 21 F414-GE-400s.
Teledyne is taking itself off the auction block, encouraged by a string of good quarterly results, but hasn't completely ruled out being acquired later down the road. "After thorough appraisal of numerous proposed transactions, the special committee [of outside directors] has concluded that continued implementation of Teledyne's business plans offers superior value for our shareholders," said Henry Singleton, who headed the committee, in a prepared statement last week.
Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) purchases by Norway and Denmark totaling $350 million were submitted to Congress yesterday for approval by the Dept. of Defense.
The House today or tomorrow will take up a $12.103 billion fiscal 1996 foreign operations appropriations compromise bill that includes $3.208 billion in foreign military financing, and a little noticed section directing the Clinton Administration to take steps to assure that U.S. aircraft manufacturers can compete for "high performance" aircraft replacement sales in Eastern Europe.
Litton yesterday won the down-select over Lockheed Martin for Phase II of the Air Force's Optical Processor-Enhanced Laser Radar program. The company received a $2 million contract to integrate an optical processor- based target recognition with a laser radar. The award follows a nine-month Phase 1 concept definition and design effort in which the competitors were Litton's Data Systems Div., Agoura Hills, Calif., and Lockheed Martin's Strategic Systems Div., Denver.
A fleet of 120 C-17s gives the Air Force the most military flexibility, but a mixed fleet of 72 C-17s and 30 military Boeing 747s saves the most money on the same cargo capacity, the Congressional Budget Office concluded on the eve of the Defense Acquisition Board's decision on the future of U.S. airlift. CBO's conclusions were widely telegraphed and expected - including endorsement of a buy of as many as 80 additional C-17s as the best military solution (DAILY, Oct. 30, page 173).
October 23, 1995 Northrop Grumman Corporation Northrop Grumman Corporation, Pico Rivera, California, is being awarded a $7,186,012 face value increase to a cost plus incentive fee contract for a Flight control System Maintenance Trainer applicable to the B-2 aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed May 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is the contracting activity (F33657- 81/C-0067, P00541).
Technicians at GE Aircraft Engines started testing the first growth version of the new 90,000 lbst.-class GE90 turbofan, the 92,000 lbst. GE90- 92B, GE officials told The DAILY yesterday. Even as engine testing delays have put off delivery of the first Boeing 777s powered by the baseline 84,700 lbst. GE90-85 to GE90 launch customer British Airways until sometime next month, work has already started on an engine test program that GE hopes will lead to U.S. certification of the first growth step by mid-1996.
Even though counterproliferation has a high priority, those programs "will nevertheless have to compete with other programs" for scarce funding dollars, Paul Kaminski, DOD's acquisition chief told the counterproliferation conference Friday. But he said he expects an increase in the fiscal year 1997 funding for counterproliferation compared to this year's budget request.
Non-developmental airlifter supporters on and off Capitol Hill worry that concerns raised last month within the Air Force over NDAA's possible effects on the Civil Reserve Air Fleet might be used as a pretext during this week's Defense Acquisition Board review on airlift to put off decisions on the best mix of NDAAs and McDonnell Douglas C-17s.
Contractor teams working on proposals for NASA's X-33 reusable launch vehicle flying testbed had better get it right the first time. There won't be a flyoff. NASA has wanted to fly competing prototypes since it squeezed enough money out of its budget to pay seed money for the RLV effort (DAILY, March 13, page 375), but money for more than one flight vehicle just won't be available.
The Lockheed Martin-led Space Imaging commercial remote sensing satellite venture has moved another step ahead with the receipt of a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license to transmit data from its satellite to Earth stations. The license, which allows Space Imaging to transmit in the 8 Ghz. Earth Exploration Satellite Services band, comes 19 months after Space Imaging received a Commerce Dept. license to operate its system, which will provide commercial customers with one-meter panchromatic, four-meter multispectral and one-meter color-enhanced imagery.
