A lower-level aerospace engineer thinks there's a safety issue with his employer's product, an issue he claims the company is trying to hide. Years of study ensue. In the end, the Air Force and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration say there's no safety issue; moreover, no one involved can really say for sure what technical standard the product was supposed to meet in the first place. And Justice Dept. lawyers decide not to bother with a criminal case, because there's no fraud. The result
The Pentagon has received the draft operational requirements document from Air Combat Command for the B-1B bomber's electronic countermeasures suite upgrade, which includes replacing the bomber's AN/ALQ-161 internal jammer, Air Force officials said yesterday. The AF is looking for "readily available" items to provide a new receiver processor and situational awareness capability. "Right now the [B- 1B's] system overloads in certain threat environments," one AF officials said.
Boeing hopes to develop and demonstrate an infrared sensor package for the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft that will let airborne crews detect and track theater ballistic missiles as they climb from launch. The company reported yesterday that it won a $43.5 million contract from the U.S. Air Force's Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., to work as prime contractor with Texas Instruments to design and build a prototype sensor system based on off-the-shelf subsystems.
Alliant Techsystems, Boeing Defense and Space Group, Lockheed Martin Technologies and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace each have won 15-month, $30 million firm fixed-price contracts for the low-cost concept validation phase of the Air Force's "evolved" expendable launch vehicle (EELV) program, AF Secretary Sheila Widnall said yesterday. The AF didn't receive bids from any other contractors, a fact that "was a bit of a surprise to us," Widnall said. However, she added, the proposals were "sufficiently distinct" for each to merit an award.
Congressional actions to date on selected fiscal 1996 U.S. Navy research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) programs are listed below. The figures do not include Navy RDT&E for military space, which was listed in a separate chart that appeared in The DAILY on Aug. 3.
McDonnell Douglas C-17 Globemaster III airlifters got their first taste of operational action yesterday, as a C-17 deployed to Kuwait as part of a larger contingent of aircraft in the readiness exercise Intrinsic Action. The first aircraft left yesterday morning from Charleston AFB, S.C., and was slated to fly directly to Kuwait City with aerial refueling along the way. Another C-17 was scheduled to fly out yesterday afternoon.
AlliedSignal Aerospace agreed to buy Northrop Grumman's gyroscope and control system unit for an undisclosed price, and could close the deal in anywhere from two to four months. The business, Norwood, Mass.-based Precision Products, became part of Northrop in 1960, and adds a range of tactical and strategic inertial instruments and systems used on some 400 U.S. defense and space programs to AlliedSignal Aerospace's existing inertial and sensor business. It posted sales of some $56 million last year.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency is undertaking a study to determine the feasibility of flying unmanned, semiautonomous tactical aircraft in combat, according to an official of the Pentagon high-tech research unit.
VITRO CORP., Rockville, Md., has won a $10 million contract with a potential vale of $51.8 million to provide omnibus engineering support and computer engineering support services for the development of weapon/avionics systems at the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Indianapolis, Ind. The contract was awarded July 27.
CAE LINK CORP., Binghamton, N.Y., will incorporate the Automatic Flight Control System, the Ground Collision Avoidance System and an Electronic Control Loading modification into the C-130 Aircrew Training System under a $6.2 million contract from the U.S. Air Force. The contract, awarded Aug. 14, was from the Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CHOSE Elbit subsidiary EFW to provide the core avionics package for the Northrop Grumman-led T-38 Talon II Upgrade Team competing to modernize 425 T-38s. The U.S. company said it signed a memorandum of agreement with Elbit this month, and is working to finalize a more definitive teaming agreement. Plans call for maximum use of off-the-shelf hardware developed by EFW and Elbit, an Israeli company, as a way to cut risk and boost cost effectiveness for the Air Education and Training Command bidding.
LORAL DEFENSE SYSTEMS, St. Paul, Minn., will perform AN/AYK-23 computer system requirements analysis for S-3 aircraft ADA software development under a July 28 contract for $26.4 million from U.S. Naval Air Systems Command.
EGYPTAIR ORDERED ordered three 777-200s, valued at $400 million, for delivery beginning in 1997, Boeing said yesterday. Boeing said it now has 16 customers and 167 announced orders for the aircraft with options on another 99.
A Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle crashed yesterday at 11:25 a.m. EDT on state-owned land near Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., marking the third Hunter mishap this month, according to military officials. The cause of the crash during a training mission hadn't been determined late yesterday. The Hunter crashed about three miles northwest of Rugge-Hamilton runway, and a fire was reported at the site. Officials hadn't determined whether the drone itself was ablaze or it was a brush fire, and would not speculate on whether the drone was recoverable.
Titan Corp. of San Diego has been awarded a multi-year Defense Nuclear Agency contract worth as much as $3.6 million to adapt computer code developed for the electric power industry to modeling the atmospheric dispersal of hazardous materials. Under the contract, Titan will adapt its SCIPUFF code designed to predict pollution downwind from coal-fired power plants to predict the atmospheric transport of such dangerous materials as radioactive isotopes released by nuclear power plans, or agents from biological and chemical weapons.
SatCon Technology Corp. has won a $575,000 subcontract from TRW Space&Electronics to develop a flywheel energy storage unit to replace the battery energy storage system currently in use by NASA. The work is being done under the Power Systems Test Bed Program, a project run by NASA's Lewis Research Center to test energy storage systems for space applications.
Congressional actions to date on selected fiscal 1996 U.S. Air Force research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) programs are listed below. The figures do not include Air Force RDT&E for military space, which was listed in a separate chart that appeared in The DAILY on Aug. 3.
LORAL DEFENSE SYSTEMS-AKRON received a $5.5 million addition to a contract for production of a weapon system trainer for the F-15S aircraft to be operated by Saudi Arabia. The contract, from the U.S. Air Force's Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah, was awarded Aug. 14.
The Defense Information Systems Agency has completed a draft of the third edition of its Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) master plan and has passed it to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence Emmett Paige for review. The master plan lays out "all the pieces of the DII; it indicates where they are right now, and describes the baseline where they're moving," John J. Pelszynski, integration manager for DISA's enterprise integration directorate, said yesterday in an interview.
The Pentagon hopes to make its new, streamlined contract close-out procedures permanent soon by proposing government-wide changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the Defense Dept. said yesterday. The new rules require DOD contracting officers to use quick contract close-outs on a large number of completed contracts. The idea is to speed up payments to contractors by minimizing amounts held out by the Pentagon while final overhead rates are calculated, negotiated and audited.
The U.S. Marine Corps plans to review and update the Navy Amphibious Lift and Air Support Requirements Study by March 1 in order to determine whether the Corps' aviation component is organized "properly," according to new Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak's Planning Guidance document.
A Canadian firm has begun marketing telephones designed to provide voice, fax and data services on business jets via American Mobile Satellite Corp.'s (AMSC) new AMSC-1 satellite. Cal Corp. of Ottawa announced it has signed its first 14 deals in the business aviation market to offer the CALQuest phone for business and general aircraft. Communications services will be available in AMSC-1's coverage area, which extends from Alaska to the Panama Canal, including the Caribbean, and two hundred miles off the North American coasts.
The General Accounting Office wants to see the Pentagon establish a special task force to evaluate and spread technology growing from the FS-X program, contending that so far the U.S. may be missing out on technology flowback. "Although the United States continues to receive a large volume of Japanese FS-X technical data, to date the efforts to evaluate and use this data have been limited and ineffective," GAO evaluators said in "Progress On The FS-X Program Enhances Japanese Aerospace Capabilities" (GAO/NSIAD- 95-145).
Hughes' DirecTV satellite broadcasting service has signed a deal that will allow it to broadcast out-of-market Major League baseball games for the remainder of this season and another 1,000 games in 1996 and 1997.
TRW INC. OF SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF., has won a nearly $213 million Ballistic Missile Defense Organization contract to develop a Battle Management/Command, Control, and Communications (BM/C3) capability for theater and national missile defense. TRW also will provide TMD and NMD System Engineering and Integration support services. Work will be done in Arlington, Va., and is scheduled to be completed in August 2002.
