REFLECTONE U.K. LTD. has finalized its contract with Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems to build flight simulators and other training devices, and to provide related training and services for the British Ministry of Defence. The value of the contract is $77 million. Talks with Lockheed Martin on the final details were recently concluded, following a preliminary award of $10.6 million in April, according to Reflectone President Richard G. Snyder. He said the contract is the largest received in Reflectone's 56-year history, and has already resulted in 40 new jobs.
TRW has been awarded a $56.7 million U.S. Navy contract to support the Joint Training Analysis and Simulation Center (JTASC) in Suffolk, Va. The company said work on the five-year contract will employ about 200 people in the Virginia Tidewater area. JTASC, located in a complex originally built to house the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. The 220,000-square-foot compound is equipped with computers and simulators to support training for joint task force commanders and staff in the continental U.S., TRW said.
LOCKHEED MARTIN ATLAS IIAS LAUNCHER is being prepared for an Aug. 28 launch of the Japanese JCSAT-3 communications satellite. The launch window at Cape Canaveral opens at 8:43 p.m. EDT. JCSAT-3 will relay voice, data and television signals to Japan, with additional beams for coverage west to India, south to Australia and New Zealand and east to Hawaii. It was built by Hughes Space&Communications Co. for Japan Satellite Systems, Inc., and will be the ninth Hughes-built satellite to be launched this year.
SIMUFLITE Training International and K-C Aviation Inc. said they are teaming their marketing efforts to promote concurrent crew training scheduling of their Dallas-based services. "Scheduling crew training at the same time as aircraft maintenance can maximize a flight department's labor and minimize downtime," said Jeffrey G. Roberts, managing director of sales and marketing for SimuFlite. "SimuFlite and K-C Aviation have coordinated efforts to bring clients the equivalent of 'one-stop shopping.'"
Orion Atlantic Network Services has signed a multi-year contract to connect Europe Online with the U.S. via satellite. Europe Online is building a global information and entertainment network with broad band (television) and narrow band (data bit streams) signal transmission and consumer interactivity. Orion Atlantic will install and operate a 2 Mbps connection between Europe Online's headquarters in Luxembourg and AT&T interchange facilities in Massachusetts.
SIMULA INC., Phoenix, said yesterday it has received awards totaling more than $3.7 million from McDonnell Douglas Aerospace to produce newly designed centerline seats for the C-17 airlifter. Deliveries are slated to begin in May 1996 and run through April 1998.
The Royal Netherlands Air Force has released a request for information for a reconnaissance pod for its F-16s that could answer the U.S. Air Force's questions about manned tactical reconnaissance, an industry official said.
Twenty Predator Tier II unmanned aerial vehicles seem to be "the right number to look at" for initial operations of the U.S. Air Force's new 11th Reconnaissance Squadron at Nellis AFB, Nev., according to squadron commander Lt. Col. Steve Hampton. Air Combat Command has looked at fielding 10, 20 and 50 of the beefed- up General Atomics Gnat-750 drones at the squadron, whose flying and maintenance operations will be run out of the Indian Springs Auxiliary Field near Nellis.
THE NETWORK CONNECTION INC., Atlanta, will supply equipment for the U.S. Air Force's Project Speckled Trout, a Boeing C-135C transport and special mission test aircraft. TNCi said it will supply video server equipment, component end stations and software development to the USAF's 412th Squadron, operator of the C-135C and a primary environment for the flight test of new technologies.
GEN. GORDON R. SULLIVAN (USA-ret.), former chief of staff of the U.S. Army, has been elected to the board of directors of Rubbermaid Inc., increasing the size of the board from 11 to 12 members, the company said yesterday. Sullivan, 57, also serves on the boards of General Dynamics Corp. and Shell Oil Corp.
Although the U.S. Air Force reported data describing everything from the number of flights to the number of cargoes and even number of refuelings during last month's evaluation of the C-17 airlifter, initial results in the crucial areas of Reliability, Maintainability and Availability are only beginning to emerge.
The UAV Joint Project Office accepted its fifth Hunter Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle on Aug. 17, raising the number of in-service air vehicles to 42, according to Hunter manufacturer TRW/IAI. The system will be a testbed to assess changes and will be used to fly a variety of payloads, including a laser designator.
Westinghouse Norden's Project Gray Wolf could give operators the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capability they want and pay first dividends when the U.S. Navy considers upgrades to the fleet of P-3 aircraft even though testing is done on an S-3B, a Navy official says.
Completion of the left- and right-hand engine nacelles for the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft was marked yesterday by Bell and Boeing, which are building Ospreys under a U.S.Navy engineering and manufacturing development contract. They said the nacelles will be mated to a Bell-manufactured V-22 wing in October. First flight of the No. 7 V-22 is slated for late 1996. Each nacelle will house an Allison T406 engine and various gear boxes. As the work on No. 7 proceeded, construction of No. 8 began as an upper wing skin assembly was loaded into its fixture.
U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command will release a draft RFP on the design, development, integration, and testing of the NATO Improved Link Eleven (NILE) System Network Controller (SNC) software, and the NILE Reference System (NRS). SPAWAR said in an Aug. 22 Commerce Business Daily notice that the draft is aimed at prompting comments and questions that will be considered before formulation and release of a final RFP.
Alliant Techsystems has won a $6.5 million U.S. Navy contract for production of 25mm PGU-32/U multipurpose ammunition used on the Mk. 38 Naval Weapon System for shipboard defense and in the GAU-12 gun aboard the Harrier aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force wants to set up an information warfare squadron at Shaw AFB, S.C., by Oct. 1, according to defense sources. The AF hopes to announce more details of the new squadron-the second to be established under new Air Combat Command chief Gen.Joseph Ralston since he took the reins in June-in the next week or two. The hold-up is declassifying information about the unit.
The Defense Dept. has recommended TRW vice president Art Money to succeed the late Clark Fiester as assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, industry and Pentagon sources said yesterday. The letter of nomination for Money, VP-group business development for TRW's Avionics and Surveillance Group, is being considered by the White House.
NASA has decided to stay with Orbital Science Corp.'s Pegasus XL air- launched booster for most of its small scientific payloads after a review of alternate launchers failed to turn up a satisfactory substitute, and Orbital indicated it can recover by this fall from the most recent Pegasus XL launch failure, a top NASA official said yesterday.
E-SYSTEMS' Transportation Management Solutions (TMS), Linthicum, Md., has won a $2.7 million contract to supply an automatic vehicle location and communications system to Detroit's Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART). E-Systems said yesterday that TMS will design, build, test and install an automatic vehicle location system in 111 paratransit buses, 25 line haul buses, and 15 support vehicles.
Information exploitation will be one of the first areas that McDonnell Douglas will focus on as it begins to merge its technology development units into a single organization, according to the new unit's manager. "How we operate in the information age environment-that's our first priority," Dave Swain, VP/general manager of the new Advanced Systems and Technology-Phantom Works, told The DAILY.
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL AIRWAYS yesterday received the first Lockheed L- 1011-200 TriStar to be converted from passenger to freighter use. The plane was flown from Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge, England, where conversion and flight testing were conducted, to AIA facilities in Ypsilanti, Mich. The aircraft will be able to carry up to 125,000 pounds of cargo on routes up to 5,300 miles. The plane is the first of three bought by AIA last fall for conversion to the cargo role.
Structural Dynamics Research Corp., Milford, Ohio, said that it and Hewlett-Packard Co. have begun the second and final phase of work on a Ground Vibration Test (GVT) system at McDonnell Douglas facilities. The GVT will be used to help certify the airworthiness of the F/A-18E/F strike fighter. SDRC and Hewlett-Packard have received a total of about $1 million for the work.
READINESS EXERCISE "Intrinsic Action" began yesterday with arrival in Kuwait of three U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command airlifters. Two C-141s and one C-5 flew soldiers and equipment from McGuire AFB, N.J., and Fort Hood, Tex. Two additional flights were slated through the night, with eight planes to arrive Wednesday.
The U.S. Army has dropped Northrop Grumman from the Advanced Tactical Infrared Countermeasures (ATIRCM) competition, leaving Lockheed Martin's Sanders unit to claim the prize. A Northrop Grumman spokesman said yesterday that the company was dropped from the ATIRCM engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD) competition in late July, but neither the company nor the Army were willing to disclose the reason for the elimination.
