Lockheed Martin began hover and ground effects tests this week on a nearly full-scale model of its Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) concept, the company reported yesterday. Engineers will measure thrust, airframe suckdown, hot gas ingestion and ground pressures and temperatures, showing how the lift jets from the propulsion system affect the aerodynamic forces on the aircraft during hover and transition to conventional flight. As such, it's a crucial test series.
Piper Aircraft emerged from four years of bankruptcy protection on Monday when a judge in Miami approved its sale for $95 million to creditors and the Philadelphia investment firm Dimeling, Schreiber and Park. The investment firm will own 50% of New Piper Aircraft Inc. The other half will be owned by Teledyne, Piper's largest creditor, and other Piper creditors. Piper filed for bankruptcy in July 1991. A new board will be appointed. Charles Suma will remain as president of Piper.
The news that the House appropriations panel that funds NASA had directed the agency to essentially close three of its centers hit Washington with a bang yesterday, but it didn't take long for the counterattacks to begin. As lawmakers rushed to defend affected centers in their home districts, it because increasingly clear that not all of the closure language approved by the House VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee Monday will survive intact. The question now is how much of it will.
Disappointed Wall Streeters are bullish on Boeing once more, raising earnings estimates and reiterating Buy ratings on the stock after Boeing outlined plans for boosting production by 1997. The stock price slid Monday, which analysts attributed to the short- term production rate decline and word that the ambitious Very Large Commercial Transport project-the so-called SuperJumbo-will be put off indefinitely because Boeing and its partners decided it would be easy to build but tough to sell (DAILY, July 11, page 34).
FOURTH HUNTER UAV system was delivered to the Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program on June 30, bringing to 33 the total number of air vehicles accepted by the Defense Dept., the Hunter manufacturing team of Israel Aircraft Industries/TRW reported. The system is bound for Sierra Vista, Ariz., where it will undergo a test-analyze-fix-test program. The remaining three systems are to be delivered by September, raising the total number of air vehicles to 62.
Congress should resist any plan to auction to industry parts of the radio frequency spectrum that the Pentagon uses for command, control, communications and intelligence, or face a decline in the effectiveness of the U.S. armed forces, the Defense Dept.'s C3I chief said. "I'm concerned that anyone would even think of auctioning off the spectrum that we now depend on to protect the interests of this country," Emmett Paige, Jr., DOD's assistant secretary for command, control, communications and intelligence, said during an interview at the Pentagon.
Optimistic that Congress will boost fiscal 1996 funding for the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, Army Maj. Gen. Dewitt "T" Irby, aviation program executive officer, warns lawmakers and defense officials against expecting too much too fast from the development program, which he says has been financially crippled in recent years. "They shouldn't forget what they've done with the program over the last few years and shouldn't expect to play catch-up cheap because it won't come cheap," Irby said in a telephone interview Monday with The DAILY.
July 6, 1995 The CNA Corporation, Alexandria, Virginia, is being awarded a $6,500,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00014-91-C-0002 for additional technical studies and analysis in support of various Navy and Marine Corps programs/projects. Work will be performed in Alexandria, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by November 1995. Contract funds in the amount of $912,031 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
The June 2 shootdown of a U.S. F-16 over Bosnia has led the Defense Dept. to recommend that aircraft in the theater carry additional defense suppression equipment, terminals to receive communications more quickly, better survival radar, and Global Positioning Systems. Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave the breakdown to a congressional committee.
The U.S. Air Force, aiming to capitalize on the potential it sees in the arena of unmanned aerial vehicles, is establishing a squadron dedicated to the use of the remotely piloted aircraft. "We anticipate UAVs will roam freely and possibly in large numbers" over future battlefields, said Brig. Gen. Frank B. Campbell, who will head Air Combat Command's requirements directorate as of next week.
A package of 18 NATO aircraft yesterday hit Bosnian Serb troops that had invaded the U.N.-protected village of Srebrenica, but it won't be known until today whether their mission was successful, a top Pentagon official said yesterday. The package consisted of U.S. F/A-18s, EA-6Bs, EF-111s, OA-10s, and Dutch and U.S. F-16s.
CRAY RESEARCH INC., Eagan, Mich., said Learjet Inc. has acquired a Cray J916 supercomputer. The system, installed at Learjet's R&D facility in Wichita, is being used for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) to support work on new and existing aircraft. It will also be used in simulations to improve quality and efficiency at Learjet, a division of Bombardier Inc. Terms of the order weren't disclosed.
July 5, 1995 Raytheon Company, Missile Systems Division, Bedford, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $5,473,054 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-93-C-0169 for 820 Sidewinder AIM-9M-8/9 retrofit guidance control sections for the U.S. Air Force. Work will be performed in Andover, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed by October 1996. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00019-93- C-0169).
Loral has lost its protest against the decision of the U.S. Navy and Air Force to award AIM-9X Sidewinder missile demonstration/validation contracts to Raytheon and Hughes, an attorney with the General Accounting Office told The DAILY yesterday.
Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash) said yesterday that the Defense Dept. should loosen its $10 million unit flyaway cost for the Tier III Minus DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicle, built a team of Lockheed Martin and Seattle-based Boeing. He said he doesn't "believe in being rigid" and would be willing to accept a more expensive system. "If we can get a much better system for, let's say $15 million, then why not do it?"
Army Research Laboratory is in the process of evaluating proposals to award five technology partnership contracts to support the Army's battlefield digitization initiative. Technology partnership contracts worth a total of $31 million will be awarded in the areas of telecommunications, advanced displays, software and intelligent systems, advanced distributed simulation and advanced sensors, ARL director John Lyons reported.
The Airbus A330 powered by Pratt&Whitney's PW4168 engine has received 180-minute extended twin operations (ETOPS) following the successful completion of over 20,000 hours of revenue service, the engine company said yesterday. The propulsion system completed what Pratt called a "rigorous 2,000 cycles of accelerated endurance testing" to win the 180- minute rating from the Joint Airworthiness Authorities of Europe. The engine was granted 90-minute ETOPS approval last Nov. 10. It entered service seven months ago with Thai International and currently powers 16 A330s.
-- SECHAN ELECTRONICS INC., Littiz, Pa., will supply 2,100 Mk. 39 Expendable Mobile ASW Training Targets (EMATTs) under an $8 million contract awarded June 28 by Naval Sea Systems Command.
-- WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORP.'S Naval Systems Div., Cleveland, received a $6.4 million contract from Naval Sea Systems Command on June 30 for five Mk. 48 Torpedo ADCAP MODS Guidance and Control (G&C) kits, 32 Mk. 48 ADCAP MODS G&C sections, five Mk. 48 MODS Torpedo Propulsion Upgrade (TPU) kits, 32 Mk. 48 ADCAP MODS TPU afterbody/tailcone sections, 37 exercise fuel tank upgrade kits, 100 warfare electronic systems, as well as proofing and installation support, and associated engineering and technical services.
Robert Lach, deputy director for requirements at Air Force Materiel Command, will head the Air Force's newly created centralized support team responsible for streamlining all requests for proposal, contract options and contract modifications over $10 million. The team, established as a result of acting AF acquisition chief Darleen Druyun's acquisition reform plan (DAILY, June 12, page 397; June 1, page 337), will review documents for about 120 USAF actions covering the first six months of this fiscal year.
Boeing confirmed yesterday that it and its Super Jumbo study partners have reached a conclusion telegraphed more than a year ago-a very large commercial transport, or VLCT, would be a lot easier to build than to sell. Even though the second phase of the joint study involving Boeing, British Aerospace, Aerospatiale, CASA and Daimler-Benz Aerospace "confirmed the technical feasibility of an aircraft to carry up to 800 passengers," Boeing said that "market studies do not indicate sufficient volumes to justify the launch of the program today."
