Germany wants to buy 78 AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles with containers. The roughly $27 million sale of the Texas Instruments weapons would also include the cost of logistics support.
If Congress is going to add money to the Defense Dept.'s fiscal 1996 budget request, the Pentagon wants the funds to pay for accelerating an existing program, not for weapon systems the department doesn't want-like the B-2 stealth bomber, a DOD spokesman said yesterday. "We made it very clear this is something we don't need right now," spokesman Ken Bacon said during a press briefing. Instead of beefing up the bomber fleet, the Pentagon would rather develop and buy more precision- guided munitions (DAILY, May 4, page 185).
China's U.S.-powered Nanchang K-8 jet trainer is at Le Bourget only in model form, but the company reports good progress with the Sino- Pakistani program. Nanchang said that around 22 to 25 K-8s are now being built in batch production, following delivery of the first six last year to Pakistan. Satisfied with its evaluation of the program, Pakistan's air force is finalizing a larger follow-up order, while the Chinese air force is expecting its first K-8s later this year.
In mid-summer 1997, possibly on the fourth of July, a 35-pound wheeled robot is scheduled to begin poking around on an ancient Martian plain, broadcasting images of rocks and soil washed down from the highlands when water ran free on the Red Planet's surface.
Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said yesterday that the committee should hold a hearing on recent failures to relay crucial intelligence to combat aircraft. "I do think it's a problem," he told The DAILY in an interview. "I do think we have to look at it."
GRC INTERNATIONAL, Vienna, Va., has received a three-year, $5.1 million U.S. Air Force contract for the Joint Manufacturing Capabilities Assessment Toolset (JMCATS) effort, aimed at permitting the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program to directly associate manufacturing process requirements with product requirements. GRCI said its Dayton, Ohio, office will manage the contract, and that subcontracts will be awarded to team members including Boeing, GE, Hughes, Martin Marietta, Northrop Grumman, Rockwell International, Sumaria, Texas Instruments and Westinghouse.
CAE ELECTRONICS LTD., Montreal, said it has received the first Western order for simulators for a Russian tactical aircraft-a $48 million (Canadian) contract from Sapura Holdings Sdn. Bhd. of Malaysia to supply one operational flight trainer and one full mission simulator for MiG-29 fighters. CAE said the full mission simulator replicates the MiG-29 operating in its tactical environment. It includes CAE's ITEMS helmet mounted visual display system.
Enginemaker Pratt&Whitney and Russia's NPO-Energomash hope to form a joint venture to build and sell Russia's RD-120M rocket engine around the world, and signed a statement of intent at Le Bourget. Each company would invest money to form a U.S.-based venture to develop, market, produce and deliver RD-120Ms-modified Zenit booster upper stages-as well as provide engineering and customer support.
Honeywell and Trimble have inked an agreement to develop GPS products for a "broad expanse" of commercial, military and space applications, company executives reported at the Paris Air Show. "This demonstrates our ability to invest in core technologies," said John Dewane, president of Honeywell's Space and Control group.
Romania will produce 96 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters under an agreement with Textron's Bell Helicopter division that was announced yesterday at the Paris Air Show. Deliveries will begin in 1999 and run through 2005. Under the program, for which a letter of intent has been signed by Romania's defense minister and minister of industries, Bell will provide assistance with technology transfer, production tooling and training. It might also build such items as transmissions and rotor blades, a spokesman said.
Rocket engines "evolved" from existing systems should be adequate to power a commercial Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) that grows out of NASA's X-33 RLV testbed program, the top two managers in the X-33 team fielded by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing said yesterday.
Orbital Sciences Corp. had a double dose of good news to report yesterday-the full restoration of communications with an Orbcomm satellite and final approval of the Federal Communications Commission to operate the Orbcomm system in the U.S. The Orbcomm satellite, known as FM 1, lost its ability to transmit to and from hand-held "subscriber communicators" about two weeks after it and another Orbcomm were launched into low-Earth orbit on April 3.
AlliedSignal is cooperating with Poland's PZL aerospace group to develop the PZL-230 Scorpion low-altitude ground-attack fighter, shown in model form at Le Bourget for the first time this week. The U.S. company agreed to supply Lycoming LF507 turbofans for the radical PZL-230 design, which borrows the Fairchild A-10 tank-killer concept of two engines mounted on the aft upper fuselage. Also like the A- 10, the PZL-230 will use twin vertical tails to help shield the exhaust effluxes from infrared missiles' seekers.
The House yesterday approved by a vote of 300-126 a $267.3 billion fiscal 1996 defense authorization. The bill now awaits a conference committee, probably next month. The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to mark up its defense authorization by the end of the month. SASC will mark up to the $257.6 billion level, $9.7 billion lower than the House bill, but the amount requested by the Administration and approved in the Senate version of the budget resolution. The congressional budget resolution is now in conference.
The MiG-MAPO group has been working on stealth aircraft programs for the past 10 years, said senior officials at Le Bourget this week. The work is related to MiG OKB computer studies and flight simulation of every current combat aircraft in the world, and engineers have their eye on producing new combat aircraft for the next century. Some of this technology, it seems, is incorporated in the next- generation MiG fighter referred to in the West as the 1.42, although this designation still appears to be classified so far as Russia is concerned.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry yesterday left open the possibility of including B-2 stealth bomber funding in the Pentagon's fiscal 1997 budget if Congress funds the $553 million House National Security Committee add-on for long lead production of more of the planes. The House Tuesday night took a big step toward congressional approval of stealth bombers beyond the current 20 when it turned down an amendment to strip funds for the planes from the 1996 defense authorization. The vote was 219-203.
The Airbus Industrie jetliner consortium companies involved in Europe's Future Large Airlifter (FLA) have formally transferred responsibility for the military plane to an organization within Airbus, meeting one of Britain's key demands for returning to the FLA program and buying the aircraft.
Boeing Co.'s only Heliwing unmanned aerial vehicle lost power yesterday and crashed during a flight test in Moses Lake, Wash. The company said in a brief statement that the crash occurred on the eighth of nine company-sponsored flight tests. The series began in April. Helicopter/hover testing has already been completed, Boeing said. Heliwing was slated to enter government-sponsored flight tests later this month as part of its concept demonstration.
The Royal Australian Air Force is expected to become the third customer for Lockheed Martin's new C-130J Hercules II transport, after the U.K.'s Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force. Aeronautical Systems' executive VP, Al Hansen, said at Le Bourget that the company is responding this month to final RAAF requests for quotations to buy 12 stretched C-130-30s. Those aircraft will begin replacing a similar number of hard-worked C-130Hs flown by No. 37 Squadron at Richmond in New South Wales in 1997.
Deputy Defense Secretary-designate John P. White, the head of the Roles and Missions Commission, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that he would have to analyze work loads of the service depots before implementing a commission recommendation that weapon system depot maintenance be turned over to industry. Testifying on his nomination, White promised that he would be "objective in terms of the commission recommendations."
The Heritage Foundation yesterday said Congress should boost missile defense funding almost $1 billion in fiscal year '96 to increase deployment tempo for the Navy's Upper Tier program and develop space based defenses.
The U.S. Navy is asking industry for help in upgrading its mission rehearsal package, but wants potential contractors to use hardware and software already owned by the government. The Navy wants an evolutionary approach to the upgrade of its Tactical Operation Preview Scene (TOPSCENE) mission rehersal system to keep costs down and to "get it to the user as fast as possible," Phyllis Corley, mission rehearsal program manager for the Naval Air Systems Command said Tuesday in Alexandria, Va.
The House yesterday wrote into the National Security Committee's fiscal 1996 defense authorization a modification of its procurement reform section, but refused to accept language stating that bill's Ballistic Missile Defense section doesn't violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or subsequent amendments to the treaty. House approval of the $267.3 billion bill-$9.7 billion above the Administration's request-is expected today.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN is leading an industrial working group that is offering the Joint STARS aircraft to NATO. The group includes Computing Devices Canada, Ltd.; Alcatel ISR and Matra Cap Systems in France; DASA and ESG in Germany; Alenia in Italy; Fokker in The Netherlands; BAe Computing Devices in the U.K., and Motorola in the U.S. A NATO program of up to 18 Joint STARS is seen.
The Clinton Administration official nominated to fill the number two position in the U.S. intelligence community breezed through his confirmation hearing yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Deputy Director of Central Intelligence-designate George Tenet singled out human intelligence as an area that he will pay particularly close attention to if approved as deputy to DCI John Deutch.
