U.S. Air Force F-22 program managers are keeping a close eye on two key performance parameters of the next-generation fighter: its specific fuel consumption and its energy maneuverability, sources say. The Lockheed-designed aircraft, which doesn't meet its fuel consumption requirements for all parts of the flight envelope (DAILY, April 11, page 50), does meet its energy maneuverability requirement, which specifies how many Gs the plane must be able to pull at specific altitudes without losing altitude.
Russia is preparing to sell the newest modification of the S- 300V air and missile defense system, known in the West as the SA-12, to the U.S. government in a move criticized here as a "sell-out of the Motherland."
During the JAST program, managers have "on and off" explored the Air Force need to replace the F-15E Strike Eagle and the stealthy F-117, Steidle says. The Navy believes that the first-day attack plane that it hopes to get out of JAST can fill the requirements to replace these two, "but that's an Air Force decision," Steidle says. He is adamant that the Navy will make sure to fill its own needs, remarking, "We need a 117-current type capability in the 2010 time frame and we're going to get that."
The Dept. of Defense has told Congress that the Navy's Upper-tier missile defense system complies with the ABM Treaty, and "you can build as many of them as you want," says Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch.
MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM G. CARTER III, commanding general of the 1st Armored Div., U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, has been named to become the chief of staff for Allied Forces Southern Europe. Carter, who will receive his third star from the promotion, will succeed Lt. Gen. Marvin L. Covault, who is retiring.
NASA has dropped plans to buy three Earth Observing System common satellite buses, citing potential advances in technology that may produce a less expensive way to perform the climate monitoring mission. NASA has modified its original request for proposals, which ordered buses for the EOS-AM, EOS-PM and EOS-Chem platforms and provided an option for a fourth common bus.
Hughes Aircraft Co. in June is scheduled to permanently install its Advanced Combat Direction System on the Navy's aircraft carrier USS Constellation. The system is designed to provide real-time battle management capability as part of the Naval Tactical Data System improvement program. ACDS is undergoing land tests, with sea testing to continue after the system is moved to the ship, John C. Tomlinson, program manager for Hughes' Combat Systems Programs said in an interview. Any changes will be software based, Tomlinson said.
The worldwide market for commercial aviation applications of Global Positioning System receiver equipment will quadruple by 2000, but aviation's market share will not keep pace with consumer uses of the satellite-based navigation system, the U.S. GPS Industry Council believes. The council estimates global aviation sales at $93 million this year and projects $375 million in 2000, but the GPS sales totals for these years are $1.3 billion and $8.5 billion. Aviation's share drops from 7.3% to 4.4%.
ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS subsidiary Air Nippon (ANK) took delivery Wednesday of the first of eight 737-500s it has on order from Boeing. Air Nippon has options for seven more of the 126-seat aircraft. The 737-500s will replace 737-200s and Japanese-made YS-11s in the ANK fleet, which currently numbers 39 aircraft and includes seven A320s and one 767-300.
Lockheed Fort Worth Co. has received the first titanium bulkhead for the F-22 fighter from subcontractor Wyman-Gordon. Lockheed said that the wing carry-through bulkhead will be part of the mid-fuselage of the first F-22 built under the program's engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase. It said jigs are in place for assembly of the mid-fuselage, slated to begin next month. First flight is planned for 1997.
The Pentagon's joint program office for cruise missiles is in the early phases of looking at how the Tomahawk can deliver weapons like the Brilliant Anti-Tank (BAT) submunition and wide area munitions to "make use of everything we can put in the field," acting JPO Director Gerald Miller says at a Navy League symposium. The so-called TSTAR-for Tomahawk Stops the Advancing Regiment-would have a standoff range of 500- 700 miles and go after hard and mobile targets, Miller says.
ECC INTERNATIONAL, Wayne, Pa., said Friday that its ECC Simulation Ltd. unit has received a $9.8 million contract for simulated maintenance trainers for the Westland EH101 helicopter.
The National Reconnaissance Office may oversee procurement of the world's most sophisticated spy satellites, but getting its mail is a different story. The existence of the 35-year-old, formerly secret agency has been publicly acknowledged since August 1992, but that apparently hasn't filtered down to the Post Office. A package recently sent to an NRO employee, complete with "NRO," the proper Pentagon room number and nine-digit zip code, was returned about two weeks later marked "addressee unknown." Try again, an NRO staffer told the sender.
Aerospace business opportunities may be shrinking, but they are nowhere near vanishing, Daniel Czelusniak, the Navy's program executive officer for air anti-submarine warfare, assault and special missions programs, said Thursday. "There's still a lot of business out there," Czelusniak said at the Navy League conference in Washington. "But everything is protracted. There's a shift away from recapitalization to maintaining what we've got for as long as we can."
Russian nuclear weapons technicians from the once-secret city of Arzamas-16 are home again after getting to spend an extra week with their counterparts at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Russians were in New Mexico to pick up a portable radiographic system for use in stabilizing nuclear weapons damaged in accidents, but their departure was delayed when the An-124 cargo plane they brought to carry home the tractor-trailer rig that carries the accident-response gear lost an engine on takeoff from Kirtland AFB near Albuquerque.
The JAST office has several demonstrations planned, including one of a unitized wing on an F/A-18 and more of a tailless configuration, Steidle says. While Lockheed has been helping the Navy grapple with "significant problems" in supporting low observable aircraft on carriers, the Navy plans to put a plane on a carrier to test how the salt environment affects stealth materials, he says. The Pentagon already has done sled tests on a 1,000-pound improved penetrator.
Ukraine has the largest fighter force outside the U.S., Russia, and China, with 1,630 fighters, including 880 MiG 25s, 248 Su-24s, 194 MiG-29s and 125 MiG 23/27s, according to a new RAND report (DAILY, April 13, page 68). But it has a big problem with spare parts because most of facilities that built the planes are in Russia. Frictions with Russia make it very uncertain that Ukraine can maintain "any sort of effective force," RAND says.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORP., Baltimore, has received a $5 million contract to demonstrate airborne targeting techniques for the JAST program. It said it will use both the simultaneous moving target indicator and synthetic aperture radar mapping modes on the Westinghouse Norden AN/APG-76 radar to demonstrate targeting techniques for moving and time-critical targets. Westinghouse said the program begins immediately with seven months of concept development and tradeoff studies, followed by 21 months of flight demonstrations aboard its BAC 1-11 testbed aircraft.
The Joint Advanced Strike Technology office won't cap the JAST aircraft's costs, but will offer "cost goals" to contractors, says JAST Deputy Director Rear Adm. Craig Steidle. The office is in the middle of defining requirements as part of plans to get a Mission Needs Statement to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council by the end of the summer. However, an Operational Requirements Document won't be out until 1998, well after next summer's downselect to two weapon system designers.
Everyone saw it coming, and now it's here in spades-if you can't grow with new sales, you can grow by buying someone else's sales. Acquisitions, either of whole companies or of major operating chunks, are in virtually every aerospace CEO's strategy book this year. "We are now allowing ourselves to think about strategic acquisitions," says TRW chief Joseph T. Gorman at a recent McGraw-Hill/Aviation Week Group finance conference. "Acquisitions remain a key element in our growth" strategy, says AlliedSignal Aerospace boss Daniel Burnham.
NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND plans a competition for production of additional AN/AAR-47 missile warning sets. "The procurement will include a requirement for 179 systems in the basic contract, and three production options for up to 150, 400 and 400 systems respectively," the command said in an April 12 Commerce Business Daily notice. A pre-solicitation conference is tentatively scheduled for May 25, and the proposal due date is currently scheduled for June 30, NavAir said.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS' Kilgore Operations, Kilgore, Tex., received a $3.7 million contract on May 27 from the U.S. Army's Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command for MJU-8A/B decoy flares.
The U.S. Navy is looking into the idea of launching the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) from submarines to support the Navy's operational maneuver from the sea concept. It would complement a plan to launch the missile from surface ships. A sub-launched ATACMS would provide "the ultimate stealth approach," J.P. Laughlin, Loral's deep attack program vice president told reporters yesterday at the Navy League's annual conference in Washington.
The U.S. Navy on Wednesday approved the BLU-108 and unitary warheads of the Joint Stand-off Weapon (JSOW) for the move into engineering and manufacturing development, Bob Pergler, Texas Instruments' requirements manager for joint standoff weapons, told The DAILY yesterday. The Defense Acquisition Board's Conventional Systems Committee will review the program next week and decide whether either of the warheads needs to go to a full DAB at the end of the month, Pergler said.
