ADVANCED MARINE ENTERPRISES INC., Arlington, Va., has won a $32.4 million contract from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command for services to support new ship design, ship modification, ship conversion, and ship modernization, in support of Naval Sea Systems Command programs and projects. The Dept. of Defense announced the award on April 4.
The U.S. Army could be flying some of the first AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopters to come of the production line in the brigade level digitization exercise if the scheduled 1997 date slips, an industry source said yesterday. The first production AH-64Ds are expected to come off the line in March 1997, but the Brigade Task Force XXI advanced warfighting exercise (AWE) to test the effect of advanced technology on the battlefield is scheduled February 1997.
Army Lt. Gen. Malcolm R. O'Neill, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told a House National Security subcommittee Tuesday that a $400 million-$800 million plus-up of the $371 million fiscal 1996 funding for National Missile Defense could cut the development time in half and permit deployment by the year 2000. O'Neill also told the procurement subcommittee that an increase of $300 million in the $2.1 billion Theater Missile Defense funding would fund a robust program.
NEPTUNE SCIENCES INC., Slidell, La., won a four-year, $7.6 million contract from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for research on littoral systems and models. The Dept. of Defense said March 30 that the contract was competitively procured under a broad agency announcement.
AlliedSignal and Amerigon Inc. have agreed to jointly develop an auto safety radar system based on ultra-wide band radar, the companies said Tuesday. "The project will focus on potential applications of ultra-wide band radar sensors in AlliedSignal safety restraint systems-including predictive sensing of conditions inside the passenger compartment, such as the position of occupants before a collision," they said. Amerigon, of Monrovia, Calif., has rights to the technology, which was originally developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
A total of 1,430 NASA employees have opted to take early retirement in return for cash payments of up to $25,000 each, according to final buyout numbers released yesterday by the space agency. Among those accepting buyouts were 56 senior executive service level NASA officials. Langley Research Center Director Paul Holloway, who was considering the buyout offer (DAILY, March 22, page 430), has elected to remain with NASA.
Raytheon's borrowing to buy E-Systems doesn't preclude the company from buying still more, whether it's another company or Raytheon stock, Raytheon Chairman Dennis J. Picard told The DAILY yesterday. E-Systems will start paying for itself right away, and while much of Raytheon's current capital structure is built around short-term debt, Raytheon expects to wind up putting much of the acquisition debt in intermediate-to-long term instruments.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS MD-90 carried its first passengers in revenue flight on April 1, the company said yesterday. Launch customer Delta Airlines inaugurated service with the twin-jet airliner from Dallas/Fort Worth at 5:27 p.m., flying passengers to Newark.
The Army's outgoing program executive officer for aviation is calling for the service to seriously consider extending plans to purchase the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter beyond fiscal 1996. The shutdown of Sikorsky Aircraft's UH-60 production line could easily cause the loss of "a very significant industrial base," Maj. Gen. Dewitt "T" Irby told reporters Friday at the Army Aviation Association of America's annual convention here.
TRW's Avionics and Surveillance Group has received $43.8 million for follow-on logistics support of the Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (JT-UAV). The Defense Dept. contract includes spare line replaceable units for seven Low-rate Initial Production (LRIP) systems and two phase one systems, TRW said. The company will also provide logistics support analysis, establish a processing and reporting system for spares, and set up limited maintenance and repair depot capability at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.
The Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program office is asking industry for ideas on frontal signature reduction and integration of subsystems. The request went out in the form of two "broad agency announcements" in the April 4 issue of Commerce Business Daily.
Litton Industries plans to make a buy bigger than it acquisitions earlier this year of either Teledyne's Electronic Systems businesses or IMO's electro-optical division, Litton Industries CEO John Leonis said yesterday. Although he didn't say how quickly he wants to expand Litton, he sounded like he might be in a hurry. Noting the defense industry's active consolidation to date and the Pentagon's hopeful modernization projections, he observed, "The window of opportunity for consolidation may only be open two more years."
DCX INC., Franktown, Colo., has received a contract worth about $225,000 from Lockheed Fort Worth Co. to provide ground support interface test adapters for the F-16 aircraft.
Congressional support for the B-2 program marks a significant improvement for the chances that additional buys of the bomber will be funded, Kent Kresa, Northrop Grumman's chief executive officer said yesterday in Arlington, Va. The majority perspective in all defense appropriations committee is positive towards buying more than the 20 B-2s that are currently funded, Kresa said during the McGraw-Hill Aviation Week and Space Technology Aerospace Finance 2000 conference.
Lockheed Martin yesterday unveiled a proposal to slash the price of its F-16 fighter by 15% in return for U.S. government authorization to replace military procurement practices with commercial standards at its Fort Worth operation.
MOTOROLA Government and Space Technology Group, Scottsdale, Ariz., said it has received a $3.9 million contract from the government of Hong Kong for more than 100 ground-to-air receivers for the Chek Lap Kok airport. The facility is slated to open in 1997, and the first radios will be delivered late this year. Motorola said the CM-400 series radios are based on the CM-200 radios now being deployed in the U.S. National Airspace System.
FAA's top certification official left little doubt last week that, barring some major unforeseen glitch, the agency will grant ETOPS certification to Boeing's 777 about two weeks after the first aircraft is delivered May 17 to United Airlines. Anthony Broderick, associate administrator for regulation and certification, said Friday in Washington that he had just completed a "detailed briefing" on the 777 flight test program and that it is "almost eerie how well it is going."
TELEDYNE INC. said yesterday that WHX has abandoned its effort to gain control of Teledyne's board of directors, and now seeks to elect only two nominees. "The fact is," Teledyne said, "WHX still has a clear conflict of interest: its objective is not the best value for Teledyne shareholders. Its objective is to buy Teledyne at the lowest possible price for the benefit of WHX shareholders." Teledyne said it "is soliciting other bona fide offers, and is committed to proceeding with this process carefully and expeditiously to maximize value for all Teledyne shareholders."
Elecronic defense systems supplier AEL Industries said revenues and profits were up for its fiscal year ended Feb. 24. The Lansdale, Pa., company said revenues rose to $216,537,000, up 2% over the $123,632,000 for the previous year. Fourth quarter revenues were $34,113,000, down from the $37,855,000 reported for the fourth quarter of last year.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda told Congress yesterday that the U.S. Navy has "an investment mismatch" with virtually all the procurement money outside the five-year plan and "a minimum inside" the plan. "We've built quite a mountain of procurement just outside" the five- year plan, he told the House Appropriations national security subcommittee in testimony on the 1996 Navy budget of $75.8 billion, $3.5 billion below the fiscal '95 level. Investment-procurement and research and development- is down by $3.8 billion.
The U.S. Air Force has temporarily delayed plans to issue a termination notice for the EF-111A System Improvement Program (SIP) after defense appropriators in the Senate expressed concern that the timing was premature. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee yesterday morning that Northrop Grumman was about to receive a notice to terminate the upgrade of the radar jamming aircraft.
Five companies have been chosen by the U.S. Air Force for participation in the Advanced Technology Support Program (ATSP), funding for which could reach $480 million over a seven-year period. The companies-Computing Devices International, TRW, Hughes Electronics Technologies Inc., Rockwell Collins and Lockheed Sanders-each received relatively small contracts on March 31 from the Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan AFB, Calif.
The aerospace industry's gloomy days are drawing to a close, with the airline market showing "encouraging" signs of rebound and defense needs holding steady, Boeing CEO Frank Shrontz said yesterday. "I'm inclined to think better days are not too far beyond the horizon," Shrontz said at a McGraw-Hill Aviation Week and Space Technology conference in Arlington, Va. "...Overall, we are bumping along the bottom of the marketplace," he said. "In the next year or so it will look up."
Boeing Defense&Space Group is the U.S. Air Force's choice to be prime contractor and system integrator for an AWACS-based theater missile defense system. The AF's Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., said in an April 4 Commerce Business Daily notice that it plans to issue a sole source contract to Boeing for the work, but that other potential suppliers are invited to submit proposals for the AWACS Extended Airborne Global Launch Evaluator (EAGLE) system.
Former Lockheed and Martin Marietta officials, who have been exchanging competitive data for the last three weeks, will announce their consolidation decisions in May or June, Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Officer Daniel Tellep said yesterday. The new company's internal deadline is to reveal its decisions no later than June 30, Tellep said at the McGraw-Hill Aviation Week and Space Technology Aerospace Finance 2000 conference in Arlington, Va.
