Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) yesterday accused U.S. the Air Force of compromising interdiction, airlift, suppression of enemy air defenses, and future long-range bombing missions in order to "funnel" money into its "favored glamour project," the F-22. Bond said he would prefer that the Air Force continue flying the F-15, built by Missouri-based McDonnell Douglas, and use the savings from delaying the F-22's development to pay for more F-15Es, MDC C-17s, and Northrop Grumman B-2s.
Honeywell Space Systems, Clearwater, Fla., said it has completed a milestone in development of the militarized, high density version of Intel Corp.'s Paragon supercomputer. The demonstration of one board of the embedded Touchstone showed that the Paragon software could be run at full speed, Honeywell said. Honeywell's massively parallel processing Embedded Touchstone EHPC-10 is being built in conjunction with Intel, GE Research Div., Irvine Senors, Inc., and AMP, Inc. under a contract from the Advanced Research Project Agency.
HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO. said it has delivered its 3,000th production AN/AXQ-14 Data Link System to the U.S. Air Force. The data link is used by the GBU-15 2,000-pound glide bomb and its powered successor, the AGM-130. "With more than 400 launches accomplished, the AXQ-14 has demonstrated better than 99% launch success rate and a mean time between failure rate which exceeds the specification by 300%," said Ron Dawson, program manager for Hughes' Radar and Communications Systems unit.
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.
ORENDA division of Hawker Siddeley Canada said yesterday it has signed a contract for $8 million with General Electric Aircraft Engines Canada for CF34 turbofan engine components. Orenda said it will build bearing housings and support components over the next five years for 1,000 engines. It said it will absorb tooling costs for the components, while a program of concurrent engineering with GE will improve component design and enhance the manufacturing process.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced a bill that would create an independent inspector general within the General Accounting Office and set up procedures intended to enhance the congressional auditing agency's fairness, professionalism and nonpartisanship. GAO has come under fire largely from Republicans in Congress. Many Republicans have complained for years that the agency allowed itself to be used by Democratic chairmen. Republicans are pushing for a sharp cut in the GAO budget this year.
CUBIC DEFENSE SYSTEMS INC., San Diego, has received a $17 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to upgrade the Nellis Air Combat Training System (NACTS) at Nellis AFB, Nev., the company said yesterday. It said that if future options are exercised, the total value of the contract could reach $40 million.
Billions of dollars being spent by the Dept. of Defense on drawdown costs can be shifted to modernization accounts near the end of the decade-if Congress lets the Pentagon keep the money, according to Army acquisition chief Gilbert Decker.
WESTINGHOUSE Norden Systems Inc., Melville, N.Y., has received an $8.3 million contract from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, R.I., for technical services for development of the AN/WLY-1 countermeasures detection and control set. The AN/WLY-1 is part of the submarine defensive warfare system. The contract was announced by the Dept. of Defense on March 28.
Reliance by both the Dept. of Defense and the U.S. Army on inaccurate requirements for the PAC-3 interceptor could result in a funding shortfall of $700 million to $3.4 billion, according to a GAO study released yesterday. The report-"Ballistic Missile Defense: Computation of Number of Patriot PAC-3 Interceptors need is Flawed," (GAO-NSIAD-95-45)-says that DOD and Army analyses "contain inaccurate data and invalid assumptions" that need to be corrected.
U.S. AIR FORCE'S Rome Laboratory, Griffiss AFB, N.Y., is issuing a solicitation titled "Enhanced All-Source Fusion for Electronic Warfare Planning and Execution." The lab said in a March 24 Commerce Business Daily notice that the goal of the effort is to "[d]evelop, integrate, demonstrate, and test fusion models which locate, identify, and track mobile red, blue, and gray components of the electronic environment to enhance operational combat mission planner's mission effectiveness." The RFP is to be released no sooner than April 14.
OFFICE OF COMMERCIAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation has adopted a strategic plan to help make the U.S. space transportation industry the "dominant supplier" in the global launch market over the next decade. OCST envisions the industry offering a wide-ranging fleet of vehicles to meet commercial, military, intelligence and civil needs. It also sees the U.S. competing "by the turn of the millennium on a fair and equitable basis" with China, Europe, Japan and Russia.
NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND has issued a request for information to help it define requirements for a Low Band Transmitter for use with the EA- 6B aircraft's AN/ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System (TJS). It said in a March 29 Commerce Business Daily notice that "a development effort is projected to begin in 1996, followed by a production effort beginning in late 1998." The plan is to buy "seven Engineering Development Models during the development effort, followed by the purchase of approximately 130 transmitters during production," NavAir said.
March 31, 1995 DME Corporation, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is being awarded a $5,704,860 firm-fixed-price contract for development, fabrication and test of a prototype Test Program Set applicable to the APQ-180 fire control radar system used on a AC-130U aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed December 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-94-D-2161/0003).
SCHAEFFER MEGNETICS, Chatsworth, Calif., has delivered actuation equipment to Mitsubishi Electric Co. for two satellites being built for the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). Included in the delivery were biaxial antenna pointing mechanisms for NASDA's Advanced Earth Observation Satellite (ADEOS) and the Communications and Broadcast Engineering Test Satellite (COMETS).
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP., Electronic Systems Div., Rolling Meadows, Ill., has received an additional $8.9 million for repair of 115 Band 8 traveling wave tubes for the AN/ALQ-161A electronics countermeasure system on the B-1B aircraft. The contract was awarded March 30 by the U.S. Air Force's Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga.
The FAA has decided to negotiate only with a Wilcox-led team for the $500 million Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) contract, sources told The DAILY yesterday. The other teams were notified Friday not to continue pursuing the contract, they said. Wilcox, teamed with TRW and Hughes Aircraft, was competing against a team of Rockwell, GTE Government Systems and Booz, Allen&Hamilton; a team of Loral Federal Systems, Loral Western Development Labs, Space Systems/Loral, E-Systems and Arinc, and a team of Harris and Trimble Navigation.
March 30, 1995 McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems, Mesa, Arizona, is being awarded a $51,000,000 modification to a firm fixed price contract to increase funding for Lot 12, purchase of 20 Apache Helicopters. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by July 31, 1996. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on December 20, 1993. The contracting activity is the U.S. Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Missouri (DAAJ09-92-C- A001).
Plans unveiled by Raytheon yesterday to buy E-Systems for about $2.3 billion in cash drew mixed reviews from financial analysts who agreed that while acquisitive Raytheon is getting yet another great business, it might not be getting a great deal. The boards of both companies okayed a tender offer for E-Systems' shares at a 41% premium over Friday's $45.37 closing price, and investors quickly bid up shares in morning trading to a level less than a dollar shy of Raytheon's offer. The offer will close on April 28.
Tests of the Army's new Longbow Apache AH-64D attack helicopter were so successful that they have been ended early. Army acquisition chief Gilbert Decker said that he was informed March 31 that testing of the AH-64D and AH-64A were ended after 14 tests, two fewer than originally scheduled. During the tests the Longbow version demonstrated five times more survivability than the AH-64A and killed four and one-half times more "enemies," Decker told an audience Saturday at the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference here.
PANAMSAT unveiled plans to offer direct-to-home broadcast service in India beginning in late 1996. The company said it will use up to 12 Ku- band transponders on its PAS-4 Indian Ocean region satellite for the service, giving it the capability to provide up to 120 digital channels of programming to customers using receiver dishes less than one meter in diameter. PanAmSat said it expects to pursue discussions over the next several months with Indian programmers, equipment vendors and potential distributors.
