Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been assured by House leaders that she'll be the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for the next two years, Pelosi spokesman Mike Connolly told The DAILY Thursday. "It's a done deal," Connolly said. Pelosi, who has been the committee's No. 2 Democrat, will move up to a position held by Rep. Julian Dixon (Calif.), who died last month. Pelosi's priorities will include addressing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Connolly said.
The Government of Chile plans to buy 10 to 12 new Lockheed Martin Block 50/52 F-16C/D aircraft, while the U.S. Air Force inked a contract to purchase four more Block 50 F-16Cs for $47.5 million. Following a four-year competition between the Boeing F/A-18, Dassault Mirage 2000-5 and the Saab Gripen, Chile chose the F-16 to replace its A-37 Dragonfly, becoming the 21st country to operate the F-16.
While the U.S. Air Force has been given leniency in completing required F-22 exit criteria before a Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting is held to decide whether the program is ready to move into low rate initial production, Lockheed Martin has not been able to get any of its three required remaining aircraft off the ground as days tick by.
Lockheed Martin Aircraft&Logistics Centers will manage aircraft parts support for the U.S. Air Force's C-5 Galaxy fleet under a new Defense Logistics Agency contract that will be worth as much as $1.1 billion to the company if all out-year options are exercised.
Spar Aerospace Ltd. plans to repurchase up to 10% of the public float of its stock, which it believes is "undervalued," based on earnings potential. The Toronto-based aviation services company won regulatory approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange to move ahead with the buyback through a normal course issuer bid for up to 752,000 shares of the 7.5 million float. The bid opened yesterday and will end on Jan. 3, 2002, unless terminated earlier by the company. Spar has 14.3 million shares issued and outstanding.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is sharing its secure version of the Linux operating system with the computing community in an effort to beef up computer security. "Open source plays an increasingly important role in federal IT systems," said Jeffrey Hunker, senior director for Critical Infrastructure at the White House's National Security Council.
Saab-BAE Systems, partners in the Gripen fighter project, has proposed that the Swedish Air Force lend 16 Gripen aircraft for four to five years as an interim solution to Poland's financially constrained fighter modernization program. The revised proposal, for 14 single-seat and two twin-seat Gripens, is backed by "a comprehensive offset program" similar to a deal proposed last month to modernize Hungary's air force (DAILY, Dec. 13). The partners have already poured in over $30 million in packages and tenders to Poland over the last five years.
Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.) narrowly beat out Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) yesterday to be chairman of the House Armed Services Committee for the next two years, a Weldon aide told The DAILY. A House steering committee, meeting behind closed doors, recommended Stump over Weldon by a 16-14 vote, and the entire House Republican membership was expected to approve the committee's suggestion yesterday evening. "Curt fought the fight and did all the right things," Weldon's aide said. "We just came up a little bit short."
A prototype of India's single-seat multi-role Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), which was formally rolled out in 1995, finally made its first flight yesterday at the Bangalore factory airfield of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). At the controls for the 20-minute first flight of Technology Demonstrator 1 (TD-1) was IAF Project Test Pilot Wing Cdr. Rajiv Katiyal. The LCA was accompanied by two IAF Dassault Mirage 2000s flying chase, in one of which was India's Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis.
Lockheed Martin Corp. will outsource "non-core operations" at its Marietta, Ga., plant -- home to the F-22 fighter and the C-130J transport -- to "substantially" cut recurring program costs and boost competitiveness. The company said it will cut up to 675 positions there over the next 18 months.
Hamilton Sundstrand executives say their company has gained a new beach head in Europe and broadened its flight control actuation capability by agreeing to buy Claverham Group Ltd., a U.K.-based supplier to the European aerospace industry. The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, is expected to close in mid-January, a Hamilton Sundstrand spokesperson said yesterday.
DRS TECHNOLOGIES INC.'s Electronic Systems Group has won new orders totaling $38.5 million from Lockheed Martin to supply commercial-off-the-shelf AN/UYQ-70 workstations for installation on the U.S. Navy's Aegis class surface ships. For the AN/UYQ-70 program, DRS said it is manufacturing a family of display workstations that feature commercial computing technology and systems for combat, command and control, and mission essential applications.
St. Louis-based Unigraphics will supply CAD/CAM/CAE software to China's Shenyang Liming Aero-Engine Group Corp under a new $1 million deal. Shenyang Liming Aero-engine Group Corp., which falls under the control of the China Aviation Industry Corporation I, supplies parts and components to aircraft engine manufacturers around the world. Meanwhile, Advanced Aerodynamics&Structures Inc. (AASI) of Long Beach, Calif.
FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD'S move yesterday to cut the prime interest rate by half a percentage point boosted stocks across the board, including defense issues - somewhat fitting as outgoing Defense Secretary William S. Cohen was in New York to officially close the New York Stock Exchange. Boeing, which lost over $4 a share after being downgraded by a major investment firm on the first day of trading in 2001, closed up more than $0.50 a share. General Electric and Honeywell also rebounded, buoyed by the strong sentiment.
Boeing Satellite Systems Inc. will develop the Pentagon's Wideband Gapfiller Satellite system, an interim communications hookup between today's U.S. military systems and the Advanced Wideband system planned for later in the decade, under a $160.3 million contract announced yesterday.
Joint Strike Fighter competitors saw additional milestones in their concept demonstrator aircraft last month at Edwards AFB, Calif. Boeing's X-32A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) plane broke the sound barrier and the controls of Lockheed Martin's X-35C carrier variant (CV) passed from a company test pilot to a U.S. Navy test pilot.
Exostar, the aerospace mega-online market backed by BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, will use Vastera's TradeSphere to handle regulatory compliance checks on the exchanges within the site. The move is aimed at expanding global online trading opportunities within country-specificregulations.
ROLLS-ROYCE won its single largest engine repair agreement from International Aero Engines, a 20-year, 600 million pound deal to maintain V2500s for British Airways A320s.
Airbus Industrie will sponsor SITA's Interactive Distributed Information and Support (IDIS) web portal to streamline online distribution of aircraft component technical documents. The service, said SITA, offers a "neutrally hosted database" for airlines and air transport users. IDIS can also be accessed through AeroNet, SITA's extranet for the air transport industry, or a secure Internet connection. Airbus will showcase IDIS to airline customers through the Airbus On Line Services Systems (AOLS).
The U.S. Army handed out a $453 million deal to PricewaterhouseCoopers to provide distance education for about 80,000 soldiers over the next five years. The new education Web portal - Army University Access Online - is slated to go live in mid-January at three Army posts in Georgia, Kentucky and Texas. It includes more than a dozen technology providers and 29 accredited education partners. The cyber-initiative is aimed at creating "Information Age-savvy soldiers" for the high tech warfare of the future, according to Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera.
SENATE BANKING CIMMITTEE CHAIRMAN Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) said Tuesday that he plans to introduce a bill early this year to overhaul export controls for goods and technologies that have both military and civilian applications. The Export Administration Act expired in 1994, and previous efforts to reauthorize the law on dual-use items have failed. As an interim measure, President Clinton in November signed a bill that revives the EAA until Aug. 20 (DAILY, Nov. 17).
A new report from Forrester Research, Inc., highlights "unique challenges" to growing Canada's online travel market, including: technology, online infrastructure, online purchasing of travel services and an airline market controlled 80% by one carrier. Still, Forrester estimates the Canadian marketplace will cash in on about C$790 million in Web bookings this year and C$2 billion by 2004. Canadian air travel online bookers are expected to double in the next few years, reaching 1.2 million by 2004, according to the report.
Aeroexchange, the e-market backed by 13 major international carriers, has chosen the Air Transport Assn.'s Spec 2000 Procurement Database for supply chain management, e-procurement catalog and information services. The decision could boost the association's efforts to have the system recognized as the industry's most reliable and easily available.
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon has announced the first in a new series of Defense Policy papers. Its subject, Defense Diplomacy, was established as a formal military mission from the 1998 Strategic Defense Review. Defense Diplomacy was defined as "the provision of forces to meet the varied MOD activities to dispel hostility, build and maintain trust, and assist in the development of democratically armed forces, thereby making a significant contribution to conflict prevention and resolution."
Raytheon Co. won a $43 million firm fixed-price contract for low rate initial production of the AIM-9X next-generation Sidewinder missile. The contract calls for 103 all-up-round missiles, 39 captive air training missiles, and associated components. "The unprecedented success of the AIM-9X development effort gives me confidence that our forces will receive this highly capable and affordable weapon on time," said Capt. David J. Venlet, Naval Air Systems Command's program manager for Air-to-Air Missiles.
