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).
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.
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.
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."
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.
Four industry consortia are being asked by the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense to bid for a possible Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal to provide the Royal Air Force with aerial refueling services. The Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) deal, according to Defense Procurement Minister Baroness Liz Symons, is the MOD's biggest current PFI, with potential value of nine billion pounds (more than $13 billion) over a 25-year period. The four consortia submitted outline proposals in November 1999.
Reported MOD interest in non-lethal radio frequency munitions delivered by 155m artillery shells or rockets, designed to destroy all electrical circuits within a wide radius in key areas, has been linked with possible research by MATRA BAe Dynamics.
Raytheon Co., Bedford, Mass., was awarded $5,433,120 as part of a not-to-exceed $11,088,000 modification to cost-plus-incentive-fee contract DAAH01-99-C-0002, on Dec. 22. This acquisition is for the repair of an additional 240 Radio Frequency Downlinks to support the Patriot Reliability and Enhancement Program, which provided for the repair and/or recertification of Patriot PAC-2 and GEM Missiles in the United States. Work will be performed in Bedford, Mass., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2001.
EXPEDITION ONE crewmembers aboard Space Station Alpha plan to dismantle the rendezvous system on the Progress capsule Cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko redocked with the Station on Dec. 26, 2000, and return it to Earth for study, according to RSC Energia. Gidzenko used the Toru manual docking system to reattach the robotic supply capsule from a range of 185 meters after the its Kurs automatic docking system demonstrated it could lock on the proper docking port with a software patch uploaded from Mission Control Center-Moscow (MCC-M).
The recent award of an initial contract by Germany's Federal Procurement Office to the European Aeronautics Defense and Space company (EADS) for mission support systems for the Franco-German Tiger attack helicopter will facilitate control of the helicopter from the ground by advanced electronic support equipment. EADS' Dornier GmbH subsidiary was the recipient of the first of four phases planned for this contract, worth an initial 11 million euros ($10.23 million).
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Tex., was awarded on Dec. 22 a $95,000,000 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract. This contractor will be the third of three participating in the Air Vehicles Technology Integration Program (AVTIP). This effort provides for research of new technologies that will provide affordable, revolutionary capabilities to the warfi ghter. The developments will provide for cost effective, survivable aerospace platforms capable of accurate delivery of weapons and cargo worldwide.
Systems&Electronics Inc., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $13,092,412 firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for 33 Striker vehicles, which perform 24-hour terrain surveillance, target acquisition, target location, and mission execution in heavy and light divisions. Work will be performed in Sanford, Fla. (70%), and St. Louis, Mo. (30%), and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on Oct. 2, 2000. The U.S.
Raytheon Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz., was awarded on Dec. 21 a $26,224,556 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 72 AIM-120C Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles. The work is expected to be completed July 2002. Air-to-Air Joint Systems Program Office, Eglin AFB, Fla., is the contracting activity (F08626-98/C-0018, P00041).
ROTARY ROCKET CO. property in Kern County, Calif., will go on the auctioneer's block Jan. 10, following its seizure by the county for failure to pay property taxes. Among items in the tax sale will be the company's low-altitude flight test vehicle, which demonstrated the unique rotor system the company had hoped would ease the reusable piloted space launch vehicle to a soft landing after reentry. The company, which spent some $5 million developing the test vehicle, missed $55,917.48 in county property tax payments, according to the Associated Press.
Delivery of Airbus parts by Asco Industries "is not jeopardized" in spite of the fire which hit the Belgian manufacturer on Sunday, according to Jef Maes, the company's general manager. Only one of the Zaventem-based company's five production halls was affected. Asco manufactures slat and flap tracks for Airbus aircraft.
EATON CORP.'S Aerospace Actuation and Controls business unit will replace the canopy actuator package on more than 400 U.S. Air Force's F-16A/C fighters under the terms of a $5.7 million follow-on award. The upgrade package features total interchangeability, higher torque performance ratings, improved low voltage operation, electronic torque limiting, environmentally sealed switches and a mechanical rigging linkage to eliminate field limit switch adjustments, Eaton said.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Tex., was awarded on Dec. 26 a $47,469,220 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for four F-16 Block 50 aircraft with the Air to Air Interrogator and associated Alternate Mission Equipment. The work is expected to be completed January 2003. Solicitation began August 2000; negotiations were completed December 2000. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-99/C-0031).
Lockheed Martin, Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems, Baltimore, Md., is being awarded a $79,951,026 modification to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00024-98-C-5363 for production of MK 41 vertical launching systems and ancillary hardware for the U.S. Navy. Work will be performed in Baltimore, Md. (58%); Aberdeen, Md. (37%); and Minneapolis, Minn. (5%), and is expected to be completed by June 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity.
Defense and aerospace stocks were off to a rocky start in the new year, as investors overreacted to very little real news on the first trading day of 2001.
A top challenge for Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld will be to tackle a problem whose solution has so far been elusive: how to pay for the Defense Dept.'s ambitious weapons modernization effort, congressional sources said yesterday.
The U.S. Air Force F-22 Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting scheduled for today has been postponed for the second time, giving program officials more time to complete remaining exit criteria before a low rate initial production (LRIP) decision is made. But with less than three weeks until the Bush Administration takes over, the postponement may mean the decision to approve $2.1 billion in funding production money for 10 LRIP aircraft and long-lead materials for 16 airplanes will fall to the new Pentagon structure.
Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga., was awarded on Dec. 22 a $42,164,072 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for one C-37A (Gulfstream V) aircraft for the Navy. The work is expected to be completed July 2002. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-00/C-0018).
Pascal Lamy, European Commissioner in charge of Trade, said the European Commission would protect Airbus from any American attacks concerning subsidies and would retaliate. Recent U.S. allegations that government loans for the development of the A380 superjumbo airliner violate World Trade Organization rules "do not hold water," he said. "We are there to act as a shield, a solid and thick shield that will stay in place," Lamy said in an interview broadcast Dec. 28 by French radio Europe 1. "And I can say that we will defend our Airbus."
General Electric Aircraft Engines, Lynn, Mass., is being awarded an estimated $21,509,260 requirements contract for seven types of items supporting the F404-400/402 engine on F/A-18 aircraft. These items include combustion liners and low pressure turbine shafts. Estimated quantity of purchase in the first two years is 849. This contract contains options, which if exercised, would bring the total cumulative value of this contract to $53,773,150. Work will be performed in Lynn, Mass., and is expected to be completed by December 2007.
President-elect George W. Bush has named three people to his Defense Dept. policy coordination group: Zalmay Khalilzad, corporate co-chair for international security at the RAND Corp.; Randall Schriver of Armitage Associates; and Christopher Williams, a foreign policy and intelligence aide to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). Khalilzad is lead coordinator of the group, which will help Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld prepare to govern.
