Avolo, an aviation e-market, booked $9 million from second-round financing led by East River Ventures of New York. The group also included Citicorp, KIRNAF Ltd. of Saudi Arabia, Riverside Management Group of New York and Cedar Grove Investments of Kirkland, Wash.
United Technologies Corp. is outsourcing its Internet invoicing to Princeton eCom, an online electronic billing and payment provider. UTC's subsidiaries recently began sending invoices to online trading partners, and expect to add a fully integrated payment function later this year. By tapping Princeton eCom to host and implement electronic billing functions, UTC says it remains free to focus on core businesses and can cut operating costs. Princeton eCom implemented the electronic capabilities for UTC in about three weeks.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. has received a U.S. Navy contract of not more than $12.3 million for 17 center barrels for F/A-18C/D aircraft. Work is expected to be completed by October 2003, the Pentagon said yesterday.
Vision Systems International (VSI), jointly owed by Elbit Systems Ltd. and Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics, won about $15 million in orders from Boeing for low-rate initial production of the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. JHMCS will also be used on the F-15, F-16 and F-22 aircraft. VSI, located in San Jose, Calif., supplies the JHMCS to Boeing, which is the primary integrator of the system and responsible for its integration on the F/A-18 and F-15.
Australia's Qantas unveiled a $4.6 billion fleet improvement plan that gives Airbus a boost with A3XX and A330 orders and helps Boeing with launch of a longer-range 747-400. Qantas said it will take 31 new airliners by 2011 - 13 A330-200s and -300s, 12 A3XXs, and 6 Boeing 747-400Xs.
Former Sen. Daniel Coats (R-Ind.) and former Naval Academy and Dallas Cowboys football star Roger Staubach have been approached by the Bush transition team to serve as Defense Secretary and Secretary of the Navy, respectively, according to Republican sources in touch with the transition team. Coats, who retired from the Senate in 1999, is now special counsel for the law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand. Staubach is now chairman and CEO of The Staubach Company, a Dallas commercial real estate firm.
U.S. Air Force initiatives aimed at stemming the exodus of active-duty pilots aren't working fast enough to help the weapon systems testing community, whose critical programs are threatened by a lack of manpower, funding and munitions. Early data suggest those personnel initiatives are slowing the departure of pilots, and officials note that recent budget increases are expected to filter down to individual units soon. But that won't be soon enough for the weapons testers, who say resource shortages remain in certain areas.
TRW announced formation of a team to compete for the 1.7 billion pound Bowman battlefield communications program, intended to replace the aging Clansman radios now in service with the British armed forces.
Boeing said it has completed fabrication of a newly designed empennage, or tail structure, for the U.S. Army's next generation combat helicopter, the RAH-66 Comanche, made by Boeing Sikorsky. Plans are for Comanche prototype No. 1 to begin flight tests with the new empennage - which consists of vertical and horizontal stabilizers and new vertical endplates on the horizontal structure - at the Comanche flight test center in West Palm Beach, Fla., in mid-December.
GLOBALSTAR'S latest ground station is online in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, the company's 24th operational gateway. The new gateway, which took almost two years to complete, aims to improve communication across the Caribbean region. The company said Globalstar USA subscribers can now make calls throughout the area without paying additional roaming charges. Globalstar also said it expects data services to be available on its network beginning next month.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector announced the appointment of Philip A. Teel to the position of sector vice president-Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare (AEW&EW) Systems. Teel succeeds Paul Coco, who is retiring after a 32-year career with the company. John Young, vice president and integrated product team leader-Electronic Warfare (EW) Programs, assumes additional responsibilities in a new role as Teel's deputy business area leader, Northrop Grumman said.
BFGoodrich completed its 13-year transition to an aerospace-focused company Wednesday by agreeing to sell its Performance Materials chemical business and announced it will buy the OEA aerospace unit of Autoliv Inc. Autoliv develops and builds automobile safety systems. Its OEA aerospace unit supplies cartridge- and propellant-activated pyrotechnic devices for space, missile and aircraft systems. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. OEA's annual revenue is about $35 million, BFGoodrich said.
Saab Training Systems, a supplier of laser based simulators, said it has been awarded a contract from the German Federal Office of Defense Technology and Procurement to develop a simulator for the PAH-1 A1 anti-tank helicopter and HOT missile system. A prototype system for tests and qualification is slated for delivery in April/May 2001. Series deliveries are planned for 2002-2003.
The biggest challenge of the next Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) isn't likely to depend on partisan politics or which president eventually gets elected, but on reconciling the modernization needs between the service chiefs and the commanders-in-chief or CinCs), the Pentagon's number two official said yesterday.
Boeing's Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) and Lockheed Martin's Atlas V EELV are both moving ahead toward flight, with the first Delta "common core" almost ready for tests at Stennis Space Center, Miss., and the Russian-built engine for the first flight Atlas V in Denver for vehicle integration.
Canada's Bombardier Aerospace said it has concluded a $594 million sale of 27 CRJ regional jets to Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings Inc. for its Atlantic Coast Airlines/United Express operation. The contract, it said, represents the conversion of 27 conditional orders to firm orders. In August, when Atlantic Coast announced its conditional orders, it also placed three firm CRJ200 orders that are now designated for its United Express program, Bombardier said.
A huge drop in aircraft demand weakened orders for big-ticket manufactured items in October, according to the latest figures from the Dept. of Commerce. New orders for durable goods slipped 5.5% to $209 billion in the wake of a 2.4% increase the prior month, Commerce said Tuesday. The numbers marked the largest decline since July, and provide more evidence of a potentially slowing U.S. economy.
Raytheon's Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) division aims to build on growth it achieved this year, in part by setting up global operations and leveraging defense technology for commercial applications. "We won over 90% of the things we went after this year," said Frank Marchilena, president of C3I and executive VP of Raytheon. "We do well in the markets that we're in - which means we need to go after adjacent markets."
Just as Navy acquisition officials are about to decide whether to start full-rate production of the Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Pentagon's top tester are at loggerheads over the tiltrotor's operational suitability. Only a few days after the Navy's operational test force gave the Osprey the thumbs-up, Defense Dept. Operational Test and Evaluation Director Philip Coyle has issued a report declaring the MV-22 operationally unsuitable as tested.
BOEING won a firm order from Korean Air Lines for two 747-400 freighters, worth about $380 million based on current list prices. The new aircraft are slated to be delivered in 2002.
A small Utah company is selling satellites on orbit for as little as $45,000, targeting universities that want to fly student experiments and organizations that need to space-qualify hardware. One Stop Satellite Solutions, a spinoff of the Center for Aerospace Technology at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, plans to use technology it developed for student projects to develop "CubeSats," four-inch cubes weighing about a kilogram, and launch them on converted U.S. and Russian ICBMs.
The market for military aircraft upgrades enjoyed fast, short-term growth in recent years but the heyday is over, according to a new report from Frost&Sullivan. "Although the market was negatively impacted by military drawdowns after the Cold War, mid-life upgrade and service life extension programs increased market growth in recent years. These programs will end as new aircraft buying increases," the report said.
NASA will be able to use the services of two commercial satellite ground tracking stations under its Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC) with Lockheed Martin, the company announced yesterday. Stations on Svalbard Island, Norway and Poker Flat, Alaska, will be available to NASA "customers" on a per-pass basis. The Svalbard station is owned by Kongsberg Spacetec-Lockheed Martin Space Data Services, while the Alaskan facility is owned by DataLynx (Honeywell TSI).
Eurocopter said it has "substantially increased" its bid for the Australian Army's program to acquire 20-25 armed reconnaissance helicopters to replace aging Kiowas and Iroquois. The company said yesterday that it has inked an "enhanced" deal to expand the role of ADI, one of its primary Australian subcontractors. ADI is responsible for developing the mission control and planning system as well as software support to make sure Eurocopter's source code can be modified in Australia as required.
EUROPE*STAR 1, the new satellite owned by Alcatel Spacecom and Loral Space&Communications, will deliver broadband Internet and IP streaming services across Europe and the Middle East under a lease Europe*Star signed with Communications and Banking Equipment S.A. (CBL) of Luxembourg. CBL said it will target the business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets in the two regions with the service, relayed via two transponders on Europe*Star 1.
