House Armed Services research and development subcommittee Chairman Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) is mounting an aggressive bid to become chairman of the full committee next year, but he faces a tough fight against a more senior member, Rep. Bob Stump (Ariz.). Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who chairs the Armed Services procurement subcommittee and is the most senior committee member after Stump, said he supports Stump and expects him to win. "He's the senior guy," Hunter told The DAILY. "I'm confident Bob will be the chairman."
ABOARD THE USS HARRY S. TRUMAN - The final exercise of the USS Harry S. Truman battle group before it pulls out of Norfolk, Va., next month and heads to the Mediterranean and Middle East for six months has not only been training for interoperability between services, but between NATO nations as well.
Concurrent Technologies, Inc., Johnstown, Pa., is being awarded a $5,338,588 cost-plus-fixed-fee completion contract to prototype and demonstrate a tabletop-like work surface that will enable users to view and interact with 3D-immersive scenes. This system, a command center tool, will allow the user to navigate through and manipulate the virtual battlespace by use of electromagnetic tracking and other devices.
Raytheon Technical Services Co. Long Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $55,732,892 modification to previously awarded fixed-price-award-fee contract N61339-00-D-0001 to exercise an option for life cycle contractor support services on tactical engagement, instrumentation, and ranges training devices and systems supported by the U.S. Army Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command. Work will be performed at Fort Irwin, Calif. (59%); Hohenfels, Germany (17%); Fort Polk, La. (7%); and at various worldwide locations (17%), and is expected to be completed by October 2001.
Congress might use a non-defense bill as a vehicle for passing several defense-related provisions, including one that would save defense exporters $450 million a year in taxes and another that would keep the F-22 program going if it doesn't meet all of its performance requirements in December, congressional and industry sources said last.
Arianespace launched the first communications satellite for Europe*Star UK Ltd., a joint venture of Alcatel Spacecom and Loral Space&Communications.urope*Star 1 was launched by an Ariane 44 LP into geosynchronous transfer orbit at 05:59 a.m. GMT from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. It will be located at 45 degrees East over the Indian Ocean to serve Europe, Southern Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
Rough weather was keeping salvage crews from recovering a U.K. Royal Navy EH101 Merlin helicopter yesterday, nearly three days after the crew was forced to ditch off the west coast of Scotland. Though the weather is actually keeping knowledgeable Navy officials from returning to London to comment, officials at Westland believe that the three-engine Merlin HM.1 antisubmarine warfare helicopter capsized when it ditched near the Isle of Skye Friday following unspecified technical problems.
RAYTHEON CO. pledged $1.2 million to the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems at Northeastern University to promote engineering research and education. Over the next five years, Raytheon will sponsor general and proprietary projects, as well as undergraduate fellowships. Raytheon was the engineering research center's first strategic industrial partner.
Raytheon Co., Sudbury, Mass., is being awarded a $6,774,772 fixed-price-incentive contract for design, engineering development, fabrication and test of an Engineering Development Model Ordnance Alteration Phase II, to modify the MK 48 Guided Missile Vertical Launch System. Work will be performed in Sudbury, Mass. (74%); and Portsmouth, R.I. (26%), and is expected to be completed by October 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $5,376,687 modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee basic ordering agreement (N00019-91-G-0091) for rebaseline of the F/A-18C/D Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) Engineer and Manufacture Development (EMD) Program. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Mo. (70%); China Lake, Calif. (15%); and Patuxent River, Md. (15%) and is expected to be completed by September 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga., is being awarded a $477,321,328 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for a ten-year lease of five C-37A aircraft and associated contractor logistics support. This effort supports the Commanders-in-Chief Support Aircraft Replacement Program. Expected contract completion date is Sept. 16, 2002. Solicitation issue date was May 26, 2000. Negotiation completion date was Sept. 29, 2000. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity. Bill Oswald, (937) 255-5838 is the POC.
General Electric International, Inc., GE Engine Services, Cincinnati, Ohio, is being awarded a $19,616,050 delivery order on a performance based logistics requirement contract for repair, a three-year warranty, and material management functions for T-700 engine components used on H-60, AH-1W and SH-2G aircraft. This order fulfills the third base year on the contract, which consisted of three base years and two consecutive one-year options. Work will be performed in Arkansas City, Kansas, and is expected to be completed by October 2001.
BRAZIL'S EMBRAER will provide four staff aircraft to Belgium's Ministry of Defense under a new deal estimated at $78 million. The contract covers the purchase of two 37-seat ERJ 135s and two 50-seat ERJ 145s. Embraer is slated to deliver the aircraft in April 2001. The company said the win "further consolidates" its role in the international defense marketplace.
Damage control was high on management's agenda during Globalstar's third quarter conference call yesterday following a Wall Street Journal article reporting that parent Loral was moving to cut off future funding for the struggling satellite communications company.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Missiles&Fire Control-Dallas, Grand Prairie, Texas, was awarded a $10,391,000 increment as part of a $15,191,407 modification to cost-plus-award-fee contract DAAH01-00-C-0002, on Oct. 25, 2000. The contractor will assume full responsibility for the overall system integration effort of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), to include a HIMARS XM142 Launcher, a re-supply truck with the material handling equipment, and a re-supply trailer. Work will be performed in Grand Prairie, Texas (99.1%), and Camden, Ark.
AMTEC Corp., Janesville, Wis., is receiving a $5,596,180 firm-fixed-price delivery order for 2,000 MK 59 Mod 0 Firing Devices and 9,551 MK 59 Mod 0 Firing Devices. MK 59 Mod 0 Firing Devices are electronic devices used on land or underwater to initiate explosive charges and can be used as a stand-alone or with various pieces of equipment. Work will be performed in Janesville, and is expected to be completed by October 2002. Contract funds in the amount of $792,685 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Raytheon Co., Sudbury, Mass., is being awarded a $30,861,398 firm-fixed-price performance based logistics contract for spare and repair parts for the Aegis Combat System, the Radar Transmitter Group, and the MK-99 Fire Control System used in Aegis cruisers and Aegis destroyers. This contract contains options, which if exercised will bring the total cumulative value of this contract to $88,771,859. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Va., and is expected to be completed by October 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
GULFSTREAM AEROSPACE CORP. will lease five Gulfstream C-37A aircraft to the U.S. Air Force under a $477 million contract to replace commander-in-chief aircraft which average over forty years old.
Boeing Chairman Phil Condit and Lockheed Martin Chairman Vance Coffman have been appointed to a new commission that will examine the economic and national security impact of defense offsets, the White House announced. Jacob Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, will chair the offsets panel, formally the National Commission on the Use of Offsets in Defense Trade.
ENGINEERED SUPPORT SYSTEMS INC. will revamp 16 AN/APQ-159(V)5 radar systems for the U.S. Navy's F-5 Adversary program, under a new $6 million contract from Naval Air Systems Command. The deal covers components and logistics support over a four-year period and is designed to extend the radar's service life through 2015.
Boeing Helicopter, Ridley Park, Pa., is being awarded an $18,163,200 firm-fixed-price contract to manufacture 1,600 absorber assemblies for CH-46 helicopters. Work will be performed in Ontario, Canada, and is expected to be completed by January 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (N00383-00-G-002N) (5155).
Orbital Sciences Corp. completed the sale of its Fairchild Defense electronics business unit to a U.S. subsidiary of Smiths Industries plc for $100 million, pending a working capital adjustment. "With the completion of the sale of the Fairchild Defense unit, Orbital has taken a significant step forward in our commitment to realize the full value of our businesses for our shareholders," said David W. Thompson, Orbital's chairman and CEO.
JSF SKEPTICISM: While the pros and cons of each Joint Strike Fighter candidate, and indeed the program itself, are debated, some Navy pilots are skeptical of the whole approach. The JSF, says an F-14 radar intercept officer, is "kind of a jack-of-all trades, master of none. Sure, it's great that they would have common parts and such, but one plane cannot do all the missions of all the aircraft...There's a reason why we build different planes." And some say a single-engine plane has no place on a carrier. "The last one was the A-7," says an F/A-18 pilot.
TOO FEW F-22s: Building only 100 or 130 F-22s, instead of the 339 the Air Force wants to buy, would create a "massive problem" for the service, Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters says. With the lower figures, "you cannot use the aircraft in any sensible way and keep people in that weapon system because you work the people to death and you don't have enough assets to renew that force structure," he says.
A false alarm forced the pilot of one of Japan's newly delivered Mitsubishi F-2 fighters to make an emergency landing at Komatsu airport, program officials confirm. The two-seat F-2's on-board fire indicator lit in the cockpit during a test flight over the Sea of Japan, so the pilot put the plane down at Komatsu, about 145 miles northwest of Tokyo. It turned out, however, that there was no fire. The incident took place on Tuesday, but officials didn't disclose the mishap until today.
