BOEING CO. forecast yesterday that the world's market for freighter aircraft would double during the next 20 years. "Nearly 70% of the fleet additions will come from modified passenger and combi airplanes," said Randy Baseler, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group vice president - marketing.
CACI International Inc. said it has won a five-year, $48 million U.S. Air Force task order contract to provide broad access to technology resources to fulfill research missions of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome Research Site in Rome, New York. CACI, Arlington, Va., is the sole winner of the contract, which it said supports the expansion of its intelligence services business base and information assurance line of business.
Aircraft manufacturers are coming to grips with composite technology, moving beyond the hobby-shop phase when composite parts were made in small lots using hand-layup techniques to mass production operations with multi-million-dollar computer-controlled machine tools, according to an executive with the world's largest manufacturer of automated composite tools.
Two risk reduction flight tests yesterday for upcoming intercept tests of the National Missile Defense system were successful, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization said. The non-intercept test packages flew as piggyback payloads on routine operational test flights of two Minuteman III ICBMs launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., into the Kwajalein Missile Test Range in the central Pacific Ocean, BMDO said. It said the tests were "successfully conducted."
A U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier was fitted in August with the Litening II targeting pod, and fleet use will follow a series of tests, Naval Air Systems Command said. The pod, developed by Rafael and Northrop Grumman, is intended to give the Harrier laser target designation capability, enhanced ability to acquire targets during day and night missions, improved ability to fly at low-levels at night, and air-to-air capabilities.
WESCAM, a wireless visual information systems firm based in Flamborough, Ontario, announced receipt of a follow-on order from Lockheed Martin for additional Wescam-20 multi-sensor systems for the U.S. Navy's P-3C upgrade program. Wescam also received an order from Lockheed Martin for five Wescam 20s for an undisclosed user to support drug interdiction activities. The awards from Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics&Surveillance Systems-Tactical Systems in are valued at C$18 million, with potential additional options of up to C$3 million.
The Netherlands is looking at a variety of options to replace or extend the life of its 138 Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters. "We expect that the F-16 is at the end of its life starting in 2010 and we think we have to replace it or give it an end-life update," Air Commodore Rude van Dam, the Chief of Planning with the Kingdom of the Netherlands Ministry of Defense, told The DAILY.
NASA has assigned 20 astronauts and a cosmonaut to four Space Shuttle missions scheduled for launch next year, two of them to continue assembly of the International Space Station and two to support science.
Italy is requesting a $780 million buy of four F-16As, engines and radars to support a potential lease of F-16A/Bs, the Pentagon announced. The Lockheed Martin jets would be Block 10 operational capabilities upgrade (OCU) aircraft for cannibalization.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and European Commission yesterday gave their official thumbs up - albeit with a few strings - to Boeing's proposed $3.75 billion acquisition of Hughes Electronics Corp.'s satellite operations. The actions on both sides of the Atlantic caught company officials, who were expecting a public announcement sometime around the deal's targeted close date of Oct. 6, slightly off-guard.
Flight development of BAE Systems' new ALR-2002 radar warning receiver (RWR) has started at Adelaide in a Royal Australian Air Force F-111 long-range strike-fighter. Developed by BAe Australia, with government support, from funding of more than $A50 million ($29.5 million), ALR-2002 was to have been a key component in Project Air 5416 "Echidna," aimed at producing an integrated defensive electronic warfare suite for a wide range of RAAF combat aircraft and helicopters.
Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush might cut the roughly 3,000 F/A-18E/F, F-22 and Joint Strike Fighter aircraft that the Pentagon plans to buy, Bush adviser Richard Armitage said this week. Armitage, a former assistant secretary of defense, said that Bush hasn't settled on a specific number and that tactical fighters would be looked at as part of a broader review of aircraft modernization.
Fifteen House members from Texas are warning that House adoption of a resolution on Armenian genocide could cause Turkey to cancel defense contracts with the U.S., including a major purchase of helicopters from Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter Textron.
Instead of rushing to buy next-generation equipment, the Pentagon should invest in proven platforms, according to Lawrence J. Korb, senior vice president and director of studies at the Council for Foreign Relations.
The four military service chiefs testified in Congress yesterday that they need an extra $48 billion to $58 billion a year to pay for procurement and other needs.
A formidable 26 hours of planned extravehicular activities (EVAs) during the STS-92 mission to the International Space Station will install the anchor point for future major construction and a second docking port. Four of the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery are set to make a total of four spacewalks to work on the Station's exterior. The full crew will spend only two days inside the Station.
The fleet of V-22 Osprey aircraft has been temporarily restricted from flight until an inspection of engine gimbal ring expansion bolts is completed, Naval Air Systems Command said yesterday. It was the second such restriction in a month. This time, NAVAIR said, maintenance crews discovered during an inspection that one of two gimbal ring bolts leading to the proprotor gearbox had fallen free of its assembly. It said four bolts support each engine gimbal ring assembly - two connecting it to the engine and two connecting it to the proprotor gearbox.
The Dept. of Defense's decision to approve the AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile for low rate initial production (DAILY, Sept. 25) was based on performance, reliability, price projections and manufacturing processes, Raytheon Co., the missile's prime contractor, said yesterday. These factors, it said, were the "key criteria" for the Sept. 22 decision by Jacques Gansler, under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
Boeing yesterday marked completion of major portions of its Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) demonstration system during a ceremony at its facilities in St. Louis. The company has manufactured and assembled the first of two UCAVs, a mission control console and a storage container. All the elements were displayed to a gathering of customers, suppliers and employees.
Two "risk reduction" flights are slated today by the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization to help increase the chances of success in the next National Missile Defense intercept test, a BMDO spokesman said yesterday.
RAYTHEON CO. said it has won a $75 million U. S. Navy contract for 272 guidance sections for the AGM-88C High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). The sections will be used to upgrade B versions of HARM in the Navy's inventory to the C version of the missile, which has improved performance against newer generation surface-to-air missile radar systems. The upgraded missiles, Raytheon said, will help replace the HARMs expended by the Navy during Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Guidance sections will be produced at Raytheon's Missile Systems business unit in Tucson, Ariz.
Smiths Industries plc will spend $100 million in cash - about 1.3 times its fiscal 1999 revenues - to buy Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Fairchild Defense electronics business, bolstering the British aerospace company's presence in U.S. markets. Under the terms of the definitive agreement and pending regulatory approval, Orbital plans to sell the division to a U.S. subsidiary of Smiths. While there's still some work to be done to wrap up the deal, noted Orbital spokesman Barry Beneski, the company is aiming to close the transaction by the end of October.
This base on Nov. 11 and 12 will mark 25 years of "Red Flag" combat training exercises that expose aircrews to air, ground and space threats to help ensure their survival, particularly through the early missions of a war. The joint and allied exercise, conducted by the 414th Combat Training Squadron, simulates 8-10 sorties for aircrew members over a two-week period.
Any civilian tourist visiting the International Space Station will have to arrive in a Russian Soyuz capsule rather than a U.S. Space Shuttle even if NASA develops a policy permitting such commercialization of the orbiting lab.
Lockheed Martin is merging its Integrated Business Solutions (IBS) and Global Telecommunications (LMGT) units to bolster its prospects in the global commercial information technology marketplace and boost investor interest.
