ENGINEERS AND TECHNICAL WOKERS at Boeing's Wichita facility represented by the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) voted overwhelmingly, 432 to 73, to approve a new three-year contract offer. The deal is the same won by SPEEA's Puget Sound engineering bargaining units -- no benefit take-away, minimum 9% pay raise out of maximum 17% for engineers, $1,000 bonus for engineers after 30 days, and a possible $1,500 more for hitting certain production targets. The Wichita workers had been without a contract since last December.
Air force commanders from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela met here last week for the first time in years with U.S. and European manufacturers of military aircraft and space systems.
The U.S. will sell Egypt a surface-to-air version of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen said in Cairo this week. "The reason is to improve Egypt's short-range air defense capability," said Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman. The deal is an "agreement in principal," and the number of missiles, cost, schedule and other details will be worked out in future discussions.
The inter-agency agreement merging the next-generation U.S. civil and military polar-orbiting weather satellite program includes procedures for the Defense Dept. to withhold data that might be of use to an enemy during wartime, but officials yesterday minimized the impact withholding might have on civil weather and climate activities. The Pentagon already delays release of data from its polar-orbiting Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft, but the U.S.
Meggitt Plc, the British aerospace and electronics group, will spend $24.2 million, or 1.4 times its aggregated 1999 sales, to acquire S-TEC Corp. of the U.S., and S-TEC Unmanned Technologies (SUTI).
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) indicated yesterday that he has misgivings about the Pentagon's winner-take-all strategy for picking between Boeing and Lockheed Martin as prime contractor for the multi-billion dollar Joint Strike Fighter program. Asked by The DAILY whether the committee should address the winner-take-all strategy on the JSF in its fiscal 2001 markup later this month, Warner replied that he favors "a certain amount of dual sourcing in that program," otherwise "a certain capability will be lost."
Spacehab Inc. has won a $21.6 million modification to its mission support contract with NASA to provide a pressurized double module and a Russian-built cargo pallet for the U.S. Space Shuttle mission that will outfit the Russia's Zvezda Service Module after it is launched this summer.
The Joint Forces commands were asked to deploy Hunter and Predator UAVs to support European Command requirements in the Balkans, a Pentagon spokesman said. Six U.S. Army Hunters and a support crew of 55 people have left Ft. Hood, Tex., en route to the Balkans. They are soon to be followed by three U.S. Air Force Predators and 55 more people from Nellis, AFB, Nev.
Two cosmonauts lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome yesterday on a 45-day mission to rehabilitate the aging Mir orbital station as a commercial outpost in space. Cosmonauts Sergei Zaletin, commander, and Alexander Kalery, flight engineer, lifted off in a Soyuz capsule atop a Soyuz rocket for the two-day trip to Mir, abandoned last August and originally slated for a controlled deorbit this month. Launch came at 1:01 a.m. EDT, and the capsule entered orbit about 10 minutes later.
The U.S. Marine Corps would like all its aircraft to have short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) capabilities and is counting on the Joint Strike Fighter to stay on schedule as the kingpin of that force, according to Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, Marine Corps deputy commander for aviation. "A slip in this program does nothing but cost the taxpayer more money and is catastrophic for the Marine Corps," McCorkle told reporters in an interview in his office at the Pentagon last week.
Compass Aerospace, a Long Beach, Calif.-based supplier of precision parts and subassemblies for the aerospace industry, reported $139.4 million in revenues for fiscal 1999, a jump of more than 44% from the $96.5 million reported for fiscal 1998. Seven acquisitions, completed between second quarter of 1998 and third quarter of 1999, were responsible for the increase, Compass said.
If the U.S. Army finds a way to fund its Aviation Modernization Plan, RAH-66 Comanche prime contractors Boeing and Sikorsky will be busy until 2024, building 1,213 helicopters for at least $34 billion. How much of that would flow to the companies is difficult to calculate, given the long-term production schedule of the program.
Kaiser Electronics, a division of Kaiser Aerospace&Electronics Corp., Foster City, Calif., has received a contract from Boeing for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E/F cockpit display suite. The suite, scheduled for delivery beginning in May 2001, consists of a digital display indicator (DDI), multipurpose color display (MPCD), up-front control panel (UFCP), digital display repeater indicator (DDRI) and a head-up display (HUD).
The U.S. Navy's upgraded Aegis weapon system was successfully tested this last week when two destroyers detected and engaged "hostile" drone targets, according to the system's maker, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics&Surveillance Systems, Moorestown, N.J. Tests were conducted as part of "Trial Bravo" exercises by the first Aegis-equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Lockheed Martin NE&SS said. The exercise is part of the construction evaluation for a new ship, conducted together by the shipbuilder and the Navy.
The U.S. Army revealed its much anticipated Aviation Modernization Plan yesterday, but didn't say how it will procure 1,213 Comanche helicopters without giving anything up. The 2000 Army Aviation Modernization Plan, officials said, updates the active and reserve components of the force by retiring some legacy aircraft, recapitalizing others, and fielding the Comanche as the "centerpiece" of Army aviation modernization.
Triumph Group said it has acquired ACR Industries Inc. of Macomb, Mich., manufacturer of geared assemblies. Triumph, headquartered in Wayne, Pa., designs, repairs and overhauls aircraft components. It said the deal will boost revenues of its control system group by about $45 million annually. ACR produces gas turbine engine gearboxes for such customers as Honeywell, Allison, Fiat, General Electric, Pratt&Whitney, Snecma and Volvo Aero, among others.
Partsbase.com, the first "operational" business-to-business e-commerce marketplace for the $187 billion aerospace and aviation industries, is holding on-line auctions for companies like Honeywell Inc. "Partsbase was the first to fulfill the need for a B2B marketplace to streamline commerce in the huge, highly fragmented aviation and aerospace industry," said John Baumstark senior VP of Arriba Inc., the B2B Commerce platform developer for Partsbase.com. Partsbase.com features real-time collaboration and dynamic trading.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif., was awarded on March 29 a $6,841,813 modification to a cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for design, development, fabrication, integration, test and pre-operational support of the Technical Intelligence Off-Line Processing equipment in support of the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High program. The work is expected to be completed December 2008. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles, Calif., is the contracting activity (F-04701-95/C-0017, P00116).
DRUK AIR (Royal Bhutan Airlines) has ordered two Avro RJS-85s, becoming the first customer for the new regional jet. Deliveries of the 82-seat, two-class aircraft are slated for November 2001 and January 2002. Druk Air already operates BAe 146 aircraft. The Avro RJX is a derivative and is powered by new Honeywell AS977 engines.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $32,959,406 modification to firm-fixed-price contract DAAJ09-97-C-0005, to exercise the option for 5 Black Hawk Helicopters (UH-60L), and 3 Lot 25 aircraft. Work will be performed in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 30, 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on Oct. 17, 1995. The U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity.
Kent Kresa, chairman, president and CEO of the Northrop Grumman Corp., will share in the company's 1999 improved performance, after having taken home no bonus in 1998.
McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Company, St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $31,436,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-97-C-0136 to incorporate airframe and ancillary equipment engineering change proposals into the F/A-18E/F aircraft. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Mo. (60%) and El Segundo, Calif. (40%) and is expected to be completed by September 2001. Contract funds in the amount of $21,618,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
A U.S. Air Force review board blames a complacent flight crew for the Dec. 10 no-gear landing of a Lockheed Martin C-130E transport in Kuwait that killed three airmen and injured seven.
