LUFTHANSA has placed orders for eight A340-300s and three A320s and taken options on six more A340-300s. The German flag carrier said Sept. 17 that deliveries are to begin in 2001. It was Lufthansa's eighth repeat order for the A320 family. Jurgen Weber, chairman of Lufthansa, said the carrier benefited from the commonality between Airbus aircraft. Lufthansa is Airbus' largest airline customer with 175 firm orders. It also is the largest A340 operator with 20 in service.
RAYTHEON SYSTEMS CO. has won a U.S. Navy contract for low rate initial production effort on the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) program, the Dept.of Defense said yesterday. It will produce seven USG-2 shipboard processing units, spares and data, and one stand-alone cooperative engagement processing set, DOD said in an announcement of the contract. It said CEC provides real-time integration of fire control quality sensor data into a single composite data source which can be used by multiple CEC ships and airborne units for direct and remote missile engagements.
The U.S Air Force plans to use its Aerospace Expeditionary Forces (AEFs) to integrate lighter, smaller force packages into the way it prepares for and carries out its missions. The new equipment and business practices will lay the ground work for the service "to evolve into a global infosphere in which there is a seamless exchange of information," according the Brig. Gen. Craig Weston, program executive officer for AF command and control systems.
U.S. Air Force A-10 aircraft are slated for extensive structural rework and electronics upgrades in the next six years as the service prepares to double their life expectancy and keep them flying until 2028, when they are scheduled to be replaced by the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
SDC International Inc., Palm Beach, Fla., acquired a 55% equity interest in Moravan a.s., an aircraft maker based in Ostrokovice, Czech Republic, for about $16 million. "This represents SDC's initial acquisition in its quest to synergistically match American marketing and financial skills with the manufacturing and engineering capabilities available in formerly Communist Central and East Europe countries," said Ronald Adams, chairman and chief executive officer of SDC, which markets, sells and finances Central and Eastern European products.
Boeing said yesterday that it has acquired the Preston Group, a Melbourne, Australia, firm with offices in Washington and London, which specializes in aviation software applications. It develops technology for air traffic management and airport terminal control. Preston's primary software product is the Total Airspace and Airport Modeler. Its other major product is the Terminal Management System. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization this week is slated to conduct the first intercept test in its national missile defense (NMD) program, a major step in development of a system to protect the U.S. from limited missile attack. The launch window opens Saturday, Oct. 2. BMDO, the Boeing Lead Systems Integrator team and many NMD supporters on Capitol Hill are hoping for another hit to complement the string of test successes that U.S. missile defense programs have enjoyed lately.
The U.S. Air Force took a dramatic step this month, awarding Northrop Grumman a five-year contract to oversee repairs and upgrades to the B-2 bomber fleet.
The planned acquisition of Vickers by Rolls-Royce (DAILY, Sept. 21), has prompted a flurry of reports of international interest in Vickers' military equipment programs, and particularly its ailing main battle tank division. Rolls-Royce's bid for Vickers is aimed mainly on building up its marine business and technologies, including propellers, gas-turbine, diesel and water-jet propulsion.
Lockheed Martin's plan to sell eight non-core businesses, part of the outcome of a strategic and organizational review, should bring plenty of suitors, according to industry analysts. Lockheed Martin is exploring divestiture of eight units that employ about 9,000 people and have combined 1999 total estimated net sales of about $1.4 billion. The potential proceeds could be more than $1 billion (DAILY, Sept. 28).
BOEING CO. has begun a pilot program to provide direct access to airplane maintenance documents over the World Wide Web. One executive said the "time has come for us to upgrade our existing client/server-based online system to a simpler, less costly and easier-to-access system."
BOMBARDIER AEROSPACE has signed a contract with Italy's Dept. of Civil Protection for three more Canadair 415 amphibious firefighting aircraft. The order will increase the Italian Canadair 415 fleet to a total of 13. One of the turboprop aircraft will be delivered in January 2000 and the other two in April 2000.
Alaska Airlines, Legend and JetBlue signed deals with LiveTV to install its satellite entertainment system on select aircraft to feature live programming from DirecTV Inc. The planes will carry an antenna on the top center of the fuselage that will maintain contact with three DirecTV satellites at 101 degrees West longitude.
Teledesic LLC has launched a search for possible early entries into the low-Earth orbit satellite communications market in the wake of bankruptcy filings by two "Big LEO" pioneers - Iridium LLC and ICO Global Communications Ltd. The broadband "Internet in the sky" startup backed by cellular telephone mogul Craig McCaw and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has started talks aimed at getting a revenue stream going before it launches its still-undefined broadband LEO constellation.
The U.S. Marine Corps has ordered its first unique unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system for battalion commanders. The service plans to use the Sikorsky Cypher II UAV out in several experiments over the next five years to see if the six-foot, shrouded-rotor vehicle can provide reconnaissance for smaller units.
Bypassing a software glitch detected a day earlier, the U.S. Navy on Friday successfully demonstrated the first shipboard launch of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). The test was the first involving the SM-3, and marked a key step in the service's efforts to develop the Navy Theater Wide (NTW) system to counter theater ballistic missile threats in the exoatmosphere.
Atlantic Research Corp. has been chosen by TRW for the Minuteman III engine life extension program. ARC said it will design and produce refurbishment kits and provide engineering support to extend the service life of the missile's engines to 2020. ARC, based in Gainesville, Va., designed and manufactured the Minuteman III Propulsion System Rocket Engine (PSRE) system in the 1960s and '70s, and has provided continuous engineering support at Hill AFB, Utah, since 1979.
BOEING CO. announced promotions of two executives at company offices in Seattle. Anne Toulouse, 41, has been named VP-advertising and corporate identity, and Thomas Downey, 35, has been named VP-executive and internal communications. Since 1996, Toulouse has served as director of communications for Expendable Launch Systems and Reusable Space Systems in Huntington Beach, Calif. She will begin her new duties within the next month, Boeing said.
Two big telecommunications satellites were orbited over the weekend in back-to-back launches aboard European Ariane and Russian Proton rockets, marking the beginning of the new Lockheed Martin Intersputnik constellation and an expansion of Loral Skynet's Telstar orbiting network.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Syracuse, NY., is being awarded a $6,500,000 time-and-materials contract, F04606-99-D-0106, to provide for engineering services through FY2002 for the AN/FPS-117 weather radar system. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Expected contract completion date is Sept. 30, 2002. Solicitation issue date was July 8, 1999. Negotiation completion date was Aug. 23, 1999. Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan AFB, Calif., is the contracting activity.
ITT Night Vision, Roanoke, Va., is being awarded an $8,214,378 firm-fixed-price contract to procure 1,266 AN/AVS-9 night vision goggle systems and OMNI IV retrofit requirements for AN/AVS-6 night vision goggle systems. Work will be performed in Roanoke, Va., and is expected to be completed by March 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-98-C-0047).
Thanks to several years' testing and tinkering by U.S. Air Force logisticians at Shaw AFB, S.C., the Supply Asset Tracking System 2 is ready to roll out to other Air Combat Command bases sometime in fiscal 2000, bringing UPS- and FedEx-style asset tracking to military operations.
Honeywell Inc., Defense Avionics Systems Division, Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded a $6,811,774 modification to firm-fixed-price contract DAAH23-99-C-0054, for the design, development and qualification of a Control Display System Version 4 (CDS4) for the OH-58D Kiowa helicopter aircraft, with First Digitized Division and Aviation Joint Variable Message Format (JVMF) capabilities, and Software Integration Laboratory. This is a definitization of a letter contract. Work will be performed in Albuquerque, N.M., and is expected to be completed by June 15, 2002.
General Electric Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, is being awarded a $30,424,725 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract, F33657-94-D-2000-0093, to provide for nine F110 engines applicable to the F-16C/D aircraft. This effort supports foreign military sales to Egypt. Expected contract completion date is Dec. 31, 1999. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
