Sequa's Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp. subsidiary got itself a 50% stake in Willis Lease Finance Corp.'s Pacific Gas Turbine Center operation in exchange for contributing "significant working capital" whose value was otherwise undisclosed.
Litton Industries Inc. signed a definitive agreement to acquire Avondale Industries Inc. for about $529 million in cash. The companies said yesterday that the agreement was signed after Avondale's board of directors terminated a previous merger agreement with Newport News Shipbuilding Inc., which had offered $470 million for Avondale in a stock-for-stock deal.
NASA has decided to send its Lunar Prospector probe out with a bang on July 31 by smashing it into a shadowed crater at the moon's South Pole in hopes of stirring up evidence that there is water in the lunar regolith.
TRW and the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) have agreed in principle to split cost overruns on the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) TRW is developing for Israel, clearing the way for work to continue toward a first attempt to use the laser weapon against a Katyusha rocket in the first quarter of next year.
Harris Corp. will sell all of its semiconductor business as it moves to focus exclusively on the communications equipment market, the company reported yesterday.
The billions of Pentagon dollars spent on simulation each year can no loner support stand-alone systems, and must now be focused on development of systems that have multiple, and interoperable, functions from day one, according to government executives. Lt. Gen. David L. Vesely, U.S. Air Force assistant vice chief of staff, said modeling and simulation money in the Pentagon budget must be directed towards applications needed by the warfighter.
EGYPT signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance for 24 more F-16s, Lockheed Martin reported yesterday. The LOA includes mission equipment, support equipment, spare parts, training, facilities upgrades and other associated items. The total value of the program is about $1 billion, with the value to Lockheed Martin about $400 million. Production deliveries will begin in early 2001 and continue for about 15 months.
Tampa, Fla., and Hillsborough County, Fla., police and sheriffs testing fuel enhanced with an Air Force-developed additive saw 10-fold improvements in cleaning intervals for their helicopter engines during the test period at a cost of only $800 a year, a boon that's now got the attention of law enforcement agencies across the U.S.
Raytheon Co. won a $140 million U.S. Navy contract for engineering and manufacturing development of the next-generation Multi-Function Radar (MFR) for future aircraft carriers and destroyers. William H. Swanson, chairman and CEO of Raytheon, called the development, announced Wednesday, "a pivotal win for Raytheon" and said it "will usher in a new generation of X-band solid state technology for the surface Navy."
Contractors and researchers have a little more than a week to get in on NASA's Aeropropulsion Base Research&Technology program, in which agency managers with as much as $3 million to spend hope to award between 20 and 30 grants or cooperative agreements for innovations across the spectrum of air-breathing engine technology - subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic.
Tighter U.S. export controls on advanced technology threaten to hamper U.S.-European cooperation in space and other areas, and have already blocked some projects because the U.S. State Dept. is behind on its export- licensing processing, Gerard Brachet, director general of the France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), warned yesterday.
The U.S. Navy will use the direct downselect method to choose its Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), according to an announcement to be posted on the program office website today. Dr. Lee Buchanan, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, made the decision earlier this week after being briefed by the program manager on Monday.
Facing cost pressures on the F-22 and plans to meet an internal goal to cut C-130J costs by $10 million, Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems said yesterday it will eliminate up to 2,000 positions over the next year. About 9,550 people work at its Marietta, Ga., plant. The cuts are in addition to layoffs of about 380 people in January.
Dallas Airmotive and Stage III Technologies' hushkit for Rolls-Royce Spey 511-8 engines has cleared a crucial hurdle standing between it and FAA certification, Airmotive reports. Company engineers demonstrated to FAA that the installed kit does not change the performance level of the engine, Airmotive says. Next up: noise certification flight tests at Dallas Love Field in July.
The No. 1 Teledyne Ryan Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) resumed flight tests May 18 at Edwards AFB, Calif., according to Gary Van Oss, U.S. Air Force director of engineering for reconnaissance systems. The program was halted March 29 by the crash of the No. 2 vehicle. No. 1 flew more than seven hours on May 18 in preparation for a military utility demonstration in mid-June.
The air war over Yugoslavia has not uncovered any major fundamental deficiencies that will materially alter the course of U.S. defense spending, but has highlighted the need for larger stockpiles of precision- guided munitions and improved sensor/intelligence systems, Merrill Lynch aerospace analyst Byron Callan said.
Crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery were set to close out the International Space Station today, having stocked it with most of the 3,600 pounds of supplies and equipment they brought with them by close of business yesterday.
HMS Invincible, one of the Royal Navy's three V/STOL Harrier carriers, returned to its home base at Portsmouth on Friday after an extended tour in the Persian Gulf and Balkan theaters. Combat air patrols were flown by the ship's seven upgraded Sea Harrier FA.2s in both theaters, with support from 10 embarked Westland Sea King HAS.6s and AEW.2As, but the greatly reduced air threat over Yugoslavia finally allowed the carrier's return to the U.K.
RAYTHEON SYSTEMS CO. has won a $26 million contract to modify a Tactical Tomahawk missile into a penetrator variant. The effort is being sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Work is expected to be completed by March 2003.
The first Boeing WAH-64 Apache Longbow has arrived at the GKN Westland Helicopters facility in Yeovil, England, according to Boeing. The helicopter is one of 67 ordered by the U.K. and is the third of eight to be produced by Boeing in Mesa, Ariz. The WAH-64 is a design derivative of the U.S. Army AH-64D Longbow, featuring the ability to digitally communicate with aircraft and ground forces and to share information almost instantly.
The first six of 12 Royal Air Force Tornado GR.1s flew into this French air force base Saturday from Brueggen, Germany, to supplement other U.K. air combat elements in strikes on Yugoslavia as part of NATO's Operation Allied Force. The previous day, the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier carrier had returned to its home port, leaving the U.K. with 16 British Aerospace Harrier GR.7 dedicated night ground-attack fighters in the Balkans theater, operating from Gioia del Colle in southern Italy, plus five BAe VC10 tanker-
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF GENERAL DYNAMICS, Falls Church, Va., suspended management's authority to buy back outstanding shares of common stock until after the completion of the company's acquisition of Gulfstream Aerospace. The $5.3 billion deal is a one-for-one stock swap (DAILY, May 18).
BOEING CO. will provide the U.S. Air Force's 93rd Air Control Wing with E-8C Joint STARS aircrew training and courseware development services. The contract, valued at $12 million over five years, was awarded by Air Combat Command. It is for one year and has four one-year options. The contract, which begins July 1, calls for Boeing to provide E-8C aircrews with academic and training device instruction and courseware development services. the 93rd ACW is located at Robins AFB, Ga.
Software of the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) has successfully completed stringent tests, bringing its date of operational deployment "closer," FAA and Raytheon officials said yesterday. STARS - to replace the computer and display systems in 172 FAA terminal radar approach control facilities and up to 199 Defense Dept. facilities - is receiving live data from the ASR-11 radar at Eglin AFB, Fla., where full service level (FSL) software has been installed.
